Chapter Summary
- FEED THE BEAST
I'm tired. Annoyed. Hungry... I need to eat. - Kyle
TWELVE: IMPULSE CONTROL
Crane dug his teeth deep into succulent, tender flesh. It had been so long to sink into something juicy! The beast was out again! Latching tightly onto the right arm that had been raised up to shield the heavily-armed human.
But as sudden as it had come out of him, it cowered back from the bitter, acidic taste. When did fresh meat become terrible?!
It wasn't just the beast in his head. His world went backwards as another arm—the sleeve colored in a familiar shade of red—roped around him. His body was forcefully pulled away from the cowering GRE merc. In front of him, Crane watched the GI flounder back from someone swinging a kick to the shoulder as the arms around his head stayed. They weren't the mercenary's arms so...whose?
In what seemed like forever, Crane's mind reeled back to register what had just happened—what was happening now and what would happen next. The reins that had slipped from his hands because of the hunger didn't come back to him, despite him trying to grab them back. In fact, the something that grabbed him helped him. His ears had been deafened for some reason, with everything around him cued out.
Sound came rushing to his ears.
"Freakazoid!"
Shit!
Quickly, he planted his feet down and shifted forward with the foreign added weight as best as he could.
Because he and Jack were almost close to the edge of the ladder thanks to their struggle.
"Ahhh! Ah!" she uttered, staring down at the black pit below. That tightened her armlock all so she couldn't slip off Freakazoid and fall.
It hadn't been planned. None of it after the Weeping Man fled. Neither was it planned that her beastly partner would go off the rails. Thankfully, Jack had managed to catch up. She climbed the ladder, only to assess the situation quickly and literally jump onto Freakazoid before he could pounce on the grunt.
"Good! Good," she gasped as her comrade took a few wobbling steps forward. "A few steps forward! Ahahaha!"
Her laugh was nervous and short-lived. Back to the real issue at hand, she quickly glanced down at the maintenance hall. The seconds were counting: the man she had booted away climbed halfway up on a knee while his three friends hurried over to the commotion.
The bite on her arm had loosened, but his claw gripped it for some stability. Wonderful, Freakazoid had to be in shock.
"You better be back in the head, Freakazoid. We got company!"
She unleashed her arms off him, let him have a moment to breathe as Jack darted around him and towards the armed group.
"Hey!"
The grunt before them didn't get a chance to stop Jack. In his panic over a charging woman, he tried to step away for a wider distance to pull up his silencer. A shove to his chest was enough to wheel him around. Suddenly, the brunette grabbed him by his shoulder and his other arm behind his back, forcing his body to go one way only. Through a hall door and towards his comrades.
Shots were fired. A spiraling pain went through his leg. Nobody at the training said anything about a person using a GRE grunt as a meatshield and a riot shield all at once.
Two of his other friends went down with him like bowling pins pushed down by the ball, unable to do anything. The hall door was a funnel, and they could do nothing but brace for the sudden impact in such a small space. Jack skidded over them for the last man standing. The cold-hearted leader—the one who snapped the injured mercenary's head—had his gun ready, pointed as a threat and not as an actual firing.
His eyes went wide—not at the woman in red ducking down, her smile still present but at the thing coming through the hall door. The best kind of diversion Jack had was everyone turning their attention to the other threat instead of her. Bigger, badder, more terrifying than a human.
The troop leader held his firearm firmly as his men changed targets but suddenly found it jerk down, the woman in red suddenly clutching it. Stopping him from pulling the trigger instead of tailing out of there.
He had thought she was another civilian—a random woman who didn't know how to fight. Instinct told him to raise a hand and beat her down. Leave her to be eaten up by zombies.
He didn't question why she was still grinning when a fist came her way-
SMACK!
A fist did come one's way, but it didn't come when the woman quickly seized his punch in an armlock—one subordinate had taken a powerful right hook from the hooded stranger, he felt something rattle in his mouth.
It was supposed to be a simple recon for the small squad. But their captain had to slip up and was bitten by a strange infected. With the chain of command shifted, his angel of death became the newly appointed captain. He knew the rules and tactics to keep the squad alive, just as his previous captain did but nothing prepared them with the additional appearance of the lady and the hooded monster.
So despite years of training to stay level-headed, the troop leader grew pissed. Unable to see the suckerpunch from Jack!
POW!
Crane flinched back from the commander's headgear, knocked clean off during the struggle. The two downed soldiers at his feet were already out cold, hence he changed course; grabbing the leader's arms to his back.
A dark-blond-haired Caucasian man's face glared back at them, torn between terror and boiling anger.
"Well, well," Jack chided both wickedly and charmed. "Hiding such a handsome face behind all that tack is really a shame."
Seriously? Crane thought. At a time like this?
Jack spotted his scowl, only to shrug her shoulders shamelessly.
The flattering comment—with the underlying tone of a ruse—did nothing to the GRE leader, other than a little red behind the ears.
"How about we forget this ever happened and you let us go?" Jack proposed coolly. Did she believe they could walk away after that stunt?
But the commander couldn't refuse. Not when her partner tightened his grip on his arms. More baffling, he couldn't free himself.
What was this guy? A damn machine?
Suddenly—BAM! BAM!
"Shit!"
The commander's head snapped up at the voice behind him, his arms suddenly freed. In a split second, with his fight-or-flight instincts kicking in, he wheeled around and scanned the area for the source. Was that a Viral?
The hooded man had ducked aside while one of the GIs had the wondrous decision to pull out his firearm and shoot. From the floor.
He told them not to fire!
No good. The commander had no choice but to go with the flow. So he swiped out a combat knife as the hooded man turned his attention back to his men-
No good. The commander had no choice but to go with the flow. So he swiped out a combat knife as the hooded man turned his attention back to his men-
But he forgot about the woman at his back.
Jack lunged forward, seizing the commander's wrist in a vice-like grip, and pulled as hard as she could around his neck.
"Dammit!" He swung again, getting her off him.
The brunette danced back, dodging the knife. Another swing and another dodge, the commander unknowingly being led away from Freakazoid.
Jack was the distraction, after all. Giving a wide, toothy grin at him.
The commander lunged again, the knife as straight as an arrow. He had to finish the nuisance now!
Biggest mistake to let his impatience get the better of him.
Jack sidestepped the lunge effortlessly, her grin widening as the commander's momentum carried him forward. She didn't waste a second. Grabbing his extended wrist, she stepped inside his guard and drove her elbow into his face with pinpoint accuracy.
"Omph!" The commander fumbled to the floor, a hand to his bleeding nose and the knife out of his other.
"Come on, Freakazoid!" he heard the brunette holler. On the cold, wet floor, he angrily watched the two mysterious squatters bolt out of the maintenance exit.
The GRE man tried to climb up on his knees, retrieving his gun on the rise, and taking aim. Threw caution to the wind! But the bruise on his eye hindered her aim. One misfire, and already, the man called 'Freakazoid' shut the door and reinforced it with a dumpster.
