DEGREES OF DEATH

5. The Price of a Broken Formation

 

“Not my blood?” Daniel repeated the words in a low tone. He didn’t lower his club. The flashlight beam remained locked on the dark red stain on the knee of Chania’s jeans.

“Prove it,” Daniel hissed coldly.

“Niel, are you crazy?! She’s terrified!” Xavier cut in, trying to get up from the mat.

“Shut up, Vier!” Daniel snapped without turning his head, his eyes still fixed on Chania. “In the world we’re in now, sympathy gets you killed. If she’s hiding a bite, we’re all going to end up as corpses in this room. Prove it, Chan. Now.”

Chania swallowed hard. Her hand trembled violently as she slowly rolled up the leg of her jeans past her knee. The flashlight illuminated her pale skin. There was no gash. No festering scratch or bite mark. Only a dark blue bruise from the hard impact with the asphalt.

“When I fell in the parking lot… I landed right in the puddle of blood from that dead security guard near the lamppost,” Chania sobbed softly, looking at Daniel with tear-filled eyes. “It’s his blood, Niel. Not mine. I’m clean.”

A heavy silence hung in the musty air of the shed. Daniel stared at Chania’s knee for a few seconds that felt like an eternity. Slowly, the muscles in his jaw relaxed. He lowered his weapon and turned off his phone’s flashlight.

“Good,” Daniel muttered curtly. He let out a long breath, releasing the tension that had felt like it was about to burst a blood vessel in his head. “I’m sorry. But I had to be sure.”

Alex and Noah let out the breaths they had been holding. Xavier leaned back against a locker, wiping his face roughly.

“Seriously, Niel. I’m going to have a heart attack every five minutes if you keep playing this psycho detective role,” Xavier grumbled, his voice shaky. “I feel like my heart is about to leap out of my chest.”

“Better a heart attack than a bite,” Daniel replied dismissively. He turned back to the steel door that connected the shed to the corridor leading to the indoor basketball court. “Get your gear on. Wrap your arms with some of those old towels or jerseys from the lockers. Don’t give their teeth any skin to break through.”

They moved quickly. In a state of organized panic, Xavier, Alex, and Noah wrapped their forearms in old athletic cloths, securing them with the remaining black tape.

Daniel stood at the steel door, pressing his ear against the cold metal surface. Silence. He glanced back, making sure the formation he had ordered was in place. Xavier beside him. Chania and Bianca in the middle. Alex and Noah covering the rear.

“Remember the rules,” Daniel whispered firmly. “No one breaks formation. Don’t look back if you hear something. Focus on what’s ahead. The second I open this door, we move fast. Don’t run unless you have to.”

Daniel pushed down on the door’s handle slowly. Click. The door opened without a significant creak.

They stepped into the connecting corridor. It was pitch-black. The smell of floor disinfectant mixed with the metallic tang of old blood immediately hit their noses. At the end of the hall, the double doors to the indoor basketball court were slightly ajar.

“You know,” Xavier suddenly whispered from beside Daniel, his voice barely audible, trying to break the suffocating silence. “The janitor just waxed this floor yesterday afternoon. Now he’s probably waxing the floor with some student government kid’s intestines.”

“Shut your useless mouth, Vier,” Bianca hissed from behind, her voice trembling with nausea. “How can you still be joking at a time like this?”

“I’m just trying to distract myself, Ca. My brain is going to explode in this silence,” Xavier defended himself.

“Quiet. We’re in,” Daniel cut in sharply.

They pushed the double doors open and stepped into the Hudson University indoor basketball arena. The space was enormous, with spectator stands circling the vinyl court in the center. But its sheer size made the room feel like a monstrous, cavernous pit.

The sound of rain drumming on the tin roof above them rumbled, creating an echo that masked their footsteps. The only light came from the occasional flashes of lightning through the high ventilation windows above the stands.

“Stay close to the left wall,” Daniel ordered with a hand signal. “We’re circling around to the emergency exit on the other side.”

They moved stealthily, their rubber-soled shoes squeaking softly on the wooden floor, which was slick with rainwater dripping from a leaky roof. The darkness in the stands made their imaginations run wild. Every shadow of a chair looked like a crouching monster.

Their formation was solid. Daniel and Xavier cleared the path ahead, making sure there were no obstacles. Bianca held her bow tightly, an arrow already nocked, her eyes scanning the center of the court.

But in this world, disaster doesn't always come from the front.

At the very back of the line, Noah walked with bated breath, clutching his iron pipe. Unfortunately, Noah failed to follow one of Daniel’s crucial rules: Don’t lose focus.

His eyes kept darting toward the dark stands to his right. He felt like something was moving up there, something crawling between the rows of spectator seats. The rumbling rain on the roof was messing with his hearing.

“Lex,” Noah whispered to Alex, who was walking a few steps ahead of him. “Do you hear something up there?”

“Focus on what’s in front of you, Noah. Don’t look up,” Alex replied without turning.

But curiosity and fear won out over logic. Noah stopped walking for just two seconds. He aimed the tiny flashlight on his keychain toward the pitch-black VIP section to his right.

Those two seconds were the price of a life.

From a blind spot high in the stands, a shadow didn’t crawl. It leaped.

The creature, a large student with a shattered lower jaw, launched itself from a height of six feet, landing directly on top of Noah.

“ARGH!” Noah screamed as his body was slammed violently onto the wooden court floor.

