Asher’s gaze shifted to Ito, who smiled at him and then shrugged.
“Must have been intense. It sounded like a war was going on up there,” Aaron finished.
“Yeah, it was bad up there.” Asher nodded. “Things got close. Not sure if I was going to make it.”
“Oh, my gosh! Why would they do this!”
The second platoon entered at the top of the stairs, their cries of disgust and repulsion drowning Asher out. A few of the soldiers made their way down, but most remained where they stood, crowding the doorway, just as hesitant to descend the stairs as Asher was earlier.
“Come on, guys!” shouted Lieutenant Tarango, appearing behind the sluggish platoon. “Captain Kilgore intends for this to be a learning experience for all of us, and it will last much longer if you never get down there!” The remainder of the company slowly filtered down.
“Try to hold onto your lunches, people!” Kilgore commanded, hearing Tarango give his title. “You might as well get used to the gore. It gets even worse than this sometimes.” Kilgore stood off in the middle of the grotesque, barbaric scene waiting. Asher had missed his entrance, still preoccupied with all of the bodies.
“Who does this?” Salvo shrieked, suddenly losing all composure. “Freakin’ bunch of psychos!” She stood in front of Asher and his friends now. “Why can’t they just stick to blood?”
“It’s always the clean-cut and good-looking vampires that have the nastiest basements,” Ito noted. “Hope this teaches you a lesson about hesitation, Blackthorn.”
She placed her hand on his shoulder. “No matter how harmless some of them might make themselves seem, they always have some sort of horror show going on behind the scenes.”
“Lesson learned, Sergeant,” said Asher.
He was proud of himself for not vomiting earlier, though he knew he couldn’t keep his stomach contents down for much longer.
When the reflex finally took him, he sprinted for the nearest bucket, finding it already filled with blood, which made him retch even more. Stomach empty, Asher returned to where his friends stood. He wiped the edges of his mouth with his sleeve, acting as though nothing had happened.
“Why would they leave all these bodies right out here to rot like this?” Salvo asked, gagging as though she might vomit again. She remained standing in front of Aaron and Ito.
Asher passed around them to retake his spot against the wall.
“I think some of them prefer their meat like this,” said Milo, materializing from nowhere to answer Salvo’s question. “A lot of wild carnivores will leave their meat out to rot for the same reason. It’s a means of tenderization. The bacteria break down the meat so that it is easier to tear off and chew.”
“This is just nasty!” Salvo’s face turned green. “Surely they could have done something other than let it get like this.”
“Yeah, you would think.” Milo nodded in agreement. “Vamps just have some peculiar tastes.”
“Quiet!” Captain Kilgore yelled. He raised his fist into the air, causing all talking to cease immediately. “Good,” he said, his arm back at his side. “Now that most of the company is down here, we’ll get started. It looks like the majority of you have had a hard time keeping your dinner down. I don’t blame you for it, this being the first operation for most of you. I wish I could say it gets easier, but it doesn’t. It’s just the nature of our enemy. They’re dangerous, disgusting, and cruel. They have to be stopped.” Kilgore searched over the company, his hidden rage beginning to seep out. Most of the soldiers were disinterested in what he said, distracted by the gore and their stomach sicknesses.
“This is why we do what we do!” roared Kilgore, violently kicking a blood-filled bucket with his boot. It struck the adjacent wall with a loud crash, its contents splattering all over, catching some nearby soldiers.
“We have yet to find a vamp, no matter how civil and domesticated it might act, who wasn’t a bloodthirsty killer. It would be nice if they would just stick to the killing. There’s no telling what these wretches did to these people, freakin’ some of them children, before they killed them! This is why they must all be exterminated!” Kilgore looked over the faces of the gathered company, expecting to see his dark enthusiasm reflected there. He frowned, finding a bunch of tired, blood-splattered, and grossed-out personnel.
