“Show me up to his cell,” said Rynon to the Alkron worker sitting at the desk in front of him.

  The screen changed to show a crestfallen thing, sitting on a small bench, in a bright room. No lack of light for him. No dim warm space for him to relax in. He needed to know, to feel he had been beaten. Perhaps if he accepted his fate, he would be allowed to take up his place at the feet of the kings. But before then he would be forgotten.

  Rynon walked to the large table which doubled as a digital screen, showing the corporation’s forces across the continent.

  “We have a communication incoming from Ms. Mathews, sir,” said a woman behind him.

  He nodded and Iona’s face appeared across the table.

  “The camp is completely under our control, sir. The humans have been sent to the blood farms, and we identified twelve more Alkrons, including what I’m told could be a type forty-six, sir,” said Iona.

  Rynon raised one eyebrow as the screen became pixelated and then returned to full fidelity.

  “We are waiting on more fuel for our helicopters, sir. Once we have that, we will ship the possible type forty-six back—”

  “No. Keep them there. My two brothers will be with you soon. Hold your position and await further instruction.”

  Iona nodded, and the screen returned to the map of the United States.

  *****

  “So you been having any problems with vamps getting through your fence?” said Bill to the lone soldier who had been given the task of taking him, Max, Rachel, and Josh to their abode.

  They all sat in the back of an army truck, the last four from this particular group that had been found a place to stay.

  The young soldier sleepily looked across to the old man. “Uh?”

  The truck bumped along a road. Bill and the others had no clue where they were or where they were going, but they presumed they were still within the camp’s walls.

  “Have vamps been getting through anywhere in the camp’s walls?” reiterated Bill.

  “Oh… umm… yeah on the south wall, well it’s not really a wall, more a collection of stuff we found to make a wall. You know, trucks, farm machinery, anything that would be strong enough to keep the vamps out. But there are gaps and the biters sometimes find them.”

  Bill nodded. “I see. And where would these ‘gaps’ be? I just would feel safer knowing what areas to avoid.”

  “Umm… Like around Braxton and I think there’s a problem with the wall at Fairfax as well. Yeah, you should stay away from down there. Especially at night.”

  “I will definitely do that. Thank you.” Bill ignored Max’s eyes that were frequently looking at him.

  The truck stopped, and the soldier got up, jumped out and then pulled the rear guard down. “This here’s your place. There are supplies already inside including water and a bit of food. There’s also some wood out back for you to start a fire, but it’s already too late to do that tonight as we have a no lights, or, err, fire policy after eight p.m.”

  Those in the truck nodded then got to their feet and slowly dropped down to the road which reflected the rear lights due to an earlier rainfall.

  The soldier switched on a flashlight and walked up a small muddy bank pushing through the overgrown grass, which then flattened out until he arrived at the front porch of a structure that looked like a shack’s attempt to be a single-story home. A sheet of plastic covered a hole where a window should have been.

  The soldier waved for everyone to follow him, and he stepped up to the screen door, pulling it back, then pushed open the front door which seemed not to require unlocking.

  By the time Bill and the others were walking over the threshold, the soldier had already lit two candles, illuminating a moderately sized living room which contained a sink, kitchen counter, and a rusting, old, iron oven. The soldier pointed at it. “Use that as a wood burner in the morning. But make sure you peel that plastic back from the window and keep the door open so the smoke don’t build up.”

  The newcomers looked at each other and then nodded to the soldier regardless.

  “Right, I’ll leave you to it then. There’s a meeting for all of you at zero nine hundred hours. You’ll be debriefed and given some more supplies to bring back here.” The young man nodded once more and left.

  Rachel went to talk when Josh walked through the messy living space, down a narrow dim hallway, and into one of the four rooms the property contained. The door slammed behind him.

  “We should see if there are any blankets in the other rooms,” said Rachel. She went to walk away when Bill held up a hand.

  “We can’t stay.”

  Rachel looked surprised. “You want us to leave, now?” she kept her voice low, looking over her shoulder to the hallway.

  Bill moved closer to her, pulling his small pack from over his shoulder and shaking it. “They’re going to take this if we’re still here in the morning! We have to leave, now!” The two looked back at the hallway.

  “And what about Josh?” she said the archeologist's name almost as a whisper. “We agreed we would tell him, a hybrid would come in useful!”

  Bill and Max exchanged a brief glance.

  Bill leaned in even closer to Rachel. “We don’t think it’s wise. We’ll wait a few more minutes and—”

  The door in the hallway swung open, and Josh fell out into the shadows. “You’re going to leave me here?”

  The other three realized he must have overheard them despite their attempts to keep their conversation quiet.

  “We have to leave this place, Josh…” said Rachel.

  He moved into an area of light being cast by one of the candles. His eyes were red, his face unshaven. He looked ten years older than his true age despite the Scourge virus flowing through his veins. “I know of your plan to take the tablet. You thought you could keep me from knowing. But I know, yeah. I heard. You think as humans, you know what’s best for the tablet?”

