CONTACT

No matter how hard he tried to get some rest, Logan did nothing but toss and turn all night. The bed was uncomfortable, the room was smelly, and the painkillers he took had done nothing to alleviate the pain on his back and right arm.

He left the bed. If he wasn't going to be able to rest anyway, he might as well make good use of the time he had. He abandoned the room and started walking down the eerie, empty hallway.

The bandages somewhat limited his movements and pulled on his skin, making the wounds underneath sting and burn.

"Ow…!"

'This fucking sucks… Although it could've been worse, I suppose. At the very least, I'm still alive… Really, what the hell was that about…?'

######

"Slow down, you fucker…! Like hell I'm gonna die in a car crash!" Jacobs raised his voice from the passenger's seat.

"You'd rather let that thing kill you instead!?" replied Logan.

"We both saw it crash into a building like a cannonball a couple of minutes ago! We haven't seen it since then, I say we've lost it."

"Yeah, sure! Like hell I'm gonna believe it's given up on us!"

He yanked the steering wheel, causing the van to turn abruptly, almost to the point of overturning. It managed to remain stable, just in time to resume speeding down another street. Several complaining voices came from the back of the van, but he ignored them. Keeping the vehicle in motion while avoiding obstacles was already stressful enough.

He took another sudden turn. Whatever it took to make that monster lose them for good.

He wasn't paying attention to the speedometer, and he didn't need to. He knew they were going at dangerous speeds. On the back of his mind, he let out a chuckle. Driving at excessive speeds in the middle of the city was one of those things he never expected to end up doing.

'Who cares about speed? Not me, as long as it keeps me alive! Who's gonna stop me!? The cops!?'

He maneuvered around the cars in his way, with surprising skill given the wild speed of the vehicle. Then, as if mocking his inner thoughts, a cop emerged from behind a crashed sedan, stumbling right in the middle of the road. In the brief period of time before the inevitable collision, it was able to drag his eyes towards Logan, empty and lifeless.

"Fuck…!! You're kidding—!!!"

While attempting to avoid the shambler, Logan lost control of the vehicle. The back wheels started skidding on the asphalt, unable to get a grip. The van spun around, ran over the shambler, crashed against other vehicles, and slid on the road after flipping on its side.

They should have worn their seatbelts.

…

Numbness all over his body. Ringing in his ears. Blurry vision. Lack of balance. He found himself at the bottom of the van, with the sky visible through the open passenger's door above him. Jacobs had left already.

With great effort, Logan was barely able to pull himself up and out of the vehicle. Before getting down onto solid ground, he looked at the surroundings.

A couple of meters away, Julien crawled towards Lilian on all fours, with an obvious limp on his left leg. The girl wasn't moving; she was curled up in the fetal position, completely still on the ground. The other two men who came with them were strewn across the sidewalk. One of them grunted in pain, the other one was silent.

*Bang!!* *Bang!!*

Jacobs, standing right beside the van, had opened fire. The guy complaining on the sidewalk was swiftly silenced as soon as the bullet bore a hole on his head. A second later, a shambler dropped itself on top of his body, attempting to feast on the now deceased prey. More shamblers approached the scene from several directions, attracted by the noise.

"Hey, grab the fucking brat and let's get moving already…!" shouted Jacobs, as he aimed his gun at the nearest zombie.

"Mr. Logan…! Come down at once and help me lift her…!" Julien asked for help, seemingly struggling to make Lilian budge from her position.

'What the hell do you need my help for…!? Come on, she's not that heavy!'

With his senses finally springing into action after the shock of the accident, Logan leapt down from the van and rushed to Julien's side. He grabbed Lilian's arm and pulled, but she refused to uncurl. It felt like trying to make a stone statue change positions: it just wasn't going to happen.

"The hell…!? Oh, come on…! Move…!!"

He crouched down, with the intention of lifting her off the ground and carrying her in his arms. However, he hesitated.

'Wait… Wait, wait… Is this worth it…? I've been going along with it, but…'

*Bang!!* *Bang!!* *Click!*

Jacobs unloaded his weapon on the nearby shamblers until there were no more bullets left in the magazine.

"Okay, fuck this shit! I'm out of here! There's no way I'm dying like this!"

He scanned the surrounding buildings, and spotted an alley devoid of shamblers. Without even looking back at his "partners", Jacobs made a run for it.

Then, more gunshots. Were they actual gunshots? They sounded strange, muffled. One after another, the shamblers in the area dropped lifeless, neutralized with deadly precision. Jacobs stopped running. He took some steps back instead, as a humanoid figure emerged from the shadows of the alley in front of him.

