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The Frozen Nightmare
An unreleased short story from the book:
The Infection Spreads How the World Became Undead
Dr. Gabriel Strauss had been dreaming of this moment for years. The cryogenics facility, tucked away in the icy, remote peaks of the Arctic, was his magnum opus—a monumental leap for mankind. His work was revolutionary. He had long believed that humanity’s greatest problem was time itself, the cruel passage of years that left the young old and the old dead. And cryogenics, the art of freezing the human body to preserve it for a future unknown, was the key.
The facility was a marvel. Gleaming steel walls, reinforced glass, and hums of machinery that reverberated through the cold air. His team had been working day and night, following the protocols, fine-tuning the machines that would, in theory, allow the human body to be preserved indefinitely, to awaken when science had advanced enough to cure what had once been thought of as an inevitable death.
They had been freezing volunteers for years, testing the limits, making adjustments. They had preserved everything from animals to organs, even whole limbs. But this was different. Today, for the first time, the experiment would involve a full human. The very first human to be frozen for a millennia or more, with the intent of bringing them back to life when science was ready.
The subject was a middle-aged man, Frank Halvorsen, who had been suffering from an advanced case of terminal cancer. He had signed up for the experiment with the hope that when he woke, his disease would be gone. His family had been hesitant but supportive, understanding that it was the only way to save Frank’s life.
Frank lay in the freezing chamber, his body strapped down, awaiting the freezing procedure. Dr. Strauss, standing behind the thick glass, watched intently as his team activated the cryogenic pods. Liquid nitrogen poured into the chamber, lowering the temperature slowly but steadily, until Frank’s heart rate had slowed to almost nothing, his body stiff and lifeless.
It was supposed to be a triumph, the culmination of years of work.
But the first sign that something was wrong came several months later.
The facility had been closed off to the outside world, a controlled experiment far removed from any civilian interference. Dr. Strauss and his team continued their work, eagerly awaiting the day when they could bring Frank back from the depths of his frozen sleep. They watched the data, made the adjustments, waiting for the moment of reanimation.
But when they opened the chamber door, the air thick with the smell of ozone and metal, everything changed.
Frank’s body was no longer the lifeless, preserved specimen they had expected. The body had been reanimated. But not in the way they had imagined. It wasn’t the gentle stirring of someone waking from a long slumber. His body was contorted, jerking unnaturally, as though the freezing process had somehow altered the very core of his being. His limbs moved in spasms, his mouth open in a grotesque, silent snarl.
And then, he lunged.
The team barely had time to react before Frank attacked. His hands, stiff and trembling from the freezing process, wrapped around the nearest technician’s throat, his fingers like iron claws. The man screamed, but the sound was quickly cut off as Frank’s teeth sank deep into his flesh, ripping through skin and muscle with terrifying ease. His eyes—once dull, now glazed and dark, devoid of humanity—locked onto the rest of the team with an intensity that froze them in place.
Dr. Strauss’s heart pounded in his chest as Frank continued to tear into the technician, his violent movements frantic and full of rage. The others scrambled, rushing to grab whatever they could—a wrench, a metal rod—but it was too late. Frank was too strong. His body, though stiff and unmoving at first, had become a vessel for something far more horrifying than any of them had imagined.
The freezing process had not only preserved Frank’s body—it had preserved something far darker: the primal rage, the instinct to kill, that had been awakened during the cryogenic sleep. His body had been reanimated, but his mind was lost. He had become something else entirely.
The team fought to restrain Frank, but it was impossible. His strength was unearthly, fueled by the rage and hunger that consumed him. One by one, the researchers fell, each becoming a victim to his relentless assault. Blood sprayed across the walls, mixing with the frigid air, but Frank didn’t stop. His hunger was insatiable, and the freezing process had stripped away whatever remained of his humanity.
Dr. Strauss, watching from the safety of the observation window, felt a cold sweat break across his skin. What had they done? What kind of monster had they unleashed?
Panic gripped him as he reached for the emergency shutdown button, but it was too late. Frank, and those he had infected, had already escaped into the corridors, and the cryogenic facility was now a slaughterhouse, its halls echoing with the sickening sounds of tearing flesh and bones breaking.
The virus spread fast, faster than anything they had ever seen. It wasn’t just a physical infection—it was neurological, a complete breakdown of the human mind. As the infected spread, they left behind a trail of destruction, their bodies twisted, their minds broken, and their instincts only driven by one thing: hunger.
The nightmare spread across the globe, unchecked. Those who came into contact with the infected quickly fell prey to the same fate. First, the cities fell. The military was called in, but they were ill-prepared for what was now a pandemic unlike any before it. The infected were not simply mindless zombies—they were vicious, organized, and relentless.
Dr. Strauss and the few remaining survivors barricaded themselves in the last standing area of the facility, desperately trying to come to terms with what they had done. The virus was in the air, it was in the water—it had become part of the world. The human race had been condemned to this horrific fate, all because of a cryogenics experiment that had gone horribly, irrevocably wrong.
And as the days passed, the facility’s cold, metal walls became the final tomb for those who had tried to escape, the last victims of the frozen nightmare that had consumed the world.
There would be no salvation. No cure. Only the slow, inevitable spread of the virus, consuming everything in its path, until all that remained were the undead, their primal hunger unrelenting. The frozen nightmare had begun, and there was no thawing from the horror it had unleashed. The Age of the Undead was upon them, and there was no hope for the world’s salvation.
If you enjoyed this short story you will probably like our latest release available now:
The Infection Spreads How the World Became Undead
$3.99
The Infection Spreads: How the World Became Undead is a chilling collection of dark, morbid, and mind-bending short stories that explore the terrifying origins of the zombie apocalypse. Each story reveals a new, unexpected cause of the outbreak, blending science fiction, horror, and dystopian terror in one unforgettable anthology.
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