A snarling creature lunged through the doorway. Alan’s heartbeat quickened.

Zombie.

The word echoed in Alon’s mind. He cried. Memories of people in a large moving room flashed before his eyes, along with images of a nightmarish land of fire and night.

Muffled screams rippled out from the wall of restrained people. They couldn’t move, and there was nowhere to run.

The zombie had long, brown hair. Once, she might have been beautiful, but now she had no face.

Was that why she was weeping?

Partially sloughed-off skin drooped from her cheeks as her mouth hung wide and low, exposing fat and muscle corrupted by the fungus’ touch. There was a crimped, bloodless wound where one of her arms would have been, and her tattered clothes were splattered with black and green.

Green-dusted ooze dribbled over the edge of her lips.

The Private made the… the sign, while muttering something under his breath.

The zombie moved forward with single-minded need, dashing toward the men standing behind the transparent wall. It stumbled into the tables in the middle of the room, only to knock them aside and bash into the transparent wall, striking it again and again with its one remaining hand.

At first, Ironshard and his guards flinched, only to stand up tall once they realized they weren’t in danger.

Ironshard stared.

“By all that’s holy…” he whispered. He turned to the men in black at his sides. “Bring up the neuroimagery, now!” he hissed.

The two soldiers took their posts at devices similar to the one Ironshard manned. They ran their gloved fingers along the glowing surfaces.

“I can’t believe it,” Ironshard said, eyes going wide. “It really is a miracle.”

One of the men in black pointed at Alon and the others restrained around the room. “If this were Tonevay,” he said, “all of them would have already turned.”

Gagged screams thumped and wept at Alon’s sides.

Ironshard nodded. “Something is suppressing it.” He stared at pictures of heads filled with spiderweb lights. “There isn’t any aberrant neural activity in the non-feral subjects.”

Seconds passed. The only sounds were the zombie’s smacks and moans.

“Damnit!” Ironshard yelled. He slapped the machine.

“What’s wrong? Isn’t this what we wanted?”

“No,” Ironshard answered, “it’s not!” He looked up from his device. “Are either of you picking up any signs of a carrier wave? Or an EM signal?”

The other man in black shook his head. “No, sir.”

Ironshard stepped back, shaking his head. “I warned Marteneiss about this,” he said. “The General wants to believe there’s a rational explanation for how the infected go feral. A rational explanation forbids action at a distance. If X triggers Y, there has to be some kind of intermediary making that happen: a chemical signal, an electromagnetic wave, subatomic particles, something.” He chuckled bitterly. “But, it’s like I told him. This is a fool’s errand. How can we figure out how feralism propagates or what in this beasteaten hospital is keeping that from happening if we’re not registering any signs of a fertilization signal.”

“Maybe you’re not detecting it because it’s being blocked by the thing that’s blocking it?” Sylar said.

“Sir!” one of the men in black yelled. “Sir! Look!“

The zombie had stopped clawing at the plastic wall.

Slowly—hesitantly at first—the zombie backed away from the wall. The movements were heavy and ungainly.

It turned to face the nearest subject restrained against the wall.

It lumbered toward the wall of people.

No no no no no no.

Alon was afraid. Somehow, he knew something horrible was about to happen. And, worse, he didn’t know what it would be.

The victims struggled fruitlessly. Tears ran down their sickly faces as they yelled through their gags.

“Somebody tell me what is happening!” Ironshard yelled.

Private Sylar approached the zombie from behind, dragging his tail behind him.

“No, you idiot!” Ironshard yelled. “Not until I know what—”

—Rising up onto its tip-toes, the zombie threw itself onto the restrained patient. It bit into him. It scraped its fingernails on the man’s face.

One of the men in black screamed. “Holy shit!”

The bitten patient spasmed and screamed as the zombie’s body began to melt and deform. Garments ripped and burst as the zombie’s flesh melded into him. Strands grew from corpse to corpse, branching out and taking root. Hyphae stormed into his legs, which cracked as they swelled with growth.

The man’s bones sapped. His eyes rolled back into his head.

Private Sylar let out a yell. Rushing forward, he thrust his arms out and then pulled them to either side, as if opening curtains. The two bodies intermingling on the wall suddenly split down the middle with a sickening crack. Deformed, ink-black viscera spilled from the tear; tiny tendrils writhed out like worms.

