Chapter Summary
- BAIT AND SWITCH
It's amusing that I'd be doing something like this in the middle of a disaster. And on a freak with half a mind. Should be simple. No one would turn away from the idea of playing the hero. - Jack
FIFTEEN: SMOKE AND MIRRORS
"There we go."
Jack steadied the dressed-up mannequin before tugging on the shirt to clean out the wrinkles. The perfect 'father figure' for a family of four in the middle of an open-air patio at the Bayside's shopping precedent—out on a sunny day for ice cream while walking along the pier before the family's normal life was shattered.
Ok, the image wasn't completely perfect. The clouds covered up the sun, and dead bodies littered the abandoned ice cream parlor. Every now and then, some dim-witted walker had to fumble his way into the setup.
But it was the best scenario for Crybaby to fall for. The shopping precedent was big enough to have a one-off with Crybaby, enclosed to keep him funneled in with few escape plans.
"You really think this is gonna work?"
"Of course." The amount of confidence in Jack was so bullshit to Crane. But he listened. "Crybaby sees a family in distress and comes running. Who wouldn't want to be the hero of the day?"
Crane couldn't help but feel like that was unintentionally directed at him.
"You're asking that question on an infected. In the middle of a pandemic."
"But I'm not wrong. Crybaby can't let go of the past. He's trying to reenact anything to regain that bit of humanity."
"He could be long gone by now."
"Oh, he'll come."
After finishing the small touches, Jack stepped away from her masterwork. A job well done, she had to say. The four mannequins from the nearby story were already clothed and blood-free, so that cut her expected work in half. Just had to change a piece and take off another to give it an authentic, casual look.
"If his behavior is anything to go by, he'll take the bait."
"You have too much hope for how this is gonna play out," Freakazoid warned. "Zombies aren't people anymore."
"And yet, here you are. A zombie listening to a madwoman's ramblings," Jack added, which prompted all sorts of groans from the Day Hunter next to her. One out of denial, then one out of defeat. "Alright. Let's get to it then."
Crane gave a small nod. Might as well see this half-baked plan to the end. And he had followed through other half-baked plans before…
He gradually peered back at Jack, just to watch her take the next step. When he noticed her eyes and grin were on him, the bells in his head rang loud.
"Wait. You want me to do this?"
"Of course. You're better suited to be the actor in this play."
"Because I'm infected?"
Jack's arms spread out wide. "Do you see anyone else volunteering?"
And? Crane didn't like being the monster here and didn't want to be one!
"Why can't you do it?" he complained.
Jack pondered. Or what Crane saw as 'acting like she was pondering'. "Would Crybaby go after an evil-looking lady over a scary-looking, burly man…" She shook her head. "No. Wouldn't work."
Crane grumbled with no comeback. Even he himself made the mistake of underestimating her from the start. Just because she was a woman.
"It's simple. All you need to do is pretend you're attacking this family." She directed a hand at the setup. "Act big and frightening to sell the con for Crybaby."
"Con?"
"Yes. Con," she answered matter-of-factly. "Never deceived anyone once in your life?"
Omph, low blow there. Did she have to make him feel even shitter by reminding him about his poor life? What made it worse was that it was unintentional.
"I wouldn't-"
"Know. Right, right. Amnesia." That sounded more like his remark was that of a broken record. Was Jack onto him? "You were human once. Lie, steal, cheat. It's in our nature."
Man, did she really take a spoon and gut him open with that.
"That's a big assumption. I would never…" Yeah, try to lie to yourself, Kyle.
Funny how Jack beat him to the punch.
"You should hold that thought first. Wouldn't want it to bite you back when you finally do remember," she sang. "I should know."
Crane jerked back from the response. Something was off there. But Jack's talkative mouth wouldn't let him think over.
"I've got no qualms about what your dark past could be. Doesn't mean you can't act. Or are you telling me you got stage fright?"
"This isn't payback for what happened at the tunnel," Crane started warily. "Right?"
The grin on Jack's face held a certain irk to it. The seconds of silence were making it so ominous on him. It was more unsettling when she started off a soft laugh and snaked her way up to his face.
"That would be too easy now, wouldn't it?"
If anyone else had said that, Crane would have brushed it off. But that specific tone of hers… He didn't look forward to what was to come, if this performance on center stage wasn't payback.
"Now. You're the dangerous freak." Jack strolled over to one of the mannequins, arm over the shoulder, and one pat on the plastic chest. Almost like being the director of a movie set. "This is a family of survivors fleeing for their lives. Show that rawness you gave to me back at the chapel."
She started to leave for a hiding place. Then, all of a sudden, backtracked to Freakazoid.
"Oh and do that scowl too. You know..."
Crane narrowed his eyes at her as she tried to demonstrate what she meant in a bit of an exaggerated way. Her face lit up.
"Yes, that. That scowl."
He groaned. Back hunched and shoulders slouched. With a heavy sigh, he turned his attention to the mannequins.
Everything about this plan was childish. He weakly raised his claws as if ready for a fistfight. How was he supposed to do this…
Didn't help that he also had an audience behind him.
"Yeah. This isn't working for me…" Crane quickly wheeled back to Jack.
"Seriously?" she exclaimed. "You've been alright fighting convicts and mercs."
"Yeah. Because those are the bad guys. But this..." He directed a claw at the family of four. The idea was so uncomfortable. "Aren't I supposed to be in control of myself?"
"Oh, you're being dramatic. You can distinguish the differences even without my help." That didn't reassure Crane, not when the beast in him could be unleashed on a coin toss. "If it makes you feel better, just picture them as cronies instead."
"No. It doesn't." If the mannequins wore GRE attire or the usual setup Rais' men did, sure. Not when they were dressed as one father, one mother and two teenage kids. "This feels like encouragement to me."
"That's because you're taking this as encouragement. This is a trap for Crybaby, not '101 ways to be a zombie'." Freakazoid didn't budge. "Look. This is more of a...self-control exercise. A test of your strength and when to hold back. Not the hardest thing you can pull."
The narrowed, icy-blue eyes just pierced through her on how stupid that sounded out of her. It didn't even offer any suggestions for his dilemma. Man, she was the worst motivational speaker ever.
Kyle turned back to the prop set. Swallowed. Readied himself-
Nope. Couldn't.
"Can't we try something else?" He wheeled back to Jack.
"Never would I imagine the day I'd see an infected get cold feet."
"Well, why don't you punch your way down a whole family and tell me with a straight face you won't feel guilty."
"They're mannequins. Not a real person. Don't go falling for our trap."
"And our mark will?"
What a fuzzy Hunter. "Alright. What do you propose then?"
"I don't know…! If you say he'll come in like a hero...then wouldn't an actual damsel in distress make more sense?"
"I suppose so. But do you see anyone that fits the bill?"
"Yeah. You. You can play the victim."
The frown deepened, slanted to one side. "Excuse me?"
Wow. That sounded horrible coming from him. Crane immediately regretted it.
"I'm just throwing ideas here! Maybe it'd be more real if he saw a real person in danger. And with you being a drama queen all the time, you can easily get his attention-"
He stopped talking. From the start, Crane could never get a good read on her. But this time, he didn't need to read much. It was pure contempt. Plastered thick on her face.
She was judging, wasn't she? He had to come up with an idea like that, after all. Crane could feel the rolling of her eyes behind the sunglasses.
She spun on her heel and walked away.
"Uh. Jack?" She ignored him. "Hey?"
"Break a leg, Beastly." Jack waved a hand without looking back. "You got this."
The encouragement came out more discouraging than the other way around. Did he really have to act as a vicious, threatening bogeyman at a mannequin family? Crane turned back—the stage wasn't real. There weren't frightened real people in the middle of the precedent, but...it felt dumb.
Defeated and deflated, he decided to have a starting run first and walked to one side of the shopping precedent as the imaginary spike tape on stage.
It was a slow, self-loathing walk.
With that happening, Jack made her way to the third floor. She had the best view there—a pleasant balcony to rest her arms on and survey from. Had the entire ground floor in view. Now all she needed was a cup of tea.
"And…" she droned through the comms. "Action."
Out from the shadows darted a figure. Some would think it was a Runner. Others, a Volatile. It sprinted to the centre like a bullet before taking a halt right before the father mannequin. Claws out and ready.
