Chapter 5 – Cold Night Air

When I stepped outside of the small shopping centre we had been in, I felt at the same time agitated and scared of what might be beyond those doors. After the first few steps it became clear, that nothing could have prepared me what I was now seeing. The view on the open plaza that spread out before us reminded me more of a scene straight from a horror movie than how any Neo-York street should look. The only two instances where I had seen this before had been in pictures, of Chernobyl or Bombay after the Beta-Pestis Strain had ravaged my parent’s home country. Both of these incidents had been before my time, well the first one had been.

The outbreak in India had happened when I was around four years old, and ended with almost a billion dead all across the globe; a good number of those deaths hadn’t even been caused by the plague itself. No, instead several month into the outbreak a Russian cyber attack had killed the Indian power grid and in turn Pakistan had decided to unleash their entire nuclear arsenal on their hated neighbour country. Seeing how infectious the disease was, other countries were quick to scorch any infection centres. Over two thirds of the entire Indian population were killed off in less than half a year, several million still died in the other countries. In the end the containment of those infected with the bacteria had been enough for scientists to develop a viral treatment designed to kill of the infection inside of the hosts. And who got out of this crisis as the winners? Yes, the United European Nations, their extremely closely watched borders let almost no infected through, and to top it off, it were almost only European scientists that saved humanity. To be honest, I’m more than glad that my parents had fled to England; I don’t even want to imagine my life had I been born in India, probably wouldn’t have made it past my childhood.

It was no wonder that my mind had wandered to such a dark part of humanity’s history, when the scene before me was simply too close to those old pictures from back then. Most of the street was still wreathed in the dark of night, only very few light sources illuminated the surroundings. Of those several were the burning remains of the destroyed stalls, now that I knew, just who had destroyed them I felt a pang of guilt. But the worst still was the fact that there were next to no people around, the plaza was completely devoid of any humans other than Maria, well, of the living ones that was. When my tongue snaked out to sniff the air I was greeted not only by the smell of ashes and smoking wood, no there was the very distinct iron smell of blood and even worse, burning hair. As I smelled the corpses I was disturbed by the way my body reacted to them. I felt both hunger and disgust at the same time, thankfully one won over the other, when a brief thought about wasting food crossed my mind. Almost instantly my stomach and human mind revolted and instead of seeking out the “source of nourishment” I started retching. There was one thing my human side was very clear on, hours old, half burned human corpses were definitely not to be considered food! ‘So shut up beast, you are being plain disgusting! Yuck! Fuck, I can still smell them. I feel like I need a bath and maybe clean my mouth with soap . . .’

“Oh, shit, are you okay Dr. Foster?” Marie looked over with an expression that a gullible idiot might have seen as caring, but I knew better she was a two tongued snitch!

I growled at her. “The fuck do you care? I’m just letting you tag along because I might need some help.”

“Hm, I don’t know. Most likely it is all some evil plot of mine, or maybe I’m just worried about you because I’m a decent person, and you look as if you had seen some one being eviscerated.” ‘That was a weird comparison . . .’

“Ohhh! Do I? Well why don’t you look over to our right?”

“Eh, what do you mean?”

“Just look behind the shack, I may not have seen it but I most certainly smelled it!” Marie walked around me, took a look behind the stall and instantly went white as a sheet.

“Holy . . . Fuck! Oh, shit this is bad. Dr. Foster? You may want to take a look at this!”

“I most certainly do not want to take a look; the smell alone was bad enough!”

“No, I’m serious come and tell me what you see, because I need confirmation that I am not crazy!”

Groaning inwardly, I picked myself up and followed behind Marie. I took one good long look at what she was standing before, turned around and started retching again. Seeing me gagging right in front of her, Marie’s skin tone changed from chalk white to a sickly ghost form, and in one fluid motion she turned away from me, held up a hand and proceeded to puke out her guts. The only difference between us now, was that Marie actually had stomach content to regurgitate, I myself was simply dry heaving, oh, and maybe that my retching sounded seriously wrong. Finally getting my body back under control, I realized that indeed I had only been dry heaving even though I was certain that I had eaten in the last four hours. So either it had been digested already which would be weird, or my transformation had used it up. Thinking about it for a second I simply shrugged, right now I had no way of finding out, but what it did tell me, was that I hadn’t eaten another human being after my change. I’m not sure how I would have reacted if I had subconsciously did that, with the boy I had already come dangerously close and I had absolutely no desire for the situation to ever arise. The thought alone sent a shiver running down my spine, I shook my head to try and get rid of it, and instead focused on Marie.

