A few more of the dogs leapt out of the trees and Cross shot them down before they could get to him. The molted beasts hadn’t made a single sound as they ran at him, almost as if they had no vocal cords.

As soon as their hosts died the sandflies scattered. A few tried to bite him, but luckily Cross had some bug spray just for that.

In the distance, the rotors of the chopper beat the air. Cross heard Fauci through his radio. “Fall back to the mansion! Rad has left with the chopper!”

Cross turned towards the old building and began to run towards it. As he got closer, he couldn’t help but notice shapes moving behind the dusty windows.

He reached the door along with Barry, Vill, and Fauci, and helped them ram the door open.

Once inside, the team closed the door and quickly barricaded it with a nearby metal coatrack and zip ties. They were just in time too, as not a moment after they had finished, one of the mutated dogs slammed into the door from outside, but their barricade held.

“What was that out there?!” Barry panted, eyes wide with fear.

“I’m not sure, but right now we need to focus on getting out of here alive. To do that, we need to split up and explore this mansion for any clues to the murders. We need to know what we’re working with.” Fauci replied, already walking off into a random corridor.

“Split up?! Shouldn’t we all secure this place together?!” demanded Vill. But it was too late, Fauci had already left.

“Sorry Vill, but I’m not going to disobey Fauci. We’re splitting up, whether you like it or not,” Cross said. He turned to the staircase and went up to the second floor, ignoring Vill’s exasperated huff.

As Cross explored, he noticed a blood stain on the floor. The blood was old, but it seemed to only be from a day or two ago.

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The walls were covered in cracked wallpaper, and the floorboards creaked and groaned as he walked over them. He pushed forward, seeing more and more blood stains on the floor.

Suddenly he heard a groaning noise coming from a door to his right. It sounded wrong though, almost as if it was coming from underwater.

Cross hesitantly began to open the door, but before he could, the doors burst open, knocking him to the floor.

Cross landed hard and would have shouted if he had not been so horrified at what appeared.

Above him stood what could only be described as a monster. It looked like it had once been a regular man who had died but whose corpse had been reanimated. Cross was sure he was looking at a real live zombie.

Its skin was sloughing off its body, and congealed blood leaked from its orifices.

There were syringes imbedded all throughout its body, as if it had tripped and stumbled into a hospital waste basket full of used needles.

The zombie gave a gurgling groan as it began to shamble towards Cross, fetid blood spilling everywhere as its rotting arms clawed towards him.

Cross stumbled to his feet and shot the thing in its chest, but aside from being knocked back for a moment, it showed no reaction.

“What the hell?!” Cross shot it twice more, only to elicit a similar non-existent reaction. The zombie gave a lunging bite at Cross’ neck, but he was easily able to sidestep its almost drunken-like movements.

He shot it a few more times before a piece of lead finally nestled itself into the decaying grey matter inside its skull and shot out the back of its head.

The now lifeless corpse fell to the ground, unmoving.

Cross stood there for a few minutes, recovering his wits. What the hell was that thing? he thought.

I’m the writer and even I don’t know what it was!

Cross heard sets of gurgling groans come from behind him and spun around, seeing two more mutants shambling towards him.

One’s chest was burst open, almost as if its heart had exploded. The other was fresher and covered in black dots.

Cross steadied his breath and took aim. He shot one straight between its bleeding eyes, and was about to put down the other one when it suddenly screeched and started running at him, dodging his bullets

It tackled Cross to the ground, desperately trying to bite him, but Cross was able to hold it back and pull out his combat knife, stabbing the blade into the grotesque thing’s eyes socket and putting it out of its misery.

Cross didn’t know what else this mansion had in store for him, but he sure as hell wasn’t eager to find out.