PLATFORM: FACEBOOK TIMELINE
USER: TYLER JORDAN (Structural Engineer)
STATUS: UPLOADED VIA STARLINK (Signal Weak - Low Elevation)
BATTERY: 18% (Draining)
DATE: TUESDAY. DAY 37 POST-EVENT (NIGHT).
LOCATION: THEMI RIVER BANK (Below the Njiro Bridge), ARUSHA
[Post Visibility: Public]
The fire at the textile mill is still burning behind us. It paints the southern sky a bruised, angry purple, casting long, flickering shadows against the smoke that drifts toward Mount Meru. We didn't look back. We couldn't. The sounds of what was happening to Baba John and his followers—the wet, tearing sounds of a massacre echoing in that hollow factory—were enough to keep us running until our lungs felt like they were filled with broken glass.
We are now crouching in the mud on the banks of the Themi River, concealed by a thicket of elephant grass.
In the dry season, the Themi is barely a trickle—a sluggish stream of agricultural runoff and plastic bottles winding its way through the city. But the rains in the mountains have been heavy this month. The river is swollen. It is a churning snake of black water, wide and fast, smelling of rot, sewage, and chemical dye from the factories upstream. It hisses as it rushes past, a warning in liquid form.
We cannot swim it. The current is too violent, and the water itself is toxic. A single mouthful of that sludge would kill us faster than the Simba.
That leaves the bridge.
The Njiro Bridge looms above us like a concrete monolith connecting the Industrial District to the northern suburbs. It used to be a choke point for morning traffic, a place of frustration and noise. Now, it is a fortress for the Vultures.
Floodlights powered by roaring diesel generators cut through the darkness, illuminating the asphalt deck of the bridge with blinding white intensity. From our hiding spot in the mud, I can see their trucks—modified Land Cruisers with welded rebar cages—parked sideways to form an impenetrable barricade. I can hear music drifting down. The heavy bass of Bongo Flava beats thumping against the concrete girders. I can hear laughter. I can hear the clink of glass bottles.
They are drinking. They are celebrating. While the rest of the world hides in holes and sewers, while people like Baba John are torn apart in the dark, the Vultures are having a party.
THE ENGINEER'S EYE
"We can't cross up there," Nayla whispered, wiping a smear of green river slime from her boots. She shivered, wrapping her arms around herself. "They have a heavy machine gun mounted on the lead truck. I saw the silhouette against the lights. They will cut us in half before our boots touch the tarmac."
"I know," I said, staring up at the massive concrete pillars supporting the span.
I know this bridge. I inspected it three years ago as part of a municipal contract to assess infrastructure stability. I know its load limits. I know its stress points. I know the chemical composition of the concrete and the tensile strength of the rebar hidden inside.
I also know its secrets.
"We go under," I said, my voice barely audible over the roar of the water.
Nayla looked at the rushing black water, her eyes wide with fear. "Swim? Tyler, that water is poison. And the current will smash us against the rocks."
"No," I said. I pointed a trembling finger toward the underside of the bridge deck, illuminated faintly by the reflection of the floodlights dancing on the water. "There is a maintenance walkway. A service gantry that runs between the concrete girders. It is used to inspect the gas lines and fiber optic cables."
She squinted into the gloom. "Is it still there? It looks like rust and shadows."
"It is galvanized steel," I said, the engineer in me taking over to push back the fear. "It doesn't rot. It was built to hold a three-man crew and equipment. It will hold us."
We slid down the muddy embankment, moving into the deep, cold shadow of the bridge abutment. The noise of the water was deafening here, a constant roar that vibrated in my chest, masking the sound of our footsteps as we approached the massive concrete pillar rooted in the riverbank.
Bolted to the side of the pillar was a rusted service ladder, leading up thirty feet to the dark underbelly of the bridge.
"I go first," I said, unclipping the nail gun from my belt. "If the anchors have corroded, I fall."
"If you fall, I am alone," Nayla said, gripping my arm. Her hand was cold. "So don't fall, Engineer."
I reached for the first rung. It was slick with condensation and green moss. I pulled myself up, testing the weight. The metal groaned but held. I began to climb. Ten feet. Twenty feet. The roar of the water faded slightly, replaced by the thumping bass of the music above my head.
I reached the top and pulled myself onto the maintenance gantry. It was a narrow metal grate, barely two feet wide, suspended over the abyss. Pipes and conduits ran alongside it, disappearing into the darkness.
