SIX HOURS BEFORE THE OUTBREAK...

There was an unintentional balance in progress and lack of change in England. While Schaefer was busy preparing the country to fight against an enemy only he had seen, his so-called enemies themselves—the Deadmen, as these wandering corpses were now referred to—were hidden away in the long-forgotten facility that once housed the Ambrosia Project.

In those two years following the day Bloodletter led a violent uprising of the undead against Schaefer and his men, the Deadmen were doomed to roam the hallways of the very place they met their unfortunate fates. Aside from Bloodletter and the fanged female Deadman he developed a complicated alliance with, none of them could even remember who killed them or where they were. And if their two superiors tried to share the origins of their grudges with them, they would blow them off and continue munching on the nearest uninfected corpse they could find. In fact, there were hardly any fresh corpses left behind in those two years. The Deadmen had ravaged everything they could get their hands on, to the point only pieces of entrails and mangled chunks of flesh were all that remained.

Bloodletter had to look away after witnessing a horde of Deadmen consume what was left of Artemis. She was the only person in the entire facility kind enough to reunite him with his daughter, yet she died equally as gruesome as her less sympathetic colleagues.

All he ever did in those following two years was sulk over what could've been. He wish he would've retired from the British Army instead of rejoining them so he'd never learn the true meaning of the Ambrosia Project. He hated to admit it, but he felt like keeping Sarah at a distance would've prevented her from getting in harm's way. Hundreds of other self-deprecating thoughts flooded his mind as he spent the rest of his days crouched in a lonely corner of the facility away from the other Deadmen.

Bloodletter didn't need to consume flesh like the other Deadmen did, so he didn't feel like he was missing out on anything by refusing to talk to them. And if they did try to communicate with him, he threatened to kill them. Or rather end their second life since they were technically already dead. He hadn't done it yet, but he wouldn't hesitate to do it. Unless, of course, he encountered Atlas and Hermes again. He still couldn't get used to the fact Atlas's real name was Harry, and he couldn't hold anything against Hermes since he hadn't even seen him in a long time. Plus, after seeing Harry, Bloodletter doubted Hermes would still be going by his assigned alias. But the worst part was the fact Harry died believing he was going to see his little brother again.

Bloodletter couldn't hurt the lad because he died with the same kind of motivation he had. Only this time the roles were reversed, with Harry's little brother presumably alone while Bloodletter is forced to walk alone without his daughter.

But every once in a while, Bloodletter would hear Sarah's voice call out to him. "Daddy?" she always asked. Sometimes she sounded like if she were at the end of a hallway, and other times it was like she was hiding somewhere in the room he was in.

He tried to start conversations with her, but he only felt like he was losing another piece of his mind every time he uttered a word directed at her. It probably wasn't even her. Just a voice in his head. Another burden to carry.

"Shut up," he growled to himself. It hurt a little to say that, but he had to keep reminding himself his daughter was gone.

"I was just wondering why you were crying," Sarah's voice continued.

Bloodletter's eyes widened. He stood up and glanced around the room. He was in a smaller lab compared to the infirmary. Equipment and tools were still in their original places as before, and the only thing that really stood out was a large patch of dry blood stretching out beyond the door, when Bloodletter let the Deadmen feast on the corpse of a scientist who had taken his life to avoid a worse death.

"Why are you sad, Daddy?" the voice asked.

"You're not real," Bloodletter whispered.

He faced the door and kicked it off its hinges, sending it flying down the corridor. Deadmen were gathered all around the hallway. Many of them were screeching in pain, starving from a lack of fresh flesh to consume. The only truly deceased corpses splayed out on the floor were stripped down to the bone, and their clothes were nothing but bloodied mangled rags strung together by threads.

"Why are you saying I'm not real?" Sarah called out. "I'm right here. I missed you, Daddy."

"Shut up!" Bloodletter screamed. "I know you're not here anymore!"

In a failed attempt to get ahold of himself, Bloodletter punched through the wall of the lab room, his fist burying into the concrete. Even though he couldn't feel the actual pain, he could tell he did more damage to his hand than the wall. And when he pulled his fist back out of the new hole in the wall, his hand was bloodied and mutilated, and his fingers were twisted in unnatural positions.

"Please, Dad!" Sarah called out again. "You need to calm down."

Bloodletter smacked his head against the wall, a single tear escaping his eye. He watched as the bones in his hand shifted back into place, signaled by simultaneous cracking noises. Then his flesh scabbed over in seconds before disappearing into his pale, corpselike skin.

Harry and Hermes nervously waited at the entrance to the room, neither of them aware of what was tormenting Bloodletter. Hermes was the first to approach him.

"What are you doing?!" Harry exclaimed. "Just let him vent! But not while you're next to him!"

Hermes placed his hand on Bloodletter's shoulder. Unlike Bloodletter, who could probably still pass off as a living being if you ignored his colorless eyes and pale skin, Hermes's skin was conspicuously rotting and smelled awful. His entire bottom lip was dangling off his face, revealing his lower set of malnourished teeth and most of the bone and muscle matter in his cheeks and jaw. When he moved, the strand of flesh that used to be his mouth would swing all around him like loose streamers. Bloodletter and his fanged female companion couldn't tell if it was his age or his lack of flesh consumption that resulted in his withering state.