Camo clothing. Armed to the teeth. His face covered by a sophisticated-looking helmet and visor. Logan wasn't too sure if he could believe his eyes, but that man definitely had the appearance of a soldier.

"Shit… No way, really…?" he murmured.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw another four soldiers walking into plain view from several directions, all of them as heavily armed as the first one. No shamblers remained standing.

"Are we… safe?" Logan continued to mutter under his breath.

The soldiers moved like a single unit, converging on the location of the crashed van from all sides. Silence took over the street, yet those men were somehow not silent. Even with the lack of verbal communication, they were transmitting a clear message. A threatening message.

"Ah…! It's the Army…!" Julien managed to get up from the ground, clumsily standing on his own two feet. "Thank goodness! Listen, we talked over the radio a while ago…! We have the resistant girl! It's right here!" he said, pointing at Lilian on the ground.

Two of the soldiers look at each other. After a brief moment, one of them gave the others a signal with his head. They all sprang into action with swift movements and unparalleled precision. In the blink of an eye, Logan found himself pinned against the ground, with his right arm twisted behind his back and his face kissing the asphalt.

"H-Hey, what the fuck…!? Aagh…!"

Any kind of struggle or attempt to break free was met with painful jolts coursing through his arm and torso. He was unable to turn his neck to look around, but judging by the swearing, his partners had all met similar fates.

"Get your dirty hands off me, pig…!"

"No…! What's the meaning of this!?"

Lilian was in clear view, right in front of him. One of the soldiers approached her, kneeled beside her, and pulled out a small rectangular container from his vest. He opened it, and retrieved a syringe from within. The tube was full of a strange transparent liquid.

With little effort, the needle pierced the skin on Lilian's neck. At first, she showed no reaction to the foreign substance entering her body. However, no less than ten seconds after the injection, she started babbling.

"Ah… Aaah…! Auh…! Auaua…!"

Whether or not she was actually trying to convey something was unknown. For all Logan knew, she was simply letting out random noises of distress. Her rambling didn't last for long. Her limbs suddenly went limp; and her eyes became empty and devoid of light, as if all traces of life had been snuffed out of them. She was still breathing.

The soldier stood up and reached for the tactical headset on his helmet.

"Target confirmed. Terminate the rest." he said.

One didn't have to be a genius to understand what those words meant.

'Shit… Are you serious…?'

Once again, Logan tried to free himself from his captor, but the pain from the torsion on his arm and neck was overwhelming enough to override any attempt to move. He felt the cold touch of steel on the side of his head.

How long would it take? It would be an instant, right? The bullet would pierce his skull and sink into his brain in a fraction of a second, no pain would be felt. What a wicked way to seek comfort, moments before his own death.

…

A sudden noise startled him. It wasn't a gunshot. It was way louder than a gunshot. It sounded like a crash, followed by the noise of scattering debris. The grip on his arm loosened a little bit, but didn't let go entirely.

"What was that noise? You heard it too?"

"Affirmative, 03. HP, watch your surroundings." more loud noises filled the area, getting gradually louder over time. "Get ready to engage. Something's coming…!"

A particularly loud crash shook Logan's eardrums, and he could feel dust and gravel falling on his body and raining down on the street around him.

"Contact!! Northern building, second floor!!"

The rifles of the entire team roared all at once, almost masking the sound of something heavy dropping onto the street, making the pavement tremble and crack.

"HQ, we have a problem!!! HQ, do you copy!!? This is Hephaestus!! We have encountered a—!!"

The voice of the soldier was abruptly interrupted by the sound of a blunt impact, followed by a crash against a nearby vehicle.

"Deploy the gas!!!"

Some metallic clicks, small objects bouncing on the ground, and then a thick, white mist started enveloping the area and permeating the air.

Everything had happened so fast that Logan needed a moment to realize he wasn't being immobilized anymore. He turned on his back, looked at the street, and saw nothing but shadows moving through the mist. He instinctively covered his mouth and nose with his hand, unsure of the nature of the gas. One of the shadows was way bigger than a human, and it moved way faster as well. It wasn't too difficult to guess what it was.

The orchestra of gunfire flashed through the smoke, mixed with confused voices, screams, and other chaotic noises. The street had become a battlefield in a matter of seconds.

He detected more movement at the nearby sidewalk. Headed towards the alley Jacobs had tried to use earlier, Julien was carrying Lilian on his arms.

'Sneaky rat...!'

Staying where he was wouldn't do him any good. He stood up, prayed to avoid the monster's perception, and made a run for the alley.