That would buy them ninety seconds if the grunts were to use their brute strength for freedom. More than enough for Jack to figure out her bearings and choose a route. Everything around her was the industrial area but beyond the cityscape, she couldn't find the clocktower landmark.
Just run, her mind said. She'd find it eventually.
Feet don't fail me now.
THUD! The door smashed open in the distance.
"Stop them!"
A pointless order. Mad Jack was streets away, trying to make her way up to the urban canopy.
"Taylor! Horde incoming!" The Wild Dog faintly heard that, along with the growing sounds of the infected. They came for the noise, the prey.
All the more reason for her not to stay! She could very well hear two Virals behind her! Along with a strange whirring sound.
Another Viral grunted, falling on top of a car down a road. The alarm wailed, first catching the local undead neighborhood watch and then the Viral hot on Jack's heels. Jumping in between them was Freakazoid, displaying what she had seen in wildlife documentaries.
A bigger predator stood his grounds, teeth bared and talons out. Smaller scrubs hissed and snarled at him. Move it! They saw the human first!
"Rraaagh!" the beast bellowed. It shook fear into them—fear that even walkers could still feel. With a slow, hesitant moment, they backed off without trying.
"Go!" Jack was off, but not without taking a mental note. That holler in her head was exasperated, not to the infected or to her. It sounded like an internal struggle with someone else.
Or something.
The car alarm bailing helped them escape regardless. The further away they were from the area, the fewer zombies they saw. Until finally, Jack's legs were at their limit. Finding solitude and respite high up on a two-story revival Spanish apartment of a press center, she slowed down and steadied herself by a wall.
"We lost them." Jack breathed, silently counting down to four like a ritual. "And our candidate too…" Unfortunate, but what could they do? It'd do them no good if they were dead.
The lack of response brought her attention to Freakazoid, who caught up and hunkered down in the shade of an abandoned tent. Smoke shimmered off him for some reason, along with a hint of cooking flesh. Alright, so the same problems as Volatiles in the day, which was ironic for a creature called the Day Hunter.
But the hesitation in her partner worried Jack. He looked like his mind was filled with heavy thoughts as his stare fixed on his shaking claws.
"Freakazoid," she called as an attempt to bring him grounded. He had better not have lost it—bad news if her secret weapon would actually stop working on him. And not just because he wouldn't spontaneously pounce on her, but also because it could ruin her whole assignment altogether.
The silver eyes steered slowly toward her, as wide as dinner plates. His claws, still trembling, were held up to her in one short gesture.
"I… I tried to eat him…"
That statement sank much harder in Crane than it should have. It didn't help how quiet Jack was: no retorting, no catty grins, not even a smart remark to turn a grim situation into a chirpy, sarcastic one. He couldn't read anything off her face, with her sunglasses hiding her eyes.
Even she had a clear mind not to joke about cannibalism.
"Fuck. I really tried to eat him!"
His head was so heavy that he had to use his claws to hold it up. He had been naïve! As if it was that easy to be human when he couldn't control these impulses!
"Fuck. Fuck!" Crane wanted to run away. But where to when trapped like this?
"It's not going to change anything, Freakazoid."
"I'm insane."
"No. You were famished," Jack explained, her response disturbingly straight like an arrow. "I was right. You haven't eaten anything at all." How could she say that so easily?!
But he could have eaten something else before his wake-up call back to humanity. The dark thought leeched so heavily onto his conscience. An animal! His breathing quickened in raspy pulses.
"T-This wasn't the first time, r-right?! I-I ate someone. People. Before...before I met you."
"I wouldn't know. You're the amnesiac zombie here."
The flashes came back, huddling in his head. Showing him the woman and the two kids at the playground.
An infected would go after the first thing to bite. To feast. Just like the zombie that bit him on his first day in Harran. On the day he turned, the first and last thing he saw was that family at the playground.
Prey to eat on.
The thought about the one-armed boy at the Orphanage finally did him in. A stab to the stomach.
"I'm gonna be sick!"
He recoiled back and hunched over the edge. There was no stopping it, even on an empty stomach.
"UGH!"
Jack flinched back as well, a step back from the poor bloke and a forceful averting of the eyes not to look at whatever Freakazoid regurgitated. Once the moment had subsided, along with aggravated coughs, she carefully patted his curved, bony back.
Second time Kyle Crane had caved down. It was terrible too: for someone—and a person he really didn't like—to see the vulnerable side of his.
He had never shown weakness. Ever. Not to the people he worked for, not to the Tower, not anyone. Because in the past, no one should learn anything about him. He was a ghost in his line of work, his job wasn't to make friends. Now there he was on the concrete floor; a monster throwing up, while one person crazy enough to stay helped him out.
This would be more fitting if he had drunk too many times and threw up in the bathroom. Then all of this could just have been a nightmare when he would wake up with a hangover. Too bad that wasn't the case when it was a living nightmare for Crane.
He coughed again and wiped off the foul bile from his mouth.
There was no way he could keep going on like this. Who was he kidding? Himself? It was just beating a dead horse.
Nevertheless, what stabilized him was Jack's silence. Like a pull and an anchor to the surface. It was weird! This entire time, Crane had been waiting for something out of the talkative loudmouth, but nothing stirred. She simply leaned against the parapet walls, right next to the quivering Beastly, resting her arms on her knees, and waited. Just as she had done with the children at the Orphanage.
Breathe in, breathe out. Kyle was so confused about her waiting that he had to ask. "How can you be calm about this?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "It doesn't do me any good to lose my head twice. One of us has to stay level-headed."
"Level-headed… I don't think I can… I'm a danger to people-"
"Like the Weeping Man?"
Crane was again taken aback. Comparing him to that monster? It had to be a sick joke. But that was the truth—Jack cemented it further on him.
"'A zombie with a conscience'," she recited what he had said earlier. "'Too late for apologies'."
He sank back down. Those words turned against him hit Crane so much harder than he had imagined. How absolutely true they reflected on him.
He was no better than the Weeping Man.
"Not a pretty sight behind the looking glass."
Then he saw the red droplets drip. Wrecked with horror when he realized that was the same arm Jack forced into the Weeping Man's mouth during the tumble. The same arm Crane had bandaged up.
The same arm he bit down on several minutes ago.
"Your arm…"
Jack glanced at the damage he pointed at. She went to tighten and scavenge the bandages. "Nothing but a flesh wound."
But Freakazoid was already at work, taking her arm and putting on clean ones instead. That surprised her; so it didn't take much for him feel anything in his state. The guilt was readable on his face like clear water. From nearly chomping down on a man to nearly taking Jack's arm off.
That could get him killed—a monster with a heart.
"Really. You should have a little more backbone in you."
"I could have killed you… I really could have."
