Weapon System in Zombie Apocalypse

The wind was picking up. From the top of Watchtower 5, the night seemed unnaturally still—no insect noise, no city echo, no sea breeze. Just silence.

Too much silence.

Private Zandro Lacsamana stared through his night vision scope, knuckles white on his rifle. The last siege had ended just hours ago. Fires still smoldered near the southern perimeter. Yet something in his gut said this wasn't over.

Then he saw it.

"Contact—Sector S-2!" he shouted into his comms. "Multiple IR signatures! Fast movers, fifty-plus—scratch that—hundreds!"

The tower alarm wailed. Red strobes came back to life. The quiet shattered.

01:10 AM — MOA Command Center

"Another wave? Already?" Thomas Estaris's voice was sharp, as he strode in with Colonel Sison behind him.

"It's not as big as the last," the operator at the main console reported. "But faster. Like a spearpoint."

Rebecca burst into the room, lacing up her tactical vest. "Trying to breach before we can recover."

Thomas turned to her. "Not this time. We hit them first."

He tapped the command table. "Wake the Titan artillery system. Load thermobarics."

Sison blinked. "You're authorizing the Titans?"

"I want the avenue glassed. Set killbox coordinates from Libertad to EDSA."

"Copy that," Sison said, already relaying the order.

01:15 AM — Southern Approach, Libertad Bridge

Spotlights lit the ruined highway like a stage. The broken concrete was now rigged with C4 charges, buried pressure plates, and barrels of napalm jellied into old oil drums.

Behind the blast zone, two MRLS platforms—dubbed "Titan One" and "Titan Two"—stood ready. Their hatches hissed open, each revealing twelve 300mm guided rockets.

Nearby, combat engineers finished wiring up the last of the kill-switch detonators. "Lines hot," reported the team lead.

Up above, a Reaper drone circled silently, tracking the tide.

01:20 AM — Combat Briefing Deck

"We don't wait for them to hit us this time," Thomas said to the gathered platoon leaders. "This is not a defensive action. This is annihilation."

He pointed at the digital map on the projector.

"Estimated five hundred infected. Scouts, runners, at least four Reapers airborne. We're looking at a fast wave, maybe even enhanced variants."

He nodded at Phillip, standing armored and ready in the back.

"You and Shadow Team will hold the northern fallback route. If any break through, you intercept. Snipers stay on rooftops. The rest of us?"

He punched the final coordinates.

"We light the whole damn street on fire."

01:30 AM — First Contact

The first infected appeared like phantoms through the haze—emaciated figures sprinting on all fours, their eyes glowing faintly.

"Wait until the main body's in the grid," Thomas said calmly, watching the drone feed. "Let them commit."

One by one, the roads filled.

Fifty. A hundred. Two hundred.

The infected moved like ants—crawling over abandoned buses, leaping across medians, weaving between wrecks. At the center, a larger creature howled—a Mawbeast. Its hide was covered in armored bone plates, mouth stretching open like a fleshy beartrap.

Thomas keyed his radio. "Target confirmation. All units, fire."

01:32 AM — Titan Launch

The sky split.

Six thermobaric missiles streaked into the air, trailing fire. Seconds later, they arced downward into the lead edge of the horde.

A breathless pause.

Then the world erupted.

The street became a sun. Shockwaves shattered glass for blocks. Everything in a fifty-meter radius was reduced to flame, smoke, and bone dust.

Mawbeasts were flung like dolls. Twitchers vaporized mid-sprint. A mushroom cloud of fire rolled through the ruins.

The second volley came ten seconds later—wider spread, longer delay fuses—catching those who tried to flee or flank.

Thomas watched through the drone's feed as creatures tried to scatter.

Then came phase two.

"Trigger the charges," he ordered.

01:34 AM — Killbox Detonation

The avenue erupted with chained explosions.

C4-lined manholes blew upward, tossing metal plates into the air like coins. Pressure plates ignited roadside drums, which burst into columns of napalm. Flames turned the infected into living torches, thrashing as they burned.

The MOA Complex's forward machine gun nests opened fire. A wall of tracers cut into the remaining stragglers, gunning them down as they stumbled through fire and ash.

Snipers targeted anything still moving.

01:38 AM — Edge of the Firestorm

"Push forward!" Captain Mendoza shouted. "Sweep team! Finish them!"

Dozens of Overwatch soldiers advanced through the smoke, rifles at the ready. Flamethrower teams walked between the craters, igniting corpses. Every twitching limb was met with fire.

"Sector S-3 is clear!" a team leader shouted.

"Sector S-4—burning out the last of them!"

01:45 AM — Overhead, Reaper Feed

"Hold up," the Reaper drone pilot called in. "We've got movement west. Not infected. Human signatures. Two dozen—fifteen children, six women, two males. Civvies."

