Title: The Genesis Strain
Author: furygrrl
Archive: Just ask first
Rating: R - for language, violence, and gore
Disclaimer: Not mine

A/N - I'm fairly certain that Lance wasn't born/raised in Deerfield, but Evo stuck him there (or Northbrook, as they'd named it) for simplicity's sake, and I have chosen to do the same. He therefore regards it as his 'hometown' for the purposes of this fic.

A. Ceretta - you are too kind! Thanks for the lovely compliment! :D


Chapter Five: Survival Is The Only Plan

The Brotherhood of Bayville Boarding House
Westchester County, New York
June 27th 8:42 a.m.

Lance was unable to sleep.

Awake since the first few streamers of sunlight had crept like thieves through the holes in the battered shade covering his window, he'd simply lain in the tangled mess of his sheets, gazing up at the peeling paint of his ceiling blankly.

Bet Kitty's already in Deerfield by now...

The sudden thought of his ex-girlfriend - and his ex-home town - took him unawares. He glanced at the second-hand clock perched on his windowsill, noting the time with a wry smile.

She's probably still sleeping, though...the mall there doesn't open for at least another hour...

Slowly, the smile faded, and Lance eventually sat up, swinging his feet to the floor and raking a hand through his unruly hair.

"Not gonna think about the past today," he muttered to himself, vaguely irritated as he stood and stretched. "That crappy town, that hellhole of a foster home, me and Kitty..." he shook his head. "They're all ancient history."

He pulled on his favourite jeans, threadbare and comfortable, and topped them with a faded gray T-shirt. His customary denim vest - originally a jacket that had, at some point, lost its sleeves - he left hanging on the back of his closet door. If the warm breeze drifting through his slightly open window was any indication, then the day was going to be plenty hot enough without him adding extra layers.

Socks were donned, the boots he'd left at the end of his bed were laced up - a ritual ingrained after too many barefooted encounters with Todd's slime puddles - and black, finger-less gloves were secured around each wrist before Lance was ready to leave his room.

He headed into the communal bathroom to complete his morning ablutions, and for the first time, noted just how quiet the rest of the house was.

Everyone must still be sleeping... he decided with a shrug, beginning to brush his teeth.

When he made his way down the stairs a few minutes later, though, the distinct sounds of the television could be heard, making him annoyed all over again.

"How many times do I have to tell those morons that leaving the t.v. on all night wastes money?" he grumbled, brought up short when a glance into the living room revealed all four teammates - awake, and glued to the glowing screen.

Smelling brewed coffee, and realizing that whatever his friends were watching was apparently more interesting than his arrival, Lance continued on into the kitchen. As he searched for a clean mug, panicked voices, police sirens, and screams drifted out of the otherwise silent living room.

"What kind of garbage are they watching now?" he muttered, sniffing the carton of cream warily before splashing some into his cup.

He strolled back towards his friends as he sipped his liquid breakfast, catching glimpses of the images on the screen as he approached. What he saw made him snort in amusement.

"Real nice guys," he drawled, shaking his head reprovingly when four startled faces finally turned to look at him. "Horror movies first thing in the morning? What's the matter, cartoon violence not doing it for you anymore?"

Fred, Todd, Pietro, Wanda...they all stared at him, silent and tense, before opening their mouths and talking all at once.

"Geeze, man, you scared us! What the hell -"

"It's everywhere, yo! We're all gonna -"

"Where have you been? Don't you know what's -"

Lance could only hear snippets from each in the resulting babble - with the usual exception of Pietro's furiously flying words, too fast for normal ears to comprehend - and he raised his hands for order.

"Whoa! Hold on a sec!" He hollered above the din. "Now," he went on when the noise had receded, "one at a time. What's going on?"

Pietro took a deep breath, about to launch himself into another speedy explanation, only to have his sister beat him to the punch. He scowled at her, but it went ignored.

"Someone left the stupid t.v. on all night - again. It woke me up - again. So I came downstairs to turn it off - again!" The accusing glare that Wanda shot at both Todd and Fred changed into something unreadable when she turned back to Lance. "And that's when I saw this."

She raised the remote and used it to crank the volume, leaning away from the set so Lance's view of the screen - currently running a news broadcast - was unimpeded.

