Clear Water, Hidden Danger

Chapter 57 – The Corridor Flood

The convoy rolled out from the LCC with the same quiet discipline we’d drilled into the spider the day before. The MCU took point. The M1038A1 Humvee held the right lane, never more than ten feet off our flank. Both vehicles moved at a controlled pace up 36th Street, every window cracked just enough for the soldiers inside to hear the shift in air pressure when my resonance began to expand.

The street looked dead at first.

Too dead.

Hawk checked the mirror. “No movement behind us. Yet.”

“Give it ten seconds,” Wolf said.

He was off by three.

It started as a vibration in the pavement. A subtle tremor that rolled ahead of us like something buried under the asphalt was waking up. Then the pressure shifted. A low, collective groan rose from between the houses. Windows rattled. A metal trash can clattered over three blocks behind us.

And then the corridor ignited.

Zerkers poured out of side streets like a dam had burst. Dozens at first. Then more. Then more. Every pocket between Joann and Lookingglass emptied at once. Bodies sprinted through yards, collided at intersections, slammed into parked cars, trampled broken fences, all surging toward the convoy in one massive, tangled rush.

Neal didn’t flinch. “Hold speed. Stay centered.”

The MCU advanced another fifty yards until the road widened near Rising View, and that was where we stopped. The Humvee stopped with us, door-to-door, perfectly aligned inside the radius. Engines cut. Silence hit for a fraction of a second.

Then the horde hit the resonance field.

The first bodies locked up instantly, limbs seizing, muscles firing without coordination. The next row slammed into them. Then the next. Then the next. A hundred Zerkers compressed into a single mass, a living wall trying to break through a force they couldn’t understand.

The spider stepped out.

Ten lines snapped taut.

Ten bodies formed the circle.

Thirty feet of invisible protection hummed around us.

“Wave One,” Neal said.

Wolf, Hawk, Brown, Blyth, and Burns stepped forward.
Five poles.
Five strikes.
Five bodies dropped instantly.
They stepped back.

“Wave Two.”

Hike, Frizzell, Bobby, Morales, and Stacks advanced into the vacancy the first group created.
Five more impacts.
Five more bodies down.
Step back.

The horde surged again, trying to fill the space. They couldn’t get in. They could only pile against the edge of the field.

“Wave Three.”

Wave Three didn’t pick their targets — the targets presented themselves. Five Zerkers slammed the field edge at the same moment, bodies distorted by the pressure of everything pushing behind them. Five poles struck. Five more bodies hit the pavement. Step back.

Wave Four.
Wave Five.
Wave Six.
Wave Seven.

Kill cycles flowed like clockwork.

Twenty down.
Thirty down.
Forty down.
Fifty down.

The Humvee acted as the rotation bay. When an operator needed to swap out, they stepped backward toward the vehicle, and a fresh soldier stepped forward from the opposite door, staying perfectly inside the radius. No chaos. No missteps. No broken circle.

The horde kept coming, but it wasn’t endless.
It was finite.
It was bleeding out one kill at a time.

The last thirty tried to push through in a single desperate surge. They all hit the field together — a combined impact that rattled loose gravel across the road. Bodies convulsed at the barrier, every instinct screaming to break through something they couldn’t even see.

Neal lifted her pole.

“Final cycles. Three groups. Five, five, then the remainder.”

Wave Eight.
Five down.

Wave Nine.
Five down.

Wave Ten.
The last two staggered in at the edge of the field, twitching violently. Frizzell and Morales stepped forward together, ended both cleanly, and stepped back into formation.

Silence settled over 36th Street.

The road ahead was a carpet of bodies stretching across both lanes, stacked in some places two high. Side streets were empty. Lawns were empty. The entire corridor — every pocket Hawk and I had triggered on that first desperate run — was done.

“Clear,” Wolf said quietly.

The spider retracted, each member stepping back toward the MCU with slow, controlled precision. The Humvee crew mirrored the motion, closing doors, resetting gear, checking armor straps and grips.

No cheering.
No celebration.
Just the recognition of a necessary job done right.

Neal keyed her radio.

“CWP Command, this is Search Team One. Corridor One neutralized. Beginning approach toward Rising View for secondary confirmation sweep.”

I stepped back into the MCU last and clipped the harness back into its anchor points.

We had more work to do.

But the corridor was ours again.