The impact echoed loudly. The formation instantly broke. Alex spun around in a panic, but he was too late. The creature was already on Noah’s chest. Without warning, its mangled jaw sank deep into the base of Noah’s neck and shoulder.

CRUNCH!

A spray of fresh blood soaked the vinyl floor. Noah’s scream turned into a horrifying gurgle as his throat was torn open.

“NOAH!” Chania shrieked hysterically. She instinctively started to run out of the formation to help him.

But before she could take more than a single step, Daniel dropped his club, lunged for her, and wrapped his arms around her waist. He slammed her body roughly against the wall and pinned her there with his full body weight.

“Let me go, Daniel! He’s been bitten! We have to help him!” Chania screamed, struggling against him, tears streaming down her face as she watched Noah fight against the creature’s bite.

“DON’T MOVE!” Daniel roared, his face inches from hers, the veins in his neck bulging. “He’s already dead, Chan! Do you want us all to die with him?!”

“But he’s our friend, Niel! Help him!” Alex yelled in panic, raising his bat, but his feet were frozen in fear. He didn’t dare get any closer.

On the floor, Noah stared directly at Daniel, his eyes wide with absolute terror and agony. His hands clawed at the air, slick with his own blood.

“Niel… help… it hurts, Niel… help me…” Noah whimpered, his voice a ragged, blood-choked whisper.

Daniel clenched his jaw so hard his teeth ground together. His heart screamed at the sight of his friend begging for help. But his cold, cruel logic suppressed all empathy. The distance was too great, and Noah’s blood was already pooling on the floor. If they got closer, they’d risk contamination, or worse, an attack from other creatures drawn by the scent of blood.

“I’m sorry, Noah,” Daniel whispered, his voice nearly lost in the sound of the rain. “I can’t.”

He turned his face away, forcing himself to look somewhere else as the monster tore into what was left of Noah’s neck. Noah’s screams stopped. His hand fell limp to the floor.

“Oh God … Oh my God …” Xavier stumbled backward in terror, covering his mouth to keep from vomiting.

The arena was silent for a moment, filled only by the sickening sound of chewing flesh.

Then, the silence was broken by the horrifying sound of cracking bones from Noah’s body.

CRACK… crack…

Noah’s body convulsed. The veins on his once-pale face bulged, turning a deep, inky black. The mutation process was happening incredibly fast due to the humidity from the leaky roof.

The first monster stood up, turning its attention to Alex, who was standing closest. And beneath it, Noah … Noah slowly looked up. His eyes, once a fearful brown, were now a milky, opaque white.

Their former friend was now growling, baring teeth stained with his own blood. Noah prepared to lunge at Alex.

“Bianca!” Daniel yelled, his voice cutting through the room. He let go of Chania and pointed directly at Noah. “Shoot him! Now, Bianca!”

Bianca stood trembling in the middle of the formation. Her bow was raised, but her hands were shaking violently. “Niel, that’s Noah. I can’t … I’ve never killed anyone!”

“THAT’S NOT NOAH ANYMORE, BIANCA! SHOOT OR ALEX DIES!” Daniel roared with absolute fury.

The mutated Noah shot forward toward Alex with predatory speed. Alex was frozen, unable to swing his bat at the sight of his own best friend charging at him.

“SHOOT!”

Bianca squeezed her eyes shut for a second, held her breath, and drew the bowstring back to her cheek. Her archer’s instincts took over. She opened her eyes and released her fingers.

SWOOSH!

The carbon-steel arrow sliced through the air with deadly speed.

THWIP!

The sharp sound was followed by a splatter of black fluid. Bianca’s arrow had plunged directly through Noah’s left eye socket, the tip exiting the back of his skull. The arrow’s momentum stopped Noah’s charge in mid-air. The former basketball player’s body fell to the floor with a thud, and he stopped moving forever.

Bianca lowered her bow. She fell to her knees, gasping for breath, tears streaming down her cheeks. She had just killed her friend.

But Daniel gave them no time to grieve. The first monster that had killed Noah was now running toward them, followed by the sounds of growls from all corners of the upper stands. The smell of Noah’s blood had drawn out every mutant hiding in the sports complex.

“MOVE! NOW! NOBODY STOPS!” Daniel yelled, scooping his club up from the floor.

He grabbed the collar of Alex’s shirt, who was still frozen in shock, and shoved him forward. Xavier ran to take the lead, slamming his shoulder into the indoor court’s emergency exit bar.

The double steel doors burst open. They scrambled out of the arena, leaving Noah’s body behind on the court.

The moment they were outside, the air hit them like a slap in the face. A torrential downpour was coming down. The wind howled, carrying a thin mist and a bone-chilling cold.

Daniel paused for a second at the doorway, catching his breath. The heavy, humid raindrops pelted his face, soaking his shirt and bandages.

Suddenly, something terrifying happened.

The sound of the mutants’ broken growls, which had been a constant drone from across the campus, abruptly stopped. An absolute silence fell over the night for three long seconds under the pouring rain.

Then, as if some natural switch had just been flipped, the silence was replaced by a far more horrifying sound.

It was no longer a slow growl. Hundreds of wild, sharp, and piercing shrieks filled the night sky from every corner of the campus. It sounded like a pack of savage beasts that had just been unleashed from their chains.

Daniel looked at his soaked, pale-faced friends. This rain wasn't just water. The absolute humidity had just awakened the monsters to their next stage of evolution—a faster, and far deadlier phase.

“Run,” Daniel whispered hoarsely, his eyes wide with horror as he stared through the curtain of rain. “They’re evolving.”