She sighed tiredly. What a broken record. How many times had she given her own answers to that comment? That she had faced worse foes than him? That he as her opponent, paled in comparison to any life-threatening situation? Nothing went through his thick skull.
How in the world did he live and un-live this long like that?
"Curious question. Which one of these situations is beyond anyone's control?" Jack broke the silence once the patch was done. "A human killing another human for a scrap of food? Or a zombie eating a human because it's compulsive?"
Crane was about to answer. Almost speaking out the latter answer. Nothing was humane about those freaks eating people! But her calm stare stopped him—a polite warning not to reply straight away but to think about it first.
Not an easy question to answer like he had hoped.
"It's all about perspective, really. Both sides of the coin are doing what they have to do for survival." Jack's gaze trailed down to a group of walkers off the bend of the road, eating and ripping apart a rotten corpse on the tar. It didn't have to be fresh—it was food, regardless. "Being ethical isn't gonna matter much with your life on the line."
"Yeah...but the only difference is that I'm on neither side. I'm right smack in the middle…"
It was a good point that Jack couldn't deny. Freakazoid could think, but his toes were still on the edge of free-falling. An anomaly out of everything in this outbreak.
All he could do was talk. If he didn't...he'd go insane.
"There's something in me...that wants out. That could hurt people... I...I should be taken care of."
"True. If you're in such a bind over your own morals, then you really only have one easy option."
A dark suggestion that even he had never thought of taking. But now...that was sounding like a swell idea to do-
"But you're forgetting one thing, Freakazoid. You don't have much of a choice now," Jack said. "If you go keel over, the Ravs lose the only chance at figuring this virus out. At a cure."
Again, Crane was grounded. Regret for a different reason counterattacked his regret for nearly and most definitely eating people. As awful and crazily stupid as it sounded, it would be shameful for him to take away the one hope Jack sought out to find.
He was about to say she could find another. That Weeping Man had resistance to her blood. But it wasn't that easy, was it?
"You're not the type to toss hundreds of people under the bus. Or do you want to bring this city down with you because you've had enough?"
"No!" He climbed back up. He had already failed the people of Harran. He brought the virus to Scanderoon! He spread it across the country! "No…"
No more guilt, please! He understood he wasn't a good guy. He never was!
"Then you're stuck here with us. You're stuck with me."
Another surprise out of the wild woman. But the aura around her was stern and serious. The last sentence was a reminder that he had to put it in his head—he couldn't be a solo player anymore. So stop thinking he had to be the only one carrying all the burdens.
Jack was right next to him.
"You always have been a lone wolf, haven't you?"
He frowned with irritation. "You're not much of a team player yourself," Crane rebuked, no matter how true her words were.
"Heh. You'll have to be the judge for that," she sang. Back came the grin. "Here's your problem. You're not working alone anymore. You're my Lifeline. So in retrospect, I'm your Lifeline too."
He really couldn't understand how the gears in her head worked. As if that were a good enough reason.
"You should be afraid of me… I'm terrified of myself."
"I think that's a good thing."
"What?" he scoffed. Angry at such a remark. Was she trying to make him feel better?! "Being like this is a good thing?!"
"Being afraid," she clarified, her answer dulling down his fit. "It stops you. If you don't have fear, you don't have control."
What was this bullshit contradiction? Now he was so lost that he wanted an explanation for that. "Isn't it the other way around? You want to be in control."
"That's tunnel vision. Like those walkers down there. Believe me. That's not allowed in the ring," she spoke out of experience.
There was a sense of truth hidden in that sentence of hers, but it reflected harshness and darkness in her words. So he had to think about this from Jack's point of view, not his.
For the past two days, he has watched and examined her fighting style. The metaphorical leash was obvious to pick on, which made him ponder what made her have it in the first place.
How far had she gotten to losing it during the Harran outbreak and now this new one? Like he did, but as a human and not as a freak.
Hence, Jack had to be patient and clear-minded, he guessed. Falling down that hole wasn't a pretty sight, after all.
"But you're not like them anymore. You're one of us."
He hunched his eyebrows together in confusion at her riddle. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"It means you've got your moral compass back," Jack explained. "Everyone's got their own demons. I reckon you have them too."
He didn't nod. He didn't rebuke back. He took it all in, listing down all of his mistakes from the past in his head.
He really wished for his memories and demons to be gone. Being an amnesiac sounded better than remembering.
"The only thing you can do is bury them," she continued.
Out of nowhere, Freakazoid peered up at Jack. The gaze was strangely soft and sad. Like a dog whimpering after putting out an accidental bite.
"What… How do I do that then?"
A vocal plea out of the supposedly cold-hearted beast when he was so lost himself. It didn't make much of a dent in Jack; in fact, she rose to her feet and paced, pondering. The quiet seconds scrapped at his hope, forcing him to stand up as well. Please, he thought. He really wanted a solution. Anything. As she explained, the ex-kickboxer was now his Lifeline.
She faced him with none of her smiles.
"For starters, you can't go cold turkey," Jack pointed, only to receive a stunned expression from Beastly. What the hell, his mutation wasn't a smoking habit—his face said it all. "Best way to remedy a problem is to work around it."
"Work around it?" he uttered. That sounded like a terrible and stupid idea.
"I told you before, haven't I? Besides something weird about these zombies, it's also the infected humans too. Some of the people I know back in the Outskirts had to adapt around it too."
He remembered that, but the vagueness in her words made it difficult for him to see a connection. "You said it was something too personal."
"And I did say you'd think I'm mental."
"What? They have your poisonous blood too?"
Jack laughed. "No, mate. I'm one of a kind myself. The Ravs just have different kinds of problems."
He scoffed. "It can't be as bad as mine."
"Hm-hm," she snickered softly. "It's not. But you'll sing a different tune when you come to the Outskirts."
What did that mean? Crane was actually apprehensive about that.
"So. Let's set some ground rules, shall we?"
"Rules?"
"Yes. Rules. There is no 'I' in 'team', Beastly," she explained. "I know what you can do and you've been pushing it. You haven't slept like a normal person. And you haven't eaten anything."
"What are you? A mind reader?" he asked sheepishly.
"First important rule. Your body is your tool. So don't go being a fool and injure yourself," Jack recited what Mert had told her. "We're taking breaks when needed. That includes you."
"No, no breaks. We'll just be wasting time-"
"And we'll be wasting more time if you go off the rails again."
The monster scowled. How very true. Too many variables to worry about.
"Next important rule. That thing inside of you." She pointed at him. "He wants out? Then we'll have to satiate him somehow. Maybe...teach him to work with us. In our favor," Jack tried to find the right words. "Get him to think humans taste bad."
"You know you're asking too much from me."
"Doesn't mean it's not worth trying. And the third important rule," she continued. "I'm your backup. Always. But the moment you can't perform, I call the shots. No questions asked."
No questions asked—the kind of line Crane never liked to hear. Not just because it simply begged for answers, but because it opened a whole can of worm he didn't like.