Bursting out of the lungs was the roar.
Or at least, a less impactful shout compared to the first time Jack heard it. Sure, Freazkaoid had the makings of a beast, but there was something holding back.
Ah, right. It was too human.
"A bit louder. Crybaby won't hear that squeak of yours."
A moment of "really?" like an actor making a quick reaction to an interrupting talker in the audience. But Freakazoid reverted back to keeping his cool. Quickly, he inhaled deeply and did the howl louder. Right at the father mannequin's face.
Better than nothing.
There was a small fault in his acting, as if Freakazoid was thinking about what he should do next. Like forgetting the lines. So he changed targets. The mother this time. He huddled over to her. Attack the neck-
"You look like a crazed ape doing that."
Freakazoid straightened up like a shot, eyes definitely glaring back at her.
"How about you come down here and take my place then?" Even without the comms, she could hear him clearly down in the patio as he pointed a talon to the very ceramic-tiled floor he stood on. "I'd like to see you do better."
"Nooo," she sang. "I couldn't pull off the undead look like you do. Be the Wild Dog, sure. But that's a very different image altogether."
"I'm done." The moment was ruined, thanks to the teasing. Crane plopped himself down and glowered with folded arms.
"You're doing so well, Freakazoid. I give you eight points for getting this far."
"Hmph." His voice was somewhat soft for her to pick up the grumbling. Mumbling things like "I'm hurling my ass around here and she's nitpicking…"
"...Rather strange."
Down on the patio, the Day Hunter could detect a change in her tone. But Jack did nothing to hide it—the gears in her head were already ticking as she tapped her binoculars she had taken out, against the railing. She watched him glance over his shoulder and look up at her.
Such a normal reaction. The timing, the movement, everything about it. That made him different from the rest of the living dead.
Those were twitches, impulsive reactions, and tiny moments in the body language a profiler would pick on. It still seemed impossible that her blood caused such a reaction for Freakazoid to regain his humanity.
"What is?"
She rose back up from her thoughts to see Freakazoid waiting.
"Just thinking about you and Crybaby. You both got a taste of my perk and suddenly started behaving very differently from the norm... Dosage doesn't seem to matter."
"Does the details even matter?"
"They do, actually. Need to jot down the symptoms too."
"Symptoms?" The word never dawned on Crane till now—the perspective twisted on its head.
"You weren't the result I had in mind. I thought you'd keel over and die like the rest."
"Geez, thanks."
"Just being honest. Both you and that Special are changing dramatically. I dare say you two might be getting close to being human. Again."
"That's not a comforting thought."
"I thought you might like the idea."
"And you're crazy to think that," Freakazoid rebuked, almost pouting again. Nothing about this body was human. "So what's strange about it?"
"It's only the two of you. You're not like other types."
"Ok. So we're different. What's wrong with that?"
"I'm kinda doubting that it's my little mutation helping with your head. Sometimes you showed signs of reverting."
"...It's just a trigger."
"Right. You two already have a catalyst in your system that's giving these weird reactions."
"Ok. I'm following."
"Wondering if there's a common denominator between you two. Maybe you two came from the same place."
A common denominator.
Thankfully, Jack wasn't down on the patio with him to see the pale color in Crane's face become much paler. The thought was so tiny; it had completely slipped from his mind until she had brought it up.
It never crossed his mind before. He was done with that place. He didn't want anything to do with it. Now it was biting him back, just as Jack said minutes ago.
The blue vial from the Countryside was the common denominator.
No, it was more like a guess. He didn't know if Ercan took a vial. But the whole Countryside had been gassed with that stuff for who knew how long. But it was what started it all: the Mother's transformation, his, and now Ercan's. If anything, the common denominator was that Crane and Ercan came from a place where a sentient Volatile led a cult.
He didn't know the origin or the inner workings behind that liquid. Heck, he found it in a storage facility hidden inside a dam. But deep down in his gust, he was certain it was connected.
Crane felt a lump in his throat. He cleared it.
He couldn't stall. Jack would know.
"...You really think we both came from the same place?" Deflect—that was all he could do.
"Bones had this theory. The reason why some infected are slightly different than others might have to do with the environment and our bodies. We don't have Volatiles or Hunters over in the Outskirts. And there aren't any Berserkers or Watchers in this city either."
"Berserkers?" Crane felt a sense of annoying dread. "And Watchers? What are those?"
"Nasty buggers. Don't worry. Haven't seen one since I arrived here."
And?! Just because she hadn't so far, didn't mean Kyle might actually encounter one of these new types.
"And yes, I've already tested them. Riveting experience," she droned exhaustedly without him having a chance to ask. "Sadly, same results. They were dead as a doornail."
Too much info there.
"Well…" Freakazoid's mind raced for an answer. No, an excuse. "Weren't you saying there's some sort of virus evolution happening? Couldn't that be the reason why we're different?"
"...Is that enough?" Jack rested her chin on an arm, dissatisfied with the possibility. "Two Specials out of tens of thousands of infected. In a matter of months... It's like buying the winning lottery. Unless there are more of you we don't know about."
The next point of the discussion...Crane was afraid she'd pick on that. Moreover, he couldn't stop her even if he tried.
It would be a move he couldn't make. Everything Jack said was basically hearsay, making hypotheses. She was already in this deep and trying to turn the conversation right now could be a dangerous thing for him. It'd backfire.
What made it grimmer was remembering what she just said: whether there were more like him. If his new body was the result of the blue vial...who was to say there weren't more like him out there.
How many became like him? Jasir? Palot? Bilal? Anyone from the Countryside?
And how many was he going to encounter in his bizarre journey?
"You said you were the only one, right?"
"Yeah." Shit, Kyle. Why did you say that?!
"I believe you. I wouldn't know if there's someone with the same perk as mine," she continued. "But it always bugged me."
"What did?"
"You said you killed her."
Crane's eyes widened. His whole body tensed up.
Jack continued on with her line of thinking.
"Been meaning to bring this up. Was there another Special like you and Crybaby?"
"What are you going on about?"
It was almost a rise in his tone. Almost. The discordant sounds coming out of his mouth were still unnatural to him. It prompted him to swallow, to get rid of the foreign lump in his throat.
Drop the topic already.
"Maybe you did come across other Specials like yourself but didn't know. Before you were reformed. Anything you could remember from then?"
Oh, he knew exactly where.
"No." Again, Crane swallowed. Stay calm. "I really don't know."
That...was one small bit of the whole truth.
"Hm… Well...we could always help jolt your memory," she muttered to herself.
Behind his scarf, Kyle ground his sharp teeth together. Dammit, she really didn't know when to back off.
The problem with this game of deception was his opponent. With anyone, he could lie out of dodge or turn the conversation around to his advantage. But with the brunette, it was the other way around for him.
And he couldn't tell what was a lie or the truth with her.
"I told you. How am I supposed to remember anything?" he tried to deflect again.
"I wouldn't imagine you'll be able to so quickly. Having amnesia is actually more complicated than you think. It's not like those soaps."
Wait, it is?
Shit, why did she have to be a psychologist now?
"You're now well-versed in your new situation... I'm thinking...procedural memories."
"Procedural what?"
"Memories of learning by doing, like riding a bike. You can forget being taught, but not the skill itself. Sometimes, you may not even realize you remember it until you do it again."
"Really?"
"It's like a gut feeling. Your body remembers for you. The more familiar it feels, the easier something comes back to you."
"I... I don't see how this is relevant."
"You're the only infected that can talk about his symptoms. You might very well have the answer we need for our little experiment," Jack explained.
No sign of retaliation or aggression like before. Good, she thought. Showed he wasn't completely selfish if it meant reaching a successful goal in a cure.
"I get it. Sounds unbelievable. But it doesn't hurt to try. And hey, nothing's lost in the end."
No, that wasn't it. But that ending sentence, on a causal note, twisted deep in Crane's gut.
Everything Jack had explained to that point didn't sound like it was fishing. The idea that time would bring out the memories was convincing to him. Because Jack found the idea plausible. And that was the problem. Crane couldn't debunk it.
Was it a trap?
