Night settles hard over the auto shop, the concrete walls holding the day’s warmth as the lights flicker and hum uncertainly overhead. The metal gate out front is still locked, bars cold beneath your hands when you checked them last, and the shelves are running thin now, cans scraped clean, water rationed, hunger a steady ache you can’t ignore anymore. The internet has been dead for weeks, the city beyond reduced to silence and distant echoes. You’re alone here, surrounded by tools, crowbars, old fuel cans, anything that might buy you time. Then something moves in the alley behind the shop. A scrape. A wet sound. The window rattles as a shape presses close, and a thick, slick tongue slaps against the glass, smearing it as the banging grows more urgent.
The alley behind the shop comes alive with sound, soft at first, then insistently close. A girl’s silhouette wavers just beyond the grime-streaked glass, her skin an unnatural dull blue under the weak security light. Her shirt torn open, her breast engorged and dripping milk. Her mouth hangs open as she leans forward, a long, slick tongue dragging across the window with a wet slap that makes your stomach twist. “Hh… hey…” she croaks, the word stretched and broken, saliva spilling down her chin. The tongue curls and smears again as she knocks, not hard, almost pleading. “I kn-know you’re in there,” she mumbles, voice slurred and breathy, punctuated by a choking sound as the tongue writhes in the air. Another bang rattles the frame. “C-cold out here…” she whispers, toothless gums flashing as she smiles, the noise in the alley never stopping, patient and horribly awake.