“You done? There shouldn’t be that much in you, right?”

“Ha! Says you, I once managed to puke eight times in less than half an hour!” She slowly stood back up.

“Ah, I think I’m good for now.” I pointed to a drop of puke running down the corner of her mouth and she quickly wiped it away, I could have sworn there was little bit of blush spreading on her cheeks!

“Sure . . . Let’s just get this over with.” I sighed. “So what is it that you want to show me in this . . . mess?” I pointed to the cause of our misery.

“Oh, yes the . . . corpse.” She walked back behind the stall and pointed at the remnants on the ground. “Say, what do you think this looks like?”

I glanced over to where she pointed and braced myself for what I was about to see. I had been avoiding calling what lay on the ground a deceased human, because for all intents and purposes, I had a hard time seeing the resemblance. The . . . carcase was definitely human shaped but most of the important parts were missing. I had gone through med school before going into genetics so I was definitely qualified to make an autopsy, but to be honest I had never been the best with seeing copious amounts of blood. And now that the beast was adding the more primal instincts to the mix, I had even less of a desire to poke around a corpse. But because I was a responsible adult and a career scientist to boot, I fought down my queasiness and crouched next to the corpse. I was just about to take my glasses out of my chest pocket when I realised that I had lost them and most likely would never again need them anyway. I suppressed the forming grin and started analysing the once-a-person before me.

“Hmm, excessive physical trauma on most body parts. Considering what is left of the corpse, I would say the victim was a male in maybe his twenties? Deep lacerations and bite marks on most soft tissue areas. By the amount of blood it seems the attacker focused especially on the upper thorax and . . . cranium first. Looking first at the cephalic wounds. The facial features have been almost completely . . . removed trough violent force. Severe damage on the collum as well as the shattered vertebrae and arterial blood sprays in the surroundings suggest these wounds to be the cause of death; the other wounds have been added post mortem. Moving on to the upper thorax, first three costae are intact but the rest have been shattered. The left arm has been removed at the scapula; symmetrical but ragged tears in the muscle tissue suggest clawing. From what I can see most organs have been removed from the chest cavity. Moving even lower, the abdomen has been . . . disembowelled. The serrated uneven edges and irregular cuts point to bite marks. With the amount of missing organ and muscle tissue it would suggest the victim has been eaten post mortem. Both legs seem to have been eviscerated; the bones are shattered and feature teeth marks. I don’t want to look at it, but it seems the . . . genitals are also missing.”

I stood up and threw away the stick with which I had been poking in the guy. After a staggering few steps towards Marie I had to brace myself on a nearby wall. ‘Fuck . . . pull yourself together bitch! I can’t break down now!’ A growl was rising from deep within me. I might have been feeling sick, but the beast inside me was furious, another creature had wildered in its territory. When my lips pulled into a snarl, Marie seemed to understand what was going on and slowly pulled out of my reach, her gun all the while levelled at my chest.

“Are you doing okay there? I really don’t want to shoot you!” Under her breath she murmured on. “Ich bin mir nicht mal sicher ob die Pistole mir hilft . . .”

“It . . . is fine. I just need to calm down. Maybe don’t move to quickly . . . I guess?” I tried myself at a smile, but seeing Marie’s reaction it wasn’t really working.

“So, is it what I think it is?”

“You mean the corpse? Yeah . . .”

“So someone actually . . .”

“Yes! Goddamn it! Some one that turned into one of those beasts killed and ate a kid in his twenties! Fuck!” I slammed my fist in to the wall of the sack and it slammed straight trough the plastic sheet.

“Okay, wow! Dr. Foster you need to calm down it wasn’t your fault! You didn’t kill anyone; damn I didn’t even know what happened to most of those people. I . . . I only looked at you so; I know that you didn’t do anything. So please calm down, okay?” She looked at me pleading but she was scratching the ground with the sole of her boot as if she was nervous or . . . embarrassed? ‘Wait, why would she be embarrassed, that didn’t make a lot of sense, right?’

I sighed. “Sorry . . . You’re right it wasn’t technically my fault. But still if I had never touched that damn crack . . .” My claws dug into the scales covering my arms as I thought about it. I might have been able to prevent it. I was almost instantly ripped out of my thoughts by Marie shouting at me.

“So what? Yes you touched it, but if you hadn’t someone else would have! Heck, I myself felt drawn to touch that freaky as thing! Your only fault is your curiosity and fuck me if anyone has the right to judge you for that! It just . . . No matter, we should go.” It seemed there was something on her mind that she wasn’t going to share. Not that I could fault her really now could I?