"I don't…" He had to stop himself from finishing his sentence. "There's no guarantee I can remember-"
"And what if you can?"
She got him there. Again, he couldn't take the amnesia excuse like that from TV shows.
So she gave another tug at that.
"Wouldn't you want your memory back?"
The question was sincere. Suffocating. If he'd answer, she'd figure out. If he didn't, she still would.
There was no way out.
If Crane had actually looked back, he would have seen how looming Jack's presence was high above him. Waiting.
Take the bait, Freakazoid.
Something shifted in the shadows for Jack to notice. Outside the small Bayside mall's perimeter. She looked through her binoculars.
"Well, well." She smiled. "I see you, Crybaby."
Just like that, the topic dropped. But it simmered in the back of Crane's mind. He almost spun back too quickly, but the brunette didn't see that. Relief washed over him that he had dodged a bullet.
There was no reason for Jack to go to the Countryside. No, it was he that didn't want to go back there. Call him selfish, a coward, whatever, but that was the line he put down.
He was never going back.
"Get into position, Freakazoid."
Crane climbed up onto his feet, face-to-face with his new predicament. The acting.
Even after taking a break, this was a lot harder than it looked. Crane couldn't help but feel the heartstrings tug again.
"He's entering the mall."
Fine. Crane's attention went to one of the teenage mannequins. The girl. As much as he despised himself for thinking it, it was the best tactic he could use.
"Grrah!" he snarled. Lashed a claw around the thin neck and lifted the mannequin up. Crane threw in another howl for good measure, hoping that the limbs wouldn't fall off.
"Twenty feet. He's bolting."
Ercan was mad. Crane could only imagine how this all looked to him. A freak of nature picking his daughter by the neck. The deluded mind brought back noises and sights from the past.
The mannequin swung like a pendulum. Shaking that she was squirming. Trying to break free from the monster's grasp.
Come on already! Kyle was not going to take a bite on a plastic neck!
The sound of running came to him as an answer. Any minute now.
"Get ready," Jack said through the comms, her smile particularly stretching the more Crybaby got closer to the trap.
It was working.
Baff!
Jack jerked at the pop sound from so far away. All of a sudden, Crybaby's body jolted to the right. A strange and unnatural reaction. Not like a dodge.
"That was a gunshot!" Freakazoid's voice boomed over the comms.
What?
For a split second, Jack searched for the gunner. Where was he? However, she could not tear her ears off their main target.
"No, no, no!" Jack hollered. No amount of pleading would help when the Weeping Man had disappeared into the mall. "Shit."
Through the same binoculars, Freakazoid ducked behind cover from a sudden, tiny explosion of crumpled stone and dust on the floor.
He darted inside the mall like an arrow without a second thought. Jack dove down behind the railing. A sniper rifle? No, couldn't be. She kept watch, witnessing a large group trotting cautiously into the open light of the patio.
"Oh, great. GRE."
"What?!"
One of the grunts spotted Jack up on the balcony. A very angry glare with teeth clenched ruined such a handsome face under all that gear—Jack knew who that was. It was the GRE soldier they met days ago.
Time to go.
She sprinted into the deserted mall. Not without hearing the words, "Get her!" shouting from behind.
"Did they really buy that trap too?!"
"Questions later. Get out now!"
"Get out now!" Jack's voice rang over the comms.
Easier said than done.
The mall's large layout was alien to Kyle, despite it being like any shopping place. Shops left empty, overgrown natural decorations vining up the walls, and the dismayed scene of the past when humans fled from a Biter attack during the first week of the outbreak.
Crane was on his own until he could meet up with Jack. He raced across the ground floor, his eyes noticing one group of running orange skeletons above him, chasing after one lone skeleton along the second floor. Jack. Ahead of him were a set of stationary escalators—a meetup point where he could climb upstairs and tackle down Jack's persuaders in one go.
But first was the problem behind him.
Four other skeletons running after him. More GRE mercenaries—maybe the ones that shot at Ercan. In the disarray, they had the bright idea to go after Crane instead.
But he was faster. He could outrun those goons without having to worry-
Then he suddenly came to a stop.
"Wait. What am I doing?!"
Why did he need to run away from them?!
"There he is!"
Invisibility wasn't going to cut it for Crane. He didn't want to go invisible. The lack of light inside the mall helped cloak him.
Into a sprint, he ducked into the large shadows by a broken lift. The soldiers traced the barrels of their firearms at what they thought would be where their target would pop out. Mentally prepared to face him in close quarters.
"Whoa!"
The soldiers turned back to see one of their own suddenly tripping. Not the whipping tendril that grabbed an ankle and pulled him forward into the shadows. Scream all he wanted, his hands scratching the floor, but where he got dragged, he couldn't see the bone blade thrust down into his guts.
The rest of the troops staggered back. In their hesitation, they didn't fire or jump in to save their comrade—uncertain what was the best option from the mercenary handbook. Just as one of them quickly tried to shine a flashlight, tendrils shot out like a scene from a horror show. A hard pull lifted a grown, heavily armed man off his feet and suddenly juggled him to his friend on the right. The last standing man rose his firearm up, point black, only to have it slapped out of his hands and himself face to face with a monster! Silver-blue eyes ghastly under the hood.
Fear clutched him too tight for him to realize he'd go down, one way or another.
Thud!
Crash!
Crane had every intention to do a throw, the simplest form in judo. But again, he underestimated his strength, knowing that the toss wasn't to the floor but right into a ransacked pharmaceutical store. It was the same result anyway, so that was fine.
"Over here!"
Another group headed his way. This one bigger.
And willing to shoot.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
A dodge and a duck into a gift shop. Ok, maybe he shouldn't be pushing his luck.
One plus side to all this was that the noises attracted more guests into the mall. More problems for the jarheads to focus on.
He held his breath and focused on his x-ray vision to find a clear path. And he noticed one of the skeletons without a halt in their march. Hunting him instead of worrying about the incoming Biters.
Fine. Take this one down, and then run.
The moment Crane saw the held-up arm with a gun at the corner of his eye, he lunged out of his hiding place.
Sparks flew towards his chest.
Tzzzt-tat-tat!
"Gamph!" His body convulsed. He couldn't yell at the feeling of the voltage running from the sneaky taser. Not this again! Crane's knees buckled, and a kick to his chest put him down as a further measure.
"Bring him to the fountain."
He could only watch himself be dragged somewhere in the mall. How amazingly and stupidly thick their concentration on their assignment was that they hadn't pulled his hood off and seen his ugly face.
That could have freaked them out. Give him a chance to attack. But that would be too risky.
The men around him gathered, along with two that survived his onslaught. On watch and keeping the nearby infected at bay. The ones who carried him plopped him to the floor with the typical treatment any agent would give. One hand was on his shoulder to keep him down, but he got a glimpse of what was the mall's moss-covered central fountain—a giant foyer lit up by a broken skylight above.
"Come out! We have your friend!"
Get off. He wasn't going to be used as a hostage.
"...Call her out," the familiar blond-haired GRE grunt demanded with such a thin slice of patience. "You have three seconds."
"One."
The nuzzle of a semi-automatic pistol dug into his head.
Just give him one second… Maybe two. Once the pain stopped, they'd get hell from him.
"Two-"
"Alright!"
No. She could have waited! Crane wished he could speak up, to tell Jack not to come out—it wasn't because the grunts would turn on him and shoot at the sound of the horrendous voice but because the pain hadn't left him.
As he bit down on it, the brunette stepped into the large foyer with her hands up. Slow and steady. The men that had chased her on the second floor; Crane could only guess that she had dealt with or evaded them.
"You have my attention."
A squad of dangerous, trained men. GRE sure was resourceful for being a 'humanitarian' organization. There were the stories behind that squeaky, clean name. While examining her approaching enemy, Jack underestimated their ability to be well-prepared for a zombie outbreak. Freakazoid wouldn't be able to take them down on his own. Even with her help.
"Grab her," the leader gave the order.
"Easy! Easy," Jack pleaded as collectedly as she could. So much for asking them to be gentle with the way they handled her and pulled her arms behind. She didn't mean any harm. Yet. But they didn't need to know that.
The GRE commander stepped forward in a threatening fashion. Yes, yes. Trying to act the part so that she could force a stranger to cooperate without lifting a finger.
