Chapter 20

With our weapons strapped, the three of us flew out to the nearest city, Dayton, to find Terry a human to eat.

“What I still don’t understand” Terry said, flying closer to me “Is why we don’t just look around the countryside. Surely it would be safer than going into the city.”

I shook my head, saying “Use your head Terry, there are a bunch of reasons to do your shopping in the city instead of wasting time looking through farmland and small towns for something to eat.”

Terry snorted and said sardonically “Well you’ll have to excuse little old me. I’m just a country bumpkin and I don’t know nuthin bout no city folk. Won’t you please enlighten my ignorant self?”

I scratched my head, embarrassed, and said “Ah, sorry. I didn’t mean to come off like a know-it-all…”

But he just chuckled and said “It’s fine, I’m just ribbing you. I’m guessing the reason you wanted to look in the city is because more people lived there?”

“That’s one reason.” I said, nodding “But it’s not the only one. Statistically the likelihood of finding an uneaten corpse is higher just because there are more places to hide. The countryside has been picked clean by trash mobs, but weaklings like the Cleaners won’t be able to get into larger, taller buildings- at least not without bringing the whole structure down onto their own heads. And besides all of that-there may be new kinds of prey for us to find.”

Terry nodded, convinced, and even added “We might also be able to get a clue about where the Queen is too…”

“Don’t hold your breath on that one. Now that the fog has expanded to places like New York and Chicago I highly doubt that she’d remain in Ohio of all places. If she was even ever here at all. For now, let’s just focus on furthering our evolution.”

Terry was about to respond again, but before he could Ember poked her furry head out from under my cloak and said “Masteeeer, are we there yet? My arms are getting tired from holding on for so long!”

“We’ll be there in a little bit.” I said, pulling the little spider from the death grip she had been holding me in and cradling her in my arms.

“Eep! Master, you don’t have to-”

“Hush. The last thing I need is for you to fall off of me while I’m flying and get hurt.”

“Master…” she said, embarrassed.

Terry simply gave the two of us a strange look before shaking his head and flying a bit farther away, ending our conversation.

We stopped outside of Dayton twenty minutes after setting out, landing a short ways away from the city in front of a lime lake. Next to the lake was State Route 4, the highway we had followed from the air. Up until now there had been scant vehicles on the long stretch of road but the closer we got to the city, the more choked it became with cars until eventually the road became completely impassable by any means other than walking.

“We’ll follow the highway on foot from here. With any luck we’ll find a body in one of these cars and we won’t even need to enter the city.” I said

Terry looked at me in a way that, if he still had them, I assumed meant he would be raising his eyebrows, and said “Are you afraid?”

“Not afraid, just…getting a bad feeling” I said, gazing into the direction of the city. From here I would normally see the tops of skyscrapers in the distance, but even with my enhanced vision the fog was simply too dense to see any of the city's features. Despite not being able to see anything though, I was getting a sense of foreboding.

It wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling either, it was the exact same danger I had felt before the Evolved, Tetra, had attacked us all those months ago. Since then I had become exponentially stronger, so what manner of monster could send such a chill down my spine even this far away from the city?

“Strange…I can’t feel anything.” Ember said, cocking her head at me.

“Nor can I…” Terry added

“Perhaps it's because neither of you are Evolved, so your senses aren’t as developed as mine. Whatever is out there, it’s definitely capable of killing all three of us which is why we need to prioritize safety. I doubt it knows we’re nearby, but if it becomes aware of us then I’m certain it will try to score itself some Lord flesh.”

The two of them nodded, satisfied with my explanation, and we began searching the clustered vehicles strangling the highway. But even after several hours of searching we were still coming up empty handed. Most of the cars had their doors flung open, the occupants clearly having run away without so much as pausing to turn off the gas. A few were crushed like pancakes after something massive, presumably a Cleaner, landed on them. While others were straight up ripped apart and, notably, covered in dried blood and the occasional bit of human remains.

“Basically, they all either ran or died…” I muttered to myself, gazing at a blood stained child’s car seat.

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It made sense. There was almost nothing to hide behind on this highway, so any humans would have been easy pickings. Which meant…

“Terry, I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere searching these cars.” I said, letting out a sigh.

“I was about to say the same thing. Looks like everyone bolted as soon as the bugs came and everyone who tried to hide got pulled right out of their cars…these damned insects, how cruel can you get…”

“Is it cruelty to hunt and kill your food? Regardless, we’re going to have to go into the city…or at least get close to it. I think there’s a hospital on the right if we follow the road for a few miles, we’ll check out there first.”

“Hospital patients? Really man?” Terry said with trepidation.

“No difference between a sick corpse and a healthy one. Not to us anyway.”

Terry grumbled to himself but offered no further protest as we sprinted up the road toward the outermost part of the city. Along the way I sensed several weaker insects, but they always fled the moment they became aware of our presence. I had no problem with this, as fighting weak prey would be a waste of time and energy.