"Blood Man," he said, still with his hand on Bloodletter's shoulder. "We need more flesh." The dangling piece of flesh waved up and down with his jaw when he spoke.

"Fuck off, old man!" Bloodletter screamed.

"Dad!" Sarah yelled. The suddenness of her scream brought her father to his knees. He clamped his hands over his face and scrunched down into a fetal position.

"Go away," he croaked quietly.

"Dad, look at me."

Now shaking with fear, Bloodletter slowly uncovered his eyes and raised his head up from the floor. The first thing he saw, standing in the corner of the lab room, was his daughter.

She wore a white dress, most likely her nightgown. She was barefoot and pale, and there wasn't a single scratch or bruise on her body. Her hair was tied in a ponytail, Bloodletter's favorite hairstyle to see her in when the two of them were alive. Her lovely brown eyes were full of sadness as they gazed deep into the empty space where Bloodletter's soul used to be.

"Sir!" Hermes called again, now standing beside Bloodletter. "We need more flesh. I don't feel well."

"Dad," Sarah said. "Why don't you help him?"

That's when he snapped. Bloodletter pulled out the same knife he'd been carrying since the day he turned and started stabbing himself in multiple places, screaming angrily the entire time. He sliced his arms, his wrists, and jabbed into his stomach and chest over and over until blood was pouring out of every laceration. His clothing was now drenched in crimson.

"Stop it!" Hermes and Sarah yelled in unison. "You're hurting yourself!" Sarah screamed on her own.

"I'M FEELING FINE, DARLING!" Bloodletter replied in a crazed voice as he continued digging through his flesh. "I CAN'T FEEL ANYTHING ANYMORE! ISN'T IT GREAT?!"

Hermes grabbed Bloodletter by his arm. "Sir, we need you alive! We need food!"

Bloodletter dropped the knife and grabbed Hermes by his neck, his clothes almost entirely soaked in blood. He threw him toward the wall, and he crashed to the floor beside Sarah. Even though Hermes couldn't see Sarah, he would've undoubtedly been hurt to see her watching her father harm both himself and one of the only friends he ever had.

Long streams of blood swirled out of Bloodletter's numerous stab wounds and surrounded him like a whirlwind. He slowly clasped his hands together and commanded the blood to rapidly multiply into his infamous blood bombs. But this time they were bigger and brighter than ever, almost the size of beach balls.

"Sir, what the hell are you doing?!" Hermes exclaimed.

Bloodletter stared at Hermes and his daughter with a psychotic look in his eyes. His teeth were grit to the point he could probably crush them if he clenched any further. And he looked up at his former allies and delivered in a cold, gravely voice the last thing Hermes would ever hear.

"I don't know, lad. I have no fucking clue."

And that was when that entire portion of the facility was obliterated in the oncoming explosions. Everything around Bloodletter was engulfed in bright red flames, and the air filled with the cacophonous sounds of a hundred bombs going off at once. Rubble and shrapnel flew in all directions, tearing apart any Deadmen in its way. Even Bloodletter got caught in the crossfire, resulting in the destruction of his left arm and most of his internal organs as one bomb detonated too close to him.

"STOP!" Harry shouted through the chaos. "FUCKING STOP!"

Bloodletter ignored him, as he was too distracted by the destruction of his corner of the facility and the constant repetition of that one particular line in Sarah's poem. Beware the brain-dead's bloodletting butchery. And another explosion deprived Harry of his left leg.

Eventually the explosions subsided. The smoke cleared, and a massive hole remained where Bloodletter's corner used to be. Just like when he buried Sarah two years ago, a grey sky greeted him along with numerous fragments of the facility walls scattered throughout the forest around him. Cracks formed along the walls of the facility, and wires and burst pipes dangled out of the building's inner works, water spraying all around them. The Deadmen also noticed that blood was splattered on every surface, from the walls to the floor. It was hard to tell how much it belonged to Bloodletter and how much of it was from the few undead test subjects caught in the blast.

Bloodletter collapsed to his knees once more. A deep long gash dug across his abdomen, and his intestines began spilling out. Most of his face was disfigured to the point he was almost unrecognizable, with his jaw ripped apart and dangling off the rest of his face by small strands of flesh. His left arm was blown off, instead replaced by a bleeding stub. Almost all of his clothing was shredded to bits, only remaining as cruelly tattered rags matted in blood and barely holding on to him.

And he couldn't feel any of it. The only feeling that overcame him was bitter coldness.

As he waited for his wounds to quickly heal as if they were nothing worse than a paper cut, he looked around at the destruction he caused. He found a few lost limbs, none of which he recognized as his own. But the only one that struck him personally was when he found only half of Hermes's skull. The rest of him would have to be scraped off the rubble.