"You're lucky I don't leave you here to get eaten," he scoffed disgustingly.
Ok. So maybe the trap did work too well.
"So this is a rescue? Hm," Jack hummed. "Funny. I don't remember asking for help."
Not a shake, a crack, or a bang. The bitterness was so fuming through the seams that not even a trigger could blow it up. He couldn't forgive Jack after what had happened at the sewers.
Tough crowd.
"Taylor here," he spoke over their radio.
"Report."
Crane's skin crawled at the sound of that voice. How many people from his past were going to worm their way into him?
"We have the woman in red."
"I want confirmation."
The GRE leader, Taylor gave a silent command, ushering Jack to come closer. There was some fight—whatever they were about to do, Jack didn't like it—but two trained men on her were already an obstacle on their own. She felt the back of her head held straight and still as the mercenary lifted up his phone at her.
Click!
The flash stung her eyes, even with the shades on.
"Really. If you wanted photos, all you had to do was ask." A play on her title, the Wild Dog. "I think they still sell well on the market-"
Pow!
She asked for it. A sharp punch to the diaphragm by one of her captors.
"Hey!" Taylor hollered.
"She wouldn't stop talking!"
Although she dropped to her knees, Jack's body refused to drop completely down. She inhaled deeply through gritted teeth.
Stop talking, Crane begged. These aren't ordinary people. He had been one of them himself.
Taylor's fingers quickly tweedled on the buttons of the burner phone, sending the photo up to the cloud.
"...So it is her."
"Do you want us to detain them?"
"And why would you do that?" Disappointment draped so tight that one could feel the furrowed eyebrows and angled frown on the other line. The extra tone she had used on Crane. Exactly how he remembered with distaste. "Ask her about Umit Solak."
"...Yes, ma'am." So much reluctance to try and disobey his boss, and even more, that he had to kiss ass and follow suit if it meant interacting with the ex-kickboxer.
That name again. If anything, all of this was playing out exactly how Crane went through: accepting his mission to locate Kadir Suleiman, talking to the locals to find key clues. Except instead of a solo mission for one man, a whole squad was picked.
But that couldn't be right. Rais was a corrupted son of a bitch. Umit Solak was just…
The GRE leader fiddled with her phone again and showed the screen to Jack.
"Have you seen this man?"
Jack was still catching her breath. But she glimpsed at the picture of a man with glasses. The best she could describe from the photo was a local professor in his fifties.
It was a face she had seen on the telly. A face she least expected the GRE to go hounding after.
"Umit Solak. Have you seen him?"
"Who hasn't. He was practically on every news channel. Political figure, archaeologist and specialist in the History of Harran, yada, yada," Jack groaned. "Why? Did he beg you to pick him up like every big suit in this country?"
The silence spoke volumes. That stretched Jack's smirk wider.
"...So it's not a rescue mission. Did find it odd that you lot were picking up a request in the middle of this poppycock," Jack pried.
"She doesn't know," Taylor informed the lady on the comms. With the silence hanging, he continued on, "This is going nowhere."
"Oh, yes. Definitely nowhere. I think you should be looking into your stolen merch instead."
"What?"
News to them. The wrinkled brows, the confused gazes. The whole troop didn't know what Jack meant.
How peculiar. Let's pull on this info.
"You don't know?" Jack droned, now seizing the conversation. "Found some of your supply boxes at a few outposts. First the outbreak, and now you're letting convicts run with your inventory. Doesn't look good on you."
"What are you talking about?"
"Ignore her. She's fishing," ordered the voice on the comms. "Bring both of them to Perimeter One."
"What-" Taylor stopped himself, almost having to think of something. "What is the point of taking her? She could already be infected."
"Are you telling me how to do my job, Agent Taylor?"
"...N-No, ma'am."
"I don't care what your gripe is with her. Do not underestimate her. Acknowledge."
Taylor's face scrunched up with reeling humiliation. No acceptance. Worse was how provoked his face was at the ex-kickboxer. Nothing went the GRE's way, and Jack enjoyed seeing that.
"Affirmative… They'll be there in thirty."
"Make it half that time."
That was the end of the call.
"We're taking them to base."
Bad news. Both Crane and definitely Jack didn't like that. Whatever and wherever the base, Perimeter One, was, meant the end for them. Moreover, if the jarheads were to find out the truth about Freakazoid, Jack thought to herself, the Ravs would lose their only chance at a cure.
Same went for her perk if word got out.
Something cold ran down her face. Thunder hollered at the coming drizzle; the first wet beats fell through the broken glass rooftop and down to the humans below.
One mercenary raised his hand up to the droplets.
"This is gonna be a problem."
"Doesn't matter," Taylor ship-shaped his men back into order. "We have to beat the clock before they turn off the grid."
Well, looks like they were going to go with a big bang, Jack thought. Time to cook up a plan on the go.
"He's back."
"Who's there?!"
One of the men flocked like a headless chicken. Spooked out of his own skin that it also alarmed the others. But Jack wasn't sure if because a ghostly voice slipped into his head or a noise was the cause.
"You heard that, right?"
"Heard what?"
Crane ignored them. He could only hope Jack could see eye to eye with what he was going with.
Her gaze was on him. She nodded.
With a start, Jack flared her nostrils, arms down, as she fidgeted. "I'm going to hate this."
"Hey! Hands back in the air!"
Hands did go up. "Please! Don't hurt us!"
Immediately, Jack dropped down. Sobbing in some fake accent. The brave, ferocious fighter broken down into a scared woman before the GRE grunts' eyes.
"What are you doing?" Taylor demanded, confused at the sudden change.
"We have nothing for you to take! Leave us be!"
"Does she have a screw loose or something?" a grunt asked.
"Hey!" A gun moved closer as one of the men ordered her to stop.
"Please!" Jack's arms shielded up. She trembled. Cowering. Trying to make herself as small as possible.
Play the victim in a house invasion.
Crane quietly searched as everyone's eyes were on the stage. He spotted the new actor, twenty feet away, now sprinting his way towards the crowd.
Kyle turned back to catch a wink from Jack, then trailed her eyes to the grunt on her. A hand's reach to the utility belt if he gave her the right moment.
But her opening had to work first.
"What should we do? Rain's picking up."
"Just...shut her up. She's gonna attract more zombies," the GRE leader spat as she glanced back. One minute ago, the ex-kickboxer was a chattering nuisance, the next, she became afraid-
At the last second, the brunette ceased her whimpering. Hands went down from her face.
Ka-caaak!
A flash of lightning illuminated her expression for Taylor.
Jack grinned. Slow and wide. Teeth bare.
Nothing but crocodile tears out of a madwoman.
Taylor tried to holler. Warn everyone-!
"SRAAAGH!"
The GRE quickly wheeled to the beast, its weight rocking the top of an elevator. Its hunting perch.
"Shoot it!"
The moment Crane was waiting for. He leapt up in one spring.
"Gah-!" The grunt behind him didn't see the bone blade in time—a clean stab into the neck. A distraction off Jack. Quickly, she lifted one particular thing from her guard's utility belt and threw it right at Taylor's feet.
A smoke bomb.
"Shit-!"
BANG!
Everything went white. Jack held her breath in and ran under the cover of the smoke. A bit of tearing in her eyes but she wasn't as bad as the others, choking on the gas.
"I can't see!"
"Dammit!" Taylor hollered between breaths.
"AHH!"
Under the blanket of smoke, other bystanders jumped to the opportunity. Two Virals scrambled out of the nearby shops and dove on one grunt's neck.
Now was the chance for Crane to escape-
"Whoa!"
Suddenly, he couldn't feel the floor. One of the thugs had grabbed him by the neck out of nowhere and chunked him down—no, those were claws.
The smoke had some effect in irritating the senses on a walker as it did to a human. Even Crane felt his dulled down. What he never imagined was for the cover to be his disadvantage.
Hatred glared down at him in those golden eyes. Ercan stood above him, looking almost like a crazed man seeking vengeance. Crane spotted something in his claw. He had slowly, mindlessly, taken a hammer from somewhere. A hardware store close by.
It was good enough to blunder Crane to death.