After a few minutes the hospital appeared out of the fog standing remarkably tall for the type of building it was. At eight stories high it was definitely the biggest one I had ever seen, but even more remarkable was that the building appeared to be almost completely intact, with only the entrance on the lowest level broken open by some large body.

We stopped running at the destroyed entrance but we didn’t go in right away. I first used my feelers to sense if there was anything moving nearby. I was able to sense up to the sixth floor of the building, and from there down there was a fair amount of movement from inside the hospital. It was mostly rats, cats and other small animals that could use the relative shelter of the large building to escape the bugs. I was about to say as much to my companions when I suddenly felt the footfalls of something much larger than a rat.

Whatever it was, it was dense for its size as each footstep, while not very far apart, carried the weight of a jackboot.

“Do you feel anything?” Terry asked, as he didn’t have feelers.

“…Yes, but I can’t tell what it is. It's small though, on the fourth floor, and weak enough that I don’t feel any danger from it…a child, perhaps? Though what kind of child I have no idea.” I said.

I looked at Terry and nodded, drawing my sword which prompted him to pull out his hammer. We both knew that no human child could have survived under these conditions, especially not one interned at a hospital.

We carefully, quietly, entered the building so as not to give ourselves away to the likely enemy. When its movements didn’t change we crept slowly through the first floor, trying to find either a staircase up, or a cadaver to sneak away with. The ground was covered in glass and debris left by whatever had broken through the front door. I was a little worried that Terry’s large body would knock something over and alert the enemy, but he was making sure to be cautious.

While the ground was covered in blood in various places we didn’t find a single body all the way up to where the stairs were. Shrugging off the disappointment, we climbed the stairs and searched the second floor. There wasn’t any debris or blood lying around, but still no bodies, and it was the same on the third floor after that.

This I found peculiar as, unlike the highway, there would be nowhere for the patients in this place to run once the fog came in. Their best bet would have been to hole up here and try to keep hidden. I communicated as much to Terry and Ember, the latter of whom suggested that the one on the next floor was likely responsible.

I nodded, and said “Before we kill it I’d like to get a look at whatever this creature is, so try and avoid dealing any blows that will completely destroy it.”

“I’m surprised to see you so curious, you’re normally pretty disinterested in weaker fighters.” Terry remarked

“Yeah well, something just feels off about this one…” I said. No point in underestimating a new foe just because I didn’t think it could kill me. That mentality had earned me a lot of pain in the past.

I sensed the creature as we stalked it through the halls of the hospital's fourth floor. It didn’t move, instead staying put in one of the rooms on this floor. We managed to sneak about a quarter of the way to its room when the creature's body suddenly stiffened.

“It knows we’re here.” I said to Ember and Terry.

Quicker than I would have thought possible given its previously sluggish movement the creature raced out of the room it was in, down a hallway labeled ‘Oncology’, and rounded another corner towards what I could sense was a dead end.

Rather than sprint after it like a group of fools I decided to use a trick from my old playbook and asked Terry to sneak into one of the adjacent rooms where he could bust through the wall and ambush it. After that I followed the creature's path at a leisurely pace, after all there was no way to escape from here short of jumping out a window.

Though I hadn't seen the creature my questions about what it was were answered when I turned down the oncology hallway..

“I’m getting really tired of this shit.” I thought as I gazed through the twisted mess of spider webbing that lined the hallway.

I used my sword to hack the sticky strands away.

“Wait a minute, sticky strands?” I thought. So if it wasn’t a Cleaner, then a Caretaker?

“I highly doubt it Master. Caretakers don’t build nests like this, we find an appropriately large surface and then maximize the use of its space for storage of our potential Lords.”

I shook my head, now more curious than ever, and hacked the webbing apart with renewed vigor. When I finally reached the second hallway the creature had run down I was greeted with yet more webbing. But when I started hacking it apart, it fell away much easier than the previous hallways had.

“This isn’t web, it’s silk!” I realized Then it really wasn’t a Caretaker or a Cleaner, as neither of them could produce both substances. I had to admit, the design was smart too. Line the only hallway leading to your nest with sticky web to catch foes and then line the nest itself with the softer substance for comfort.

Unfortunately, I was well beyond the point where simple webbing could stop me. I walked along the silk lined hallway, toward the last door on the left where the creature had holed up. For the first time in awhile I could feel excitement building up within me. After all, tiptoeing through an empty hospital with a monster lurking about? It was a great setup for a horror scenario, now I just had to hope that the monster wasn’t a let down.

I slowly opened the door, its hinges creating an oh so nostalgic creaking sound. I was greeted by the soft light of candles burning on a table next to a hospital bed. In the bed itself lay a woman who, much to my surprise, was still alive. Her breathing was rugged and her heart rate was practically nonexistent but she was definitely still alive.

And there at the foot of her bed, staring at me in horror, was a child with eight eyes and a furry head.

“Get away monster, I won’t let you hurt my mom!” he shouted, jumping at me.