BEGINNING OF THE OUTBREAK...

The ghost of Sarah was nowhere to be found in Lancaster. In fact, nothing there felt like a safe place to Bloodletter nor did it feel safe to anyone else once he arrived.

He wasn't sure how many people he killed during the six-hour walk to Lancaster, but he reached the double digits by the time he passed through three small villages too obscure to even be found on the map. And that was just him alone. The less powerful Deadmen took no prisoners, sinking their teeth into any unfortunate soul unlucky enough to escape on time. And the worse part was that many of those bodies were either bitten once or brutally ripped apart only to be left for dead, dooming them to spend eternity as walking corpses once the corrupted Ambrosia had spread through their bodies.

Lancaster wasn't big enough for the AIS to build barricades around, so it wasn't hard for the Deadmen to attack in swarms. While the weaker ones saw their targets as prey, Bloodletter knew who he wanted to kill and why. He attacked only those with guns or those who worked with Schaefer's AIS, easily ripping them apart with his powers as if they were made of plasticine. He'd use his blood bombs to obliterate larger obstacles like vehicles and parts of buildings with ease, still not caring for those who were in the way of the explosions.

He didn't even know why he was in Lancaster anymore. He was wandering around the city looking for a safe place that only existed in his daughter's mind. And all he continued to find were more people trying to kill him, which he'd then have to butcher before they could end his own life. He wasn't even sure if he should refer to himself as alive. He was aware of his actions but couldn't understand the consequences.

Bloodletter wasn't the only one going overboard with the violence. The fanged woman didn't hesitate to tear apart people with her terrifyingly sharp teeth. The soldier closest to her got his head ripped clean off his neck, an expression of pure terror frozen on his face even after death. Blood splattered all over the pavement as his headless corpse collapsed to the ground. Then she chased after the other soldiers and people, continuing to mangle her victims without hesitation.

But Bloodletter and the fanged lady weren't aware of a newcomer equally as dangerous as they were. A Deadman whose skin was as white as volcanic ash. It was built like a cinderblock, and it suffered the same lipless fate as the fanged woman, his teeth and facial muscles disturbingly visible. Its arms repeatedly transformed into large, impossibly sharp blades that appeared to be amalgamations of bone and muscle. As threatening as it appeared to be, its lack of a shirt yet willingness to wear cargo pants and boots was slightly amusing.

Then the feeling of amusement disappeared as soon as he was able to slice a soldier's arms off in one clean swoop. The poor bastard was gored alive by the albino monster's arm blades, the sound of a hellish roar exiting the creature's throat.

"Fucking hell," the fanged lady whispered. "Guess you and I aren't the only freaks out here anymore."

"Guess not," Bloodletter replied, watching the white monster from a distance.

He noticed an incoming group of armed men charging in from behind the bladed creature, firing at his back. Unlike Bloodletter, who was still able to take on an onslaught of gunfire due to his healing factor, not a single bullet could penetrate the white creature's skin. It was like a walking, bulletproof callus. And the creature took out most of the front line with ease in the end, even managing to bisect three soldiers in half.

Before he could dismember the remaining soldiers, lines of red razor wire sliced through them out of nowhere. The soldiers collapsed to the floor in bloody chunks, and the pale-skinned monster did not appear to be happy about it. Once he realized it came from Bloodletter, he stared at his new rival with sudden hatred.

"That...was supposed...to be my prey!" the creature growled in a hoarse voice, and he slashed his blade across Bloodletter's chest.

Bloodletter stepped back and looked down at his new wound. He held his arm out and concentrated on transforming his blood into his own special blade, something similar to this unusual Deadman before him. Seconds later, blood was flying out of his wound and wrapping around his arm, morphing into a long crimson blade stretching out of the back of his hand.

"Weak!" the white monsters said before taking another swipe at Bloodletter. However, his blade was blocked by Bloodletter's blade, proving itself to be as durable as this new monster's equally dangerous weapon. The impact of the two blades left behind cracks on the red crystals that constructed Bloodletter's saber.

"Impressive," the fanged woman said.

Bloodletter pushed the white monster's bony blade away from him and aimed his own back at him, sunlight glistening off the tip of the crimson blade. He pointed the tip straight at the pale-skinned monster, aiming at the bloody spot where its nose used to be.

"You think...you are superior...to me?" the monster growled.