"W-Wait!" He was one of them. He was like Ercan!
But Crane didn't say those lines out loud. He was an idiot to think that could work. It was so pitiful on both ends: trying to plead with an infected and believing Ercan could see a familiar face from the past.
Both their realities were truly grim. In that fragmented state of mind, the Weeping Man knew exactly what Crane was.
No. The infected couldn't think. They couldn't control the hunger and rage. The infection commanded them to bite, to spread and destroy. Ercan ran on pure instinct, with distorted memories fueling him away from reasoning. He didn't want the competition. He saw Crane as a threat.
The Weeping Man wanted him dead.
POW!
The swing sent Ercan flying. Sent him down and weaponless. Jack readied back up her weapon, the adrenaline and fear nearly prompting her to use her fists over her tool. Thankfully, that one whack was enough to throw the Weeping Man into turmoil, down to the floor and clutching his head.
Hurriedly, Jack pulled Freakazoid up and shouldered him away from the fading smoke. Away from Ercan. Crane couldn't tear his eyes away from the poor bald man, who scrabbled away before the smoke dispersed and revealed the tumultuous scene in the foyer. The gunfire commenced at the wavering Infected as they ducked into a wing of the mall for cover. No choice but to drop down behind a half-wall at a cafe to avoid the flying bullets and the screaming infected.
"This is bad. Very bad," she mumbled as she searched for somewhere to escape the storm they were in.
"Yeah. I know." Don't remind him.
Luckily, GRE made enough attention to attract the running Virals and Biters. They didn't notice their two arrested bystanders gone. Crane ran over their choices in his head: could they stay long enough for an opening and slip out, or should they run now?
"Ok. You were right about Crybaby," Jack spoke up. Oh, now she was telling him she regretted the whole ploy! "He's got a very short fuse. We're never gonna get a blood sample at this rate."
"Really?" Crane barked. "At a time we're surrounded, you're still trying to catch him?"
"Opportunity at its finest. It'd be easier if he wasn't a bloody coward."
Coward.
That was harsh.
"He… It can't help it…"
"Anyone infected can't help it. Everyone in this city is a rabid lunatic, thanks to this virus."
Absolutely. He knew that. But it wasn't easy when Crane knew the whole story and Jack didn't.
He wanted to tell her to give Ercan some slack.
"...It's not his fault he's this way-"
"You can't go soft on me now, Freakazoid."
"What?"
"Doesn't matter if they were a loving father or if they went through some traumatic event. Everyone has the same sob story here. Even you. "
Crane couldn't believe his ears.
The same sob story? Did she really just chunk Ercan's trauma into a box like it was a page from the daily news?!
Just how cold was she?!
"Our goal is getting those antibodies," she laid out their reason, flat and right to the point, cutthroat style. "If you're really torn about it, you can always end his misery. But don't forget. It's us or them."
That did it.
The lecture pissed Kyle off.
Because it was exactly the same way his employer said to him when he was given his orders!
"Oh, shut up!"
Jack's eyebrows raised up at their highest. That was a surprise. In the middle of a small turf war came out a show of anger she never thought would surface again.
Freakazoid did love to argue when their lives were hanging on the line here.
So she let him release some steam.
"Do you think anyone wanted this to happen?! Nobody did! I didn't!"
"I didn't as well. Infected or not, we're all in the same boat. You know I'm right."
That was what made it so frustrating for Kyle!
"I know! I know all too well! But you weren't there when I found him," he barked. "You didn't see the state he was in!"
"No. But you clearly do."
Crane froze.
Once he faced Jack, he knew it was already too late. Caught and locked in that assertive gaze of hers. Red-handed.
He fell for the trap.
"You know."
Kyle swallowed, watching Jack point a finger at where the Weeping Man had stood, and fled far away.
"You knew who he was. As a human."
He was sure he was careful. He had always been careful from the very beginning. As a human and now in this new body. But the conversation fell together so smoothly that he didn't see Jack's snare.
It has been the first time, and the longest time, since someone caught him in a lie.
"I-I…"
Crane's mind went blank. If he were to speak aloud, nothing would come out.
"Want to keep this charade going, mate?" Jack asked, her tone more serious than with the usual bounce. "Because I know how amnesia goes. You don't have memory loss. You choose not to talk about it."
Kyle ground his teeth, feeling the sandiness in between. He averted his eyes away from her. Stop it. Please. He couldn't admit it.
He couldn't defend himself anymore.
Jack eventually grew tired of this waiting game.
"Fine. We're gonna have a long talk after we're out of this shit."
She hopped over the half-wall and bolted, leaving Freakazoid smothering to his thoughts.
His breathing was out of control. Crane had to force himself to be in control; his mind was wrapped around what had happened.
How? Why? He swore—he swore—nobody would learn. Silence was the key for the freelancer. Nobody would know all the stupid things he did. His cover was solid! And now...
He shook himself out of his grievance. What was he doing? His cover? That was in the past.
He couldn't feel mortified right now.
"Shit."
He ran after Jack.
"Stop them!"
With the smoke having long been cleared up, the GRE commander spotted the two runners in a mall brewing with life and death. Heavy footsteps came after them.
Crane could easily outrun every human in the mall, but he kept his speed down for Jack's sake. They sprinted through the mall like it was a run-marathon through the jungle. Just with undead spectators trying to take a bite at the woman in red.
The floor above was also crowded. One Viral screeched loudly as it was ready to take a leap and dive onto Jack-
"Oh no, you don't!"
The tendrils fired and lassoed around the runner's torso. With one good swing and pull, Crane chunked the violent ex-human into the window of a jewelry store.
CRASH!
Make enough noise. Get them off Jack and make it difficult for GRE.
"Freakazoid!"
At the end of a corner, he spotted Jack by a section of the mall—the east wing. He nearly had to dig his talons into the floor to stop his run and make a sharp turn, ducking under the grilles she pulled down. Quickly, Jack put the lock on it before the mercenaries reached the closed-off wing. A smile stretched across her face at the sight of the shocked leader.
"It's been nice chatting with you all," Jack ended with a salute of her fingers before she could take her leave. "Good luck."
The commander banged a fist on the grate. He wanted to strangle the Wild Dog by the throat-
"Taylor, forget about them! We're out of time!"
So they wouldn't plan on chasing them. Good. The less, the better for Jack, as she hopped away from the grilles.
"SRAAAGH!"
She almost stopped in her tracks from the familiar howl, a little different though. More scared, like a weak animal crying for help. Help indeed answered in the most horrendous way possible; wails from afar. Enough to send shivers down Jack's spine.
"That bloody thing is calling reinforcements?!"
"Shit," was all Freakazoid could say.
"You're one of them, right?" Jack asked. "Can't you tell them to bugger off?!"
Crane glared at her. "Like I speak zombie!"
"Oh, are you ki-!" she stopped herself. "...Wouldn't matter. You're a bloody outcast to them."
Back to running. No point in staying when the mall filled up with more Biters and Virals, taking the invitation from the Weeping Man. A solitary infected, my arse! Jack shouldn't have anticipated that from a zombie like him!
Their woes would end soon; she knew full well about the mall's interior when she had visited the place two times before. Just around the corner, they would be almost to the back entrance of the mall. They'd be home-free.
Or so Jack thought when she turned around a corner.
"Ahhh!" she exclaimed, literally having to stop and back away from the stimulating horde, blocking their way to the entrance. Predators shrieked at the sight of a nice meal ready to be served.
"Upstairs! Up!" she called out to Freakazoid. No other way but up, on escalators that didn't work.
"Jack! Left!"
"Omph!" Her world again went topsy-turvy from what felt like a half-witted takedown after she reached the top. Where on Earth did that Viral come from? Had it not been for the railings stopping her and the thing snapping at her, she would have gone over with it. It took her a second to quickly kick the Viral off her, and the next for Crane to snap its neck after he darted rapidly up the escalator.
"I got you-!"
The sound of running was right behind him while he was halfway to helping Jack back onto her feet. He couldn't help but look back.
To see an infected Ercan coming at him.
"Umph!" Crane couldn't brace for the impact and went over the edge with Ercan. Where the hell did he find liquid courage and come back for the sudden tackle?!
And why didn't Kyle feel the ground yet?