No questions asked when he took the job at Harran. No questions asked when lives were on the line and shit hit the fan.
Jack's gaze through her shades was stern, not in a way that told him he had to follow, but that she could trust him to follow through. That was the main difference between hearing from her and from his employers.
"...Ok." He didn't like the idea of his life being put in the hands of another. In fact, he still hadn't fully given her complete leeway. But like Jack said, he had no other choice.
"Good. And lastly," she stated with a grin. "Getting you fed."
Jack handed something to him, like a flip of a card in a magician's hand. A Halva, surprised him so much that, out of reflex, he took it without a second thought.
"You're not yourself when you're hungry."
The atmosphere quickly changed on a dime.
Crane grimaced. Narrowed eyes first on the snack before he shot them at the brunette—her smile wider this time around—before strolling off.
"You waited for that, didn't you?" he grunted.
She spun on her heel, that smirk silently saying all that he needed. She didn't just deliberately wait for such an opportunity like that to say that one-liner. Then Jack twirled back and pulled out her earpieces.
The sudden change in mood and the cheesiness helped, but only for a brief moment.
"Jack," Crane stopped her, at first holding back a terrible and heavy remark he wanted to say. "...We're not gonna talk about it…? That I...I could have eaten someone?"
Jack didn't say anything yet. The smile was gone, however. Lingering, if he could call it that. It was a long, hard look on her face, and that was it.
"Do you really want to talk about it?" she eventually asked.
"...No."
He really didn't want to talk about it. Crane, a so-called hero didn't want to know if he truly did terrible things far worse than his actions in Harran.
"There's no point in speculating what you did as a zombie. When you can't even remember."
Jack's words sunk down. Both true and false at the same time: Crane could remember his human memories, so he lied that he couldn't. And yet he also couldn't recall anything as a feral.
An oxymoron at that…
His nod was shaky. A deep breath. Then he tore open his Halva's wrapping and bit down.
Sweet and nutty. He had thought his tastebuds would have gone numb thanks to his mutation. Kind of like in the books, how vampires couldn't eat human food. It actually made him realize how long it had been since he had tasted something nice and homely.
Man, did his eyes feel wet. But he steeled himself up, not to give the woman a chance at poking fun at him. Thankfully, her attention went to making a call.
"Babak," Jack called over the comms. "Found where that crying walker came from."
"You did?" the voice of the Orphanage leader uttered through the earpiece. "Where?"
"Behind the Orphanage. At a manhole. You should send some men to close that permanently."
"What about the infected?"
"Lost him in the sewers... Babak, we also found your rescue group too."
"Alim's group?"
A gander that the name was Lina's father, Jack thought. "They're-"
"I...I know. They never came back for a week… Thank you. For finding them." The silence hung for a moment, just long enough to prompt Jack to speak. To break the anxious tension. But Babak continued first. "Your boat's at a canal. The Red Rill."
That caught her off guard. Just like that?
"I haven't taken care of that crybaby yet."
Babak's tone started off with a bit of astonishment. "That's very meticulous of you. But we have bigger problems to worry about. Rains' been picking up these few days."
She urgently peered up at the sky. To the north, patches of grey grew darker with the distant sound over the horizon.
"A storm," Jack grumbled. "What this city really needed."
"Nothing much we can do about the monsoon season. You're going to need that boat more than ever when the rain passes."
"Good point."
"I'll send some men to get it for you. Keep my word-"
"No need. My partner and I will get it. You prepare your base for the storm."
"You sure? These are convicts that got your boat. Alexander's men."
"Nothing we can't handle."
Jack looked back at the dark clouds again with the end of her call. She lost her smile during the entire conversation; the gears in her head were already moving. Scanderoon was just like the Outskirts in more ways than one. With the outbreak came chaos.
When it was a hot day, it was tolerable with the Biters running amok. But when it rained, it was the worst in the last few months. Vehicles left abandoned, bodies piled up, and damaged drainage were recipes for disasters for the streets. Following that, there were all sorts of problems for unfortunate souls.
"It's just an overcast." It had been three slow bites before Freakazoid joined her at the sightseeing. "A little rain never hurt anyone."
Jack softly hummed. "A little, maybe. A lot, definitely. Hindered mobility, slippery slopes, and pitch-black you don't see the teeth coming down on you. You're a sitting duck in the rain," she warned.
"Huh...never really got much rain back in the Slums."
"That's because Harran's gone through regular droughts. It doesn't get monsoons as often as the outer ring."
"I… Nothing. Forget I said anything."
"Hm."
The first red flag hung up. Hang on. He just gave a slip of the tongue, and Jack didn't take the opportunity to jab at it—to pry further in and fidget at his chains. Any mess-up that the perceptive brawler could tell before she'd discover his life: that Kyle Crane hadn't lost his human memories.
He had been so careful around this woman before. This time, she was quiet.
Way too quiet.
"What's wrong?"
"...We didn't get the Weeping Man."
Ah, right. Their one chance slipped through their fingers. Crane could understand the disappointment all too well. It was even uncanny how an hour ago, Jack was optimistic about finding a candidate only to lose that enthusiasm because of one moment of bad luck.
With a forced sigh to dull the blunder down, he replied, "We'll have to find another one."
"I don't like leaving a job unfinished."
Crane was baffled. But he soon realized that she had been focused on one thing in her hand for the entire conversation with him.
Oh.
It hadn't been about the blood testing.
It was only a glimpse, but he spotted the four-leaf clover through the tiny bottle in her hand. Easy for him to understand that it might have belonged to one of the orphans.
Down at the sewers, Jack had still held onto the little charm—the one memento Lina gave to her father. On the spot, she thought of a decision: to leave it where she had found it or to give it back to the little girl. She didn't have a chance when they heard the Weeping Man wailing down in the tunnels.
It was another layer out of the ex-kickboxer Crane never thought to see. Although they were only strangers—a human and a zombie working together—he felt like he couldn't take her seriously at times. But now and then, she would put on her game face.
This time, there was no Cheshire Cat grin. Her eyes were again completely unreadable behind the shades.
It wasn't always just games for her.
His sharp hearing picked out a sigh from her. A sigh.
"Right now, we need that boat."
"For Harran." He already knew what the answer would be.
"I can go there anytime." It wouldn't make a difference to go to Harran now or later. Right then and there, Jack's priorities were reshuffled around in her head. The issue with the coming storm had to be put at the top. After that, the Weeping Man. "We get the boat. We find the zombie."
She wouldn't return to the Orphanage until she had taken care of that thing.
"Let's hope the wind can take those clouds elsewhere."
The Red Rill lived up to its name in more ways than one for Crane.
Along the wide man-made riverbank in a straight pattern were simple Mediterranean gardens, home to dying decorative trees and sapping branches draping across the water's surface. Certainly, once an attraction left to rot after the city fell, it'd either die or overgrow. However, one thing did grow abundantly across the water.