"Of course not," Bloodletter replied unmoving. "I'd say we're equal. What other Deadman have you met who can make blades like ours? Or is cursed with a face as horrendous as yours?"

"Why don't...you take off...that helmet? Then I'll do to you...what Hades...did to me."

Bloodletter snapped his fingers in his free hand. "Once again, another reason why we're equal. All three of us, actually. We're just three wandering beasts all with a common target in mind."

The albino monster let out a deafening roar before taking another swipe at Bloodletter, leaving behind a new crude slash across his chest. "You killed my target!" he exclaimed. "He should've been mine to slay!"

"Mine, too, sir," the fanged woman replied. "But I'm not bitching about it like you are."

"In fact," Bloodletter continued, placing the blade down by his side, "this woman made the wise choice of teaming up with me instead of making a new enemy. Now we're unstoppable as we track down the real threat."

"And who...would that...be?"

"Troy Schaefer. But you probably know him better as Zeus."

The monstrous creature breathed heavily a few times, implying he was starting to calm down a bit. His blades started cracking and shifting around in uncomfortable positions, the bones twisting around to build the internal bone structure of regular arms. Muscles and veins covered up the bones, and a layer of flesh as white as snow quickly engulfed them. There was no sign of scarring or scabbing from the transformation, like if nothing ever happened to his arms.

"Where...is he?" he asked.

"That's the problem," Bloodletter replied, the gashes in his chest healing up. "He could be anywhere in England. So I'm afraid we're gonna have to kill a lot of people to get to him."

"But look around, my pasty-faced friend," the fanged woman said, and she threw her arms out to reference the chaos all around them as the Deadmen continued ripping apart anything they could sink their teeth into. "This little condition we have is spreading. Everyone will become just like us in the end. And those who don't..."

The three of them watched as a soldier took his last stand, gunning down as many Deadmen as he could before being stripped of his gun. He was being touched everywhere by cold, clammy hands, and one Deadman sunk its teeth into his neck before proceeding to tear his throat apart. Now with his bloodcurdling screams filling the air, the Deadmen started ripping him limb from limb, and his screams were finally cut short once his head was pulled clean off his torso.

"Those who don't join us," the fanged woman continued sinisterly, "end up feeding us. Predator or prey, it's your choice."

The white-skinned creature let out a deep, wicked chuckle. "I'm...not food. I'm...at the top...of this new chain."

"We are at the top of the chain, mate," Bloodletter replied. "But the question is...where to start off first."

* * *

"Hurry the fuck up, Lavinia!" yelled a grouchy young man as he waited at the door to the nurse's office. "Everyone is dying out here! How the fuck can you call yourself a nurse?"

"Sh-sh-shut up!" Lavinia stuttered as she checked up and down a young girl's body for wounds. "At least I'm actually doing something to help these kids!"

"Oh yeah? So letting those last three kids bleed to death was meant to be helpful?!"

"I said shut up, Edward!" Lavinia cleared her throat and tapped the girl on the shoulder to clarify she had finished the inspection. "You're clean, Lily. Head down the hallway and reunite with the others. And whatever you do, stay away from the windows."

"Thanks, Miss Dyer." And the girl exited the room.

Lavinia rolled up her sleeves, revealing multiple bruises left behind by her arsehole fiancé Edward. Both of them worked together at a high school in Longridge, with Lavinia working as the school nurse and Edward working as a gym instructor. Ever since word got out that Lancaster was overtaken by Deadmen, people in Longridge went into a state of panic and many started taking shelter at the school since it was one of the largest and most secure structures in town. Already a couple hundred citizens trapped themselves in the gymnasium, putting all of their faith in the town's police force and small amount of AIS officers to keep the Deadmen at bay.

Fortunately for Lavinia, not a single person had been bitten yet. The aforementioned three kids who bled to death were via self-inflicted wounds to avoid turning. And despite the lack of infections, those three deaths immediately put a heavy burden on the entire school staff. In fact, the entire school in general since the Deadmen were attracted to uninfected blood.

"Put your fucking sleeves down," Edward growled. "You're gonna disturb the kids."

"Well maybe if you didn't want to disturb the kids, you wouldn't have laid a finger on me," Lavinia retorted.

"It's not like they would even care. Even your own father didn't give a damn about you. Probably ended up like one of those Deadmen everyone's been fearful of."