"Got you!" Jack fired her hand right onto his in the nick of time. The sudden shift in weight nearly took her along with him if she hadn't latched her other arm around the railing.
CRASH!
The glass roof of a boutique shop on the basement floor shattered under Ercan's weight. Down there, Crane couldn't make out what happened to him, not when the growing darkness obscured everything below him. But he certainly could tell that the floor stirred up even more. The noises brought up more of the walkers.
"Thanks!"
"Pull up! You're too heavy!"
Stop calling him fat! But Crane did as he was told.
"Go! There!" Jack jabbed a finger to the end of the East Wing's second floor. At a tall, two-storey, glass window.
One part of the panels had been broken up, showing that in the past, something had gone through and dropped dead into the parking lot outside. With no questions asked, the duo climbed out, right into the increasing storm.
It was dark. It was cats and dogs. It wasn't safe! They moved on, vaulting over the mall's series of rooftops and metal sheet bridges left behind, maybe by the Junction's runners. A short run, however, once they reached a steep-downhill covering before the ledge of the shopping mall.
"Shit! Stop! Stop! Stop!" Crane wailed frantically. It was no go; his claws couldn't get a good grip on wet metal sliding. All he could do was let the ride take him. He literally had to grab Jack's shoulder for stability once he joined her at the end.
Not a moment too soon, even if she felt herself nearly taken off her feet. Beyond the edge was a long drop into a canal flooded to the brim with rainwater.
"GAARH!"
Jack peered over her shoulder. Crybaby had come back for round two, clumsily scaling across the roofs like any chaser from a horror or thriller flick.
"Jump!"
Crane almost wanted to question her. Almost!
They jumped.
Down into the raging river.
"NO!"
Freakazoid didn't say that.
Their splashes barely made a sound under the heavy storm; their figures lost under the water's surface. Gone. Just like that.
The Weeping Man hurried to the edge, somehow hoping. But no matter how hard he tried to search, there were no signs of them.
Of the unfortunate woman in red. Or the creature that took her.
No... He could still save her. Save them.
Nothing came out of the water.
The woman was gone.
That monster took her with it...
He failed…
Again.
Again!
Just like before… He could do nothing but cower and listen. He let those men into the family house. He watched his son get shot in front of his wife's eyes. Be thrown into that basement while his wife and daughter were taken away.
He was nothing but a coward...
Sadness swirled and ripened into hate at remembering those men with guns.
They hurt people.
They take, they steal, they ruin lives.
Like a switch in his brain, the Weeping Man snarled and turned around.
Find them.
Make them pay.
The second Day Hunter sought out its new prey under the rain...
"Gah!" Feet away from the mall, Jack popped her head up and spat out the water. It took a moment for her to gasp in more oxygen and another to orientate herself as she let the current take her along. For a while.
Better down the stream than any longer at the mall. She would never take a gamble if it didn't work. But hey, one quick escape from GRE and zombies.
"Ahahahaha!" Jack chortled, pointlessly wiping the water off her face. With wet gloves. In the rain. "Could have gone more gracefully back there, huh?"
She got no reply.
"Freakazoid?" She glanced around. "Hey."
Jack was all alone in the channel.
No, he fell in too. But Freakazoid hadn't surfaced. Wait, she never did get a confirmation if he could swim. Could Day Hunters even swim?!
"Freakazoid!"
"Gack!" The head of something broke the surface. Jack almost took it as a new water type of mutant, a quick flashback to her boat incident before crashing into the Coast. It immediately inclined her to raise her weapon above the water. "Koff!"
She stopped herself. Completely relieved that it was Freakazoid—alive—that she dropped her weapon down. "Don't scare me like that, mate."
"Ah… I got water in my ear." Tilting his head to one side, Freakazoid tried his best to clear the feeling out.
"Really?" Jack couldn't help but chuckle. "That's the least of your worry…" For a moment, it felt surreal to think the beast-man was gone.
There was only one way for the duo to go—the stone holes of a ripped ladder on the bank. A short swim against the current.
So he didn't drown like the other infected, Crane thought to himself. It was a lot easier than he imagined to do the freestyle stroke that he had beaten Jack to the side, offering her a hand.
She didn't reject it—for a crazy, arrogant woman. Jack wanted out of the water as fast as possible; their situation was more important than manners or stubbornness.
Up on the canal's bank, high and away from the rushing water, Crane did check if they were followed, if Ercan was still committed to the chase. Disappointment washed over him when that wasn't the case—the roofs of the mall were barely visible in the storm.
"He's gone…" he mumbled. "Along with our blood sample."
"On the bright side." Jack displayed her arms as if to show off. Clean as a whistle. "I'm not covered in gunk anymore."
"That's the bright side?" Crane groaned.
His disdain dampened when he realized what was happening around them. They were outside. In the rain.
Jack was still in danger.
"We better find a safe zone as fast as possible."
At the top of the raging river, it was a whole different story. Droplets beating against tin cans and metal dumpsters drove the infected draw towards the sound. It was sending them in circles, confusing them.
Was it the storm making the undead fanatic? It hadn't turned nighttime; Crane could still feel his energy draining. The dark clouds created little to no cover from the UV rays.
Jack noticed it too. The eyes, the wails, the skittering.
"Hah," she started. "And here I thought it'd be like the Outskirts." The city really paled in comparison the more she ventured out.
Freakazoid huddled close to her, putting himself between her and the nearby Biters. Out of the frying pan and into the fire. "We should really go."
"Relax. This isn't the worst storm I've ever been-"
KA-BOOOOOM-KAAAK!
"CHRIST!" The Wild Dog leapt, hands over her head.
The sky screamed. As if God demanded that the creatures below repent. Just like that, everything around her became pitch-black, and the walkers scrambled off, disappearing into the darkness. The rain's wrath was made clear—the mindless, the sane, and the primal couldn't stand against nature.
Satisfied, the thunder rolled over through the clouds, and the rain peaked up.
Jack couldn't help but burst out laughing.
"Oh...wow." The thunder came out of nowhere. The loudest she had ever heard in her life. The lightning bolt was so close, perhaps hitting a substation, that, poof, out went the lights in the whole district.
She was as jittery as a scared chihuahua.
"That scared me shitless…" Again, she gave out a pointless laugh to steady her shaking legs. "And that did the same for our friends…"
Around her, the golden eyes were gone. A huge bang like that was enough to scare them off. Animals to the very end.
"But hey, finally, we can have some peace and quiet." She laughed again and turned to Freakazoid.
However, the one pair of eyes—blue eyes—she thought to see in the dark wasn't there anymore. Looking at her with that regained sense of humanity.
Her smile cracked down.
"Freakazoid?"
He wasn't where he should be standing. Not behind her. Nowhere along the bank.
Then she could have sworn she spotted something running away from her.
"H-Hey! Freakazoid!" Jack gave chase. "Freakazoid! Shit! Who would have thought he'd get spooked by lightning too! Freakazoid!"
Her calls were drowned out by the heavy rain. Even with Crane's excellent, inhuman hearing, he couldn't hear her.
He was too afraid.
When the sky turned from dark-grey to pure light in a second and bellowed, something in him wanted to flee. Fear engulfed him completely. The instinct overrode his reasoning and took over the wheel. Get out of the rain, the voice told him. They had to get out!
It was coming. Whatever it was, it was coming to get them! Run! Hide!
There was nothing for them on the surface!
Crane completely believed that. He had somewhere to go. Not here. This city wasn't Harran.
I need to go back! I need to get back to the Tower-!
"No one is at the Tower anymore."
A flash of red and ritualistic trinkets appeared in his peripheral vision.
"Gaaah!" Crane shrieked, tripping on himself. When did she come back?! Standing over him was a face he was sure he had killed. That person was dead! She shouldn't be alive!
But the presence was right in front of him—those piercing, taunting bloodshot eyes staring through the eyeholes of that accursed mask.
"No one is waiting for you, Kyle," spat the Mother.
No! She's dead!
He galloped back onto his feet and sprinted past her. Run! Run! screamed his other side. They couldn't stop.
"You can't run forever."
But everywhere and nowhere, her presence lurked close, like a ghost. Suddenly, she was always in front of him whenever he ran further away from where she last stood in the rain.