"...to remain calm. Military personnel have been dispatched to bolster police presence in areas that have been hardest hit by the unexplained attacks, and will be assisting residents as the mandatory evacuation order goes into effect across the nation."

The graying anchorman's voice continued even as the camera's view went from studio to live coverage.

Lance felt his mouth open in silent shock.

"Once again, a state of emergency has been declared, as horrific violence rips through cities across the country, and around the world. The government, now acting under the direction of FEMA - the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has halted all means of international transport, sealing off borders into Canada and Mexico, and shutting down shipping harbors and airports. The decision came too late for at least two commercial flights out of Los Angeles, which, according to the FAA, crashed just minutes after take-off. There is no word yet on how many aboard were killed."

Aerial views of several different major metropolises were being relayed from helicopters, each one flashing in rapid succession across the screen, all showing the same earmarks of an ongoing crisis.

"No official statement has been made as to the cause of the widespread chaos as of yet, but eyewitness accounts have led many to speculate that a possible viral outbreak is responsible. The governing committees of both the Center for Disease Control and FEMA have discounted the reports as unsubstantiated."

The cameras continued to roll, showing countless fires filling countless skies with clouds of oily, black smoke, police and army barricades that bristled with uniformed men sporting heavy assault weaponry, and masses of panicked people surging through streets like tidal waves of humanity.

Lance took it all in, stunned by the turmoil that had unfurled while he'd slept unawares, and now, gripped the populace. He sank to his knees next to his friends, and did the only thing that he could: continued to watch.

"Residents of large urban centers are asked to proceed to the nearest government-sanctioned shelter in their area, and to avoid all contact with anyone behaving in a suspicious, or erratic manner. People residing in outlying communities are advised to remain indoors, ensuring that all doors and windows are locked, and to stay tuned to their local news provider for further instructions should they become available. The public is asked to remain calm. Military personnel have been..."

The images of bloodied, screaming people disappeared, and the anchorman's ashen face returned, this time to a halved screen, as one side began rolling names and locations of the aforementioned shelters. When he started to repeat the same accounting of events for the second time, Lance snatched the remote from Wanda's limp grasp, and pressed the 'mute' button, his action greeted by a chorus of protests.

"I don't want to hear anymore," Lance told them vehemently, setting down his coffee to scrub an agitated hand across his face.

"What do you think we should do?" Wanda asked quietly.

"I'll tell you what I think we should do," Todd interjected before Lance could answer, a wild gleam in his wide, golden eyes. "I think we should get the hell outta here while we still can."

"Me too," Fred seconded, the untouched sandwich on his lap a testament to the large boy's fear.

Lance looked to Wanda for her contribution, but she merely shook her head, sighing out her uncertainty.

Pietro made a sound of angry disbelief. "Weren't any of you listening to what that guy said?" he demanded, flinging his arm in the direction of the television. "Planes are falling out of the sky! The army's been let loose! People are rioting and dying and - and - maybe even infected with something! It's dangerous out there, and not just for us mutants anymore!"

As Todd and Fred both started to open their mouths to argue, Lance put his hands up again to forestall them. "Pietro's right," he told them firmly. "We can't afford to run blind, there's no telling what we'll be up against if we do. We need a plan."

Lance rose to his feet and winced, feeling the uncomfortable prickle of pins and needles run through his legs, incurred by his awkward kneeling position. He moved towards the front window in an effort to walk the sensation away, glancing at Pietro over his shoulder as he did. "Can you contact Mag - I mean, your father?" he queried, stumbling over the always strange, familial title. "He might know what's going on, or at least point us towards a secure location where we can hide out for a few days."

"I already tried, before you came down," Pietro huffed, giving his sister a wary, sidelong look. "I used the number he left in case of an emergency - and if this isn't one, I don't know what is - but it wouldn't go through. It didn't ring, it didn't disconnect...it just dialed into dead air."

"Typical," Wanda snorted, staring once again at the silent television.

Todd and Fred exchanged frightened looks before the former put forth a tentative "Now what?"

Lance sighed and slumped against the wall, hands in his pockets, mind churning, trying to figure out just that. He stared at the people who had, in the few years since his arrival in Bayville, become the closest thing to a family he'd known, and somehow, without intention, his responsibilities. It was in remembering those two crucial facts that made his decision.