From the distance, the river looked like it was drenched in red. The bodies of walkers so stupid that they had wandered over the edge weren't the reason for the bright crimson color, but the blossoming flowers floating down the river. A stunning image mixed with life and death—the gruesome idea that their roots enclosed around the dead zombies as a rich source of nutrients for their petals.
They were invasive like the zombies—not just on the water but also leeching across the stone walls.
"I have to admit," he started. "This would be a nice view if we didn't have this virus around."
"Red hyssop."
"Hyssop?"
"The locals call them that," Jack explained. "Beautifully bloody pests nobody wants in the canals. We have them everywhere in the Outskirts."
While that was a charming sight for the touring Freakazoid, that wasn't what they came for.
"And there's Caroline." Jack pointed down to the channel. She slipped out a pair of small binoculars from her sling bag while Freakazoid took to observing.
The decal was easy to spy on the aluminum bass. Pretty modern and sleek for a small fishing boat, different from the ones Crane saw back in Harran—simple and wooden for fishermen living in the Slums. There was a tall tale sign of damage at the port with a rough patch job, but overall, the boat was still decent.
And it had to be parked right at an outpost out of a beach motel, guarded by men in orange.
Anyone could tell it was a turf marked for Alexander, because, like Rais' men, those hoodlums had to make their signature with whatever tools they could use. On a large metal sheet and ragged banners tied to poles were one particular image they seemed to love 'wearing on their sleeves'. A human skull was painted so crudely that the painter didn't care about drying the image. Thick drips flowed down the teeth, almost bringing out fangs for the skull in a sick, metrical fashion. To top it all off was the crown, as if to warn everyone that they were under King Alexander, under the king of kings. A very 'Mad World' inspired logography in a shoddy kind of way.
This was going to be a tricky retrieval, the ex-kickboxer thought to herself.
"So how should we do this?"
"Well. We can go in loud. Or we can sneak in and try to take back the boat, only for someone to hear the engine. Then we'll be left no choice but to go loud," Jack set down the options. "Or we can ask nicely."
Fat chance for the last one. "Yeah. No. All those options are gonna attract the infected."
"Oh, that's good. Biters will make a good distraction for us. It's whether we can find the keys in all the chaos."
"Really?"
"They were still in the dashboard before I abandoned ship. One of these convicts might have them. The question is which one."
"Or you could, I dunno, hotwire your boat."
"Wouldn't that make as much noise as going to the front gate announced?" she asked sarcastically. "Not a lot of options really."
Crane could easily see she was set in her chosen plan—something that would attract unwanted attention. He didn't argue with her right away, as one of the orange skeletons caught his attention like a firefly to a cat. Why this one when all of them looked the same from so far away? Because the gestures and mannerisms said so.
The convict walked away from the boat, did some hand movements to another inmate and carefully exited the outpost. Right next to the premise was what might have been a restaurant, turned into a storage Safe Zone. Without bringing in any unwanted guests, he walked inside and plopped something small onto a counter.
What a normal person would do after a drive in their car. They dropped the keys on the table.
"The keys are in that safehouse."
Jack almost questioned him—why would they be there—until she stopped herself, recalling his peculiar sight.
"Alright. How many guards are in that building?"
"...Two."
"Good. An easy sneak and steal. Be on the lookout for me, would you?"
"Hold on," he uttered, stopping her just as Jack was about to head off. "You're going in there? After what happened that night, they're probably out for your head."
"We did sabotage their fighting ring. So of course, we'd piss people off."
"What's this 'we' thing? You were the one trying to steal Antizin from prisoners."
"And you could have turned tail instead of helping me. It's just one operation," she stated with the utmost confidence. "Alexander wouldn't waste his time on one person."
Why did that seem off to Crane? "You sound like you know him."
"I know the type of person he is. Lawless as all the cronies in the city," she sang, so flowing that he couldn't find a hint. "It's like hide-n-seek. Your eyes can see for me. Talk me through and relax back."
Crane frowned even more. Half a minute to digest that last sentence and another to digest the fact that he really heard her say all that.
"Oh no. I'm not gonna sit my ass all day and let you do all the work."
"I'm in no way doing that. Divide and conquer, remember? This is definitely a two-man job. One goes in and one watches for any trouble."
"You just want to go in loud."
"I'm simply giving you the easiest job. Didn't I tell you not to push your body too much?"
"I'm fine," he rebuked. "Just let me do the safe zone."
"You? The safe zone?"
"Yeah."
"With the UV lights on?"
Ah.
Right.
"I'll...worry about them. When I get there."
"I should be the one worrying for you, mate," Jack muttered.
He scowled. Why had this been turned around on him? "I've done this before. This will be a walk in the park," he gloated.
"As an infected or as a human?" Crane regretted saying that. Another slip of the tongue—how easy it was for him to fall back into the old hero, like it was routine. However, Jack didn't seem to push on his slip-up and rather pondered the idea. "You know it'd be easier on you if I took the Safe Zone. Or do you love a challenge?"
Yes. It was dumb of him to make that suggestion. So easy for him to forget about his circumstances. Now he couldn't back down! Not with that playful, condensing tone of hers.
Crane scoffed. "I'm not making this a challenge. You are."
"Ahh. Why don't I make this challenge easier on you? Seems like both outpost and Safe Zone share the same substation." She pointed a finger at the showpiece behind the man-made dock. "That should give you enough time. Without the UVs."
The Day Hunter fidgeted in his spot. It was a good idea. Again, he didn't want to say anything at first.
"They'll send someone to check," he said quickly with a huff.
"Then I'll standby and make sure they don't. If everything goes well, they'll leave the boat unattended and we can be done before dinner time."
She was stunned to see the disappointed expression on Beastly's face. Freakazoid's whole mannerism exhumed it, silently telling her how very wrong that sentence was.
"I didn't mean it like that," Jack explained.
"Hmph," he grumbled. Sure, she didn't mean it.
"Just remember what I said, Freakazoid. We're working together. Holler if things go bad."
"I can handle a simple fetch quest." Off he dropped from their vantage point and snaked under the shadows of the buildings. Indeed, like the ducking of an animal's head in the wilderness for Jack to witness. An hour ago, he was shaken. Now, he swooshed away into his strange second nature as if nothing had happened. He pretended it never did. Was it ignorance? To keep his mind clear and free from the thing he claimed was inside?
Perhaps. One thing was clear.
"You make this way too easy, Freakazoid," she muttered softly. But not soft enough when Beastly steered back, but the confused expression in his eyes told her he hadn't picked up what she had mumbled to herself.
The outpost was quiet, though. Rickety, actually. That might have been a temporary structure; Alexander's men had built it up quickly. But despite the wire frence and spiked barricades, a small breeze could push it down. Or a little accident.
A mental note Jack filed away while she prepared to go across the channel. Without being seen. A bridge was unsafe, a splash in the water could alert them, and a grappling hook in the air would make her an easy target in broad daylight.