"You can't save anyone." Her whisper seeped so closely and clearly into his head, despite him desperately running away from her as far as possible.
"Shut up! I killed you! You're dead!"
"Delusional to the very end," her voice boomed, scraping at the inner bony sides of his skull. "Did you think you could get away from me? From everything you have done?"
"SHUT UP!" he roared, slashing at nothing.
His sudden attack sent his body flying like a blind jaguar pouncing at nothing. He felt the ground hit him as he fumbled, but fear rallied him again, getting himself up on his feet.
"You can never be rid of me. This anger..."
Yes! Yes, he could! He just needed to get away! Go underground! That was the safest place for him!
"It's inevitable…"
He could certainly try!
Another voice pried its way into his ears. It was outside his skull and not inside his head. No. He wouldn't be fooled by the voices!
Then he felt something grab his arm. Just as his hope came to him in the form of a hole to crawl in.
No! Let him go!
He lashed out at whatever it was and dug his talons into something soft. There was a hiss, but he didn't care. He wanted safety. He had to stay alive-
"FREAKAZOID!"
Crane finally inhaled, as if resurfacing out of the canal. No, he remembered, he had already gotten out of the water. That heavy-accented holler silenced the dark whispers like a spell.
It was quiet in his head. Only the sound of the raindrops around him and someone's heavy breathing.
He blinked several times. Breathed as he felt the burning in his lungs. When...did he run? Where… Crane found himself having dived into a large broken-off pipe. At the entrance, in front of him, was Jack.
Out of breath and nearly out of her wits.
"Hey! Are you with me?" she asked between breaths.
She sounded concerned. Why, he wondered. Were they in danger?
No. That wasn't right.
He was the danger, wasn't he?
Jack tried again. "Look at me. Are you ok?"
Ok?
His eyes darted down to the thing he tried to tear off his arm. Jack's right hand held it tight while her other free hand tightened on the rim of the pipe, just to stop both of them from going further in.
There was blood. Her blood.
Her arm was bleeding again.
Crane retracted his hand. No. That was a claw. In his panicked state, he gripped her so hard that he drew blood. This time, there was no excuse like last time. And Jack wouldn't let him go.
How many times did Jack have to be hurt because of him?
He wasn't human.
He was a quivering animal inside a pipe.
What Jack said about him and Ercan becoming human again? That was a dream. Kyle could never become human. This disguise he wore couldn't help. That young girl was terrified of him. Everything Jack made for him was just make-pretend.
He was living a lie even now.
"That's it." The cheerful, bouncy tone in Jack's voice wasn't present. Not even the catty grin when she made such a serious face. "C'mon. We're getting you out of here."
"W-Why…" He tried to crawl away, but the grip was still tight. Jack was particularly using all her strength to stop a powerful mutant from leaving.
"I told you before. The moment you're out of it, I call the shots," she reminded. "Now move it."
Crane stared at the bizarre scene before her. This time, she offered her free hand to him. A reassuring human gesture.
No. Don't give it to a monster.
"I can't… I can't do this anymore…"
"Of course, you can. Lightning's nothing to be afraid about," Jack persisted. "Storm will pass just like any other-"
"That's not what I mean!"
Jack staggered back from the sudden pull away from her hand and the loud outburst. However, Freakazoid stayed in his spot. Surprisingly, to her, he had stopped talking through thoughts.
He let it all out.
"I can't pretend...anymore."
Everything settled down, except for the rain.
"You're right," he confessed. "I don't have amnesia. I-I remember everything… So what?!" He gritted his teeth. "I don't want to go back to the person I was!"
The brunette was quiet. For once! She had nothing better to say to him. But that made the sickening guilt rise up in him. The silence was like a grinder to his ears!
So the waiting forced him to speak up. Convince Jack how much of a terrible person he really was!
"I was an asshole! A monster! Now look at me!" Talons pointed at himself, as he couldn't help but laugh at the irony. "I still am!" Another deep breath, but he kept going. "I got turned and forgot everything. I don't even understand why I'm back!"
But no, that all changed when he met Jack.
He couldn't help but feel anger boil back up. Furious eyes snapped to the ex-kickboxer—the bane of everything that has happened to him.
"And you...you come to me with your damn blood!" he hollered. He couldn't blame Jack, but the raw emotions he bottled up this long spilled out of him. He couldn't stop it. "Y-You... you make it like I can do better! Why?! It's too little, too late for a piece of shit like me!"
So please leave!
But Jack wouldn't budge from her spot. She waited. She listened.
Stop. Just say something to him! How much more convincing did she need?
Crane weakly shook his head.
"I...I've hurt people. I got innocent people killed… And what's worse about it is that they saw me as a hero. I pretended to continue the charade to protect my own ass! While I watch them die!"
That image people in Harran saw in him? He was a fraud!
Why wasn't he feeling any better?! This painful guilt… It was ripping him apart from the inside. For the longest time, when he was human, it was something that he had kept shut inside under lock and key - Crane rarely let himself explode.
Now all the bottles he put on the shelf were breaking down into pieces. One by one, before a person who didn't know who he was.
"I fucked everything up! I'm the one who brought the virus here! I...I'm no hero. Because…" Crane sank back into his hole. "Because I was following orders. I was always the good little dog…following orders for someone..."
The final blow to him. The words Rais left behind, drilled deep and so fresh at the surface of his memory. He couldn't believe how much it stung—no, it hurt so much. The five stages of grief had hit him long ago and left him as a miserable creature.
A liar and a crook to the end.
If only he had never gone through with it. Over and over again, he repeated those words in his head.
"...I deserved this." He glanced down at his talons. "Being a monster…"
Just leave him alone. Leave him with all the infected. That was where he belonged now.
Jack was the only person stopping him. She only made the impossible worse. By toying with his emotions and playing on the idea that he could be human. Talking like he was normal, making him look passable for one, and saving him like a human would for another.
There was a limit to how far a person could treat someone long gone mind and body.
Now his spirit was broken.
So stop staying for him…
The shadows and light outside the tunnel shifted. Finally… Jack had decided to leave him.
He could be alone again-
"Seriously, Freakazoid…"
Crane slowly raised his head with amazement. The brunette didn't leave. She instead made herself comfortable inside the pipe. Nothing of the wise-crack joke out of the woman who sat next to a killing machine.
"I didn't think I'd get a magnum opus out of you," was all she could say.
Unbelievable. Why won't she leave...
"...I've said this before," Jack continued. "I have no qualms about what your past was like. I don't know these people. I don't know what you've been through. I'm not a confession booth."
That sentence hit Crane hard too. What did he expect out of confessing? The genuine, aimless look on Jack's face told him that she didn't know the first thing a priest should do.
She was right. He didn't feel good telling her what a lying bastard he was.
"Telling me all of your sins at once doesn't help you feel better. Trust me when I say that."
Right there and then, he noticed how old her soul looked to her. It was something he had almost overlooked—something he would see in a vet thrown into war.
Correction. A fighter who put herself many times into the fight.
Had she walked the same path as he did? But she was an ordinary kickboxer...
"...It's always routine."
What?
What was this about? One of her ramblings?
"This first thing you do before you go into the ring is admit you're powerless. Same goes for your opponent. You're no better than the other person."
The sincerity in her seemed to strengthen every word out of her. The advice she offered didn't sound like it was only for her sports career.
"Once you get in the ring...that's when you figure things out… You'll get wins. Losses too… You don't stop whether you're at the top or when you hit rock bottom," Jack explained softly. Wisely. She took off her shades. "You can only go up from here."
Crane hunched his eyebrows together. Go up? There was nothing for him now!
He didn't berate her at first. This was the first real time he fully saw her eyes. He had seen the color of her eyes, but he had never looked at her directly. Eye to eye. There, in the pipe, her hazel eyes told everything—the whole world behind the mask of the Wild Dog.
There was a story he didn't know about her. Only what he had learned: an ex-kickboxer thrown into and trapped in this outbreak like him. A survivor like any other. And yet the expression she wore told him there was a man she had seen who had cracked down and fallen to his knees like Crane just did.
No...maybe it was herself who had fallen once. Twice. Or many times. She had given up before.