I signaled for Nayla to follow. She climbed fast, her movements fluid despite her exhaustion. She is a survivor. She adapts.
We began to creep across the river, suspended in the grey space between the lethal water below and the lethal men above. Dust and pebbles rained down on us every time a heavy boot walked on the deck above.
THE TRANSACTION
We were halfway across the span when the music above us stopped abruptly.
The silence was sudden and jarring. Then, I heard engines revving. Not the high-pitched whine of the Vulture patrol trucks. A different engine. Deeper. Throaty. Like a heavy diesel transport.
"Hold," I whispered, freezing on the grate. I pressed myself against a cold concrete beam.
Above us, heavy tires crunched on the gravel. A vehicle had arrived from the North side—the wild side. The side controlled by the Packs.
We huddled in the shadows between two massive concrete beams. Through a drainage gap in the bridge deck—a rusted hole where rainwater poured through—I could see a sliver of the scene above.
A large cargo truck had pulled up to the Vulture barricade. It wasn't a military truck. It was a livestock carrier—the kind used to transport cattle from the Maasai steppe to the slaughterhouses in town. The wooden slats on the side were stained and worn.
The leader of the Vultures walked out into the light. I recognized his voice from the megaphone in the suburbs. He was a giant of a man, wearing a vest made of stitched-together tires.
"You are late," the Vulture leader shouted. "The cargo is getting restless."
"The roads are bad," a second voice replied.
My blood froze. The second voice was human, but it sounded... wrong. Flat. Monotone. Devoid of inflection. It sounded like a recording played at the wrong speed.
"Do you have the payment?" the Vulture asked, lighting a cigarette.
"Do you have the stock?"
There was a metallic clanking sound. The back of the Vulture's truck opened.
I pressed my eye to the gap, trying to see. The angle was bad, but I saw movement.
They were unloading people.
Six of them. Their hands were zip-tied behind their backs. They were blindfolded with dirty rags. They were pushed roughly toward the livestock truck. I recognized the shirt of the first man—it was the Indian father from the Njiro estate, the one whose knee had been shattered by the pipe wrench. He was being dragged by two men, his broken leg trailing uselessly on the asphalt.
"Six head," the Vulture said, exhaling smoke. "Prime condition. No bites. No sickness. We screened them ourselves."
"Acceptable," the flat voice said.
Then came the sound that stopped my heart.
The rear gate of the livestock truck opened. But they didn't unload supplies. They didn't unload fuel or food.
They unloaded Simba.
Three of them walked out of the truck. But they weren't attacking. They weren't screaming. They were walking in a line, carrying heavy plastic crates. They placed the crates at the feet of the Vulture leader with mechanical precision.
The Vulture leader kicked the lid of the first crate open. It was filled with gold watches, diamond rings, and stacks of cash. He sneered at it.
"Useless," he spat. "I can't eat gold."
He opened the second crate. His face lit up.
"Batteries," he laughed, picking up a heavy industrial lithium cell. "Solar inverters. Drone motors. Now we are talking business."
Nayla gripped my shoulder, her fingers digging in so hard it hurt. She was shaking violently, her breath coming in short, terrified gasps.
"They are trading," she mouthed, the horror in her eyes reflecting the floodlights. "The humans sell people. The Alphas pay in technology."
It was an economy. A supply chain. The Vultures were the harvesters, gathering human livestock from the suburbs. The Alphas were the buyers, paying with the scavenged tech of a dead civilization.
"Take them," the Vulture waved his hand dismissively.
The three Simba stepped forward. They didn't bite the prisoners. They grabbed them gently, almost tenderly, guiding them into the dark maw of the livestock truck. The Indian father screamed as he was lifted, begging for mercy, but the Alpha closest to him placed a grey hand over his mouth—not to silence him, but to calm him.
It was sickening. It was industrial. It was the end of humanity, itemized and receipted.
THE SENTRY
I was so focused on the horror above, so paralyzed by the revelation of this twisted commerce, that I forgot the first rule of survival: check your blind spots.
I felt a vibration on the metal grate. Subtle at first, then rhythmic. Something was moving behind us on the walkway. Something heavy.
I spun around.
Clinging to the underside of the concrete beam, hanging upside down like a massive gecko, was a Simba.
It wasn't like the ones above. Its skin was black with oil and river slime. Its limbs were elongated, twisted, adapted for climbing. It had been waiting there in the shadows. A sentry for the bridge's underbelly. A guardian of the deal.