The organic sound of something whistling caught her attention, then her surprise. It came further down the channel and across it—Freakazoid had slingshot himself right over it with those weird tentacles of his. Like something from a superhero comic book.
"Did you see that?" she heard one of the guards utter. The three men she spotted drew over to the rightmost of the outpost, gazing over the edge.
But Freakazoid was long gone, lightning-quick into the shadows before the sun rays did severe damage to his covered skin.
A blessing in disguise. With the crooks distracted on that side, Jack took the opportunity and grapple-hooked over just as Beastly did. Smooth and silent, that nobody ever had the chance to see her hopping over as well.
A few balconies onward, and she made it to the substation. With no guards! How disappointing. The only thing those convicts had in mind was that no one would be daft enough to unlock a shut door. Who even has any lockpicks out in the open anyway!
Jack's hair was long, bundled up in a lazy ponytail. With two bobby pins hidden somewhere to keep her fringe out of her eyes.
"I'm here," her partner whispered hoarsely over the comms.
He should be thankful it was a simple lock. A twist and turn and, click, she was in.
"Anytime now," he growled impatiently. No doubt, seeing Jack strolling in with no sense of urgency.
Should she wait a little longer? See if he would ask nicely?
No. That would be too much expectation from a grouch like him.
One, two, three and four switches turned off. And voila, electricity was down.
"Thirty seconds," she told him. She could hear the commotion stirring at the outpost. "I can give you an extra twenty seconds."
"Don't do anything stupid."
"Now why would I do that?" she sang before calculating her next move.
The substation was within a fifteen-second walking distance. Enough time for Jack to duck into cover and wait for a guard to check. And right on her prediction, an inmate, who changed completely out of his orange attire for a set more comfortable and practical for the circumstances, did come to the substation. Armed.
"Shit. Who broke in?" he snapped, more out of annoyance than caution. Luckily, they were amateurish. So focused on the flips in the power box that he didn't see the woman in red behind him. Not even the 'twist plot'.
Crack! Thud! A clean and simple kill.
"Twenty seconds added," Jack whispered before exiting out of the substation to keep watch. She never liked hiding much. "How goes the fetching?"
Crane didn't answer over the radio. His lips were sealed tightly the moment he darted into the powered-down safe zone. No one heard him; no one saw him. The driver was present indoors with two other men, all three anxious about the strange blackout.
A dangerous spot for an infected like him inside the barricaded restaurant. He stayed low, the booths and tables as his cover.
"What's taking them so long? Turn the generator on already," he heard one of the 'skeletons' mumble, the kneecap jumping up and down frantically.
The second grumbled under his breath. "...Why are we even hoarding these crates for those stuck-ups? I thought this Alexander guy takes no orders from any corporate agent. Especially a disbanded one."
"You idiot," snapped the third. "We're not hoarding for them. It's them paying us for the round-up job."
"You talking about taking people for the arena fights?"
"Hold on a second there, Freakazoid. I want to listen in."
Crane flinched with a glare, baffled on the spot, all because it had to be two-way comms. Are you kidding me?! Now wasn't the time to eavesdrop, Jack-
"That's just for show," he heard the escapees reply. The oddity behind that one line was more obvious to him than the rest of the discussion—something the ex-kickboxer listened to carefully. "Don't you get it? It's either any townie we catch or us."
"Never imagined a bigshot like him to be looking out for us."
"Ha! You wish. It's all to keep those corps wrapped around his finger. They were the ones who caused all this. They want to fix it. So we hand them a bunch of survivors for who knows what and they leave us alone. Plain and simple. The ones we catch that aren't bitten? They go to the arena."
"Hm... So there's more to meet the eye behind that brawl. Now, who is this corporate company they're talking about..."
"Not my concern," Crane prompted with a really, really soft whisper.
"I don't suppose you could make a detour and-"
"I'm getting those keys."
"What do they do with the ones that don't go for the ring?" the convict asked.
"I dunno. Why should I know?"
"Didn't someone say they take them to these campsites around the city?"
"Campsite?"
"Yeah. There's actually one near the Uptown District."
It took a bit of figuring out the layout from the inside while drowning out the conversation. The counter was from the back, right? Crane snuck carefully into the kitchen, spotting the big golden key attached with smaller, useless ones and one bottle capper with the name, Caroline engraved on it.
Carefully, he picked them up, clutching them so tight they couldn't make a sound-
"Hey! What's the hold-up, recruit?" a foreign voice echoed over the comms. From Jack's side. "Where is he?"
Ok. The back door, Crane thought. Then he could meet up with her-
A gurgling sound erupted suddenly on the line, along with other sounds and a "Shit!" from the brunette. Like roughhousing.
At the corner of his eye, he could have sworn he saw a blue light flicker outside the barricaded windows, then the lights inside the restaurant. Even one peek stung his sight a bit, but it was right outside, along the throwaway boundary.
"Uh, Jack? The UV lights are on!" he hissed.
"Kinda busy here!"
"Hey!"
Crane swirled left, in the direction of the eating area. Footsteps stomped across the dirty, porcelain tiles.
"Is someone here-?!"
Ugggh, to hell with it all.
His feet almost made him whisk across the floor as the first convict stepped halfway through the kitchen's door. The cut came swift and clean, the arm blade thrust into his gut with a short wheeze. The human's body flopped forward from the force in Crane's retrieving bone.
"Shit! Shit!"
The whole building seemed to wake up, fright and confusion written deep in the thugs' eyes. Their weapons were drawn out, but their bodies were petrified. They had never faced a one-of-a-kind like Crane.
"Call for the outpost!" the second demanded, struggling to cook up a plan. Maybe barricade the beast inside-!
It was just seconds! But suddenly, the monster was right before him. The convict's blunt weapon barely went up when the creature parried it away and delivered a right hook to his nose.
"There's an infected! There's an infected inside the restaurant!" the one man in the far back shouted over their radio.
"What?!"
"Shit! Someone's messing with the power! " someone in the background hollered.
Two locations that Alexander's men had control over would be lost in one day. Undoubtedly, people would go to the source of the chaos. Both of them. It was only the question of which one was the most urgent.
"Which one do we go first?!"
"The damn zombie, of course!"
"Anyone listening?! I need help! It's a woman in red-gah!"
THUD!
That made the third guy that Jack battered down at the substation. The inmates had to come in like drones! Some without their orange suits while others fashioned the outfit to work with their end-of-the-world setup.
"AHHHH!" bellowed the fourth man with his machete held up high.
"Might as well go loud." Up went her choice of weapon, Lina's cricket bat—what a sturdy, good weapon for cracking skulls—and one good swing, THUD! The running man's head yo-yoed away.
With her danger out of the way, Jack wheeled around for any more fighters. But the real showbiz exploded back at the restaurant. Virals and Biters sprinted to the uproar while the number of men inside the outpost trickled down, beelining their only other Safe Zone.
