The host heading for the hosteaders picked up speed.
That was the mont when the others stepped in.
Lightning flashed in the corner of her vision as Lachlan’s hand closed around the wrist of the runner.
Electric charge burst from his skin, searing through infected muscle. The parasite inside the host convulsed and shrank in on itself. Smoke rose from its chest as it cooked from the inside, the cords curling and blackening.
The host dropped limp to the ground.
Another lunged for him.
Luci hit that one first.
The dire wolf slamd into its side, teeth snapping closed on the upper arm. Flesh tore, bone crunched, and Luci shook his head once, hard. The arm of the host ca free in a spray of dark fluid. The parasite threaded through the limb spasd and hung limp from the torn shoulder.
Aerenyx walked toward two that had circled wide. His steps were slow and asured. The air around him tasted sharper, the invisible edge of sothing wrong. The parasites inside those hosts began to convulse before he even reached them.
They staggered.
They tried to take another step.
Lesions opened across their skin. Fluid spilled out. Small, pale offshoots of the main parasite withered and broke away. Whatever the strain was, it could not handle the presence of the creature riding inside him.
They fell before he raised a hand.
Zubair took one that had gone low and fast.
It tried to crawl behind Sera, aiming for her back. Heat flared from him, controlled and direct. The parasite reacted to it in panic, shrinking away from the rising temperature. Its host scread as the infection boiled beneath the skin.
He caught it by the shoulder, turned it, and shoved his hand into its chest.
Fire surged through his fingers. The parasite inside shriveled, cooked in its own fluid. The host dropped without another sound.
Alexei moved through the space between them with quiet precision. Every ti a host tried to break toward the edges, his presence cut off the path. Frost bit into exposed tissue. Parasites that reached for him froze mid-lash. Their barbs turned brittle and snapped when they hit the ground.
Her creature watched all of it through Sera’s eyes and purred. Good. They are doing their work. They are not wasting our ti.
Another host lunged for her, chest bulging with a parasite that had not erged yet. She grabbed it by the throat and the hip, lifted it, and slamd it down hard enough to crack the boards.
The parasite inside broke before it hatched.
Silence settled back over the barn.
The air stank of cooked infection, burned tissue, and ruptured fluid. The hosts lay scattered across the floor, limbs twisted in angles that did not matter anymore. Parasite pieces twitched a little, then stilled.
Sera turned slowly, scanning for any remaining movent.
Her creature tasted the air. No more alive ones. This nest is done. It sounded almost as disappointed as Sera was.
With a long sigh, Sera turned just in ti to see one of the hostead n at the doorway retch into the dirt. Another clutched his rifle with both hands, his knuckles bloodless, as his stare locked on the nearest corpse. The scarred leader looked at her and then at the broken bodies in front of her.
He had stopped breathing evenly. His chest rose and fell in short, shallow pulls.
"Those were my people," he said.
Sera studied the nearest host. The remains of a shirt still clung to its shoulders. A belt held up torn jeans. There was a wedding band on one of its slack hands.
"No," she disagreed with a shake of her head. "They stopped being yours when they died and that moved in."
Her creature agreed. He mourns packaging. He does not understand infestation. Humans have such a limited understanding of the world around them. Like baby calves looking at a tiger thinking they are stronger.
She stepped away from the bodies and walked toward the barn door. Luci fell into step beside her, muzzle stained, eyes bright. Lachlan leaned back against a support post and dragged a sleeve across his forehead.
"This strain is worse than the other zombies?" he asked.
Aerenyx inhaled deeply, then exhaled through his teeth. "It is faster. Stronger. Smarter in so ways and broken in others. It tries to copy voices. It understands territory. It might spread faster if soone let it move."
"Will they?" Zubair asked.
Alexei’s attention went to the hosteaders.
The scarred man’s eyes shifted from corpse to corpse, then back to Sera.
"No," he said. "No one here is going to let that out. Not again."
He looked down at the broken barn floor.
"You killed them quickly," he said. "The CDC created it and then wanted to study it. They took one of ours. Said it could help them make sothing better. This got loose after."
Sera’s creature stirred at that. Of course. They could not leave poison alone. They had to refine it.
She walked past him into the open yard. The sky above was harsh and wide. The heat lay over the land in a dull sheet. Beyond the hostead fence, the fields stretched toward the next broken piece of Region T.
"I was hungry," she grunted, disappointed. "I wanted sothing to eat. But there is no way I’m eating that... not even dipped in chocolate."
Lachlan let out a soft huff that might have been a laugh. "We should put that on a warning sign."
Zubair looked at the horizon. "We should keep moving. This region has more of this sowhere. This did not happen only here."
Alexei nodded once. "And if CDC had sothing to do with it then they are not going to stop any ti soon."
Sera’s creature ward her chest, steady and eager. Good. We will find more. We will break more. We will eat what is worth eating and end the rest. It will be a fun adventure down another rabbit hole.
Sera tilted her face into the faint wind.
"I want to see what they did with the one they took," she said.
The others did not argue.
They returned to the truck, leaving the broken barn and the dead strain behind. The hosteaders watched them go with a mixture of fear and relief that did not belong to Sera and never would.
Sera slid into the passenger seat before the door had fully opened. Luci jumped into the truck bed with a thud that rattled the fra. Lachlan climbed in last, dusting hay from his shirt.
Zubair turned the key.
Alexei watched the hostead recede through the side mirror—broken barn, stunned survivors, the bodies Sera had put down without hesitation.
Aerenyx exhaled slowly. "That was not the only nest."
"No," Sera agreed, settling back into her seat as her creature stretched warm in her chest. "But it was the first thing in a long ti that was fun."
She closed her eyes, expression relaxed, almost peaceful.
"Let’s go find the next one."
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