4 The Blood Ghost

Everything happened so quickly, yet so slowly. I heard my family's screams, but I couldn't hear what they were saying. I was too focused on killing the zombie.

Only now it came to me what they were saying.

"It's dangerous, don't do it!"

"Come back!"

"Fuck it!"-Jason. That's probably what he said just before rushing out to kill the Deviant. The previous two was what Sunlight said.

Anyway, the Deviant was dead and that was a good thing.

The relief on my daughters' and others faces was immeasurable.

I looked at the Aberrant as I sighed. This things weakness must be the head or something like that. Adrenaline was still rushing through my body as I wanted to dissect the bastard.

My researcher's instincts were taking over.

Unfortunately, before I could do anything I saw the poor person's body that just got munched on as it died from blood loss.

Something strange was happening to it and I couldn't understand how.

The guy's body seemed to be melting like ice. Steam started rising as bones and every single piece of flesh was conjugating. The spread-out arms and legs from its ends were becoming liquid as it started coming together towards the centre of the body. The sight of it was horrifying and disgusting, the smell of it made me want to vomit.

The whole body melted into one huge blob of blood-like liquid as it started shaping into something. It shaped into some kind of blood ghost as it started hovering in the air, half ethereal.

It was a little bit see-through, but at the same time, it wasn't. A face kept appearing as if trying to escape from the bloody mist.

"Aaaaa!"

The face screamed from time to time.

What in the world!

That thing looked horrifying, even my legs started shaking. Even if I was ready for any kind of supernatural phenomena that appeared after the Apocalypse, this was still too much. Even after death the person still couldn't escape! How horrid was that?

When the bloody, misty apparition of torture conjugated, I immediately felt a sense of danger.

"Run!" I shouted as I saw the ghost was about to jump on Jason. I instantly put my hand on my utility belt as I opened one of the pockets on it. I put my fingers inside and took out salt! That's right I even had salt prepared in case the dead were coming back to life. A priest once said that ghosts are afraid of salt and such things like holy water. Thus, I had prepared all kinds of things just in case the dead spirits started haunting the world.

I sprinted from my position towards the ghost and threw salt on it, hoping for the love of God that it will work.

I threw a handful of salt on the bloody ghost and I saw a horrifying sight. Insane amount of steam rose up as it started screaming like a maniac. A face started appearing from all directions as if it was trying to escape from the blood ghost's body. It would jump out and be dragged back over and over again.

The ghost was bubbling as if it was trying to steam out the salt inside its body. It was clearly becoming smaller, but I didn't believe that it could kill him.

I slashed my sword at the ghost as it went through slashing it in half, but the ghost didn't even react.

"Devil spawn!" I shouted as I retreated back, I put my hand in the pocket again taking out a handful of salt. I started rubbing it all over the blade of the sword and hoped for god once again that it will work. I couldn't bear to see my children die. I must kill it!

Good thing I asked some exorcists to teach me some exorcist techniques before.

I stepped forward once again, while the ghost was still painfully screaming trying to get rid of the salt, I slashed at it with my sword once again.

As the sword passed through the bloody thing, the ghost screamed as it separated into two and couldn't get back together.

Holy! It actually worked! I sneered. Humanity is a lot stronger than you think!

I kept slashing the bloody thing until all the liquid fell on the ground and the screams stopped. The blood ghost seemed to have used up all of its energy.

From inside the puddle of blood, white shining spirit flew out and disintegrated in the air. The poor spirit could finally get some rest wherever it went.

The rest of my family stared at me with a shocked expression.

"With age, you gain experience." I said as I looked at them.

They heavily gulped down saliva. They couldn't imagine their Grandpa was so strong. Although grandpa knew that he would've died multiple times if it wasn't for their help.

"It's too dangerous… This was a bad idea." Sunlight said as she looked at the mess.

"I would have never expected the Apocalypse to take so many forms. It seems like to survive, it won't be as easy as we thought." I said as I looked at them. Archi and Telos were still a bit shaky, especially Archi. Telos had a strong mental attitude, but I could see he was scared that I was about to die rather than being scared of those monsters.

I could no longer define these beasts. Undead? Souls? Zombies? I didn't understand anymore.

Jason walked closer and picked up something from the middle of the blood puddle. It was a red crystal.

"What's this?" I asked curiously as I looked at it.

"It seems like it came out of that blood ghost." Jason said as he observed the crystal. Hexagonal in shape and all sides were smooth as a mirror. It was barely the size of the top part of the finger.

After going through countless books in my mind, I knew the answer.

