PART 3

He awoke slowly, looking around, unable to recognize his surroundings. He looked down at his hands. He looked fine. Except that under his nails was blood. He squinted at it. It was human blood, crusted under his nails. He looked around, beginning to become more attuned to reality. He was in the vault. Everything was chaotic. Things were knocked over and ripped apart. He went over to the door and pushed. Locked.

"Hey!" he called out. His voice was raspy and rugged, as if he hadn't talked for days. "Let me out! Guys? Are you there?"

"Nice try," he heard Ike's voice reply from the other side. "You're not tricking us again. You're staying in there until the gas kicks in."

"Gas...?" Matt mumbled, looking around. There were several ventilation shafts that were seeping with a greenish gas. "Ike, this better not be Smoker gas! Let me out! Please!"

"What did you call me?"

"Ike. That's your name. Ike, please."

"Guys! He recognized my name! What do I do?"

"He what?!" He heard a commotion outside the door.

"Yeah, he called me Ike."

"Well turn off the gas and open the god damned doors, that's what you do!" he heard Eve yell. The locks clunked out of place as the door opened slowly. Eve ran in, hugging Matt.

"I'm so glad you're okay!" she said.

"What happened?" Matt asked, his voice still raspy. "Can I have some water?"

"Yes," the woman said. She had a scratch mark down her right side. She saw Matt looking. "It was... an unfortunate accident. We'll tell you all about it in a bit. I have to admit, Matthew. You're a different kind of person." Matt looked at her oddly, wondering what she meant, and how she knew his name was Matthew.

"Matt, here, drink," Eve said, holding the glass to his lips. He took it and downed it in several gulps.

"Any more?" he asked. Eve scurried off for more water. Matt looked over at the woman. "I think now's as good a time as any for you to tell me what the fuck is going on." He saw her pull out a clipboard and write something down. Her lips spelled out, "Increased aggregation". "Damned right I'm aggressive. I have no recollection of how long I've been out, I wake up with blood under my nails, and I'm treated like some sort of lunatic, now I want answers, and I want them NOW."

"Calm down, Matthew. That's the only way we're all going to get through this."

"And how do you know my name?" She stopped. "Well?"

"It turns out you were part of a secret government operation. I found your record. That's not the problem right now. The anti-virus."

"That's what did this to me," he spat. "Your damned meds. Ryan was right."

"Not necessarily. I'll explain the majority later, but your bloodstream was already altered to almost... almost instinctively hold a failsafe for both the anti-virus and the actual virus." Eve came back with another glass of water which Matt drank easily, intent on listening to this woman. "As soon as we let the anti-virus into your body, you reacted with a peculiar reaction. Your body was instinctively performing the 'Fight or Flight' reaction, and you were fighting. Your bloodstream was sending your mind and heart into a state of shock. It appears you have extremely minor traces of the virus in your blood. When a foreign strain of the virus, or the anti-virus, enter your body, the separate strain in your blood reacts, making you have the appearance of an overly aggressive Hunter-type infected."

"I... I was a Hunter?" Matt asked, shocked.

"In a sense, yes. You were. But we brought you out of it as soon as we could. Not soon enough, however." She nursed her wound gently.

"I'm sorry," he replied gruffly, staring away from her.

"It's fine. I just need to record your reactions to know how this odd strain reacts with the human body. We successfully transplanted the anti-virus in your body, however." He looked up at her.

"And my strain of the virus?"

"Well..."

"It's still IN me?!"

"Yes. It's okay, it's tampered. It will only react in severe emergencies. If you are faced with a horrible disaster or a horrifying event, such as someone dying, or faced with something along the lines of several Tank-type infected, you will react as the Hunter that has been implanted within you. It will attack your enemies, and hopefully preserve your friends."

"Hopefully?" Matt demanded.

"It's a temporary solution until we can retrieve the strain for study and reproduction."

"For the love of god, do not tell me you're going to be duplicating that horrible gene."

"We will, for the good of survival and mankind. It's like a steroid. If used, it will increase the strength and integrity of a person 250%. It's a breakthrough. But how you've harbored it, I cannot hope to imagine."

"Well keep me out of it," Matt said, getting up. "I want it out of my system as soon as possible."

"We will try, Matthew. Go meet up with your friends. They are living in a nearby residence. By the way, my name is Dr. Langlan."

"Whatever," Matt said, his rage beginning to get the best of his temper again. He stormed out, followed closely by Eve.

"I can show you were it is," she replied. He nodded, following her. She led him into a nearby apartment. He stepped through the door and counted heads.

