The Infected Mind

Chapter 2

I lightly jogged through the streets of the crumbling city, veering around massive piles of rubble and abandoned vehicles. Feral Crawlers didn't seem to realize we could retract our Crawler legs into our backs completely, somehow defying the laws of physics in the process. This is why feral Crawlers couldn't make it through small spaces they would be able to otherwise. I was amazed that we could completely retract them, like a cat's claws. 

At the moment I had my Crawler legs partially hidden in case I saw a survivor or another Crawler. I could easily switch between my human disguise and my true self depending on who I saw. This town had seen its fair share of Crawlers judging by the shattered windows and walls, the smell of rotting corpses would determine there shouldn't be any survivors, if the corpses weren't already those survivors the smell would have attracted other predators.

The city was dark and desolate, the only light being given by the moon above. It was incredible, how after I had turned, the moon became my respite. I was like a moth to a flame when it came to the silver light.

I had come here looking for a better way to hide my Crawler identity. I could speak perfectly fine, though my voice was scratchier than it had been as a human. I could hide the ripped back of my shirt and hoodie - not to mention the massive black mass across my entire back - with a backpack, and I ate normal food like any human. The one problem was my eyes. After someone was infected their eyes black out completely, giving us a dangerous and outright disturbing appearance. That would be a red flag for any survivors I might try helping to a safe zone like a vault or a stronghold, not to mention the fact all Cralwers were light sensitive to the point sometimes the moon's light was simply too much to bare.

I needed a pair of sunglasses or something. That way I would be able to travel in the day without the pain and squinting. Before too long I found a store with a spinning rack of sunglasses. I found a pair that was dark enough to let me look at a flashlight I had turned on for testing purposes, the outside of the lenses reflected blue, so no one would be able to see my eyes unless they were inches from my face, which they would never get to.

I hid my Crawler legs and looked at the cracked mirror to my right. I looked human. It had only been a few months since I turned so I still knew how to alter my behavior and act as human as possible. I spoke to myself a bit in an attempt to hide the crackling that came with my altered vocal chords that otherwise allowed me to make a Crawler's screech - a sound we made to claim territory, to hunt, or simply to screech.

I left the disheveled building after stuffing a few supplies that I had lacked into my backpack. I continued scouting the area, though nothing seemed useful. Almost everything around here was destroyed. Several buildings had been burnt down at some point, and nearly everything else had shattered windows or walls. Feral Crawlers loved turning their skulls into battering rams.

After a couple minutes jogging at a human pace, I could smell a fire, it was burning wood and wasn't big enough to leave a large smoke pillar, so it was safe to assume it was merely a campfire. That was strange. People shouldn't be here, let alone making fires in the middle of the night to attract Crawlers with smoke.

I considered how these people would react to seeing me, on the one hand, a young girl that just appears at your campsite in the middle of the night is a red flag, on the other hand, seeing a Crawler is an obvious cause for alarm. I couldn't just leave though, these people would die by daybreak if I didn't do something. I decided to climb up a mostly standing apartment building and watch them, see how they handle things, how big their group is, and above all else, if they had any weapons like guns or axes. Guns could incapacitate a Crawler for days if strong enough, but an axe could easily behead one.

Climbing the building was a breeze with the Crawler legs, they stuck to the walls, the thick white claws helped me grip on the smooth glass. I leaped over two other buildings before I could see the campsite below, I would be impossible to see in the cloudy night from my perch unless someone looked directly at me. The group had a sorry excuse of a fire, it seemed they had trouble finding dry wood, it must've rained during the day. There were six girls, five of them looked to be around my age, early teens. The last looked about ten.

If they had many weapons, they were very good at hiding them. I could smell gunpowder so they had guns, to my discomfort. The only ways to kill a Crawler were to remove the heart or sever the head, and none of the guns I could see here could so much as knock a Crawler out for more than a few seconds, let alone cause enough damage to kill one. I knew this group wouldn't last long, but with their knowledge of Crawlers, I was surprised they even managed to get this far.

 One of the girls was talking about something like potential ways they could make makeshift gasoline for a vehicle on the street, none of the others seemed to understand a word she said though, and I was in the same boat.

The girl spoke "I think we can all agree on one thing; the best course of action is to get to a stronghold as soon as possible. Who knows how long it will take us to get to one on foot though."

Another girl with black hair and pale skin spoke up, seemingly outraged, "What do you mean 'who knows how long it will take us'?! There is no way it could take us that long to find a stronghold."

"Well, we don't know where any are. So our best chance would be to go off in one direction and hope we find another group who know where one is, find a road that leads to one, or simply see one in the distance."

The black haired girl started going ballistic, as if she thought they could simply walk down the street and find one of the heavily guarded areas.

A quick sniff of the air proved my suspicions; there were two infected down there. They must've either not known, or were biding their time to tell their friends. One of them was the science girl, the other was one of two girls who were sitting too close together for me to tell which.

Might as well wait a bit before showing up. There might be some information I would wanna hear that they wouldn't tell a stranger.