100 Systems Invasion

16. The Witness of A Killing Spree

She saw them.

She saw them get killed while she did nothing.

She saw the life drained out of his eyes, and her eyes, and their eyes all over the short course of five minutes.

She heard the footsteps of the murderer as he stumbled on his uncoordinated feet; only one ragged Converse covered the ashen feet.

She felt a tight knot form in her chest, witnessing this mass murder done by her very own dear cousin. Something she knew he could do but never thought of seeing it with her own two eyes.

Wade killed six innocent people, and he didn’t even stop to consider that this was wrong. That he was wrong, and they were not. He moved on, cracking their skulls open and eating their brains out.

He ate their brains like nothing had happened.

But she knew it had happened. Her eyes couldn’t betray her. She wasn’t dreaming, nor was she hallucinating. The rasping of the heavy metal-loving man’s final breath and the crimson blood as it spilled over the pink bandana was all too vivid for it to be a figment of her imagination.

She was there. She was watching. She was witnessing.

She felt like the biggest criminal for watching such a crime to humanity and keeping silent, doing nothing. A killing spree and cannibalism all at once.

“Fuck, he’s stronger than I anticipated.”

Amy froze hearing him, hearing Seth talk with no such thing as horror or even a hint of fear. Oh, she feared, all right. She feared how her own cousin became this mindless terror, hellbent on killing and eating dead people’s brains.

“Your cousin did good.”

Something lodged in her throat, suffocating her. How could Seth say that without any remorse?

How could he call this disgusting evil ‘good’?

“Maybe we should let him be an infectore and see how he fares with his own kind. If he’s this strong, he’ll be useful and we can be safe. The only problem is how to make him go against the other infectores.”

Rage built up inside her, bursting out a moment later after hearing what Seth had to say. She slapped his face and was glad that she could see how his cheek reddened immediately.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Amy gaped, “What’s wrong with me, you say?” She couldn’t believe she had shared a ride with this jerk. “Did you even know how horrible you sound just now?”

“Me?” Seth looked quite perplexed at her, still rubbing his cheek. “You and your cousin are the horrible ones.”

“Bullshit!”

“Hey, I’m not the one who jumped up to this infectore invasion in the first place just to win a bet, now, am I?”

“What? You’re–“

“How much did you bet your life on it again, a thousand bucks, wasn’t it?”

Amy closed her mouth, fingers curling until her knuckles went white, shaking with the need to punch Seth in the nose. However, she held herself back.

What he said was true to some degree. He had warned her the first time they met in her workplace that night. She had refused to heed him and dived head-first into danger just to be in the front-row seat of this invasion and insanity.

It wasn’t Seth’s fault. She put herself in this position and dragged Wade along just for fun.

Even so, she heard him exhale in an annoyed way. “Look, I don’t care what you think of me, I do what I want. So, if you’re really bothered by whatever I was saying, you can just fuck off and do whatever you want to. I don’t care if you become an infectore either, as long as I can stay alive.”

“You selfish son of a bitch.”

Seth chuckled, not finding it insulting at all. “That’s true, my mom is a–“

“Graaaaaaaargh!”

A couple yards before them, Wade the infectore threw the remains of the last brain he ate. He looked around, turning his body left and right in an awkward manner. His hands spread out as if trying to reach something he could feast on, but no more living human was in sight.

Under their hiding bush, Seth, Amy, and the scared Marnie cowering in the broken college student’s arms were thankfully not within Wade the infectore’s radar. With this, Seth concluded that an infectore did not have a heightened sense. But, their physical power was double that of an average human.

As Wade, the infectore, mechanically staggered to the opposite direction of their hiding bush, they saw that the dead bodies –all with their skull cracked open and without a brain – moved back to life.

One of the leather-wearing bodies struggled to get up with his shaky arms and then up to his strangely bent feet. The other one, with a pink bandana on its neck after her skull broke in two pieces, followed suit. Her effort to just stand straight was harder, given that her chest had caved in, as her abdominal muscles distorted painfully.

It was a scene from a horror movie. Amy didn’t want to watch it, but she was too scared to move, watching as the other four dead bodies did the same. They went in the same direction as Wade, groaning aloud like him.

“Damn, this is just too good.” Seth said again, much to her dismay.

“Why are you doing this?” Amy asked in a low voice. “You wait for someone to cross paths with Wade, and then what? Give him food and make him turn someone else into infectores? Why?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Seth raised an eyebrow, expecting her to find out the truth by herself. When she didn’t say anything and looked just as lost, he sighed. “You spent all of my cells. The only way for me to get some is to kill an infectore. Unless, you want me to kill your precious cousin?”

“No!”

“So, there’s your answer.”

“You’re really fuck up, you know?”

“Blah blah blah, I’ve heard it all. You need to get your creativity in cursing up another level.” Seth sent a scathing look at her. “Besides, I don’t think there’s a way to turn infectores back into human with a lack of brain, remmeber? So save your energy for the living one.”

Amy took a deep breath and held it for a while, trying to regain her patience. She must bear his unexpected cruelty if she still goes along with Seth. However, remembering the news and what had happened to them last night, staying close to Seth was in her best interest. He was the one who had a System that paved the way for them to survive.

“Fine, let’s do it your way, as long as you don’t harm Wade.”

Seth grinned at her. “See, that’s not so hard to cooperate with me, right? Let’s farm!”