  Words tried to form in Rachel’s mouth, but nothing came forth.

  “You’re a scientist, Josh, you know the tablet cannot be allowed to stay in the hands of the infected, it has to be—”

  Josh fell to the ground on his knees, being plunged back into shadow once again. He muttered to himself as if in debate with another entity.

  The other three looked at each other, each one not knowing what to do. Rachel broke the deadlock and moved towards her old friend. “Josh—”

  Before any more words left her throat, Josh had a grip of it. A clawed hand held her captive. Josh was now standing, his blackened eyes fully visible within the candlelight.

  Bill pulled the only weapon he was allowed to keep when the soldiers confiscated all the others and raised it high to bring down on the hybrid, but, instead, in an action that was just a blur to the humans in the room, he snapped the neck of Rachel, and swiped his hand across the throat of Bill, sending an arterial spray of blood across the stained brown sofa and rotting floorboards. As Bill grabbed his throat, Max and the thing Josh had become looked at each other. The older man turned towards the door, which was only a few yards away, but before his leg had even lifted a few inches from the floor Josh’s extended incisors were plunged into Max’s leathery neck.

  Bill stumbled around for a few more seconds then fell in a slump to the floor.

  Josh’s face was one of glee as the last remaining drops of blood oozed from the gaping wound on Max’s neck, and then he let his once friend also drop to the floor.

  He stood looking at the scene around and started talking to himself, his words intermingled with laughter.

  “Strange pitiful humans! Always dying!” he shouted, then spun around in a mad dance. Spinning and laughing.

  A pool of blood had formed in front of Bill’s body, and Josh sunk to the floor and started lapping it from the splinter-filled wood. As he drunk, he noticed the bulge in the dead man's backpack.

  “It’s there… that powerful thing. The monster of machines!”

  He crawled forward towards the pack, and reached out—

  A man with human eyes held the ancient tablet in his hand. The last thing he remembered was the small damp bedroom. He could hear the others talking in the main room. He could feel the hunger and anger mixing inside producing a toxic cocktail of hate that wanted to be released. And now here he was on the floor, holding the tablet, but…

  The metallic smell of blood was overwhelming.

  “No… what have I done… not again…”

  Out of the corner of his vision, he could see the pants leg of Max. He raised his head and gasped at seeing him dead, his body pale. He went to move towards him when his senses stopped him. There were more dead in this room with him.

  He whipped around.

  Bill… and Rachel… I did this… the thing inside me… the other me… I did this…

  Rachel’s eyes were open and wide, her face frozen in pain.

  Josh looked down at his fingers and the blood covering them and dropped the tablet.

  Now there was only numbness within him. He could not feel his arms or legs, nor the world around him. He looked across at the old oven.

  Fire…

  He reached again into Bill’s pack and pulled out a small flask of spirit that the old man kept there.

  Not enough…

  He poured it over his clothes anyway, then got to his feet, picking up the nearest candle, and proceeded to walk around the forgotten place, setting light to anything that would. It wasn’t long before the flames were climbing the walls.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Joel could see the blaze in the distance as he was driven by a soldier along a long straight road. All he had been told was there was a fire at one of the places that ‘his’ people were staying at. He was also told the fire was too intense even for hybrids to get inside the small structure which was also almost completely collapsed.

  The fire lit up the clouds above it. A beacon which would be seen for miles around.

  He wondered if whoever was inside the inferno had managed to get out. If it was hybrids living there they would have all gotten to safety but if it had been humans…

  He didn’t want to think about any more of the people under his ward dying. Not after all they had survived.

  The green sedan turned left and right onto roads which were more rural than town, and then back to another straight road, but this one the car bumped along. Up ahead were more military vehicles, a Humvee, an army truck, and he counted at least twenty soldiers, some of which were officers.

  The car stopped.

  The general was standing with two more officers he didn’t recognize. They looked at him with faces devoid of emotion. He couldn’t tell if their expressions were ones of anger or pity.

  As soon as he opened the car door he could feel the heat and smell the smoke. The air was thick with it. His hybrid senses also picked up another smell, that of burning meat. People had died.

  He walked over to the general, trying to pull his eyes away from the flames.

  “I got some bad news for you, Joel,” said Galloway.

  As he stood there listening to what she said next, he became detached from the world as if he was witnessing himself standing there listening to her.

  “The names we have are Rachel Frost, Bill Sawyer, Josh Coffey, and Maxwell Cousins—”

  She went on to say that she and her officers did not understand how a hybrid, Josh, could have gotten stuck in a fire, and therefore they think he must have been the one that started the fire and possibly…

  He turned from the general before she finished and walked up the muddy bank towards the flames. It was raining again, and the fire was beginning to dull its fury.

  He needed to know if the general's words were true.

  Different scenarios ran through his mind, none of which made any sense.

  Josh would have pulled them out.

  It was a small place, why couldn’t they have just run out of the door?

