The Corrupted Soul

Chapter 15

Cap seemed to notice my hesitation. She gave me a sympathetic look, "Sorry, I guess you don't trust us. I wouldn't either."

"Yeah, just a random pack of Crawlers in the woods? Crawlers shouldn't even be around, let alone Sane ones! How are you even Sane?"

I could almost hear Victor rolling his eyes in the way he spoke, "We could ask you the same question."

I hissed at him, though I couldn't see him. I was tempted to put on the glasses just so I could go out there and chase him around the woods for a while. To my ire he actually laughed, "I'm not threatened by a child hiding in a truck."

Cap rolled her eyes. Sketch shifted closer to me and I turned to him, tilting my head. He whispered, barely audible, "If you come back home with us, we can both thrash Vic. I've wanted to for months but he's way faster and stronger than I am. I'm pretty sure you alone could take him."

I narrowed my eyes before slowly letting a grin creep across my face, "Deal."

Cap had only heard my statement, and seemed very confused when I grabbed the sunglasses and put them on with almost no hesitation now. The very corner of the right lense was cracked and the screws on that side were loose, but they still worked perfectly fine.

I hadn't had the chance to properly fight with someone in months, Olive was much weaker than me and Felix never wanted to. A human was out of the question of course. My instincts wanted a good fight, and I wasn't passing this up. If they turned out to be overly hostile, I could cross that bridge when I came to it, likely by frantically running through the woods. I would probably be let back into the city without getting attacked if I was currently being chased by a pack of bloodthirsty Crawlers.

Sketch stalked towards the entrance, and Cap moved out of his way. I followed. The scent of cougar blood was strong enough it reminded me I hadn't hunted in several days, the surge of instincts caused my jaw to chatter, as it did when I was overly stressed or my instincts sensed something I couldn't see. The sound made Tank look over from his perch in a nearby tree, "You must be freezing, if you've been out here that long without a jacket."

I shook my head without looking directly at him, still far from calm near him. I was starting to feel less afraid now, as I was finally able to recognize he wouldn't attack me without reason as long as we were in these woods. Though some of it was still there. The voice in the back of my head kept reminding me why his name was Tank.

Instead, I turned to Cap again, who had moved several feet away. I tilted my head and tentatively inquired, "Back in the city we found a Feral quite some time ago, and they have the same adaptations as you guys, How was there a Feral around if you're all Sane? And, side note, how did those adaptations appear anyway?"

She chuckled, "Well, for the second question, we all know how easily Crawlers adapt to their environment. The fur we all have right now on our Crawler legs proves it. After three hundred years, the virus seemed to alter itself more for true survival than 'survive to infect'."

That had been one of our theories, one of the more likely ones at that, but it was another thing to hear it straight from the horse's mouth. Though it wasn't the only thing I wanted to hear, "And for the first question?"

She grew silent. I looked around at the others, but none seemed to be willing to speak up. I was confused, this should have been an easy question, shouldn't it? I turned to Sketch, he seemed to be the one most willing to share before. We locked eyes, and to my shock, he was afraid.

Several long, silent minutes passed, before Tank finally spoke up. Though I could hardly call it that, as his voice was so low a human wouldn't have been able to even hear it, I was having trouble making it out. He was solemn and still, "Two years ago, we had another Crawler in the pack, though we always thought something was strange about him. He had approached us, and asked to be part of the pack. To this day we have no idea how he knew of us.

"He was always, aggressive. We like to see ourselves as humans with Crawler bodies. He preferred to act as feral as we were supposed to be by design. He would attack first and ask questions later."

I blinked slowly. Some parts were starting to fit together, but other questions started to arise. I opted to let him finish before interrupting him, though.

He looked down, seemingly examining the grooves and cracks in the bark of the tree he rested in, "One day, he told us we weren't living up to our full potential. And he ran off. We tried to follow him but he was very fast, it took us days to catch up, and by then..."

He trailed off, instead Cap finished for him, "When we found him, he had tried to attack a group of humans out hunting, by the looks of it. He had numerous wounds. Several gunshots to the head and chest. We took him back to the nest, but when he had mostly healed and awoke, he was completely Feral. He had run off again after almost killing Sketch, and we searched for months with no luck. That's how we learned that sanity can be shattered by damaging the brain enough."

I stayed silent. I slowly sat on the edge of the semi, entranced by my own thoughts.

Sanity can be broken? I mean, I knew that in theory, but in practice that means I shouldn't be sane. Travis shot me twice, once while I was still human to boot. The first time wasn't quite point blank, but he was only about two or three feet away from me, the second time was from much farther, but at a weaker point of my skull.

I survived the second time because I was a Crawler, and I woke up hours later. Maybe since the two times were months apart, and the first had been fully healed - as far as I knew - that meant it didn't count?

He definitely didn't go Feral from attacking the humans. I've tasted human blood more times than I would rather, and I'm still here. Having his brain damaged in such a way that instincts completely took over seemed to make more sense than the existence of Crawlers in the first place.

But this still doesn't explain why or how this pack was here to begin with! They said he approached them, and they infected him. Is that how this has been happening? Crawlers approach people, or vise versa, and they're turned into a Crawler and thus, part of the pack? How would they be Sane then, they had to originate from someone back in the apocalypse, and the only Sane Crawler besides me was-

I stilled, as the realization slowly set in. I looked up, realizing I had been staring at my own lap. The group was watching me, Sketch and Tank seemed worried, where Cap and Victor were more bemused.

Cap cautiously inquired, "What were you just thinking of?"

Well, it's good to know these guys get lost in their minds too. I exhaled slowly, it wasn't quite a sigh. I looked up at the tall woman, "This may be a bit off topic, but I think you know more about me than any of us originally thought."

She was suddenly very confused, and the others shared a similarly perplexed expression. I smiled to myself, "I know your names, but you haven't heard mine."

Victor stepped forward, side eyeing me, "Which is?"

"My name is Riley."

Their eyes all widened, expressions shifting to looks of amazement, confusion, shock, and disbelief all simultaneously. Knew it...