"It's their condensed source of power. From my guess at the point of their death, the rest of their power is condensed into this crystal. Also, it could be that it already had it…" From what I knew and the countless novels I've read I could only decide on the fact that it should be used to strengthen people. There was no other logical explanation for the existence of the crystals. The only thing we could do is actually test it.

Telos walked towards the zombie and pulled out his spear, "This thing won't come alive will he?"

Good question…

"I don't know, but let's hope it won't before I dissect it." I laughed in exhaustion. I was really exhausted after such a long battle. How could I not be? Rather then being physical exhaustion it was a mental one. my hands and legs were still a little bit shaky.

"Father you are going to dissect it here?" Sunlight said as she looked around. She wasn't sure of the situation.

I looked around and could see some cars with smoke coming out of them further away in the distance. I just hope we didn't attract more of those Deviants. I have decided to call them Deviants because they seemed to take many shapes.

Just then I realised that Jason touched the things blood as my face went pale, "You fool! We don't know how this whole infection, or possession or transformation thing works and you dare to touch its blood with just your hands?"

Jason looked at his fingers in fright, his face went pale, "Shit, I don't know I just had the impulse to take it when I saw it. When holding it in my hand for some reason it looks tasty."

So my suspicions were right, it was human instinct to want to eat something that would be beneficial to them. Just like when one hadn't had specific nutrients for a long time, your body would crave a specific food that has it.

The family also got frightened, Sunlight ran and took Jason's hand looking at it. She started hitting him on the shoulder.

"You idiot!" Tears welled up in her eyes.

"Wait, calm down, we don't know just yet if anything will happen. From my predictions, he should be fine, but we can't be too careful, that's why I said that." I tried to calm Sunlight down.

"Everything will be fine. Jason give me the crystal." After I took the crystal I put it in one of my Utility pockets and then looked around. My family seemed to have calmed down a little as well. They were quite emotional right now. They weren't really ready for apocalypse after all. While I was mentally preparing for it for 40 years.

I looked around and formulated a plan.

"Jason if you could scout around the house and see if we attracted any of the Deviants. Sunlight, Archi, Telos, help me drag this guy back to the front yard." I said looking around. I thought that would be the best course of action. Inside the front yard even if the Deviant's rushed there, we could just run inside the house and kill them one by one through the windows. It seems like I will have to make some traps around here. Especially just around the fence.

Jason nodded with his head while the other three didn't need any convincing. It seemed they were getting used to doing weird stuff. Not that it's a good thing, or maybe it was.

I gave the them each a pair of yellow kitchen gloves and sent Jason to scout around.

We dragged the Deviant back to the front yard then I went back and took its head putting it on the side.

First I took out the bolts from the thing's body and put them on the side. They could still be reused.

I kneeled near to the Deviant, the putrid smell it had was terrifying. I could barely hold my breakfast in my stomach.

I took out a knife and started with the head. I won't go into detail, but the others had to go back inside the house to vomit.

After dissecting it. In its heart, I found another red hexagonal crystal, exact shape and size. I put it inside one of the pockets on my tool belt and closed it.

Jason walked to me as he finished scouting. He held goggles in his hand. I had told him to examine the surroundings in detail.

"How is it?" I asked curiously.

"There are some Deviant's walking towards the bridge. Over the bridge, it's the main road with hundreds of cars. They must be walking towards there. Other than that I saw two people in the houses closest to the bridge and some Deviants. The two people are probably trapped inside the houses or are unwilling to come out." Jason said conflicted.

"Don't worry about the people, first we have to take care of ourselves." I said calmly. There were still many things to do before going to try to save other people.

I went back to the house got a pack of salt and some gasoline. I went outside. Firstly I sprayed gasoline all over the corpse and then I realised that I am foolish for my age. If I put the fire on will those Deviants come looking for trouble?

Although if I didn't burn it I won't know if it will turn into one of those blood ghosts. I was having an internal conflict with myself. Instead, I just decided to pour salt all over it. Now the salt was mixed with gasoline. I hope it dies if it tries to coagulate into the blood ghost.

Afterwards, I went around the whole fence and sprayed salt everywhere. It was just old geezers precaution on ghosts. I never did this before and when I realised what've done I became a little embarrassed. I felt like I was a crazy old lady who was scared of ghosts.

As I was about to go inside the house I looked at the messed up corpse once again, but it wasn't doing anything. It seems that if it's already a Deviant then it doesn't turn in to the blood ghost. Unless it wasn't able to because it had lost the red crystal. I guess I'll have to wait to find out.