  Different questions, with no answers, came and went until one thought coalesced in his mind.

  Josh killed them.

  He was now standing close enough to feel the heat singeing his skin.

  Josh killed them.

  He went to speak. His mouth wanting to cry out to those that were now in the past. His friends now memories. He wanted to run into the burning wood and somehow pull them back.

  A number of car doors slammed behind him, and a roar of vocalized pain filled the night.

  Marina and Anna were struggling to hold Evan back from plunging into the fire.

  Joel snapped out of his own head, and ran forward, helping them.

  Evan sunk to the ground, holding his head in his hands and sobbed.

  *****

  Carla and Joel sat in the general’s office. It was still dark outside, but the hints of morning were making themselves known to the east. The human and hybrid had not talked much since they both arrived.

  He sensed she was annoyed. Annoyed that his people had already created a mess that she was going to have to help clear up.

  He didn’t care.

  The door opened and in walked the general with a jug of coffee.

  “Despite my need for blood, I still enjoy a hot mug of the brown stuff at this time of day. The fire had vamps coming from all around, attacking the walls. My people tell me none got inside, but we have to stay vigilant until the sun’s fully up.”

  Carla nodded, Joel remained motionless.

  Galloway put the jug down, then pulled a plastic cup from a drawer. “Anyone want some coffee?”

  “I could do with some,” said Carla.

  Joel shook his head.

  “So, Mr. Garret, any explanation on—”

  Joel’s mind jumped back to Evan’s face when he, Marina, and Anna led him back to the car. He oddly looked older, but more innocent at the same time. The past and future were crashing together in the young man's mind.

  “— How one of your hybrids decided to kill those that were meant to be his friends?”

  Joel’s mind was still on the events a few hours earlier. “What?… oh… umm… I don’t know what happened in that house.”

  “It’s still too hot to sift through the remains, but we’re hoping the tablet survived.”

  The tablet… Joel hadn’t given it a second thought. Max and Bill had it. Would it survive a fire? He somehow thought it would.

  “Yeah.”

  Carla looked at him. She wanted more. Maybe an apology. When one wasn’t forthcoming, she volunteered one anyway. “We’re sorry for what happened. We had no idea Josh was like—”

  An idea snapped in Joel’s head. He was back in the motorhome near the diner. Inside a deranged mind. A broken psyche. Could it have been Josh that killed the old lady?

  He looked at the general. “We had no idea.”

  “You got any other killer hybrids tucked away somewhere I should know about? I don’t need to tell you, if he had decided to go down swinging, he could have caused a shit ton of problems for us.”

  Back at the prison, they had created sixty-six new hybrids. Joel thought they had gotten a handle on their new selves, it never occurred to him that the process would break any of them. Especially not Josh.

  “Stupid,” he said to himself.

  “What?” said the general.

  “We can’t know. I guess we should keep them under guard for a bit. See how they are over the coming days.”

  The general frowned, shaking her head. “As if I haven’t got enough to take care of. Now I got to babysit sixty-something super-powered serial killers?”

  Carla leaned forward. “If you got a large building to house them for a few days. We will look after them. None of your people have to be involved.”

  Joel knew what Carla was worried about. That she, the hybrids, everyone that fought to make it to the camp would get thrown back out into the wilderness. Part of him didn’t care. Part of him did.

  The general sat back. “I was kind of hoping to start putting your people into the field. There’s a mission we’ve been planning for a while which you could be useful for.”

  “Myself and a few others will look after the hybrids. Carla’s people can be free to do your mission.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Evan sat on the church roof, facing the east and the orange burning disc. In his hand was a blood bag. His ‘present’ for the death of his grandfather. He knew he was only given it because they were worried he would flip out and start trying to eat humans. They were probably right.

  Memories of Bill, the man that had helped keep him tethered to himself since the first reports of the Scourge started appearing on the news, kept nudging into his mind, and he kept doing his best to push them away. It was too soon for memories. Before then he needed to be angry, to hate the man that he didn’t have much contact with but presumed was on their side.

  I’m alone.

  That was the first thought that struck him when he saw the blaze from the car, and the selfishness of the thought made him feel sick. The man had just died, and his first inclination was to be scared of being alone.

  A snigger bubbled out of him, which instantly threatened to become a sob, but he swallowed, then brought the bag to his mouth again. As the blood eased into his throat and the feeling of elation filled his every fiber, he focused on the helium crushing star in front of him, and wondered that if he sat there long enough, would the burning heat eventually consume him? Was that the destiny for all vamps, hybrids or otherwise?

  “We will all die by fire, Grandfather,” he whispered to himself.

  A smell drifted on the morning mist towards him. A human was approaching the white wooden structure.

  Food.

  He swung around, ready to jump down and have more of the red stuff when instead he froze. Shannon looked up at him. She was red-faced.

  “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. This camp is bigger than it looks,” she said between breaths.

  He turned back to the sun which was turning every light-colored building a shade of pink.