There was a trail of blood on the floor, leading off through the double doors into some sort of hallway. When Danny stopped beside me, I gestured for him to follow the trail and with a nod he reached for the handle to pull open the doors.

Connor stretched out his fist and bumped it against mine before he split off to go through into the corridor with Danny.

I continued on towards the severed limb. On first inspection I could tell that there was something strange about the appendage. I crouched beside it to get a closer look and tilted my head as I followed a line of mottled black splodges all the way up from a cut on the top of the hand to where it had been severed, just below the elbow.

It looked like some sort of reaction or rash that had spread not only across the flesh but coagulated the tissue, the brachioradialis and adjoining tendons around the radius and the ulna.

The smell was the best indication of some sort of venom or poison.

'Matt?' I started questioningly, 'any activity with the anomaly?'

'Negative.'

'Okay. I've got a detached limb, adult human, looks to be male. Any chance you could point us towards the rest of him.'

I heard the keyboard clicking again. 'Yeah, one second, let me– wait, no, no, no!'

The lights overhead cut out so abruptly it brought my head right up to it. 'What was that?'

The noise of the doors rattling echoed over from Connor and Danny's position. 'Anna, someone's locked the doors,' Connor's voice sounded over my comm.

'Hey, no, come on!' Matt added with increasing levels of frustration. 'I'm completely locked out the system.'

'Something must have triggered the security lock,' Connor replied. 'We're cut off.'

I turned my attention from the shadowy figures I could just about make out through the glass panels of the doors. 'Who's got the locking device?'

'I do,' Becker returned, as he pointed to his backpack explanatorily.

'Matt? Could the anomaly be interfering with the looks?' Connor asked.

'Looks like the system crashed. All the doors that were shut have locked you won't be able to get to the anomaly. There seems to be some interference with the TV. I'm going blind here guys.'

'Con, listen, we're gonna head there, lock it up.' Becker nodded in agreement.

'A, I'm pretty sure I can reboot the system manually, where's the server?'

'First floor admin office, you have a clear path.'

'You do that,' I agreed, 'watch out, we don't know where the rest of the body is; whatever did this to him might still be with it– we're gonna try and find it– but be really careful. I'm pretty sure its venomous.'

'Okay.'

'Is that why is it purple?' Becker asked as he nodded down at the limb.

'Yeah; Venom is made up of proteins, it works by separating the blood, coagulating red blood cells which break through smaller veins and capillaries under the skin,– it's like bruising except every vein is bursting in cumulation as the venom travel through the body. It must be excruciating.'

'And how does the venom get into the body?'

I cocked my head. There was a wound on the back of the hand. 'Looks like it could be a bite,' I said. 'It probably has a venom gland in the maxillary fossae.' And I saw Beckers brow furrow. 'A tooth with a maxillary canal, the venom is stored in the pterygopalatine fossa between the oral and nasal cavities, and it's injected when it bites. You guys need to shoot this thing before it gets anywhere near you, alright? Be careful.'

'Copy that, Ace. You too.'

Becker insisted on going round all the corners first because he had the gun, and in this time I wasn't going to argue with him. We hadn't gone far before we were forced to stop again.

'Matt, we've got another blood trail,' Becker relayed through the radio.

'Another casualty?'

'There's no evidence to suggest it couldn't be the same one,' I noted, as if that was some sort of consolation.

'Seems to be heading back towards the cafeteria,' Becker added.

'We're gonna keep following it. Keep monitoring whatever you can from the camera feeds.'

'Okay.' There was an extended silence, where I could just about make out the sound of Matt's keyboard tapping and the mouse clicking over Beckers footsteps.

It couldn't be far; it seemed unlikely that the creature would have had time to attack the victim and drag it all the way here before we'd reached the school, however we didn't appear to be getting any closer.

Just as I was starting to think we might be following the trail in the wrong direction, Matt's voice echoed back through the comms. 'I saw it.' and immediately I stopped. 'The creature.'

'Where?' I responded.

'It's in the corridor, on the second floor.'

I glanced around looking for some sort of indication of the level we were on. I couldn't remember how far we'd come up.

'Anna, there's two kids. They're heading straight for the creature.'

'Find me a route,' I said, as I turned back towards the last stairwell we'd passed. First floor, pretty sure. We hadn't come up further than that yet. I started to run.

'Go, fast.'

'Yep,' I echoed in agreement. 'Which way?' I was already on the staircase, jumping up two maybe three steps at a time. I could hear Becker following after me.

'Right, at the top of the staircase.'

I leapt off the top of the stairwell and immediately turned per his instruction. 'Now?'

'Keep going, keep going. Second corridor on the left, then first right.' I counted one, two, then turned to the music of the keyboard click again. Right– here. 'You're nearly there,' he confirmed, 'just round this corner.'