“Ah, yes. Saying it this way I assume that you have a somewhere in mind? Because I’m not sure I can even get across town seeing as I look like a humanoid lizard, and I don’t even want to think about getting into my apartment or going to work.” An uncomfortable smile stole its way across my lips, I felt as if my life go fuck upside down really good.

“Yeah, I was thinking about maybe you wanted to crash at my place tonight, I don’t have all the fancy security systems as your penthouse, it also is in the Bronx, so I guessed we could get there without much problem. If you want I can even go to your place and get you some of your stuff?”

“You seem to have thought an awful lot about that, but you’re right your apartment would be far saver then the complex I live at. But I won’t stay long, I need to look after Kassy, if she did turn she might have run to her own home.” I was about to pinch the bridge of my nose in frustration, but thankfully quickly enough remembered the claws. “

Argh, damn it! This fucking sucks you know? I have projects to work on and with the video that came out this week . . . I guess I have other things to worry, don’t I?” I chuckled and threw my hands in the air. This entire situation was so abnormal that a tiny part of me wondered if I wasn’t just going insane.

“Yup, you definitely do! But hey at least you got even hotter right?” She smirked and looked me up and down.

“Eh, did you just say “even hotter”? So did you think I was hot before or what?” This was going in a direction I had not expected!

What was she playing at? Hearing my reply, Marie only looked me in the eyes for a time with an expression that was impossible to read, it made me nervous. I simply had no idea what the woman was even thinking like this. I had always prided myself in being particular observant especially about what other people might be thinking. But with Marie it was different; by now it was very clear that her act in at work was just that an act. There was no and probably had never been any kind of shy and meek version of Marie. Instead what I was seeing now was her real personality; it was a weird thing really. From the outside she still seemed like the Marie that I knew, small, cute if plain, a freckled face and huge glasses, but the way she held herself, the way she walked and even how naturally she handled the big ass pistol all that spoke of another person entirely. It accured to me, that I actually had never seen much of Marie’s body. Not in a sexual sense of course, but indeed she had always been covered up in ankle length dress pants and loose fitting long-sleeved tops. Even on the casual Fridays, she had always worn the same form concealing garments. I looked her over once more. From what I could see she had barely any breasts to speak of, and now that she stood up straight she wasn’t even as small as she seemed. And now the way she hid her thoughts and emotion as soon as I noticed them. My thoughts crystallised into one thesis, Marie had been with the military!

“Huh, now it makes sense why you always call me Dr. Foster, instead of my first name.” Marie raised an eyebrow at that.

“I guess you came to some conclusion about me? Believe me when I say this Dr. Foster, you have no idea who I am, so please don’t make any assumptions, understood? I will tell you everything when the time is right for it. For now we should get a move on.” I nodded; this was something I could get behind.

“You’re right let’s go.”

I was just about to follow her when all of a sudden the sound of a megaphone cut through the chilly night air.

“Ehem. Test. Test. To anyone present inside of the lock-down zone. Here speaks the Neo-York City police department. We implore all citizens caught in the aftermath of the attack, to remain calm and collected. If possible try and move into easily securable areas away from direct threats. The emergency services will soon be with you and order will be re-established. We have set up barricades at all plaza entrances. Due to the power outage we advise anyone to stay inside for their and others safety. It is currently not advised to leave the secured area, as anyone attempting to do so will be taken into custody for questioning and to ensure their own safety. Thank you for listening. Be safe.” There was a short pause of maybe half a minute before another voice continued.

“To any terrorist remaining inside of the strike zone, here speaks Captain Carson of the Knight Errand forces. You have carried out a hostile action in a KE protected area. While you people may have cleverly handled our security and surveillance systems with your little stunt, you have forgotten that we notice when our drones fall out of the sky. So let me tell you one fucking little thing, no one and I say no one, fucks with Knight Errand! When we protect an area we mean it! You have ten seconds to comply, drop your weapons and step out into the spotlights with your arms raised.”

“1”

“2”

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“9”

“10”

“Okay, good, you guys are dead. Teams One to Four advance! That is all see you in hell suckers! Carson out!”

All of a sudden the night air felt way colder than before. I looked over to Marie, fear and panic clearly visible on my face. Even the beast inside of me was agitated like a predator caught in a trap. “Marie, what do we do?”

“Yeah, fuck, we have to get to my bike.”

‘I really don’t want to die!!!’