It didn't screech. It hissed—a sound like high-pressure steam escaping a valve.
It lunged.
There was no room to dodge. The walkway was two feet wide.
I raised the nail gun, my finger tightening on the trigger, but the creature was faster. It swiped my hand with a clawed appendage. The force was incredible.
The nail gun flew from my grip. I watched in slow motion as my only weapon clattered onto the grate, bounced once, and spun over the edge.
It fell silently into the black water below.
My weapon was gone.
The creature slammed into me, driving me back against the concrete pillar. The impact knocked the wind out of me. Its teeth snapped inches from my throat. The smell of it was overpowering—old river mud, diesel, and dried blood.
"Tyler!" Nayla screamed.
She couldn't shoot. The bullet would go through the creature and hit me.
I grappled with the thing. It was incredibly strong, its muscles like steel cables under the slick skin. Its claws tore through my shirt, raking across my chest. I pushed back, my hands slipping on its oily skin.
I kicked out, catching its knee. It hissed again, tightening its grip on my throat. My vision started to swim. Black spots danced in my eyes.
Then, there was a flash of silver.
Nayla lunged past me. She didn't use the gun. She used my hunting knife—the one she had kept.
She drove the blade into the creature's neck, right behind the ear. She twisted with all her weight.
The creature went rigid. Its yellow eyes widened in shock. Then, it went limp, a dead weight on top of me.
We shoved the heavy body off the walkway. It fell silently into the black water below, joining my nail gun in the deep.
I collapsed on the grate, gasping for air, clutching my bleeding chest. The pain was sharp, burning.
"Move," Nayla whispered, pulling me up by my collar. "They heard the struggle."
Above us, the boots stopped moving. The laughter died.
"Did you hear that?" a Vulture voice shouted. "Something is under the bridge!"
"Check the maintenance hatch! Shine the light!"
A beam of light sliced down through the gap in the deck, missing us by inches.
THE HIJACK
"We can't go back," I wheezed, stumbling forward. "And we can't stay here."
"The other side," Nayla pointed to the far bank. "The ladder. It's only fifty feet."
We sprinted across the remaining span of the catwalk. The beam of light chased us, dancing over the metal grate like a spotlight in a prison break.
"I see them!" a voice roared above. "Rats in the rafters! Open fire!"
BANG. BANG. BANG.
Bullets began to ping against the steel girders around us. Sparks rained down on my hair. The sound of rounds impacting the concrete was deafening.
We reached the far ladder. We didn't climb; we slid. We burned our hands on the rails, hitting the mud on the North bank hard. I rolled, mud filling my mouth, just as the Vultures started firing blindly over the railing above.
"Into the bush!" I yelled, trying to stand.
"No!" Nayla grabbed me, pulling me down behind a concrete piling. "Look!"
We were on the North side of the bridge—the Alpha side. The livestock truck was pulling away, heading into the darkness with its cargo of human souls. But parked near the bridge abutment, away from the Vulture barricade, was a lone motorcycle.
It was a Boda-boda—a cheap Chinese motorcycle used by the Vulture scouts for perimeter checks.
The scout was standing by the railing, firing down at the river, distracted by the chaos we had caused.
"Do you know how to ride?" Nayla asked, breathless.
"I'm an engineer," I said, adrenaline overriding the pain in my chest. "I know machines."
We charged up the embankment. The scout turned, hearing our boots on the gravel. His eyes went wide. He raised his rifle.
Nayla didn't hesitate. She raised the revolver. Her hand was steady.
CRACK.
One shot.
The scout crumpled, clutching his shoulder.
We jumped onto the bike. It was battered, rusted, held together with wire and tape. I kicked the starter.
Chug-chug-chug.
"Come on!" I screamed, kicking it again.
ROAR.
The engine caught, coughing black smoke.
"Hold on!"
I gunned the throttle. The bike spun out in the loose gravel, then found traction. We tore away from the bridge, heading North, away from the Vultures, away from the river, and straight into the darkness.
Behind us, shouts erupted. I saw headlights turning to follow us.
We sped into the darkness of the Arusha hinterlands. The wind rushed past my ears, cooling the sweat on my face.
We have no food. I have no weapon. We are riding a stolen motorcycle with a quarter tank of gas into the heart of the territory controlled by the Alphas.
But we know the truth now. The world didn't just end. It evolved.
We aren't just fighting monsters anymore. We are fighting a business. And business is booming.
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