Chapter 88

There were murmurs of voices from within the door. His mana had regenerated fully, and Priscilla was by his side. While they had destroyed the termites, the ferret-like creatures that Priscilla was justifiably afraid of were still out there. So she stayed close to him, and he could hardly blame her.

Absently, he stroked her back.

“I promise I won’t bite,” he called out.

“Who are you?”

Daniel felt like laughing.

“Does it matter?”

There was more murmuring. Animal Sense flared outwards. There were four in the room and a mind worm on the roof above him. He would need to take care of that. There were too many of them around; potentially, all four of the survivors behind him might be infected, and if they were, he would quietly eliminate them.

If the mind worms had them, then they were already dead. But his intuition told him that most of the others would not share his sensibilities in this direction. They would try to save them and that would just risk the parasites taking them over in turn.

The worm was crawling to get above his head. With a smile, he stood up and poked the tile away, pushing it up and across to make a gap. The creature lunged through the space, launching itself at him, its greed overwhelming its self-preservation instinct.

Speed.

The club spun, and it sucked the worm in. There was a slurping sound and the feeling of pleasure radiated out from Blood Drinker, followed by a request to swing it. He did so, and a purple blob spat out to go squish against the far wall. The club was eating the cores directly, and Daniel was excited to see what magic abilities it would manifest.

The door swung open, and Daniel looked at the man who had been revealed.

His heart sank.

There was purple under the man’s eyes. Maybe it could have been two black eyes, but the shade was too light, and the man no longer had whites. They were more lilacs.

He forced a smile.

“Hi, I am Daniel.” He held out a man to shake. Normal stuff, as if the world had not fallen apart.

“Call me Mike,” the infected man said. “You are human.”

“Yep, a group of us clearing floor by floor and have rescued everyone from floor twenty-one to thirty-five.”

“Is it safe?”

Daniel shrugged in response. “Temporarily. The lower floors are secure, but . . .”

“Guys,” he yelled into his flat. “We need to go.” He turned back to Daniel. “I thought we were dead for sure. The termites were getting aggressive.”

You personally are, Daniel thought sadly, but kept his face neutral. This was not how he expected saving his first room to go.

“Daniel, why don’t you come in?” a voice said firmly from inside the apartment. “Mike, can you watch the corridor while I chat with our new friend?”

“Sure,” Mike said. “Lots of people downstairs.”

Daniel looked at the creature in surprise. It had a psychotic grin on its face.

Priscilla ran down his legs, using super speed and dashed into the apartment. Apparently deciding the risk of a trap and a threat to him exceeded the threat of the ferrets. Instantly, an image of the occupants came to him. Priscilla focused on the eyes. An older man and woman, both in their fifties, and a younger girl in her twenties. They all carried repurposed golf clubs. Their eyes were clear of contamination.

Then the mouse was suddenly back on his shoulder.

He entered quickly and noticed off to the side a termite hole that had been covered crudely with a large pot.

“Shut the door behind you,” the older lady requested politely.

He did as instructed and walked in, and he could see their apprehension in their eyes.

“You guys know, don’t you,” he said simply.

The older lady flinched at that question. “Mike is sick.”

“Some purple bug went into his ear,” the girl chimed in.

“Shush,” the older woman hissed.

“Mike’s already dead,” he told them. They did not look surprised. They shared glances with each other, a guilty expression on all three faces. “One of you identified the worm,” he summarised. “And the consequences.”

The dad nodded.

“He is not welcome downstairs,” Daniel told them.

The mum started crying. “We know. There is no cure. We know we need to kill him but . . . he’s our boy,” she wailed.

“I assume his personality has changed.”

The daughter nodded. “The bug got him yesterday morning while we were fighting off a termite attack. By last night, he was different.”

“No, don’t say that!”

“Mum, you know as well as I do it is true.” The girl hugged her mum comfortingly. “We know what has to be done.”

“Okay,” Daniel said, coming to a decision. He would need to take care of Mike. After Beau, it should be easy. “We can do introductions later. Let’s all go outside, and then you can send Mike and me back to get something.”

He could see the gears turning in their heads, their expressions naked on their face. The daughter’s face turned thoughtful. “But what?”

“Golf clubs,” the dad answered simply. “They . . .” They heard the door opening. The dad stopped talking, his face tight.

“How are you guys going?” Mike called out. “Let’s get downstairs. More people.”

He seemed giddy about the idea.

More victims, Daniel thought darkly. The mind worm just desired a wider population to infect.

The dad grabbed his makeshift weapon firmly in two hands. “Yes, let’s go.”

They filed out in a line. Dad, Mum, then the young lady. As she passed, she leant in close to him. “Thank you.”

With a little sniffle, she kept walking.

He is already dead, Daniel reminded himself.

They got into the corridor, and about five meters from the door they had left, the dad stopped and pivoted. “We should grab the golf clubs,” the dad said his voice cracking, and it was arguably the worst acting Daniel had ever seen. “Mike, why don’t you take Daniel to collect them. They will help the other survivors.”

“Sure, Dad,” Mike said, totally missing the undertone of his dad’s voice. That was when he realised Mike was truly gone. The young man had already lost the basic ability to pick up on body cues. This world sucked.

Bile rose in Daniel’s throat. He suppressed it and tried to show none of his nerves.

Mike—or whatever he had turned into—was oblivious to the looks passing between those who were still human.

“This way,” Mike said. Now that Daniel was listening for it, Mike’s voice seemed hollow, almost echoing, as if whatever creature had infested his skull had eaten away everything that gave it life. The lilac that surrounded the boy’s bright blue irises clashed, a colour so unnerving to see in place of the usual off-white of a healthy human eyeball. Mike’s smile looked like the corners of his lips pulled upward of their own volition, like some invisible marionette strings tugged at the muscle fibres from the void where a soul had been.. “The clubs will help us bash things. They are in the cupboard in my room.”

The door clicked shut, and he followed Mike towards what was presumably his room. Anticipation built in the club, and it wanted Daniel to hit the man just behind the ear as hard as he could. Killing Mike was not the focus. It was getting the mind worm that was important.

Daniel activated speed.

He swung with his full power. The need to augment strength filled him, so he activated that as well.

The club slammed in as the head crumbled. With the extra speed and strength, it was like hitting a cake. He felt the club deform as it chased the mind worm, and then was a slurp. A sharp filling of success.

Red blood splattered the wall. Daniel reeled away. He knew he should move the body to hide the crime, but he could not bring himself to do so. In a daze, he walked out the door. The other three had paused where he had left, listening to the sound of the rest of the team still hitting the queen.

They looked at him, slightly confused, but then their expressions changed when they saw Mike was not following him and when Daniel refused to make eye contact.

“The mind worm is dead.” He brushed past them. “I need to finish up these floors, but I will show you the way down.”

Thankfully, they followed behind him in silence, till he could pass them off to their support crew from downstairs.

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