"We're short," Matt said immediately. There was a pause and a solemn silence. "Ryan."

"The anti-virus reacted violently with his bloodstream," Ike replied softly.

"I see," Matt replied softly. "Did they dispose of him properly?"

"Yes," Ike said. "We asked for a funeral procession, but they wouldn't allow it."

"Maybe a few minutes of silence," Matt replied, closing his eyes. He sat for about three minutes, then opened his eyes again. "I think I want to leave this place."

"What?" Eve asked. "It's perfect here. The robots defend us from any attacking infected, they've swept the city, it's clean here."

"But is the sewers? Is every apartment building secure? How about the forests, town parks, closets?"

"You're overreacting," Eve said. "Langlan was talking on the radio of the vault from the outside to the other vaults. We figured out that several other survivor groups found a bunch of the other vaults. They're all opened. It's like earth is rebuilding itself slowly. The humans are climbing from the ashes to reclaim it."

"Doesn't that mean we're just as bad as them?" Matt asked. They stopped. He was right. The scenario was just like the first scenes of the outbreak. The dead were just beginning to rise from morgues and wherever they had fallen to attack. "How do we know we aren't the scourge and that they weren't here first?"

"This isn't a time to think about that," Ike said. "I think we should search the city for a bit, maybe we'll find something the robots missed. We were provided with ammunition and weapons from Dr. L and the vault workers." He tossed Matt his rifle, fully equipped with a new laser-pointer and large clip. "Suit up."

"Move forward," Matt said. They advanced into the house, checking each floor systematically. "Clear." They went outside and painted a large blue X on the door. They'd done that with about 40 houses already. Several times they encountered a few enemies, so they had to paint a green X.

"Next house," Matt said exhaustedly. They advanced into the house and checked the top floor, middle floor, then the bottom floor. "Hey, check this out." Ike and Eve came in and looked at what he was staring at. It was a door, like the vaults, but they saw light at certain parts around the edge. They pulled it open revealing a lit passageway deep underground. He looked at them, they shrugged, then advanced down the tunnel.

They came out in a large storage-like room. There was a door labeled, "SEWERS", another door labeled "VAULT", and their door labeled "UPPER FLOORS". Matt moved forward, and tried the door to the sewers. It swung open, revealing a congregation of pipes and a ladder that led to upper scaffolding. He navigated carefully across the narrow piping to the ladder which he climbed up, followed by the others. They reached the platform above and looked around. The lighting was bad, so they had to use their flashlights. Eve now had one, seeing as Ike took Ean's rifle from Ryan after he died.

The scanned the darkness quietly, looking around for anything of use. Matt made a sound as his flashlight ran over a person-like figure. He did a double take, looking for the person that had been standing there, silhouetted in the beam of light, but found nothing.

"Did anyone but me see that?" he asked quietly.

"See what?" Ike asked. Suddenly, there was a crash. They all looked toward the spot where the noise had come from. The catwalk was beginning to collapse.

"Move!" Matt commanded. The three ran for the ladder and slid down, tight-rope walking across the pipes to the other side, near the storage room, watching as the scaffolding and some of the pipes collapsed.

"What was that?" Eve asked.

"I don't know," Matt replied. "...but right before it happened I saw a person."

"A person? What'd they look like?" Ike asked.

"It was an older person. A man. He was wearing some kind of black business suit. His hair was brown, but graying. You could tell he was old, probably the leader of some huge company. I don't know. I'm not even sure I saw him. It was one split second before it was gone again."

"That's creepy," Eve said. "Let's head back." Matt nodded.

They walked into the vault.

"I seriously think we should leave," Matt said. "Remember the goal? Canada?"

"Yeah, I know," Ike replied. "But I think it's safe here."

"If Canada's been compromised we can fall back here. Okay?"

"We'll think on it. It has to be a majority decision. We're a team." Matt nodded. He knew Ike was right.

"Welcome back," Dr. Langlan greeted. "I'm glad you're all alive. Any luck finding the infected?"

"No, but we did find-" Eve started before Matt bumped her.

"What was that?" Langlan asked, occupied with her goings on around the vault.

"We found a few supplies which we gave to the others." Langlan paused for a moment, and Matt thought for a moment that she saw through his lie, but she nodded and continued. She set a picture up on the wall and brushed it slowly. It caught Matt's eye for some reason. He looked closer and stifled a short gasp.

"What?" Eve asked, following his gaze. "Hey, that looks like..."

"It is," Matt replied quietly. "He's the one I saw." He turned to Langlan. "Hey, who's the guy in the picture?"