The Private pulled his arms back, and his mysterious power tore the broken corpses from the restraints. He ripped the horror in half, and half again, and again, until it was nothing more than a collection of wet kibbles on the white, vinyl floor

Private Sylar fell down onto one knee, heaving for breath.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

The kibbles writhed. They crawled like inchworms. The motion drew the Private’s fearful attention.

Ironshard yelled at him to stop, but Sylar didn’t listen. He picked one of the kibbles off the floor, stuck it in his mouth, and gnawed, squeezing it tight in his hand.

One by one, the kibbles stopped moving.

The men in black drew their weapons.

Sylar looked up in alarm. “Dammit!” he yelled. “I’m just eating to restore my strength. That took a lot out of me.”

The men in black looked to Ironshard, who nodded.

They lowered their rifles.

“Was all of that recorded?” Ironshard asked.

One of the men in black nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Ironshard’s face twitched with excitement behind his suit’s plastic visor. “Incredible,” he said, softly. “It was trying to form some kind of amalgam.” But then his excitement turned to terror. “Fuck.” He turned to his men. “Do you realize what this means?”

“Just tell us!” Sylar snapped, his mouth full of food.

“It knows we’re onto it!” Ironshard replied. Shaking his head, he stepped away from the device.

Console. The word echoed in Alon’s mind.

“Wait, what?” one of the men in black asked.

Ironshard gestured with his arms. “The fungus was trying to stop us!” He glanced at his men.

“But you said this would be a fool’s errand,” the other man in black replied.

“I’ll admit it,” the scientist answered, “I was wrong about that. Dammit,” he cursed, adding with a hiss, “shit, now I’m really scared.”

“You need to keep going,” Private Sylar said. “If what you say is true, you must be on the right track.”

Nodding, Ironshard turned to his men. “Release Subjects B and C.”

“Both of them?”

“Lieutenant Ironshard?” Sylar said.

He’d finished his meal.

“What is it?” Ironshard snapped.

“I need to eat more.” There was a distant look in Sylar’s eye. He kept glancing at the chunks of flesh on the floor. “I can’t just leave them here,” he said, stammering. His eyes widened. “This is wrong. You’re wasting them!”

Ironshard grimaced. “What?”

“I… I don’t know,” the Private replied. “I… the words just came to me.” He shook his head in confusion. “I don’t want to leave this freaking stuff on the floor. It’s not safe.”

Ironshard stomped his foot on the floor. “Step away from the remains, Private. Now. That’s an order!”

“I thought you didn’t think I was a soldier anymore,” Sylar said.

“It doesn’t matter one way or the other,” Ironshard said. He tilted his head toward one of the men in black. “If you disobey a direct order, I can have them blow your brains out. Either way, I get what I want.”

Scowling, Sylar begrudgingly stepped away from the kibbles on the floor. He wiped his mouth on his forearm, hungrily sucking up the residue.

One of the men in black tapped a console screen. Then, somewhere out of sight, another door swung open.

Alon could hear feet shuffling across the floor.

Moments later, two more zombies entered the room, just as gruesome and rotten as the first.

One of them stared Alon in the eyes.

Get away from me! he thought. No! No!!

But then subjects B and C turned away, making a beeline for Dr. Ironshard and his men.

They crashed into the transparent wall.

On the metal beds leaning against the wall, the trapped patients writhed and screamed.

Alon cried. He felt like a child lost in the dark.

He was going to die soon.

“Break the Tablets!” Ironshard shouted. He pointed at the console screen. “Look at that!”

The men in black stepped up behind him.

All the while, the two zombies kept clawing at the wall. Their rotting fingertips frayed against the plastic.

“There,” the scientist said, “in the frontal cortex, and the cerebellum. There’s aberrant neural activity! This is the fungus’ fingerprint.”

“Wait a minute,” one of the men in black said. He stepped up close, only to pull back in alarm. “Beast’s teeth, look, it’s…”

“Shit,” Ironshard said, “you’re right. It’s fading.” He made the sign. “Something is damping the signal.” He looked over his shoulder. “We’re recording this, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

The scientist huffed in relief. “Good, good. As long as we’ve got a recording of it, we can try to isolate it later. With this alone, we could potentially detect when and where the infected are at risk of going feral.”