"Alright," he announced, his dark eyes suddenly hard and serious. "This is what we're gonna do. First, we need to -"

A shrill scream sounded from outside, cutting him off and making everyone jump.

"W-what the hell was that, yo?" Todd stammered, backing further into the room and away from the window, even as Lance hurried to peer out it.

"I don't see anyone..." Lance murmured at first, until his visual search caught a flash of movement further down the underdeveloped block. He squinted at its source, then felt his lips twist with rancor. "It's her again."

"Who?" Fred asked around a mouthful of remembered sandwich.

"That blonde woman a couple of houses down," Lance replied, holding back the tattered curtain with one hand for a clearer view.

"The one with all the tattoos?" Fred asked.

"One for every boyfriend in prison..." Pietro muttered under his breath.

"The one that sunbathes topless in her front yard?" Todd snickered.

"No matter how many times we ask her not to..." Pietro added.

"The one that's been trying to get my worthless brother into bed since she moved in?" Wanda chimed, leveling a sweetly malevolent smile at her twin.

Everyone started laughing at Pietro's sputtering protests except for Lance, who was striding purposefully to the front door. "Yeah, her," the rock tumbler snapped, hand on the knob as he glared at his friends. "She's also the one who seems to like violent guys - or black eyes, I haven't figured out which, yet."

"Hey!" Todd called out, hopping after his retreating form. "You're supposed to stay inside!"

"I will," Lance hollered back, marching down the street. "After I take care of that piece of garbage beating on her!"

Fred and Wanda crowded behind Todd, now crouching in the doorway, and the three of them watched as Lance closed in on what appeared to be some kind of domestic dispute, though the scraggly shrubbery bordering Blondie's lawn made it difficult to tell.

"Shouldn't one of you go help him?" Wanda finally asked.

"Who? Lance?" Fred scoffed, already heading back into the living room. "The only one who's gonna need help is that other guy. Lance don't like seein' women get smacked around."

"And besides," Todd continued, his arm snaking around Wanda's waist. "If we left, you'd be unprotected, sweetums. I wouldn't want to risk that."

The unwanted endearment, the repulsive touch; both were usually dealt with swiftly - and accompanied by a hex bolt - but, at that moment, recalling their potentially perilous situation, Wanda didn't have the heart for either. Instead, she favoured the smitten boy with a weak smile, and a simple, almost sincere "Thanks, Todd," before pulling away.

Todd stared after her, eyes wide and rapturous, until her odd behaviour finally registered. "Oh man," he groaned, face crumpling dejectedly. "She didn't hex me, didn't insult me..." He shut the door and hopped back into the house.

"It must be the end of the world, yo."


As Lance approached the blonde woman's house, a slow-burning rage began to infuse him.

The urge to help her didn't stem from any affection for the woman herself, but rather from the memories her numerous split lips, black eyes, and neck braces never failed to evoke whenever he chanced to see them.

Painful memories from another lifetime, ones he wished he could forget.

Another scream, pitiful and faint, drifted from the woman's open garage just as Lance leapt over the low bushes that lined her driveway. He angled his course and strode towards the sound, his rage flaring brightly when he saw bare and blood-streaked female legs kicking out violently from beneath a much larger male aggressor.

"Son of a bitch," Lance growled, about to rush headlong into the dim confines of the garage, when a hand clamped down on his shoulder.

"Careful," Pietro's unexpected voice cautioned behind him.

Startled, Lance turned and met his friend's eyes, unnerved by the warily suspicious light emanating from them, and shrugged off the paler boy's grip. "What? You think I can't take him?"

"It's not that," Pietro said uneasily, following as Lance started towards the grappling couple again. "But with all the stuff in the news...better safe than sorry."

Lance gave the advice a terse nod of agreement, and took up a rusted shovel that had been propped near the garage's entrance. Wrapping his hands around the splintery handle and hefting it like a baseball bat, he stepped in behind Blondie's attacker. "Get the hell off of her!" he yelled, as Pietro added a loud "We've called the cops and they're on their way!"

Strangely, as if the words had summoned them, the distant whine of sirens could be heard by both boys, though neither the threat of police, or Lance's shouted command, seemed to have much effect on the man currently brutalizing their neighbour. He simply continued to hold down the no longer thrashing woman, oddly feral grunts and hisses sounding from the head bent over his victim, his actions concealed by shadow.

