Chapter 7 Strange new world

From my vantage point I could see the mall, the parking lot and the park adjacent to it. I could see several groups of people in this area. I focus my attention to the one closest to my location. I notice that there are actually two groups. One with creatures like the one I already met and killed. There were 5 of them. It would be quit a challenge to take on so many of those on my own. To make matters worse they hunted in a pack and their prey was the other group of humans.

Those particular humans seemed to have evolved to an armoured variant, they too had more muscles than average but what drew my attention the most were the bulges and plates that seemed to be beneath their skin.

Seeing how they were hunted and wounded their armour doesn't seem to be hard enough right now. But it still struck me with awe, how fast they have changed. Now I know what they needed all that food for and why they ate like crazy all day long.

If they left the mall and even hunting each other, chances are high that either something drove them out or they used up everything. Neither of those possibilities was good news. I hope they will leave the city and try to scavenge for food in the farmland surrounding the city. There was still a lot of useful stuff here, even though one can't eat it.

While watching the groups I noticed that the multitude of them wandered away from the mountain and the depot behind me. The cold seems to force them towards the valley. It seems likely that if we fortitude the depot a bit we could use it as our base.

I have seen enough. I climb down the tree and start to walk towards the depot, only to notice that a group of three thorn armed soulless eye me like I am a raw steak in a pack of wolves. Instantly I bolt towards the next house corner. I don't have to wait long till the first one of them shows his deformed face around the corner, only to be greeted by a dagger in his eye. While he died instantly I now stood in front of two female abominations staring warily at me. They now knew that I am dangerous and they still possessed some of their human intellect.

As I had a wall behind me they at least couldn't flank me, but they still tried to attack me from two different sides. They attacked I unison with their thorns. I evade to the right bringing the thorn of my right attacker between me and my second foe. I grab her left arm with my right while stabbing with the dagger in my left. I hit her heart, I can feel how it cuts itself on the blade. I let go.

While she falls down I draw my sax with my right and strike at the remaining foe, who is struggling since her thorn is stuck in the hollow-brick wall. I am being sprayed by her blood as I hit her neck. I hurriedly take a few steps away from the scene while I fight down my nausea. After my stomach and mind calmed down I return to collect my dagger. What I see there disturbs me to no end, she is still alive, she has a dagger in her heart and still lives, I hurry over and pull the dagger out to let her die of blood loss, but there is no blood coming out of the wound. Did her body rearrange in that short time? Weakly she tries to crawl away. I take out my axe and end her from a safe distance away. As I crack her skull she finally went limb.

It seems the soulmist keeps them alive as long as there was something to direct it. I had to destroy their brain if I want to make sure they die. But what if they gained a soul strong enough to direct the mist? Could I do the same? Hoping that it would help me survive I stripped the three corpses of their soulmist.

Deep in though I walked home, but still made sure no one followed me. The sun begins to set as I arrive at the depot. Still thinking about what I could do about the possibly undying foes I entered the offices. It smelled good. Seems like they found some meat. Following the smell I enter the kitchen. As I enter everyone stares at me. They didn't greet and their gaze made me really uncomfortable.

“Do I have something on my face?” I ask, not understanding that staring. Silence. Then Sarah seems to have regained her composure. “Yes, yes you do.” she said, “It looks as if you have slaughtered a pig with a rusty knife,....... please tell me it was a pig.”.

“Later.” I replied, looking at the kids, that returned to eating. I go to one of the other rooms and get rid of my armour and the dirty clothes, then I get my self a towel and soak it in water. After washing myself with it the once white towel is now red. I get dressed and return to the family.

While we eat we talk about what they found in the adjacent houses. Additional to some food, including meat, they found a cellar full of tin cans, I guess someone planned for an apocalypse. Another great found was a chicken coop they found in the outer region of this suburb. We talk about moving them to our home as a stable food-source, I hope they won't change into some monstrosity.

They kept their best find for the last thing to discuss, they found an amateur radio-station. I happily imagined more and more people joining our small safe haven, since numbers equalled safety in this scenario and we definitely had some resources to spare.

Since the kids were clearly exhausted, their parents put them to bed, while I relaxed at the table, thinking how I should tell them the bad news.