He then looked back into the remaining corridor to find dozens of Deadmen staring in his direction. The lack of humanity in their eyes and their blank expressions made it hard to tell whether they feared Bloodletter or were intrigued by him. In fact, some of them passed him by and tried eating the remains of the other Deadmen caught in the explosions, only to gag and spit out whatever made it into their mouths.

"You're a walking apocalypse," he heard the fanged woman say. She was assisting a legless Harry by dragging him to the wall for support, both of them waiting for the legs to grow back.

Bloodletter couldn't respond since his jaw was still healing, but the gross clicking and cracking noises that emitted from his face indicated the healing process was almost done. Not that he wanted to respond to her anyway. He was too busy getting another glimpse of the outside world.

Plus, he was too distracted by the sounds of his daughter crying.

He limped across the rubble that used to be part of the facility walls toward the forest. A grove of trees awaited him, the branches hanging down low. The branches seemed to be pointing directly at the white haze where Sarah's voice was coming from. And that same blur was slowly taking the form of a human being.

"Sarah..." Bloodletter croaked in a raspy, inhuman voice due to his disfigured jaw.

Once he got close enough to the white haze, his daughter came into full view. She was on her knees and covering her face with her hands, tears running down her cheeks. She was trying to choke back her cries, but the sight of her father's monstrous behavior had broken her as much as it had broken him.

"Sarah," Bloodletter spoke again in a clearer voice.

Sarah uncovered her face, her eyes red and puffy from the tears she was shedding. "Why would you try to hurt me?" she asked.

"Sarah, I would never—"

"You killed Hermes. And you tried to get rid of me!"

Bloodletter grasped onto the bloody stub where his left arm was slowly regenerating. "I'm trapped here, Sarah," he muttered. "I didn't want you to be trapped here with me. I was hoping burying you would grant you a better fate."

"So you tried to kill my spirit?!"

Bloodletter was at a loss for words. "I...Sarah...I don't—"

"Goodbye, Daddy," Sarah said softly, wiping the tears out of her eyes. She turned around and started walking into the forest. "You can find me in our safe place. Or at least where we felt it was safe."

"Sarah, wait!" Bloodletter shouted.

And she was gone. One more step into the woods and she had faded away, leaving Bloodletter in the cool late spring air. Still cursed to spend another day in the grey area between alive and dead.

What was our safe place? Bloodletter thought to himself. Was there ever a place to feel safe? Was my safe place even a physical place?

He looked down at his left arm. The bones had fully regenerated, and there were enough tendons for him to bend his elbow and clench his fist. The veins, arteries, and muscles were still restoring themselves, and he dropped his arm back down to his side. The gash in his stomach had also scabbed over and would soon return to his plain cold flesh.

However, Harry's healing factor wasn't nearly as fast. Only his kneecaps were completely fixed, and he still had to be dragged across the rubble by the fanged female Deadman.

Joining the two was a large group of other Deadmen of all shapes and sizes. While the undead mostly consisted of the test subjects of the Ambrosia Project, a few of the soldiers who tried to fight back became part of the man-eating horde over the last few years, their purposed reduced to spreading the corrupted Ambrosia and consuming more flesh.

"What is this place?" Harry asked, glancing around at the sky and the trees. "And where's Archibald?"

"He's joined my daughter," Bloodletter growled, his glare into the woods remaining unmoved. "I've returned him to the earth. He won't need to suffer anymore."

"So he won't need to eat flesh anymore?"

"No, lad. He will not."

"But we still need it," another Deadman chimed in. "Please, Bloodletter. Give us our flesh."

And with that, the entire crowd of Deadmen started cheering. "Flesh! Flesh! Flesh!" they all repeated. All of them had completely ignored the destruction Bloodletter had caused just seconds ago.

He was tempted to wipe them all off the face of the earth right then and there. They were more lifeless than he was. And the biggest sign was the fact he was the only one who knew there was something wrong with them. Eating flesh was so normal to them, they were cheering the word as if it were food for an entire civilization of starving people.

All Bloodletter wanted to do now was find this supposed safe place his daughter had spoken of. All the Deadmen wanted was flesh. What if he could take them to a place everyone could get what they wanted?

"I can tell you all have a ravenous appetite," Bloodletter spoke as he turned to the undead crowd. "I would tell you what I want, but I can tell none of you would care. So would you like for me to show you a place full of flesh to feast on?"

A series of murmurs echoed through the crowd, all of which wanted to see what Bloodletter would surprise them with. Even the fanged woman seemed intrigued. "I've been feeling bored recently," she said. "I could use some excitement."

"That's right, ladies and gentlemen," Bloodletter continued. "All the flesh and blood you could ever want. You can have it all if you just follow me."

With that, Bloodletter placed on his helmet and made his way into the woods, the crowd of Deadmen trailing behind him. Harry remained quiet the rest of the way until his legs eventually returned. Then he'd follow his undead peers in their bloody journey to satisfy their hunger.

And none of them were aware of where Bloodletter was taking them. He didn't care what happened to them as long as he'd make it to his so-called safe place.

Lancaster.