What the murk failed to hide, however, were several thin rivulets of dark red liquid that had started to run from the woman's torso and across the concrete flooring.

Seeing them, Pietro inhaled sharply and took an involuntary step backwards.

Lance saw the blood too, but it infuriated, rather than frightened him. "You asked for it, asshole," he spat through clenched teeth, bringing his impromptu weapon down on the man's head without warning.

Expecting his adversary to be at least stunned by the blow, Lance was surprised to see the man leap to his feet with inhuman speed, his body twisting around cat-like, a chilling, high pitched wail reverberating from his lungs as he moved into the light.

The two boys pulled back into defensive positions at the prospect of a fight, Lance beginning to raise the shovel threateningly above his shoulder, ready for another round...only to very nearly drop it when his body went numb with instant fear.

The thing approaching was like no man he'd ever seen before.

A contorted, blood-slicked face, a snapping mouth, a pair of near-white eyes that stared out at the world without a trace of humanity, all set within a shaved head that sat atop six-plus feet of rippling muscle.

Lance barely managed a choked "Oh my god..." before the man charged at him full tilt, teeth bared, arms outstretched, deafening shrieks pouring from his mouth.

There was no time for debate, no opportunity for rational thought; Lance simply swung the shovel with every fiber of his being, dimly aware of Pietro sidestepping the onrushing creature and scrambling towards the fallen woman.

The shovel made a satisfying cracking sound when it connected with the man's head, the force behind it staggering him to his knees, but failing to drop him as Lance had hoped. The thing climbed to its feet again, half his face and skull sunken in grotesquely from the crushing blow, and lurched towards the boy, seemingly unfazed by its mashed countenance.

Lance, heart thudding wildly against his ribcage, threw restraint into the wind, and struck the creature another glancing blow across the face, knocking it to the ground. From there, he proceeded to batter the thing's head into the pavement, smashing it over and over and over again, sending drops of blood flying along the driveway and spraying against his shirt, halting only when a particularly vicious swing cracked the shovel handle in half.

He stared at the broken shaft in dazed confusion, until a pale hand plucked it from his nerveless fingers and cast it atop the man's twitching body.

"I think he's done," Pietro's soft voice told him, calling him back to himself.

Breathing heavily, as if he'd just run for miles, Lance flexed his cramped, blood-spattered hands, and stared, sick with disbelief, at the fruits of his labours.

Pietro's assessment proved the understatement of the year; the man's head was now an unrecognizable mass of shattered bone, wetly gleaming cartilage, and pulpy tissues. The mouth that had howled for blood was now full of its own, and not much else. Bits of shattered teeth littered the dark asphalt, lying in pools of syrupy fluid that still trickled from a busted skull, which, oddly enough, reminded Lance of the pumpkins he and his friends had dropped from the roof of the boarding house one Halloween.

Those swollen orange globes, carved into an effigy of a man's face, had exploded when treated to blunt force, too. Only they'd spewed seeds and thread-like guts across the road, not gelatinous hunks of gray matter.

Sirens could be heard once again, crying off in the distance, the eerie echo of a frantically tolling church bell joining them.

"I think we should get out of here," Pietro murmured, pulling at Lance's sleeve.

"What about...?" Lance started to ask, looking over to where the blonde woman lay.

Pietro shook his head. "I tried to stop the bleeding, but she'd been ripped up pretty bad." He shrugged, a helpless gesture. "There was nothing I could do."

Lance exhaled his defeat slowly, then felt his eyes go wide. "If she's dead," he whispered, clutching at Pietro's shirt as he continued to stare into the garage, "then why is she getting up?"

"What?" Pietro demanded, pivoting around just in time to see Blondie straighten to her full height. "No way, no way! She was dead - I saw her die! She was DEAD!" he insisted shrilly.

Held in thrall by the shockingly disturbing sight, the boys watched as the woman shambled towards them, her long blonde hair now matted and discoloured with gore, her head flopping almost comically on what remained of her ruined neck. She'd only been wearing a pair of shorts and a bra when she'd been attacked, and her unclothed flesh revealed dozens of circular red marks, raw gouges where it looked as if whole mouthfuls of meat had been chewed from her still-living body.