“Well, looks like that’s all she wrote,” said Kilgore, reading the room, seeing it really was time to pack it up for the night. “Nice job on your first op for all our new people. This was about as open and shut as an operation can be, so don’t expect things to come out this clean. Uncommon not to have any losses.”
Kilgore paused to look over the corpses. His eyes widened as though he had only just realized he was standing in the middle of Satan’s morgue.
“Suppose we can leave the vampire food cache now. Forensics is on its way to catalog all this. Hopefully, they can work through this and identify most of the deceased before we destroy the house. That’s all I have for you, so everybody out! Tarango! Roth! Take your platoons back to the buses!”
The company withdrew up the stairs as soon as he uttered the word ‘out.’ None desired to remain in the grotesque slaughter-dungeon.
Asher had never seen so many people exit a basement that quickly.
Chapter XVIII
An Unlikely Epidemic
The creature moaned, sounding more like a cow than the mutated zombie-ape monster it was. The desert heat died away with the twilight, though it was unbelievably hot and miserable out in the open. All rational beings had escaped to the shade.
Cyrus instinctively kept to the shadows. He stayed low to the ground as he maneuvered the town’s streets, slipping between houses and buildings in a haphazard attempt to remain unseen by his quarry. Not only did the shadows provide cover and protection from the heat, it kept the glaring light of the sun’s rays from hitting his retinas. The fiery sphere descended in the sky now, its vivid, vibrant colors visible between the run-down houses of the facility.
Cyrus’s hypersensitivity to light had improved substantially throughout his stay in the facility, though his ability to see the color red had disappeared entirely. His vision was like that of a feline now. He could only see colors within the green, yellow, and blue portion of the light spectrum during the day. All color vision gave way to black and white at night.
The creature moaned again, causing Cyrus to stop in his tracks. He took a whiff of its vile odor, a stench that became more putrid and pungent as he drew near. His heart rate increased as he closed in on his prey, allowing him to anticipate the coming change to his psyche.
Cyrus felt the urge start to claw at him.
The savage animal would soon escape the cage of his human mind. Cyrus knew he wouldn’t be able to resist it much longer, no matter how much he tried to hold it back.
The creature continued its moaning, still unaware of the kresnik’s presence.
Cyrus had yet to determine what made them act like this. Zombies abhorred the sunlight even more than he did. Cyrus had no idea what possessed them to venture out on their own like this, out into the open, the sun’s rays shining right in their eyes and the heat radiating over them. Their brains, bogged down from the extended effects of their affliction, rendered them incapable of even the most instinctive thoughts. This level of sickness was becoming a common occurrence amongst the infected.
Regardless, the ultimate causation of their maladaptive behavior mattered little to Cyrus. It saved him from having to hunt during the darkest hours of the night, when the tables turned and the infected hordes stalked him. Moreover, he had a genetically enhanced affinity for these failing, irrational creatures. Cyrus could hear and smell them from miles away, even before he could see them. They were the perfect prey, made even more so by their obnoxious moans and foul stench.
Cyrus squatted beside the corner of the house, concealing himself as he prepared to make his next move. He looked to his right, through the chain-link fence and out onto the Arizona
desert, the terrain spotted with cacti and patches of wildflowers dispersed among the rocks and sand. Cyrus couldn’t describe how much he wanted to leave the facility, though he tried not to dwell on the thought. If he were to escape, it would be into a world of desolation and unbearable heat, with even less access to food and water.
Remaining in place, Cyrus shifted his gaze from what lay beside him to what flew above, casting an eye toward the top of the nearest white-painted guard tower. The acuity of his vision had improved to a superhuman level, allowing him to obtain a visual. All four tower guards hung hundreds of feet above him, the armed personnel walking the perimeter of the tower platform along the railings. Cyrus knew they wouldn’t hesitate to fire upon him should they see him, but he wasn’t terribly concerned.
