Infection

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-One

Hayley gripped Ashton's arm alarmingly. He looked at her and saw an expression of urgency, her eyes wide in horror. "What is it?" He asked hurriedly.

"We forgot Celestine!"

The man's daughter whom they had promised to find.

In all the chaos that resulted from the monster in the sewers to whoever fired at them, they had entirely forgotten about the young daughter who was somewhere in the building, whose father had begged they find and protect.

Ashton stepped back and ruffled his hair.

Shit.

They indeed entirely forgotten what they had promised only an hour ago.

"Who?" Morton asked.

Hayley walked back toward to the stairs. "This little girl – we promised her dad that we'll find her. She's somewhere in the police station."

"How do you forget such a thing?" Morton asked gruffly. "But what makes you so sure she ain't ran away after hearing the wailing of that monster?"

"We don't know. But we have to at least try to find her!" Hayley said urgently. "If she is still there, then she definitely won't survive alone for long!"

"Alright let's go." Ashton decided, walking to the stairs.

"Wow wow. Hold on, youngster." Morton called, as they glanced back at him. "Tell you what, travel down the north line by two stations. I'll head that way first and clear the way if there's anything lurking around. You get the girl then meet me there. I'll be waiting at that station."

"Alright," Ashton nodded, then to Hayley. "You go with Morton; I'll find the girl."

"What?" Hayley asked. "No. Not again, dude. I'm going with you."

"Your leg –" Ashton started.

"I am fine. I could run earlier remember?" Hayley argued. "Stop talking, let's go." She started walking up the stairs.

"Now you guys, before you go. Watch out for any group of strange men, probably my age or so. They go around in groups and are a bunch of insanes. Probably those who fired at us earlier. I've seen them around, and they caught me once. Bunch of weird idiots going on about me joining them because they're having fun injecting people with some virus or something. Lunatics, that bunch. Stay in covered places and out of sight." Morton warned.

"Noted, thanks old man." Ashton said.

The two of them ran up the stairs as Morton headed his way down further in toward the railway.

"You think those are the same men we saw back at the office?" Hayley asked, as they crept along the way back toward the police station.

"No. Those we saw from that armoured truck were obviously too uniformed and outfitted to be the kind of people Morton was going on about." Ashton replied, scanning the streets and buildings for any sign of activity.

Hayley nodded anxiously. "Then it seems like there are more than just one bunch of madmen around this place."

"Scary how fast the world goes straight into hell in such a short time." Ashton remarked.

Several zombies were up ahead. "We run toward the left and avoid those things. Take another way around. I don't feel it's safe to go back the exact way we came. Whoever shot may still be around the area." Ashton instructed.

"Gotcha." Hayley replied.

One final scan around the vicinity, and the two of them broke into a quick, silent run through the streets.

***

"Sir. The world is now entirely infected." A uniformed personnel informed.

"Good. Won't be long." The President of HA International smiled, as he glanced out at the fortified city.

It would be very soon, that he would literally rule the world. Sounded something remarkably silly, like a whacko from some horror or science fiction movie or game, where some madman tried to rule the world.

But this was reality.

He really could well rule the whole world. The people, the economies, the laws, the politics, the militaries.

The lives.

A sole dictatorship of the globe.

Forget the dictators throughout history. He would be the greatest power in all history. He alone, had the key to accessing the progenitor, but still functional, cure to the virus. It was ensured that only he would have the access. He trusted no one. The cure to the world would ensure his rise to power. Should he be killed, there would be no means ever to attain the cure, and that assured him of the greatest protection from harm.

The virus was remarkably unique. It mutated so rapidly, maintaining its infectious purposes, yet ensuring that a cure would never be developed without the knowledge that he had.

He knew it wasn't time yet. The world was vast; there was surely many survivors still in the world, still some militaries and fighters against his infected. Only when the world was ensured to be completely fallen to the virus, could he proceed to his next phase of the grand plan. But his patience was running out.

Of course, there was a way to speed things up. The Beasts. The mutated creatures that his scientists had created; they were phenomenal. It took a massive amount of time to construct a whole new monstrous abomination from a human. The human in the Beasts were effectively dead, the resultant creature just a humanoid with basic instincts.

The test subjects had to be entirely genetically recoded, not just modified. The first generation Beasts proved that the years of underground experimentation were successful. They could be programmed with specific functions, such as infection or killing.

The President hated looking at them – it was quite disturbing to know that these monstrosities were once human. But they served his purpose well.

A breakthrough that was discovered just before the initial outbreak made things even lovelier. It seemed that the mutated blood of the Beasts could simply be used as a serum to inject directly into another living human to turn the person into a miniature Beast, although tests had proved that these were uncontrollable, and had a "mind" of their own.

Maybe it will soon be time to set the Type 2 Beasts free.

***