I paused, just for a second, to make sure Becker had kept up with where he was going, and the second I saw him, I started running again at an almost slightly slower speed to allow him to catch up.

'Keep going down that corridor…. You'll see them, any second. Just around this corner.'

I turned first, and immediately was startled by my own confusion when I came face to face with an empty hallway. I stopped, glancing up and down somewhat suspiciously, aware that something could jump out at me at any moment.

Becker came to a gradual halt beside me and matched my cautious pace towards the doors at the end of the hallway.

'Matt,' I said, 'there's no one here.' I tried the doors. 'Doors are locked,' I continued. 'We're gonna need another route.'

'I can't see them. They should be there.'

'Well, they're not,' Becker returned in frustration, and he caught my attention with a touch to the shoulder, and pointed back off the way we came. And we started running again.

'There's a problem with the CCTV,' Matt explained.

'Okay,' I acknowledged, 'it'll be the anomaly inference.'

'Bear with me, I'm trying to get a better signal.'

'Soon as you can, I need a visual on these kids.'

'Of course.'

It was a minute or two before we heard anything else. We'd retraced our steps through the corridors, checking doors just in case we found an open one that could explain where the kids had got to. But every classroom and cupboard, every adjoining hallway leading off them was locked.

There was no where they could have gone.

I was starting to get frustrated, and in no real position to do anything to deescalate that, Becker was starting swept up in it.

'Cameras are back online, but I still can't get a clear picture of the boys.'

'We need to find out where they went, because unless their either ghosts or part of the x–men, they're not walking through walls like that.'

'They were right there,' Matt insisted.

'Well, we couldn't see them,' I replied. 'Have you got eyes on the creature?'

'No…' he said slowly, 'I don't know where that could have gone either.'

I threw up my hands in exasperation, thankful that Matt was only a voice here and wasn't there to see it. I glanced at Becker with wide–eyed annoyance and saw him rolling his eyes. 'Listen– we need to find them–'

'There's another kid.' And his tone was so grave I wasn't even annoyed that he'd interrupted me.

'What?' I demanded.

'A girl. She's in the gym.'

'Could the creature have got down there? From here?'

'I don't think so, I don't know though the whole system is crashing.'

'So it could be down there?' I questioned. 'But, it could be up here?' Becker and I shared another look.

'It's your call,' he said.

I nodded. 'Okay, we're going down. Matt, find those boys on the CCTV, let us know where they've got to. If they're hiding, then let's hope they stay there. Tell me how to get to the gym.'

Matt's directions were pretty simple, but it was a big school and a long way down. It took us ages to just get back to the hallway where we'd first found those traces of blood, and the gym was a couple of minutes away from there, according to Matt's instructions.

He'd gone quiet again, just tapping away at the keys, giving the occasional direction, when all of a sudden I heard his sharp inhale of breath, and the noise almost made me jump in panic because I blindly assumed the creature was close and we were in danger. 'It's in the gym.'

And I heard my breath catching in panic just like his. 'Fuck!'

'The creatures in the gym with her, Anna, you need to get there now!'

'Guys, we've located the server room. I'm there now.'

But I was way too focused to respond to Connor; I'd just reached the bottom off a black staircase I wasn't sure I needed to climb up. 'Matt? Which way?'

'Up,' he confirmed, 'there should be a set of doors at the top, you'll need to go through.'

'What if they're locked?' Becker questioned. But it didn't stop him following a few steps behind as we started to run up the stairs.

'Okay, I've not seen this system before, I'm gonna need a minute or two.'

'We don't have a minute. You'll have to break it down.'

Becker and I jumped up onto the stairwell and crossed the landing towards the aforementioned doors. Becker tried, he kicked several time against the metal plate surrounding the lock but nothing gave. Something in me knew that no matter how much force he put in to it, there was no way they would break.

'Shoot it,' I said instinctively.

Becker's attention turned to me and I watched a frown cross his features. 'What, will this work?' And as he held up the EMD I shook my head.

'The other one.'

It took him a second to realise what I meant, but then his hand whipped down to the holster on his thigh, he snatched up the pistol and aimed at the lock.

I had just enough time to mentally brace myself before the noise shattered through the air around me.

I couldn't tell if I was breathing; my chest was so numb that I couldn't feel it rise or fall. I blinked, slowly, as though that would give me some sort of space to centre myself.

It had been such a long time since I'd last heard that sound. And I'd grown unaccustomed to its exposure, whereas before it seemed to happen so often that I was used to it.

I was expecting to see floorboard, faces in the woodgrain, fading blue eyes or concrete, but I didn't. Instead my unfocused vision watched Becker kick in the door and my wandering attention was propelled back into my body by the sound of it slamming back against the wall of the gymnasium.

'Where is she?' Becker demanded as he moved across the room.

I passed through the doorway, eyeing the hole the bullet had left in the metal before I followed. 'Matt?' I called in continuation questioningly.

