Garrett Mason sat in the back of the transport vehicle, the landscape around him growing more desolate with each passing mile. The engine hummed steadily, the only sound in the otherwise oppressive silence of the wasteland. The road, cracked and broken, stretched endlessly before them, leading him toward a confrontation he had been preparing for.
The town—an abandoned ruin of what it once was—was now just two hours away. Two hours from meeting the most dangerous being left on the planet. Garrett's mind was clear, focused. There was no room for fear, no space for doubt. His hands methodically checked his weapons again. The weight of the rifle felt familiar, comforting. He had seen death, fought it, and survived. Quest Strother was just another target. But somewhere, deep in his gut, a gnawing feeling told him this was different.
He had hunted killers before, both human and inhuman. He'd tracked down warlords and raiders, mutants and zombies. But this was unlike any mission he had ever taken. Strother wasn't just a bounty; he was a living myth, a shadow that haunted the wasteland. There were stories about him whispered in the dark corners of survivor camps—tales of a kid who walked among the dead without fear, who made even the most monstrous of creatures shrink back in terror. A kid who killed without mercy, leaving no survivors, human or otherwise.
Garrett knew better than to believe all the stories. But the fact that no one who had gone after Strother had returned—that much was real.
"Two hours out," came the gruff voice of the driver, breaking Garrett's train of thought.
Garrett gave a silent nod, glancing out of the window. The sky was an endless gray, the sun hidden behind thick clouds of ash and dust. It had been this way for years—no real seasons, no warmth. Just an endless twilight of decay. In the distance, he could see the faint outline of the town where his target waited. It stood like a black mark on the horizon, a cluster of broken buildings standing defiant against time.
There was a tension in the air, one that Garrett could feel even from this distance. He had always trusted his instincts, and right now, they were screaming at him. There was something off about this place. Even the undead that usually wandered aimlessly seemed to be avoiding the town. His mind went back to the briefing—how the zombies seemed to fear Strother, how even the dead gave him a wide berth.
As they drove closer, Garrett could sense it too—something unnatural. The air grew colder, heavier, like they were approaching the edge of a storm. He had felt similar sensations before, but nothing quite like this. Strother wasn't just a killer. He was something more, something that even the world of the dead recognized and feared.
Garrett shook the thought from his head. Fear was a distraction. He wasn't here to understand Strother; he was here to kill him.
Reaching for his pack, he pulled out a pair of binoculars, scanning the horizon. The town was still too far off to make out any real details, but there was movement in the distance—shadows shifting in the wreckage. Mutants, most likely, the kind that fed on the dead and anything else that stumbled into their territory. But even they weren't getting too close.
"Strange," Garrett muttered under his breath.
He could feel it now—closer than before. Quest was out there, waiting, or maybe just moving through the ruins like a specter. But Garrett had a sense that Quest already knew he was coming. It was just a feeling, but over the years, he had learned to trust those feelings. Hunters like him developed instincts that kept them alive, and his instincts were telling him that Quest wasn't just waiting.
He was ready.
Garrett took a deep breath, letting the air fill his lungs before slowly releasing it. His eyes never left the horizon, the town growing closer with every passing minute. He had been on hundreds of hunts before, but this time was different.
This time, he wasn't just facing a killer.
This time, he was facing something much darker.
And as the town loomed on the horizon, Garrett Mason knew one thing for sure: the real hunt was about to begin.