Suddenly, the girl on the table in the middle of the room stirred. Her body flexed against the metal restraints as it was rocked by a violent coughing fit. Then, out of nowhere, a gust of wind roared through the room, rolling the tables across the floor. The wind caught Alon's fever sweat, chilling him to the bone. Droplets of blood and ooze kicked off the floor, whipping into a thin whirlwind that swirled around the girl.

Alon trembled as he stared.

One of the men in black rushed over to his wall-mounted console. “Sir,” he yelled, “it’s the girl! She’s—”

—Subject B and C ceased pounding against the plastic barrier and turned toward the girl.

Ironshard slammed his hand on the console. “—Stop them, Private!” he bellowed. “Don’t let them touch her!”

Private Sylar spread his arms as he moved forward to intercept the two zombies.

“Restrain them!” Dr. Ironshard yelled. “Restrain them if you can!”

Sticking his arms forward—palms facing out—the Private squeezed his hands into fists. Alon saw dark veins bulge at the sides of his head.

The two zombies lifted off the ground until they hovered several inches over the floor. They thrashed and snarled, knocking a few tables out of the way.

“Move them into the other room,” Ironshard ordered. “I’ll close the door, and then you can, uh… let go.”

Nodding, Sylar walked toward the open doorway. The zombies moved along with him, floating by his side. Each of the Private’s steps was shakier than the last.

The strain was eating away at him.

Drool trickled down his chin, landing on his gown and the floor in droplets that quickly began to sizzle.

Then, when he was about three-quarters of the way there, Sylar let out a groan and fell to one knee. He kept one arm up, but it trembled, as did the zombies.

One of the men in black yelled. “Sir!”

Alon looked up.

Oh god. Oh god…

The zombies’ movements changed. They stopped thrashing. Instead, they moved with purpose, each lifting a single arm.

“No!” Ironshard yelled.

The zombies reached out to one another, as if to grasp each other’s hands. Their hands flexed wildly, like hungry mouths. Open, shut; open, shut. They swung and stretched.

“Stop them, Private!” Ironshard yelled.

Sylar yelled through clenched teeth. “I can’t! I…”

The zombies reached again. Their fingers nearly touched.

“Move them apart! Move them apart!”

Groaning, Sylar pushed up off the floor and called on his power. A wave of force rippled out of him, knocking back the wheeled tables.

The two zombies floated away from one another. This caused their bodies to tilt outward, which was enough for them to make contact, gnarled foot on rotting leg.

There was a violent snap as the flesh fused at the point of contact. Sylar kept on pulling the zombies away from one another, but their bodies were just changing too quickly. Mass flowed out of their torsos and into their legs as their merging body stretched into a lengthy spindle that grew thick in the middle. Their other limbs snapped and elongated as they shifted onto the central mass.

Spikes of bone sprouted from the thing’s many limbs.

“Kill it!” Ironshard screamed. “Kill it now!”

Bending down, Sylar threw his arms onto the floor, his power ripping the developing abomination in half.

“Split them again!” Ironshard yelled. “Again!”

But this time, the Private did not comply. His body twitched, his will interrupted.

“Private!?” Ironshard yelled.

But Sylar could no longer hear him. Instead, the changing man lunged at where the flesh spindle had fallen onto the floor, and dug into both halves.

Alon thought he saw silver flash in the Private’s eyes.

Everyone screamed.

The Private’s bones snapped and popped as the abomination’s flesh flowed into him. His spine grew out in both directions, forward and back, stretching his body long. Clothes tore. Arms bulged. His skin peeled away as his head blossomed like a flower.

“Shoot him!” Ironshard yelled.

The men in black opened fire, punching holes in the transparent wall with their bullets.

The pain burning in Alon’s chest burned a little hotter. Glancing down, he saw dark blood pouring down his chest.

His blood, fresh from a bullet wound.

The creature Sylar was becoming turned around, absorbing the bullets into his changing face. He let out an inhuman roar.

Sylar’s golden eye had turned silver.

Sylar lashed out with a growing arm, launching three blades of pure vacuum with a crack that matched his changing limbs. The blades sliced through the plastic barrier as if it was paper. Ironshard and the soldiers’ bodies exploded as the vacuum filleted them, painting the blades with falling blood. Many of the tables leaning against the walls were knocked over, including Alon’s.

The edges of Alon’s vision started to darken.

The creature let out a roar.

The last thing Alon Lokanok saw were severed chunks of flesh on the floor beginning to move of their own accord once more, and then there was quiet and Alon was no more.