Lavinia slowly trudged over to the medicine cabinets at the other end of the room, her sights set on a pair of scissors. "When are we heading over to the gym?"

"Never. We're on medical duty, you idiot. Either we stay here and get saved by the fuzz without moving a muscle, or we die saving the others once those undead bastards show up."

A loud but muffled explosion echoed throughout the hallway, followed by a monstrous roar and the sounds of people screaming. Gunfire and rapid footsteps crashing down the halls joined the chaotic symphony, and the steps grew incredibly loud as the people outside ran by the door without a second thought. The only ones who stopped were two teenagers, one boy and one girl, who shoved through the door to the nurse's office and shut it behind them once they were safe.

"What the hell is going on out there?" Edward asked.

Both teenagers had speckles of blood dotting their clothes and faces, and the boy kept his back pressed against the door, breathing heavily out of exhaustion and fear. "Don't send us back out there!"

"There's something out there killing everyone!" the girl shrieked.

"Deadmen?" Lavinia asked.

"Worse! Some kind of white-fleshed monster with swords for arms! And it doesn't even have lips. Just a bloody mass with its teeth trapped in a horrifying grin!"

"You need to calm down, lass," Lavinia said. "The Anti-Infection Squad should be taking care of that abomination any minute now."

"They can't!" the boy replied. "They're all dead! That creature wasn't the only one here. This isn't even my blood! This was from an officer who got his brains smashed out of his head!"

The couple broke down crying, and Lavinia was left alone with Edward to talk to. "What do we do?" Lavinia asked.

Edward grabbed her arm, grasping with a force that made her limb go numb. "Sacrifices must be made, my dear."

Lavinia tried to scream, but her voice was cut short by her lover shoving her through the door back into the chaos outside. People were running rampant through the corridors, most with some variation of an injury or bloodstain. A few unfortunate souls were tackled to the floor and eaten alive while the larger groups at the far end of the hall were being sliced to bits by the pale-skinned monster and his insidious blades.

"I am truly sorry," Edward said, still grasping Lavinia's arm.

"That's what you say every time you beat me," Lavinia replied coldly. And that's when she plunged the scissors into his eye.

Edward stumbled back, screams of pain roaring out of him as he tried feeling the object that deprived him of his vision. He tripped to the floor and crashed down in front of two Deadmen, one of which used to be an AIS officer. They jumped down on top of him and dug in. Lavinia snatched a gun from the undead officer's holster and ran back into the office, leaving her fiancé to be ravaged by the horde.

She locked the door behind her and cocked the gun, the two teenagers staring at her fearfully. "What did you do to him?" the boy asked.

"The Deadmen were coming for us anyway," Lavinia replied, the friendly tone in her voice replaced by dread. "I just made their job easier." She held the gun in her hand, her finger already on the trigger. "He was right. Sacrifices have to be made."

The two teenagers didn't even try to dodge the incoming bullets. Both of them collapsed to the floor in a morbid embrace, bullet holes buried in the middle of their foreheads.

A Deadman jumped through the window on the other side of the room, its head and arms dangling out of the new hole. Glass shards were lodged in its chest as it pried itself into the building and slumped to the floor. Lavinia quickly shot it in the head, putting it to rest for good.

Now she stood alone in a room with three corpses, all of whose deaths were her doing. Hundreds of other corpses littered the hallway outside, some splayed out on the floor in a pool of their own innards and others roaming the halls devouring the flesh of the fallen ones. More of them started swarming around the broken window where the first Deadman lay motionless. Lavinia was trapped.

She didn't understand how this new infection worked, but she knew how others worked. She questioned the weakness of the Deadman virus and compared it to other parasites. Could this new parasite be deceived? Better yet, could its hosts be fooled into seeing me as one of their own? Those questions repeated in her head as she cut through the fallen Deadman's skin and covered her face and arms with its blood. It felt cold and greasy against the bruises on her arms, but it was the only method of camouflage she could think of using to get past the others.

Once she was soaked in enough blood to paint the walls, she stepped out into the hallway, gun in hand.

Vitals were splattered against the walls of the school hallway, and Edward's body lay on the floor in a gory mess, still being consumed by three Deadmen. At one end of the hall Lavinia could still see Longridge citizens getting slaughtered by something. She couldn't see what was killing them, but all she could see were the abnormally quick movements of blades slicing through limbs with ease followed by beastly roars. But the important thing was the fact she was invisible to the creatures around here. At least for the moment.