"His name is Brian Melson, the founder and director of this project," she replied, gesturing to the vault. "Why do you ask?"

"No reason," Matt replied.

"I almost forgot," Langlan commented, picking up a folder on the table. "Our reconnaissance teams brought back something a bit... discouraging." She handed them the folder and they opened it. There was text on the page, but Langlan was narrating it almost word for word. "They found a new breed of infected. Apparently, some peculiar cult had started seeing their friends die of a mysterious virus and, due to some twisted tradition, they severed one finger from each hand of the body then stitched up every wound and cut on their body, then stitched up their mouths. As you can see in the picture, the products are quite hideous." She was right. The creature they stared at vaguely looked human, but more beast than the former. "When infected, this tradition seemed to have some sort of odd affect on the corpse. It caused its feet to become spikes rather than having toes and replaced their arms with a horrific blade-type weapon.

"Now, when our teams approached this creature, it was alone, walking slowly through the streets. One of our members fired his rifle at the creature, and it attacked. They were able to kill it, but suddenly, as if out of nowhere, the things began dropping from the windows and rooftops of the surrounding buildings. One of our ten man crew survived, bringing back images and terrible stories. He also claims that as he was running away, he saw the creatures beginning to sew up on of the members of the crew, turning him into a creature just like them."

"That's really, really creepy," Ike replied, looking through the report.

"Indeed. Our robots are now trained to attack these peculiar 'Stitchies' on sight."

"Stitchies?" Matt queried, looking through the report.

"It's what our member called the thing he fought. However, the Stitchies, unlike other infected, are able to almost... almost think." The three's heads immediately snapped up.

"They can what?" Matt whispered.

"They think. After seeing a robot kill one of their members, they destroyed the robot. Suddenly, around the city, several other Stitchies were seen destroying the sentry robots. It's a hive consciousness thinking, but fortunately for us, it's drawn them out of hiding."

"And the thing didn't attack until we fired at it?" Matt asked.

"Yes, but it was infected-"

"So if your teams hadn't attacked it, we may have had a temporary peace with these things?"

"You aren't understanding correctly-"

"They think, Langlan. They understand things. They can process general thought. And they travel in packs. Do you really want to fuck with them? I think that if we can somehow make peace with these Stitchies, we'll find an amazing new ally, the likes of which we haven't seen in this post-apocalyptic age."

"Out of the question. They are infected, and one wrong move would have them attacking us," she insisted.

"Not me," Matt replied. "They mustn't go on appearance, or they would've killed each other. Perhaps it's smell. And I have their genetics. I may be our only tether to these creatures. If I can make peace with them, will you allow us to exploit them in finding and killing the other infected?" Langlan frowned thoughtfully, taking the report back as Ike handed it to her.

"I will think on it. I think you three should get some rest for now. We've upped the patrol around the living quarters section of the town. The Stitchies wont get within 50 feet of the compound without the alarm sounding." Matt nodded.

"I am a bit tired."

"Then please rest. You've finished a hard day of work. You've cleaned out so many houses already. You should find food in your quarters and you'll be protected by the guards."

"I wanted to sleep in one of the quarantined houses for today," he replied.

"Oh?"

"I could move our food and stuff into there. It's nice a sturdy, a few guards can be posted outside. We can hold our own if the Stitchies come for us."

"Alright." She signed a piece of paper. "Give this to a guard. He and a few others will escort you to your living quarters, where you see fit." Matt nodded.

"Thank you." Matt and the others walked outside, went to their building, packed their stuff and gave the notice to a guard.

"You aren't thinking of what we think you're thinking, are you?" Ike asked.

"I think I am," Matt replied.

"You can't just leave the compound without permission," he whispered so as not to tell the guards who were following them.

"I can and I plan on it. It's my life. Don't tell me what I can and can't do."

"This is society now. You have to follow rules. They're made for the well-being of the entire group, not just you, Matt." Matt turned to him.

"And there are always people who break rules. If I get in trouble, I deserve it. But that doesn't mean I won't try." He turned back to the road and walked in silence for a while.

They finally made it to the building.

"Thank you," Matt said to the guards, entering the house with Ike and Eve.

"So you're just going to leave?" Eve asked.

"You two go to bed. I'll be downstairs," Matt said, ignoring her question. Ike walked upstairs in silence.

"Okay..." Eve said. "Don't hurt yourself, Matt." He looked her up and down. She sincerely wished that he'd be okay. He hugged her for a moment.

"I won't." She nodded. He went into the basement, opening the vault door again and heading into the pumping room. He knew where they'd be. After all, he had the mind of the infected.