The Ironhowl X4 rolled into the empty lot of Guns R Us just before dawn. Frost coated the pavement, and the sign above the front doors hung in eerie silence, bold red letters spelling out the shutdown: "Closed Due to COVID-19. Non-Essential Business. Reopening TBD."
Raven pulled up to the side of the massive, windowless building and cut the engine. The early light broke across the glass of neighboring storefronts—long dead, quiet tombs of capitalism.
"So much for constitutional rights," she muttered, leaning back in her seat. A short, humorless breath escaped her lips. Behind the sarcasm was something darker. Satisfaction.
She stepped out, boots crunching against the frozen gravel, and looked up at the steel-and-glass facade. Tens of thousands of weapons lay behind those locked doors. Ammunition. Gear. Tools of survival.
And the government had declared them non-essential.
It was a travesty.
But a convenient one.
The closures gave her exactly what she needed: silence, darkness, and no one to get in her way.
As she moved toward the back entrance, Raven's thoughts drifted—back to 2019. Back to the first waves of COVID. The "essential worker" paperwork. The police checkpoints. The way neighbors turned into silent informants.
She saw it clearly now.
It was never just about containing a virus. It was about containment, period. A covert strategy to limit movement and monitor population activities.
A dry run for the real problem: infection.
Zombies.
The virus was already circulating then. Quietly. Mutating. Passing through hospitals and food chains and military bases, leaving no paper trail. The public thought it was about curfews and contact tracing.
But Raven knew better.
"Authoritarianism dressed up in a lab coat," she whispered.
She scanned the city skyline in the distance. The tops of buildings faded into low clouds, smoke from overworked heat systems twisting into the gray.
And soon, it would all fall apart.
January 10th was a countdown to chaos. People would flood the streets—angry about lockdowns, government failures, the economy, the lies. Protests would erupt at every corner: outside hospitals, inside train stations, across bridges.
And the zombies would be waiting.
Not smart ones. Not yet. Just first-gen biters. But enough to bring a city like New York to its knees.
Once the power plants fall? Once military bases were breached and communications cut?
It was over.
Hospitals. Police precincts. Data centers. All gone in hours.
And yet... Raven couldn't shake the feeling.
Almost like someone wanted it to happen.
Almost like someone made sure it did.
She wouldn't be surprised if there were plans buried in some agency's black ops file. Plans to let the country collapse so a new order could rise. Warlords. Governors of city-states. Human auction houses and livestock pens.
It wouldn't be the first time someone saw a throne in the ashes.
Raven reached the back of the building, pulled out her old employee badge, and swiped it across the panel. The light turned green with a satisfying beep.
The bolt clicked open.
She stepped inside.
The interior lights returned to life, flooding the showroom in rows of cold white. The scent of gun oil and old tile filled the space.
Guns R Us was vast.
Bigger than a standard store. More like a stadium of weaponry. Racks stretched from floor to ceiling. Pistols behind locked glass. Rifles mounted on display. Shotguns lined up like soldiers.
Scopes. Armor. Bayonets. Tactical boots. Survival knives. Thermal goggles. Sling packs. Ballistic shields. Every tool of war stacked and labeled in shiny, corporate packaging.
And in the back—double steel doors.
Behind them: the vault.
Raven walked past the aisles slowly, running her hand along a shelf of AR-15s. Matte black. Cerakote-coated. Fresh from the factory.
"There are more guns in America than people," she said quietly. "Three hundred million firearms. Maybe more."
She turned a corner. More weapons. More gear.
"And if that's true... then there's ten times that in bullets. Billions of rounds just... sitting. Waiting."
She approached the vault and keyed in the master code. The door groaned open, revealing the warehouse inside.
Floor to ceiling, it was filled with ammo.
9mm. .223. .308. Shotgun shells in crates. Belts of .50 caliber slugs. Specialty rounds in labeled bins—armor piercing, incendiary, hollow point. Stacked in uniform columns like the government expected a war.
And they got one.
Just not the one they expected.
People thought guns would save them. Thought their concealed carry permits and stockpiled rifles would be enough.
But firepower didn't stop rot.
Didn't stop arrogance.
Didn't stop stupidity.
It didn't stop the end.
But for Raven?
It was salvation it was a beginning until her powers awakened.
She stepped into the center of the room and looked around at the arsenal of a crumbling empire.
"Thank you, COVID shutdown," she whispered, smiling as her storage system opened.
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