Though the guards refused to believe it, their shots had little to no effect on him, failing to penetrate his nearly impervious hide. The rounds from their assault rifles simply were not of a high enough caliber to cause any real, lasting damage. Cyrus had felt the bite of their bullets numerous times over his stay at the facility, and though each shot certainly hurt, they presented him with only a mild inconvenience. His experiences aside, Cyrus refused to willfully step in front of the towers. There was always the chance that one of them might get lucky.
The creature moaned for the last time, announcing its position and shifting Cyrus’s focus back to it once again.
The kresnik rested his back against the wall of one of the houses now, preparing to take the corner. Cyrus’s hunger, which had nagged at him from the start of the hunt, exploded into an all-consuming wildfire. He tensed, making a vain attempt to keep his rage contained. Fearful of what he would soon become, he was unable to hold back any longer.
Cyrus closed his eyes as the bloodlust seared into his mind, occupying his every thought. His humanity vanished, replaced by an animalistic psyche. Only slightly aware of all his actions, he would have no way to quell his urges. Cyrus was only along for the ride. He shook as though to burst, and then his reality snapped.
Cyrus roared, speeding around the corner like death’s javelin, bounding over rocks and debris toward the zombie near the side of the fence. His prey didn’t even have time to turn its head before he was upon it.
Cyrus ran down his target with devastating speed and tenacious ferocity. He struck the creature in the back of the head with razor-sharp claws and leveled it to the ground. The kresnik pounced upon the back of his doomed victim, clamping down on its windpipe with a wide, savage bite as he tore into the flesh.
The zombie continued to struggle despite the ferocity of the attack, a futile attempt to preserve its worthless life. The creature could only resist its inescapable fate for so long and finally succumbed to asphyxiation and blood loss.
* * *
Cyrus felt his rage subside as he transcended back into himself. His humanity returned, and the feral hunger burned away.
He nearly screamed when he looked down and saw his clawed hands, stained black with the blood of a creature that so closely resembled a human. He gazed over the corpse, finding the head nearly severed from its body, the abdomen shredded asunder with the internal organs partially ripped out.
Cyrus retched and choked, suppressing his disgust, knowing there were always potential adversaries lurking nearby. He felt something oddly chewy in his mouth and slowly reached up to remove it. Cyrus held the slimy morsel out in front of him, squinting to see what it was. He winced as he tossed it away, realizing it was a piece of intestine.
Cyrus crawled away from his kill and toward the side of the wrecked house, fearing he might vomit. He desperately wanted to avoid throwing up pieces of zombie. Cyrus remained on all fours by the house, continuing to gag, black blood occasionally spewing from his mouth.
Satisfied he could keep the rest of his hellish meal down, Cyrus sat up. He looked over his kill once again, finding various parts of the zombie’s corpse tossed all about. The infected always appeared much less intimidating once torn asunder. Cyrus hated turning to them for sustenance. He had searched everywhere for other sources of nourishment, checked every crevice of the enclosed facility for some morsel, some scrap of unspoiled food.
Cyrus had turned to rancid zombie flesh much sooner than he wanted to, his hunger great, yet still nowhere near the starvation level when his killer instincts first kicked in. It was as though his body was unwilling to let him return to a state of weakness and took action to prevent it. All of it was ghastly and barbaric, but Cyrus had no other choice. He hadn’t even had the option to let himself starve.
Cyrus heard the howls of several of the infected, surprised by how close they were. He was so preoccupied with his kill that he hadn’t noticed how late it was. The sun was barely visible above the horizon now, and the sky took on a dark blue hue, signaling the coming darkness. The hordes of infected would eventually find him if he didn’t move soon.
The kresnik rose to his feet and walked over to the zombie carcass. Cyrus took the body up in his arms and slung it over his shoulder, crouching down as he snuck down the alleyway. Though he was perfectly adapted for hunting at night, the massive zombie hordes gave him no other choice but to seek shelter. Cyrus moved cautiously through the streets of the facility, careful to stay quiet as he went.
The horde called out from the approaching darkness, sounding as though it had increased in size and proximity.
