Necrocide

Chapter 79

Back in the Dead Zone, the Deadmen were wandering through the woods like lost hikers. Only a few remained back in the ruins of the Dead Center, which had been in a worse state than before the DZI attacked. Many of the buildings were still on fire, and the ones that weren't burning could collapse into the dirt at any second.

Bloodletter had found what the Commoners called the City of Stone, the graveyard near the Dead Center. He found solace at the edge of the cemetery and sat there quietly as if he were meditating. The other Deadmen ran rampantly among the gravestones without a care in the world, almost as if yesterday's massacre never happened.

Harry, Jade, and Kyle, however, would never forget it, especially since it meant the loss of their newest friend.

The past few days were just as eye-opening for the three Deadmen as they were for Aaron. From spending so much time with a human, they felt like they were rediscovering the feeling of being alive. Despite their friendships with each other, none of them even understood what it meant until they met Aaron. Harry didn't know what a family was until he discovered he was Aaron's brother. Finding Edgar's corpse was the first time Jade had ever cried. Kyle wasn't much for showing emotion, but he was beginning to understand it more, especially when he felt fear for the first time when that infected robot attacked them back at the lab.

However, they also couldn't help but notice the opposite effect on Aaron. As they grew more human around him, he began embracing the monster inside him. He still felt empathy, but the thought of resorting to violence no longer disturbed him. And now that he was an Abnormal with no need to consume flesh, violence was the only thing that satisfied him.

"I still wonder how he's doing," Harry said, laying against a gravestone as he gazed up at the early morning sky.

"Aaron is fine," Jade replied. "He's a survivor. He lost his arm like twice and shrugged it off as if it were nothing more than a scratch. I'm the one who should feel guilty, though. I blamed him for Edgar's...for what happened to Edgar."

"I don't get it. Some human brings a huge arsenal of weaponry to the Dead Center and burns half of it to the ground, yet we're the monsters."

"He's a monster because his actions benefitted his people at the cost of our lives," Kyle said. "Trust me. If we were on his side, we'd call him anything but a monster."

"You're right, Carlyle," Bloodletter chimed in. "Everything would be different if we weren't his targets."

"Really? Carlyle? Now you're just being a dick."

"Are you lads confident O'Connor made it back safely to the tower?" Bloodletter continued, ignoring him. "And even if he did, do you really think he would come back here? They'd probably just execute him on the spot."

"Sir, he's my brother," Harry replied. "And even though I barely found that out yesterday, I can already tell that determination is one of his definitive traits. If he desires to survive, then you can bet your arse he's gonna survive."

"Wait, guys," Jade chimed in, staring into the forest. "Something's coming this way."

Harry and Bloodletter rose from the ground and looked toward a humanoid figure limping in the distance. Bloodletter prepared to attack by forming a ball of red energy in one hand. The approaching person seemed to be carrying something in one hand, and the closer they came, the more the others noticed how red their clothing was.

"Wait a second," Kyle said. "It's..."

"Aaron?" Harry asked.

Their old friend came into view. His entire shirt was dyed red with blood and riddled with bullet holes, and his face was dirty with soot and dry blood. He lost his left boot during the ambush by Richmond's men and spent the last hour wandering without it through the forest. His hands were drenched red with blood, as if he had finished painting a massive project. And the object he carried was revealed to be the severed head of a DZI soldier.