'Where is she?' Becker went round the dividing curtain, EMD raised and ready just in case it creature was still here.

'The stands,' his voice echoed back. 'The creature dragged her off underneath the stands.'

I headed straight to the bleachers and quickly ducked underneath.

And perhaps it was the gunshot that had unsettled my stomach, or the reality was just that the sight before me was so grotesquely gruesome that it was easily the worst thing I'd ever seen; even my brow crumpled just slightly at the sight of it.

There were chunks of her dotted across the vanished floorboards, black and purple and stained red with blood, matted hair still attached to pieces of her skull, limbs torn clean off, torso gnawed, ribs cracked open so most of the organs were exposed and laid in a heap. It was unrecognisably human.

'We're too late,' I said. Becker came jogging back towards me. I had just enough time to raise my hand to tell him to stop before the scene could come into his view, to spare him of it. 'Don't look,' I said, I swallowed uneasily. 'Don't look. It's… It's bad.'

He stopped. The look in my eye must have showed him how serious I was. He didn't even attempt to argue with me he just lowered his EMD. I walked back towards him, put a hand against his vest and guided him away.

We'd only just stepped out from under the bleachers when a noise echoed back from somewhere on the other side of the gym, and we both whipped around towards it. Becker lifted his gun as I snatched my knife out of it holster and flipped it in my grip.

I nodded towards the curtain, Becker moved forward, crossing the room quickly to round the curtain from the other side, and once he was in position he nodded back at me. We both stepped round.

I was expecting to see something. But without the lights on and with the trampolines set up I couldn't tell what was just darkness or shadow or if indeed there was something among it.

Becker started the sweep, I saw him ducking and weaving beneath the equipment on the sports hall floor, and in the meantime I stayed on the spot and scanned the room as I waited for my eyes to adjust to the dimness.

There was an open door on the back wall. I started walking towards it.

It opened out into the equipment room, but so little light permeated through from an already dinging gym that I could see practically nothing. I had to swing my backpack round off one shoulder to slip it open and reach inside for the torch.

As I clicked it on, the beam illuminated several containers of footballs and basketballs and tennis rackets. There were punching bags strung up on chains, dangling from the ceiling beside a row of lockers.

Something shifted. I whirled around so quickly I bought myself a couple of seconds to catch sight of creature breaking through the beam of light from the torch. It pounced at me. I immediately threw myself backwards out of its way. I hit the lockers with a clang and a bucket of tennis balls over balanced atop the lockers and as it clattered to ground the balls bounced free and scattered at my feet. I snatched up a hockey sticks– switched both my knife and the torch to my left hand– and took hold of the grip of the hockey stick in my right before I turned back to the creature.

It was gone.

I knew it had to be there somewhere. I could hear it; it was close, but I couldn't find it with such a narrow channel of light. 'Becker…'

The sound of my voice cutting through the silence flushed it out.

It crossed the torch beam again and lunged forward, but I was more than ready for it. I used to play hockey in high school. I had one hell of a slap shot. I dropped my knife and my torch to snap both hands down around the top of the grip and swung. The stick connected with the creature's head with a loud resounding thwack.

'I've found it,' I continued through my earpiece, and the creature was sent sprawling off to the side into one of the metal equipment containers. It took a moment for it to recover, and came leaping back at me, but again I was ready, I caught the head of the stick in my left hand and slammed the bow into the creature's mouth to hold it back. Then I kicked it back to the door. 'I'm sending it out to you.'

I ducked quickly to retrieve my discarded items and followed the creature back to the doorway.

I finished it off with one more slap shot to the head, which sent it tumbling back, out the equipment room and into the gym, where just on the other side of the door stood Becker.

I followed it out just in time to hear the EMD hum, the weapon discharge, and the shot hit the creature before it came crashing down. I exhaled, tossing the hockey stick to the floor, and glancing back at Becker appreciatively. 'Thanks.'

He nodded. 'Anytime. What the hell is that thing?'

'That's a therocephalian,' I explained, 'half reptile half mammal.'

'All ugly.'

'Hmm,' I agreed, 'these things are nasty.'

'Did it bite you?'

'What?' In sudden remembrance I glanced down at myself to survey myself for injuries. 'Oh,' I said, 'no, I'm okay. Connor– listen– forget that computer; we've got a fatality, we need to find the boys.'

'Okay,' Connor voice immediately came back through the comm, 'I am done here, I've just switched it back on so once it's fully rebooted–'

'Connor, I can take over remotely and get the doors unlocked.'

I nodded gratefully even though I knew Matt wouldn't be able to see it. 'You and Danny find those kids,' I said, 'and get them out of here. We're not gonna loose anyone else today, okay? Becker and I will go back to the cafeteria and lock that anomaly before anything else comes through.'

'Anna–' Matt's voice immediately cut through in response. 'You need to get there, now! We've already got a problem… make that three problems.'