Cyrus needed to reach his hovel soon, lest his primal urges emerge once again when he neared the horde. Ever since his first encounter with the infected, he avoided mass groupings of zombies. He had no idea what would happen should he run into them this evening. Though drawn to single sickly individuals, bloodlust enraptured Cyrus whenever he was close to any of them. He was always careful to go out only during the dawn and dusk hours, encountering only handfuls of zombies at once. His encirclement by a horde would undoubtedly result in a bloodbath, one in which he would kill many but ultimately be overwhelmed.
The cries of the horde became weaker and more distant as the creatures prepared to attack one of the towers.
Cyrus continued through the streets and alleys of the town on cat’s feet, his kill’s body hanging limply over his shoulder. He occasionally scanned the tops of the houses, gazing westward toward the giant tower. The spotlights illuminated the continually darkening night. He had built his shelter only a few hundred yards away.
The distant fire of guns confirmed Cyrus’s guess. The horde would attack en masse, each individual making a run for the tower, always cut down before they reached it.
Cyrus stopped and shook his head. He had lived with the infected for almost a month now, and they never grew any smarter. The horde would attack the guard tower until nearly all lay dead, the zombies entirely oblivious to their fallen comrades through the onslaught. The kresnik smiled a dark smirk, his face concealed in the shadows. He was always happy to hear the wails of dying zombies.
The mindless assault continued as Cyrus turned down yet another alleyway. The kresnik knew the hordes could only be distracted for so long. He often wondered how any zombies remained, between those he killed and those gunned down by the guards.
Despite the promise of easy pickings, the multitude of bodies never appealed to Cyrus. They never called out to him the same way the living zombies did, never awakened the bloodlust sleeping within. It was just as well. The act would significantly increase his exposure to the tower’s blazing guns. The prospect of sifting through bullet-riddled zombie bodies was even more horrifying to Cyrus. He didn’t have much time to pick through them either way. All of those killed near the fences were always mysteriously removed before the dawn.
Cyrus heard another of the infected moan, this one surprisingly close. The cry was low and nearly inaudible, all but drowned out by gunfire, but his enhanced hearing abilities allowed him to pick it up. Cyrus broke into a run, almost dropping his kill as he did so. The sound was more terrifying to him than any other, threatening to unleash his uncontrollable, primal fury while simultan
eously calling more zombies to him. Once near a large group of the infected, he would slaughter all around him, cutting down his opposition while the full force of the horde enveloped him, leading to his nightmare scenario.
Another moan came from only a few blocks over.
Cyrus was now in an all-out sprint, rushing down alleyways and bounding around corners, quickly changing directions multiple times to confuse his potential pursuers. He would have no other choice but to do the unthinkable if he didn’t reach shelter soon. Zombie flesh wasn’t an appealing meal, but he had put a substantial amount of time and effort into hunting it.
Feeling desperate, Cyrus skidded to a stop, taking in a whiff of air. His cat eyes widened with familiarity. He could smell his hideout now. Horrid as it was, the smell was what kept the hordes away.
Cyrus heard multiple moans, and he feared the infected would likely find him at any moment. His bloodlust began to tingle.
Cyrus tossed his kill to the ground. He grabbed one of the corpse’s ankles in his talons and stretched the leg backward as he stomped down on the back of the pelvis with a clawed foot. The kresnik pulled and twisted the limb out of the socket with a crack, tearing the flesh as he wrenched from the rest of the body, black blood spewing forth. The leg wasn’t a lot, but it would keep his hunger at bay for the time being. He slung the prize over his shoulder and leaped for the rooftop. He bounded from roof to roof, the claws of his feet scraping the shingles as he went, granting him traction and adding to his speed.
The moon all but dominated the sky now. The pale, glowing crescent silhouetted Cyrus’s quick-moving form against the darkened veil of night. The howls of the main horde grew louder yet remained distant. They concentrated on the tower, and none were alerted to the kresnik’s movements.
Fall Prey: The Hunt Page 27