Now that she knew where not to go, she ran down the hall as quickly as she could, in the opposite direction of where the bladed monster's rampage took place. She attracted suspicious glimpses from the other Deadmen, but none of them were urged to give chase, all of them too distracted by the fresh meat they were working on before. She didn't even feel the need to use her gun.

At least until she heard the sinister voice whisper through the corridor. "Beware the brain-dead's bloodletting butchery."

She was then tackled to the floor by the fanged woman. She tried taking a few shots, but the fanged creature quickly jumped back to her feet and continued speeding down the hall, taking out her ravenous behavior on an unsuspecting soldier.

And when she looked back up, she was face to face with Bloodletter, greeted by the vermillion X forever tinted on his rusting helmet. There were long lacerations from the palm of his hands to the middle of his arms, blood dripping down to his fingertips. Most of his chest and stomach was exposed as his shirt was nothing more than a tattered rag soaked in blood and dangling from his waist and shoulder. His pants weren't any better, covered in dust and tears but still holding up. He had ditched his shoes hours ago, and his flesh was almost colorless in appearance.

"What are you?" Lavinia asked, aiming her gun at his head.

"For one, I'm bulletproof," Bloodletter replied, tapping on the side of his helmet. "Nothing gets past this helmet, so don't bother taking a shot. And I admire the camouflage. Brilliant idea."

"Forget me. You're bleeding a lot, sir."

Bloodletter held his bloody hand up, and the two of them watched as a bright red orb accumulated at his fingertips. He aimed it in the direction he came from, a horde of Deadmen blocking the nearest exit, and fired away. Once the orb detonated, nothing was left of the door and the creatures surrounding it.

"Just a flesh wound," he replied, the calmness of his tone filling Lavinia with fear. "Blood used to give me life, and now I can use it to take lives. Weird, right? Guess violence really does run through my veins."

"You're...a Deadman?"

Bloodletter watched as his wounds began to vanish. "Well...I certainly don't feel alive. But if you hadn't noticed, I'm not as mindless as the rest of these creatures. It's been a while since I've felt anything remotely euphoric, so I've grown quite bored."

Lavinia slowly rose to her feet, dropping the gun to the floor. "I don't recall Deadmen being able to feel bored. Or talk. Or hesitate before killing. Are you sure you're not still human?"

"Are any of us really still human? I guarantee you the things that will happen next will bring out the monster in everyone."

"What are you planning on doing?"

Bloodletter tilted his head up to find the fanged woman approaching him and Lavinia. Blood was dripping down her chin and clothes, and she twitched her head in an unnerving manner. The animalistic snarling noises didn't help in the slightest, as if she had become just as feral as her weaker undead companions.

"This lady and I are looking for someone," Bloodletter replied. "You may know him as Troy Schaefer."

"Of course," Lavinia replied. "He's the man who found the Anti-Infection Squad and turned all of England into a lying Orwellian dystopia."

"So you admit he bends the truth? Good. He always leaves out the fact he's responsible for our emergence."

"He may say he's trying to fix the problem, dear," the fanged woman spoke, "but he's the reason why it happened in the first place."

"So, in honor of these poor souls trapped wandering the Earth for all eternity," Bloodletter continued, "we'd like to return the favor."

"What do I have to do with any of this?" Lavinia asked.

Bloodletter grabbed Lavinia by the throat and held her up against the wall. "Take us to London or we'll personally feed you and your family to the horde!" he shouted. "And don't even bother crying for help. I could easily crush your windpipe right now, and you'll be spending your final moments gasping for air, wishing someone could hear your screams."

"My f-f-family is dead," Lavinia choked.

"Everyone's got lost loved ones, lass." He started squeezing her neck. "We all just have to find the right coping mechanisms."

"What about that arm-bladed bastard murdering everyone in the gymnasium?" the fanged lady asked.

"Fuck him," Bloodletter replied. "We're the ones with our targets set. That idiot has no focus whatsoever." He glanced back at a barely conscious Lavinia. "So, lass...are you gonna cooperate? Or are you gonna be our next meal?"

Little did anyone realize that if Bloodletter was aware that the woman he harmed into following their orders was the daughter of his old friend Hermes, maybe he would've shown even the slightest bit of sympathy.