However, the blue lights at the restaurant had shut down.
Jack hadn't had the chance to turn the power off again. The bloke jumped her from behind to stop her, and then got more from her bat. Freakazoid could have flipped the switches from inside the restaurant. No one would expect a zombie to turn off a light.
But a zombie was a zombie. A crisis these men would pick over to curb down instead of a passing saboteur. She could hear the fight over the comms, as she hurried over: another and another came at the monster. Then the gunfire.
"Why are the UV lights still off?!" Over a wall, she spotted one prisoner uttering that question. All too preoccupied to see a woman vault over with a foot thrust down onto his head. Crack! He couldn't feel the rest of his body be used as a cushion for Jack's fall.
She counted. Four men on the prowl-
"Huh?!-AAAAH!"
Correction. Three men outside. The fourth immediately got lassoed by Freakazoid's tendrils and plucked right into the restaurant—almost like something out of a horror film. Jack could only make out that it wasn't a pretty sight indoors from the sounds and cries.
Good enough of a distraction for her to take down the three men from behind. The first guy didn't see the first swing, whack, and the second inmate glanced over his shoulder to watch Mad Jack grinning wildly and his cellmate down.
Whack!
She particularly spun on her feet for the next swing, teeth flying right out of her opponent's mouth. The last man—on the spot, she knew she had to tread carefully. A bat couldn't go against a semi-auto gun.
"Gaaargh!" Flashing in was a Viral, claws onto the inmate and teeth down on his neck. Tkk-tkk-tkk! Bullets hit the dirt as the human screamed, eventually pinned down by a second Viral.
So Jack backed away. Might as well let the horde clean up for them. She hurried inside, quick on her feet, only to hear more gunfire. The sight of a barrel pointed forced her to drop at a table tipped over.
BAM!
Crane had the same idea. After all, the jailbird had a shotgun on him! Who gives a prisoner a shotgun?!
BAM!
The first bullet hit through a half-wall, sending splinters flying. Dammit, he was put in a tight spot. Five crooks left. He cursed to himself when he spotted a new skeleton, having dove down first before rushing in. A female-
Wait, that was Jack.
She rushed to the nearest man at the door and put the cricket bat on his neck in a lock. A man his size could easily pull her off him, but he could do nothing with a kick to the shin. A final squeeze using his weight and gravity to push the bat on his throat, his body went limp.
In the heat of battle, the men in orange were rethinking their life choices. Their crimes were one thing, working for Alexander was debatable for some but nobody told them they'd be dealing with such an ordeal other than the pesky Biters.
One of them saw an opportunity. Jack was still preparing for another batter-up, but the close distance would be enough for the inmate to stab her down. He was a big guy. He could take care of the bi-
He swung just as Jack swung something back with a flick of her free hand. His eyes filleted wide at her dodging right for his blade only to graze her jacket—and then at the sharp feeling at his exposed neck.
The slice at his jugular wasn't amateur. More importantly, where did she have a knife like that? Eyes rolled back, unable to catch her sheathing her knife back to her belt.
The shotgun wheeled towards Jack, with the user uttering, "Hey!" Which was a dumb move, only to have a bone blade slice through his back. Freakazoid lifted his gasping captive up high and pitched it at another inmate.
"Forget this!" The last two didn't waver anymore. A crazy woman, a terrifying monster, and more infected swarming to the restaurant. The place was a lost cause. Every man for himself.
Unfortunately for them, their running made them such delicious meals on wheels for the horde. Fortunately for Jack, that meant the infected's attention was on those blokes, and not her. She could tread outside without too many problems from the walkers.
"Here." Freakazoid tossed the keys, and Jack smoothly caught them—a good click between two unlikely associates. "Let's go."
He sprinted out of the main entrance first; why shouldn't he leave immediately? Cooped up with the chance of getting third-degree burns? The few times he had stepped out into the sun, there was that awful smell of light burning on skin that hit Jack's nose sharply. Blegh!
She was about to walk out of the restaurant when she was stopped by a familiar-looking container.
It was the kind that dropped down by planes flying over; that descended into Harran and, recently, Scanderoon; the kind meant for survivors. It sat in the corner of a booth, hidden by other crates of all sorts. Had it not been for the red color, she could have missed it altogether.
Her gut instinct told her to check it out, prompting her to push aside all the other boxes that hid it.
The usual train of thought would be that it wasn't strange to see one present; like any other survivor, the prisoners pretty much scavenged anything that they could grab, even the supply containers.
If it wasn't for the fact that it had a logo of GRE on the side, a detail she remembered normal containers didn't have except for the one she and Siv had opened before. The sticker was nothing but a sign to anyone: this was GRE property. Take it and you are a dead man.
"Hey!" Freakazoid disturbed her thought, giving a hurried shake to her shoulder. "We gotta go!"
Right. Now wasn't the time to worry. They had the boat. But she took a bit longer to kick back onto her feet.
Because a GRE supply container at a convict's outpost was out of place.
Anyone could tell her their assumption: they just found it. Finders keepers. But something about this was off and she had no evidence to prove her suspicion.
Jack left the converted restaurant and skidded to the now-empty outpost. All of it was easy from then on out: Freakazoid had already taken off the ropes before she hopped on board Caroline. Jack started the engine, and they were blessed with its roaring noise. Good, there was fuel.
The boat then sailed against the water weeds, the bloated bodies knocking against the sides. Crane arched his head up like a watchful predator, eyeing anyone that could see a destroyed outpost and a fleeing boat. Another minute passed, and he settled back in the passenger seat, particularly alert. He didn't care if the outpost was almost out of sight the further downstream they went.
"Nobody's following us," Jack assured him.
"They can still shoot you," he scoffed.
"Making noise in broad daylight… Sounds reckless of them."
Ok, now that she said that, it would be stupid for any person to fire a gun with hordes around. But he felt restless. And Jack's nonchalance didn't help.
"Aren't you jittery. If there was any danger, it would have happened already."
"I'm just being cautious."
"Hm-hm. And being too paranoid can be a bad thing." She somewhat recalled a quote Mert had told her before.
"Better to be paranoid than dead."
"I suppose that's a good point. You being an infected. Speaking of which, how are you holding?"
How?
There had been off-and-on moments, but they were too small for Crane to lose control over. He still steeled his nerves anyway, just to be mentally sure he was in control.
"...Not much." He couldn't bring out a snarky comment to keep his nerves down. "Hard not to forget what happened earlier." The anxiety and caution were a hard-mixed bag inside him. Being wary of himself not to bite on people—terrified of the idea he might cave in and let his feral self out—while being vigilant in counterattacking his assaulters. "I don't have those...cravings-"
"Oh no. I mean, how are you on the boat? I've seen walkers die the moment they hit the water."
His lips tightened. And here, he really thought her question was genuine. "I'm not gonna drown if I fall off."