Upon noticing her audience, she tried to cry out, but her obscenely exposed windpipe refused to accommodate, instead releasing a plaintive whine that set the tattered strips of neck flesh fluttering. Her uncertain steps immediately took on new purpose, and hunger flared in her milky eyes as she moved in for the kill.

"Shovel - shovel - shovel!" Pietro suddenly cried, pushing his teammate towards the broken weapon.

Lance shot him an incredulous look. "Screw that!" he objected wildly, even as his hands clenched into tight fists and his eyes rolled back in his head.

The earth started rumbling violently beneath their feet, making the entire garage shudder alarmingly on its foundations, and effectively unbalancing Blondie. She listed backwards, just as a rapidly growing sinkhole formed directly behind her. Within seconds, the slight depression was a gaping black maw, a chasm that began swallowing everything in the vicinity - the dead woman included.

When she'd completely slipped from view, Lance made a pushing motion with his hands, and called on the earth to shift back into place. It did, burying the creature - and half of the garage - absolutely.

Gasping for air, Lance slumped into a crouch and propped both hands on his bent knees, shivering with exertion. "What...the hell...is going...on?" he managed between breaths.

"I think...whatever's happening in the cities is beginning to spread," Pietro finally replied in a grim tone, eyeing the newly created mound of dirt like he expected Blondie to claw her way out of it any minute. He turned to Lance, offering him a hand up. "If we're getting out of Bayville, we'd better get moving."

Lance stood on his own, nodding at Pietro as the two made their way back to the boarding house. "Oh, we're getting out of here all right, but there are still a few things we need to figure..." His voice trailed off mid-sentence, and he stopped in his tracks, his head cocked to one side, listening.

"What -" Pietro tried to speak, but Lance shushed him with a curt gesture.

"Listen," the darker boy hissed insistently.

The sirens were still keening, though there were decidedly more of them now.

The panicked church bell had gone ominously silent, and had since been replaced by a series of popping noises - like backfiring cars would make. But the sharp staccato bursts were far too many, far too rapid in succession, to be anything but gunfire.

And then the sound that had originally caught his attention drifted to Lance's ears again, filling his stomach with ice.

Screams...terrified screams echoing from somewhere nearby.

He and Pietro turned to look down the street at the same time, just as three police cars recklessly sped through the distant intersection at its end. A few seconds later, a knot of wailing, stumbling, shrieking people followed in their wake, running en masse as if their lives depended on it.

And a mere heartbeat later, the boys saw why.

Things that appeared human, but sounded more like howling lunatics, were hot in pursuit.

As the two youths looked on, a woman at the rear of the fleeing group tripped, fell, and was swarmed before she'd even risen to her knees.

"Get the others," Lance instructed Pietro through stiff lips, backing his way over to the jeep without taking his eyes off the feeding creatures only a block away.

The three missing teammates were quickly hustled from dwelling to car with a minimum of fuss, though the expressions on their faces, ranging from worry to outright alarm, spoke of their fear.

"What's going on, yo?" Todd asked as the jeep's engine was revved to life.

"We're leaving," Lance informed him tightly.

"But what about the plan?"

Lance couldn't answer the smaller boy's question right away, as the jeep swerving from driveway to street immediately attracted the attention of the nearby feasters, and first one, then two, gore-reddened faces whipped up from their meal of fresh corpse. Seeing new prey, the pair sprang to their feet, leaving their equally bloody comrades to their kill, bellowing and hooting with maniacal glee as they raced towards the teens.

With trembling fingers, Lance put the jeep into gear, speeding off in the opposite direction so quickly that the tires squealed in protest, leaving the creatures with only his dust to eat.

As the immediate danger receded, he chanced a look back at the silently stunned trio seated behind him.

Fred's eyes were as round as teacups, and his girth jiggled with the force of the frightened tremors assailing him.

Wanda seemed calm at first glance, but her skin, drained of colour, and the deep blue eyes that mirrored her twin's, now hollow and dazed, belied her rigid composure.

Todd appeared the most shaken by the urgency of their departure and the things that had come running for them. He'd burrowed into Fred, his blank face tearful.

"It's going to be okay, Toddy," Lance reassured the youngest member of the group as he turned towards the road again, scanning the upcoming avenue for signs of movement.

"Not without a plan," Todd whispered mournfully.

"We've got one," Lance replied, his jaw clenching. "And that's staying alive."