But she always got back up on her feet.
It made Crane wonder… How tiny were the secrets she let slip out? How much of the truth was behind her words?
"You got two options now. Stay here. Or try again."
"Hah!" Crane scoffed. How ironic! "Those are my only options? So what? I become like that maniac crimelord? Or, or how about that crazy lady and her damn cult? Oh! Even better. How about those coperate fuckheads?!"
KLANK!
In a fit of rage, he drove the anger down to a fisted claw and slammed it into the inside of the steel pipe. A dent right into the material.
Jack stayed as she was, with some reaction from the outburst. But she patiently and cautiously watched him take it out before he dropped his arm down. Her face was unreadable again, but no doubt, she was confused by what Crane was saying.
It didn't matter to him... God, why was he telling her everything out like that?
Maybe because he was truly down in the gutter. After so many losses and disappointments, he had finally found himself so far gone that keeping the secrets and lies was useless at this point.
"How can I come back from everything I've done…? I don't.." Crane placed his face into his palms. "Deserve a second chance…"
"...Then start repenting."
Repent. Maybe he should do that.
But Jack's hazel eyes stopped him.
They were furious eyes. Slighter brighter than gold.
"You let them die. So make amends. Because if you're gonna do what I think you're gonna do...then you're leaving the people you couldn't save behind."
Her voice was now spiteful—so soft and low it was almost unnoticeable but sharp enough to cut the air, calling him out as a coward. But the last sentence made him confused.
Leave them behind?
They were already long gone.
"I'm not going to tell you how to live your new life. But you can't run from it either. If you want to be so clear of guilt, then you gotta carry that burden all over again."
Again, this little pull. Like the first time. And there was none of her neuro-linguistic programming. But what made it more convincing was the expression she had—the experience she had crumpled in every crease and wrinkle on her face.
Jack had a good way of talking, like it came from centuries of experience. It brought out many emotions one wouldn't anticipate coming out of themselves. It nipped at the heart. It moved the courage. It sparked the passion.
Ah... He got it now. When she said he could only get up from here, it didn't mean to literally rise up to the top and become the very enemy he swore to stop.
It meant getting up on his feet and trying again. Like Jack had with her many fights.
Could he really do that? He wasn't sure if he could tempt fate and mess it all up again...
"You're changing," Jack continued. "Nothing you can do about it. But which way do you wanna decide? Backwards? Or moving forward?"
Really. Not at all comforting to him… But he took the words in.
"...What if I don't like whatever I'm becoming?" Kyle asked, in a pleading tone under his monstrous voice.
Jack's gaze had been aimless, concerned, and then stern and fixed right at him. Now her hazel eyes had something meaningful in them.
"...Then make a new you. You have that choice, mate. Just don't go, leaving those people behind. You owe them that much."
It left Crane stunned. All he could do was absorb everything he had heard and contemplate.
Don't leave them behind… It was condescending. Jade and Rahim were gone. Many good people were dead.
They weren't coming back.
But if Crane stopped here and now...who would carry them?
That was unfair. To them and even to him.
"Life's short," Jack continued pushing. "And it's a lot shorter now than ever... The only thing we can do is make what happens count."
And like another spell Jack cast on him, something woke up from inside. Crane lifted his head up.
That line sounded somehow familiar to him.
Didn't someone tell him that once before? It wasn't Jack.
"What did you say?"
She gave him a curious-looking face at the sudden expression on Freakazoid's face. A moment of shock.
"Make what happens count."
Again, those words were so familiar. At first, they whacked at his guilt, at the feels but together came a sense of revelation.
It was almost like a lucid dream when he first heard those words.
"...S-She said that too…"
"She who?"
"...S-Someone...I know in Harran."
"Huh," Jack responded. First taking it in, that someone had already beaten the punch on Freakazoid with that ending speech. Then going over the words she spoke out again in her head.
Now that she said those words…why did they sound familiar to her? She couldn't place her finger on why.
It hit her for some strange reason.
...Maybe she had heard it from someone in the past. A common saying.
"Must be deja vu," she confessed casually. More to herself than Freakazoid. Which he unexpectedly and gradually accepted.
"...Yeah… Deja vu."
Crane sat back down. Whatever the case was, he let the phrase sink. The deeper they dug in him, the more he felt resolved.
He was back on this Earth whether he liked it or not. And again, he repeated what he had said to himself back at the market when faced with the trappers.
Make it count.
Jack then inched her way out of the damp, cold hole. "C'mon."
Again, she offered her hand to him. Persistent as always. Was it Crane's destiny to meet whackjobs in this country?
"Let's get out of the rain."
"...Seriously?" He pushed the offer away again, but not with as much force as the first time. "How can you be like this after that whole…?"
"Episode?" She finished his sentence before giving a shrug of the shoulders. "I've had worse."
"Yeah, right... You're nuts to be sticking with me."
Jack chuckled. "I told you already. It's not in my nature to abandon people."
"And I count?"
"Well, yes. You looked like you've been needing someone for a very long time."
The words sunk deep again. It struck him. Did he really look like that? It gradually dawned on him that...yeah, that was what he had wanted.
Jack said nothing. She wore back her sports sunglasses, got out of the tunnel, and walked a few paces away. She stopped. Looked up. And waited.
Space.
Jack was giving that to him, but she wasn't planning to go anywhere. Outside, the zombies roamed. In the pouring, pitch-black rain.
Finally, Crane crawled out of his little hole.
"Hey," he started out verbally. "...Sorry. About before."
The expressionlessness on Jack's face turned into puzzlement. "For what?"
Geez, did she really have to make him say it? But her confusion was genuine.
"Getting angry at you… Us or them…" He took a deep sigh. "...Had someone say something along those lines before."
"Ah…" Yup, he offended her. Well, he mistook the returning smile for that. "The maniac crimelord, the crazy cult lady, or the corporate fuckheads?"
He was about to say all of them. But he didn't. It was unfair.
She nodded at the silence. No offence was taken. "If it's any consolation, a lot of people hate me."
He laughed. "Maybe. But give me a choice, and I'd pick you over them any day."
She looked rather impressed to hear that, genuinely pleased at the statement. "Huh. That's the nicest thing anyone has said to me."
"Probably the last thing I'll ever say," Crane remarked, receiving a soft chuckle and an appreciative nod from her. "...Thank you, Jack."
The brunette smirked. It was the catty one. But also a warm one.
"That's what partners are for."
A/N: 5/2/2021 Hello again and next chapter is out. A lot different with what I had in more with my original content but a lot more impactful than I had imagined. Especially giving more of the spotlight on the Weeping Man. In the original, it would have been just an average Watcher as the new enemy type reveal but this take, I am amazed I've gotten here with the changes.
And yes, the moment you all been waiting for. More so that I've improved the scene where Crane breaks down. But yes, Jack knowing he lied about his amnesia. Now about the details in that whole story... Weeeell, we'll have to see how that plays afterwards. :) Just because it's out doesn't mean Crane's gonna confess that easily to her about the other stuff. I ain't that generous in my storytelling. I enjoy pulling at your heartstrings and take those strings around that beating organ and slowly tighten it. :D Then let go when the nice things happen.
Anyhow, I see 2 more chapters for this section of the arc but while those are in the progress, I will be going back to my previous chapters for some editing; some of course errors or mistakes but also story changes like a change in timestamp and additional dialogues, changes in descriptions, etc. The more I've written, the more I've a clear idea how to picture the Descent to be sorta like a splice of DL1's worldbuilding and DL2's worldbuilding (based on the teasers we've gotten). It's also more realistic to change that it's been months after the end of the Following and gives a lot more room for me to breathe and explore, even tackle some things and questions I might have missed out on. Plus with 3 chps so far, it's enough to keep you guys glued until the next chapter upload.
With that, I hope you enjoy this chapter. Look forward to the changes, which will be mentioned and timestamped in my author notes every time I update them.
10/2/21 - Fixed mistakes and edited parts according to new timestamp from pilot.
28/5/21 - Fixed parts and eye color.
26/12/21 - Edited lines.
3/3/22 - Went over a full chapter edit with some fixes, retwists, deletes and adjustments. Reworked on writing the environment descriptions.
12/1/24 - 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.