The Infected Mind

Chapter 23

《Jason's POV》

I heard screaming and screeching from downstairs. I jumped, spinning around to see the stairs down to the basement, Maria and Harris had just gone down there. Other people were already running towards it, none of this could be a good sign. I had no idea how loud those screeches could be while indoors, they might be deaf by now.

I jumped off the couch and ran to the hallway to where the door was. I covered my mouth when I saw them frantically ascending the stairs, and Harris was covered in dark crimson blood. I worried if they had to kill her, when I noticed the blood was steadily increasing. It was Harris who was bleeding.

"What happened?!" I yelled.

"The Crawler, she went feral."

My jaw dropped, "What?! But how? She seemed fine yesterday!"

"Remember how she said her Crawler legs were regrowing? I believe that was making the bandages too tight, or was somehow increasing her indtincts. It is possible that, combined with the rest of her pain and lack of food with most animals hibernating...she snapped."

Michael and Hailey ran up behind me, Hailey seemed frantic and scared, "Does that mean she isn't sane anymore? And now she is like another normal Crawler?"

"We think so, but it is possible she just had a serge of instincts and will be back to normal. We can't be sure though, we may have lost her." He sighed, gritting his teeth against the pain he must be feeling as he clutched  his arm tightly, "Either way, we have a new person to test on."

Michael yelled, waving his arms, "What?! We can't test on her! If she is still sane she could still help us, and if she isn't, we might be able to bring her back!"

Harris shook his head and sat on a chair hard, he looked pale, and I was worried if he would pass out, "I am not talking about her."

Maria came back with the first aid kit, and Harris let go of his bleeding arm so she could bandage it, the injury made my stomach turn. It was a bite mark. Harris meant we would test on him after he turned.

There was no way he couldn't be infected, a bite from a Crawler was certain doom. Hkw could this have happened? Was it my fault for not asking her if she was okay?

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Harris was in another room, they were going to wait until he turned to use him, but it could take days for that to happen. The basement was locked up to keep her inside, and they even blocked the back door just in case she remembered where it was and how to open it, even so, that wasn't stopping her from ramming through the wall if her broken mind thought it necessary.

Maria said they hit her with tranquilizers so they could get out alive, and they hadn't seen her pass out, but it slowed her enough they could escape. I was having a hard time imagining Riley, the sane Crawler from the past week who was so tolerant of us, going nuts and attacking people, not to mention biting Harris, especially since she probably intended to eat him.

I knew her, as little as I did, I still knew her. This wasn't her fault, it was ours. We should have told her about the plan earlier, told her to think about it until she was healed so she could decide her choice. I had thought that was a better idea from the beginning, but it didn't matter what I thought, the adults didn't think so. We drove her to madness and made her Feral. Possibly the only sane Crawler, and we destroyed them because some people refused to think of a better way that wasn't their first choice.

This was really bad.

Could we bring her back? Why hadn't she said anything if the bandages were tighter than they should be? I knew why, she hadn't said why so we wouldn't think she was healing like she was, so she could escape without us even knowing. I knew this would happen. Why would she trust us, if our whole shtick was making her think she needed to stay hidden? She wouldn't trust us, she had no reason to. She would go hunting and not come back, because she was more healed than we knew.

I heard muffled screaming from the room.