######

Both Jacobs and Marcus had preached about how big the hospital shelter was, how many resources it had in store, how well-located it was… But the thing neither of them mentioned was the disproportionate number of assholes that populated it. It wouldn't be too surprising if Jacobs had made arrangements for the worst of his thugs to take root on the hospital, with the intention of eventually keeping the entire building for himself.

Since the very moment they arrived at the place, they had been treated like shit. The people in charge didn't give a crap about anyone but themselves, as usual. They let anyone wander around the building without a care, but they kept strong vigilance over the supply storage. They were free to feast on the food and drinks, but everyone else only got the bare minimum to avoid dying. And nobody dared to stand up against them; the hospital only had two or three guns at its disposal, and they were all hanging from their belts.

There was no sense of order, no planned supply runs, no roles, nothing. It was an unstable system, bound to come crashing down as soon as supplies started to dwindle.

Definitely safer than outside, but for how long? Logan couldn't manage to stay calm, not with a ticking time-bomb inside the building with them. Lilian was a problem.

He sped up his pace. Julien was staying on the opposite side of that wing, along with the girl.

From the very beginning, it took him a good deal of effort to stop those psychopaths from taking her away. One can only imagine what their intentions were. Julien insisted on being her father, imposing himself as her protective figure. Somehow it worked, but he had started shunning everyone since then, even Logan.

Julien's usefulness in Logan's eyes kept fading away. Every hardship they came across did nothing but weaken it further.

'Is the girl even necessary anymore…? Come on, man… I'm already tired of this shit.'

…

He knocked on the door. Hurried, frantic steps could be heard from within the room. Some seconds later, someone fumbled with the doorknob. The door opened a little, just enough for a person to peek outside from within.

Julien's face was covered in sweat. He no longer had that smug, proud look he used to wear everywhere he went. Instead, he had the face of a lunatic. He frowned, his almost bulging eyes darting up and down Logan's body, as if he was trying to make absolutely sure he knew who the person in front of him was.

"A-Ah…! Mr. Logan…!" he said.

Logan saw him hunching over as he spoke.

"What the hell is the deal with you…?"

"Oh, you mean…? Hmm…" he looked aside, not even blinking. It was as if he was pondering very hard about something. "Yes, yes… It might be okay… Come inside."

The door opened further, allowing Logan to step inside. He heard it close behind his back.

'I really need to start setting boundaries here. This dude is losing his shit.'

Attempting to compose himself and recover his usual arrogant posture, Julien approached the messy hospital bed he had been using, and grabbed something from underneath his pillow. In the meantime, Logan glanced at something in the corner of the room. Lilian was sitting on the floor, curled into a ball and still unresponsive.

'…'

"Here…! Look at this…!" said Julien. Out of nowhere, his eyes were full of brightness, as if he had stumbled across something amazing. "This could be just what we need!"

He was offering him an envelope. Reluctantly, Logan grabbed it, and took a piece of paper from within. It looked like a letter.

"The hell…?"

******

[We are aware of your circumstances.

You mustn't trust them. They will take the girl, and nobody else. You mustn't let them fool you.

We are willing to help you. Our interests share the same principles. We want to get the girl out of the city. You want to get yourselves out of the city. We both want to get something out of this place.

You won't trust us at first. That is to be expected. To prove our intentions to you, go to the address written on the back of this note. It's close to your position. Tomorrow, when the sun reaches its zenith point. You'll find the proof you need.

Gather your people. Get ready. We'll contact you again.]

******

"HQ, do you copy? This is Bravo team. We have visual contact with the suspected target. Over."

"We hear you, Bravo. What's its status?"

"It seems to be a subway station. There're signs of heavy activity in the area. Something happened here very recently. It matches the report we received two days ago."

"Acknowledged. Teams Charlie and Delta are in position and watching for hostiles in your vicinity. You're safe to proceed."

"Roger that. We're heading into the subway."

…

"HQ, this is Bravo. The underground tunnels show signs that consistently match those of a recent outbreak. There're no hostiles in sight. We'll keep moving on. Over."

"Acknowledged."

…

"Uh… HQ, this is Bravo. I think we have a problem. Over."

"We hear you, Bravo. Please, elaborate."

"We've found an open cocoon. But it's unlike any other cocoon we've seen in the city so far."

"How is it different?"

"It's… bigger. Way bigger. Whatever came out of this thing must have been at least three meters tall. It almost looks like… one of those praetorian cocoons we've seen in the reports."

"…"

"HQ? Do you copy?"

"Yes, we got the message." the voice on the other side of the radio went down in volume, as if the person on the other side had turned their attention towards someone else. "Report this discovery to the commander immediately, it's important. And let Doctor Elizabeth know as well. This turn of events might change the entire picture for us."