Rebecca's voice came through instantly. "From where?"

"They were hiding in an LRT stairwell. Must've been trapped before the blast."

Thomas turned to her. "Dispatch Echo Team. Get them out."

02:00 AM — LRT Extraction Site

Lieutenant Rosales led Echo Team into the smoke-wrapped stairwell. Flashlights cut through the haze. The civilians were huddled behind shattered tiles and twisted rebar, eyes wide.

"We're Overwatch. You're safe," Rosales said, helping them up.

A boy, no older than ten, pointed behind them. "They came from under. From the floor."

Rosales exchanged a look with his second. "Tunnel breach?"

They backed out fast.

02:15 AM — MOA Command Center

The civilians were brought in—dehydrated, but alive. One woman explained what they saw.

"They weren't bit. They were born like that. Grew in sacs. Like they were made."

Thomas clenched his jaw. "Cloned?"

"No. Grown."

Rebecca stared at the footage of the exploded Mawbeast. "Then that wave… wasn't natural."

"It was another delivery," Thomas said. "A bomb. Of bodies."

He turned to Colonel Sison.

"Do we still have that air-to-ground penetrator from Spooky's belly?"

"Affirmative. Laser-guided bunker buster. Why?"

"Because we're going to send something back down the tunnels."

02:30 AM — Retaliation Strike

The Reaper drone painted a target: an old sewer node believed to be a Crimson Dawn cradle site.

Spooky One loitered at high altitude, the bay doors opening.

"Laser designated," came the operator's voice.

"Firing."

The penetrator dropped like a javelin from heaven.

It hit the target with a muted thump—then detonated with a sub-surface rumble that shook the MOA's foundations.

Thermal sensors showed the collapse.

"Tunnel sealed," the analyst reported.

03:00 AM — Central Hall, MOA Complex

The fires were dying. The silence returned—but this time, there was resolve in it.

Thomas sat on the edge of the command table, rifle leaning nearby.

Beside him, Rebecca looked over a physical map—circling areas near the old NAIA terminals.

"They'll keep using the tunnels," she said. "We have to take the fight underground."

He nodded slowly. "We blow every tunnel we can find. And we send in the drones to scout ahead. If we can catch the birthing chambers before they expand..."

"We stop the next wave."

He stood up, walked to the window, and looked out over the charred ruins of the boulevard. The sun had begun to rise—its light casting long shadows over the still-smoking earth.

"We held again," Rebecca said.

"But for how long?" he murmured.

Behind them, the main monitor buzzed with updates. Civilian deaths: zero. Military: four wounded.

Victory—if temporary.

Then came a ping.

A single infrared signature.

Deep underground.

Not moving.

Just... pulsing.

Thomas stared at the screen.

He didn't smile.

He just said, "Get me Phillip."

03:12 AM — MOA Complex, Tactical Operations Wing

Phillip arrived moments later, still in full gear, rifle slung across his chest, boots caked in soot. He didn't waste time.

"You called?"

Thomas turned from the monitor. "We've got something deep—beneath the Pasay interchange. Thermal shows it's alive. Not moving, but... reacting."

Phillip stepped closer to the screen. The heat signature wasn't just constant—it was pulsing. Rhythmic. Like a heartbeat.

"That's not a body," Phillip muttered. "That's a core."

Rebecca looked up sharply. "A hive?"

"Something like it," Thomas said. "We've never seen a signature this stable underground. It didn't even blink when the surface detonated. Whatever it is… it's beneath layers of concrete, steel, and earth."

"It's either dormant…" Phillip said.

"Or watching," Rebecca finished.

A heavy silence filled the room.

"Gear up your squad," Thomas ordered. "I want boots ready for recon. You're not going in yet—we scan the perimeter first. Drones, sensors, seismic monitors. I want everything."

Phillip nodded. "We'll prep within the hour."

He turned and jogged out of the command center.

Thomas lingered. The image on the screen didn't change. That pulsing glow—slow, steady, patient.

Whatever it was, it wasn't just a leftover. It was central. A seed. A command node. Or worse.

Behind him, Rebecca placed a hand on his arm.

"You think we're close to the source?"

Thomas's jaw clenched. "I think we've just scratched the surface."

He exhaled through his nose and turned away.

"Tell Engineering to begin planning a full incursion route. I want every possible tunnel, vent shaft, sewage line, and maintenance access mapped within a five-kilometer radius. If we're going to end this…"

Rebecca nodded, finishing the sentence: "We go into the dark."

Outside, the sky was beginning to lighten. But below, beneath Manila's crumbling skeleton, something was awakening.

And it was waiting.