"Just making sure."
The intimidatingly chirpy reply actually dug into his doubt. Damn this woman. Now he started questioning himself—he had seen the zombies just end up dead in the water. He too had plummeted below the surface as his source of escape, back in his human days.
So maybe that one time escaping those trappers at the market was a fluke. Adrenaline pumping him to get out before whatever did the same to him. Maybe there was a thing about not staying too long in the water with this kind of body.
He brushed those grim thoughts away with a flare of his nostrils. Then something hit his sinuses. It was so sharp...
"-Cpfhoo!"
"Bless you, mate." The gesture was so whimsical—so nonchalant for a Day Hunter—it shouldn't be real. Then again, neither is a sneezing infected.
"It's this damn heightened smell." He hunched back in defeat. "No. Everything about this body is awful!"
"Must be the pollen. Terrible time of the year, I hear."
"Ugh." Pollen.
One deep sniff cleared it all away as the boat exited the Red Rill. Crane nestled back in his seat, doing his best to get comfy while...leaving the driving in the hands of a crazed fighter, now that he thought about it. Oh, how grand that was.
"Alright. You got your boat. Now what?"
"Well... I suppose we should go look for that Weeping Man."
Crane frowned. "He could be anywhere. How exactly are we going to find him?"
The brunette thought first, one hand cupping her chin and the other still holding the wheel. She didn't get a chance to put a tracker on the new beast back then. On paper, it looked like a lost cause.
But Jack wasn't a quitter.
"It's a noisy bellyacher," Jack pointed thoughtfully. "Only a matter of time."
"So we just wait?"
"Maybe. Someone in this city will have heard it. Best way to hear rumors is to make friendly talk with the locals around the city."
"Uh-huh," he muttered. "Nobody is like your next-door neighbor."
"Who really knows about their next-door neighbor? I couldn't figure out mine at my old apartment for three years." The exasperated groan from Freakazoid didn't take down her boosted smile.
"They won't open up to a stranger."
"That's why a helping hand helps break down walls. Connect with them."
"In other words, doing jobs for people." Great, Crane thought to himself; some things never get old. "Look. It's nice you're...sometimes a Good Samaritan-"
"'Sometimes'?" Jack exclaimed with almost a hint of discontent in her voice.
"Yeah. Sometimes," he boasted. He wasn't afraid of admitting it. "But not everyone will dance to your fiddle... You can only get so far with helping people…"
He actually did slip up there. But this time, Crane didn't bite his tongue down. This woman needed to hear that from him.
The brunette might have her own secrets, but everyone was far too trustworthy with her. She could make them dance for her like puppets with that tongue of hers. But when he started seeing how genuine some of her actions had been, it became a concern.
Jack's actions somewhat reflected what he did in Harran. Pretending to help others for a source of trust.
Why was he even trying to help her? So that she wouldn't make the same mistakes as him? Maybe. There was no way for him to turn back time and redeem himself now.
"If I didn't know any better, I'd think you've done this before," Jack pried patiently. Her tone wasn't mocking, but it wasn't the usual peppy tone. Still, she didn't ask him to share, spying his resistance in his posture.
"...It's just intuition," he lied.
"Intuition, huh?" she sang. "Hm… I should have met you way back then. Would have saved me a lot of trouble."
He huffed, flaring his nostrils at the joke. And here he was, offering his advice-!
"The thing is it's the Dark Ages now," Jack explained. "People here have lost everything."
"What is this? The medieval days, and you're a knight?" Crane muttered. Chivalry was the last thing he expected out of her.
She proved him wrong.
"It's not in my nature to abandon them."
"You can't help everyone."
"No, I can't. I'm no hero," she said honestly. "But someone has to do the job. Give a bit of hope. A bit of courage. Goes a long way."
"Sometimes, it doesn't," he argued.
"Well, we'll be the judge of that now, won't we? Get yourself ready, Freakazoid." Jack stared off into the distance. The dark clouds were getting unsettlingly closer to the city. "With this storm coming, I have a feeling we got a long day ahead of us."
A/N: 29/8/2020 Hello hello, welcome to a new chapter! And a very good one too!
This is good not just it opens up more around Crane's current dilemma and Jack working on solutions around it but also put out a faction on the spotlight for a bit that I've sorta been neglecting quite often because of stretching the plot out: the GRE. In the original, they had never had a role established well for the plot and the characters so it ended up focusing more on the prisoners instead. Thankfully, and admittedly to some inspiration from a video talking about bad writing in one game (coughcoughTLOU2hastoomanyholescoughcough), I've worked out in how the GRE would be more involved rather than just a voice or regular enemies like in Dying Light. It's too early for the development at this point, other than a description reveal for one of the GRE mercs above (she plays an interesting role later) but I do hope that it'd be an interesting plot development to test the two characters out.
I'm also very happy with this direction so far: there had been so many elements I wanted to tackle but always, I've had a difficult time working because of the previous set elements I had. Many times prevented me from putting them in because of pacing and not working with the chapters in scenarios. Most of all, the plot now feels genuine and organic. A lot of side characters don't feel like they're just there and they give enough room for you to speculate - their purpose in the story works in moving the plot flowingly. I hope to keep to this down the line. Another thing I'm happy is if I keep this up, I can FINALLY stop putting an update chapter and ACTUALLY put a plot chapter instead. It's a damn pain redoing those update chapters to update the fic.
With that said, this is the first part of the arc down and the next chapter will be another intermission chapter, not just for a bit of slow-down after Crane's...incident but also that I've for some work coming in so the next main chapter will take some time. I have the intermission chapter being prepared halfway so look out for it. These side quest stories are really fun to work on so I do hope you'll like that as much as you've enjoyed this one. Do expect this chapter to go through an edit cuz I've pretty much rushed through this without much changes though so it's pure writing.
Ps. What? Did I get you all at the beginning? Thinking that I'd go down that dark path when Jack was right behind Crane the entire time down in those tunnels? Nahh, I'm saving for much worst horrors than just a near attempt eating someone. Every other zombie is already doing that anyway in Dying Light. :D
9/2/21 - Added new lines, fixed mistakes and edited parts according to new timestamp from pilot.
25/2/22 - Went over a full chapter edit with some fixes, retwists, deletes and adjustments. Also fun fact that I didn't know so I went to edit it: suppressors for guns don't completely muffle noise. You'll still hear a sharp sound but not as loud as a normal gunshot. So you CAN still attract say one or two zombies nearby, you just won't attract a horde from so far away. Unless you're in the horde, then you're f-beep-ed.
Learned that from Roanoke Gaming, awesome youtuber about talks on virus biology and pathology in movies and games! He even did two vids on Dying Light's virus. (His Dead Space vids are awesome to watch too)
9/1/24 - Final fixes and changes, I hope
24/1/25 - Made a change to the character, Taylor as what I originally had was redundant with the rest of the story.