Chapter 8

The group had moved into Anne's house and tied the mutant up just in case. Thomas and Max were out in the backyard digging a grave for Samuel. While digging Thomas was thinking, what would happen if he was to try and steal Samuels power? He quickly pushed the idea out of his head. It would be disrespectful to do such a thing. And he still needed his payment for the job.

Meanwhile, in the living room of her house, Anne sat quietly staring at the mutant as if looking through to its soul. She wanted to kill it but knew they needed to find out how it was so different from the other mutants. At least that's what Thomas wanted to do.

After an hour or so they were done with the grave and they all convened outside for the burial. Anne no longer had any tears but instead stood there silently while they lowered Samuel into the ground.

When it was done they all went back into the house just as it was getting dark. Anne fell fast asleep, most likely because of the shock and stress of losing everything. She didn't even eat or clean up after all that's happened. Her hands still covered in her fathers blood.

Max took a wash rag and gently cleaned the blood from her hands while trying not to wake her. Thomas was taking a closer look at the scrawny pale mutant. He wanted to find out why it was so much more different and smarter than your ordinary mutant.

Could it be genetics? or maybe just luck? He likely wouldn't be able to figure it out as he was not a scientist or anything. Even though the mutant was paralyzed from the neck down it didn't stop it from aggressively trying to bite Thomas with spittle flying everywhere.

Several hours passed by as the group camped out in Anne's house recovering from the previous battle. Thomas was the only one still awake this late at night. He was sitting in a chair keeping watch as the others slept. He was also observing the mutant they had tied up. It had finally calmed down and was no longer struggling against its bindings.

The only abnormal thing Thomas could find about this particular mutant was its eyes. Instead of having the eyes of the person it used to be like every other mutant, it had shiny dark eyes with infinite depth. He also could swear he saw something move in the darkness. He took a closer look and saw some kind of grey worm wiggling around in its eyes.

Thomas backed away in surprise, it was a parasite from the looks of it. Controlling and keeping the body alive while the person they used to be was gone.

Early in the morning, Thomas was preparing some breakfast on his small camping stove. Soon after Max woke up and stretched.

"Something smells good. What are you making?"

"Just a few cans of chili I had in my pack." Thomas replied while stirring the pot.

"Hey listen." Max said in a hushed voice. "What should we do about her?" referring to the sleeping Anne. "I mean she just lost everything and I would feel bad for taking the serum after everything that's happened."

"I know what you mean but we risked our lives and we still took down the mutants responsible. As far as I'm concerned we did our job."

"Come on Thomas, don't be heartless. I mean just look at her."

Thomas sighed and poured Max a bowl of chili and handed it to him.

"What do you expect me to do exactly? Everyone's lost something these days."

"I think we should as her to join our group." Max said assertively. "She has nobody else and no home anymore. And we could use her skill with the rifle."

Max accepted the bowl and looked at Thomas with askance. Thomas let out another bigger sigh. He had a bad feeling about this but then again he has a bad feeling about most things. Finally he decided to trust max just this once and see where this leads. Although he wouldn't let his guard down even for a second. He didn't want what happened to his last group to happen again.

"Alright fine, but I'm not slowing down so your gonna have to carry her around like before, if you can handle that then she's in."

Max furrowed his brows, that was not an easy task considering Thomas speed. Even so, he accepted. Neither of them wanted to wake up Anne and decided to let her sleep in. While they were waiting Max went outside to check the perimeter for any mutants. He came across a few stragglers but they were easily dealt with. All he had to do was kick their legs right out from under them and stomp on their heads.

Some of the mutants have lost most of their bodily functions and can only walk mostly due to starvation or previous injuries. These mutants get left behind by their herds and become stragglers.

On the other hand Thomas decided to take a look around Anne's house. It was a two story house with a small balcony on the second floor, a kitchen and living room on the first and two bathrooms. It was a cozy little place. He opened the glass door leading to the balcony and then climbed up on the roof. He could see most of the town from here.

He lied on his back and watched the clouds go by for a while and thought about his next move. He would really like to get his hands on that serum first off, but he also somehow found himself a few lost puppies he wont be able to get rid of very easily. Normally he would just run off in the night but there was something about these two that made it hard for him to just up and leave.

His thoughts wandered to his last group, and then to his failure. That was the last time he had become attached to anyone and let his feelings cloud his judgment. He would never make that mistake again, or so he wished. It was all happening again.

"Hey, you good up there? I took care of all the mutants nearby. We wont have to worry for a little while."

Before his thoughts could get any farther max returned from his rounds and called up to him.

"Thanks, I'm good. We need to set off soon. Ill meet you inside."

Thomas sat up and dropped down to the balcony and went back inside. There he found Max leaning over Anne presumably trying to wake her up.

"Thomas, you need to see this!" Thomas hurried over and Max rolled Anne on her back.

"What the hell?" Thomas exclaimed. She was soaking wet and hot to the touch. Her eyes were closed but the veins around her eyes were solid black.

Max turned to Thomas. "Have you ever seen anything like this?"

"No nothing like this. Maybe she got infected during the fight?"

"That's impossible, I was with her the whole time. None of the mutants got close to her."

Thomas started looking for any wounds or anything that would explain how she became like this. He looked for any kind of injury but could find a single thing out of place. He checked her legs, arms, and back, there was nothing.

"Wait look here." Max pointed to something small on the floor near the couch Anne was sleeping on.

"Is that a bug? So what?" Thomas was too busy racking his brain for a solution.

Max grabbed Thomas arm. "No seriously look at this." He pointed to a trail of transparent looking worms leading from the mutant they had tied up across the room.

"You've got to be kidding me!" Thomas ran over to the mutant and clear as day the parasitic worms he saw last night were crawling out of its eyes and dropping to the floor, then slowly made there way over to Anne.

Max started furiously stomping on the bugs with only clear goop left behind on his shoe.

"Thomas what do we do?"

"First, we get this thing the hell out of here." He grabbed the mutants shirt to drag it outside but as soon as he did its upper body disconnected from its lower and thousands upon thousands of those clear worms exploded from its body covering the wall and floor.

"Gah!" Thomas quickly dropped the torso and backed away. "Get out of here, now!"

Max scooped Anne up in his arms and ran outside with Thomas following quickly. They ran clean out of the settlement and into the nearby forest before stopping. Max lowered her to the ground and started brushing off any bugs he could find on her or on himself.

Thomas checked over himself but didn't find any. He was clean.

Just as they finally started to rest for a moment, Anne started convulsing with foam coming from her mouth.

"Quickly roll her on her side!" Max did so and after a minute or two she finally stopped and remained still again.

"There has to be something we can do! We cant just let her die!" His anxiety was hitting its peak and he was sweating bullets.

Thomas was pacing back and forth trying to think of something until he had a realization.

"I'm going back in."

"Are you crazy? Why the hell would you go back in there?"

"I need to get her pack. It has the serum in it and we could use it on her to save her life. Clearly she's not going to survive the mutation so this is our only shot."