Gone to Hell

Soren returned to sit at the bar. The moment he sat down Jordan slid a plate of food in front of him and another in front of the seat next to him for Avery. Jordan himself sat down next to Avery with his own plate of food.

"Jordan, after Fry gets Madelyn settled I want you to take charge of her care. I was told that she was a promising scientist and you would know best how to utilize that. If you feel like it's needed and she's trustworthy, you can give her access to the lab videos."

~It will be nice having someone around that knows what they're doing that isn't the doctor.~

Soren nodded in agreement.

"Avery, when you're done eating go ahead and bring the mutated its food. Ethan should still be there to assist you with it."

When Fry came back downstairs she had brought all three packages. Fry's eyes shifted to a red shade as she was preparing the two packages. The sound of Soren laughing made her lookup.

"There is enough there if you'd like to set some aside for yourself."

"Are you sure?"

Soren got up, grabbed his plate, and walked around the bar to go into the kitchen. He placed the dirty plate into the sink and moved to the cabinet, pulling out two plates. One plate he sat off to the side and the other he held out to Fry.

"I'm sure. It's been a while, I think that tonight we will have a real meal."

Fry took the plate from him. The parts of her that were still conflicted about this new life had fled the moment she opened the package and smelled the blood. Her hunger had risen and it had taken some effort to not immediately eat all of it. Her control was better than the first day when she had not even realized what she was eating.

"Take the food to the lab and shut the door while Madelyn is there. Jordan will go with you as well. I don't want to take a chance that she will lose her shit again."

Fry nodded and separated the food into two plates, making certain that the one for Madelyn held the most. She took it to the lab and brought Madelyn in after she was done washing up. Jordan had already gone in there to wait before Fry had.

Avery went to the kitchen and used the other plate that Soren had brought down to place the contents of the last package. Soren was leaning against the counter, watching. While Avery was waiting for the microwave to finish Soren moved in behind him and leaned against Avery's body.

"You did well."

Soren slid a hand beneath Avery's shirt and bit him at the juncture where the neck meets the shoulder. It was hard enough that Avery let out a gasp of pain. Avery closed his eyes and did his best to breathe through the pain and not move.

The microwave dinged and Soren released his hold on Avery with a chuckle. Soren stepped back and resumed his position leaning against the counter. Avery took several breaths before he opened his eyes and moved to open the microwave.

"Wait a moment."

Avery was about to leave with the plate when Soren spoke. Soren pushed away from the counter and stepped up to Avery. He reached up and turned Avery's head so that he could look over the bite. It had broken skin but had only bled a little.

Soren leaned in and licked away the blood. "Mmm, I don't think I'll ever get tired of the taste, or the smell."

Soren stepped back and waved Avery off, his red eyes were bright with what Avery could only assume was hunger. Avery did not need any extra motivation to leave. His hands were shaking hard enough he could barely hold onto the plate.

Avery had calmed himself by the time he walked into the room. The mutated was crouched down in its cage, growling as it watched the humans scrub the cage at the opposite end. Avery looked for Ethan as he walked up to the cage but assumed that he was busy doing something since Saunders was not in the room.

Avery's attention was on the mutated, he was not aware that all three of his former teammates had stopped what they were doing and were watching him. He had noticed that the mutated was so focused on the others that it was not watching him and decided that he would go ahead and slide the bowl into the cage.

The mutated turned its attention to Avery when the bowl scraped across the floor. It did not go after the food until Avery stepped away. Avery found it curious that, even as feral as the mutated was, it did not make a mess or waste any of its food. Even the feral evolved would lick the blood from the bowl, and their fingers.

It took no time for the mutated to finish the food and move away from the bowl, turning its attention back to the others. Avery could not explain why he did it, but he took the handful of steps needed to stand back in front of the cage and crouched down to retrieve the bowl. The mutated glanced over at him but did not move toward him.

"How did you do that?"

"Huh?"

Avery turned around to find that Ethan, and Saunders, had been watching him from the doorway. He was unable to grasp what Ethan was saying.

Ethan grabbed Saunders' arm and dragged him up to the cage. The mutated did not respond until Saunders was standing next to the cage, the same place that Avery had been. The moment Saunders was close the mutated lunged at him, reaching for him through the bars. Ethan pulled Saunders back before it could touch him.

Avery stared at the mutated, his mind trying to process what had just happened. But, he could not, his brain shut down the moment he tried to compare his experience to what had just happened with Saunders.

Avery shook his head, "I-I don't know…"

Avery turned around and walked out. He felt numb as he went to the kitchen and washed the dirty dishes by hand. Once he was done he went to sit at the bar near Soren and took out his gun. Avery proceeded to take the gun apart and put it back together as he sat there with a blank look in his eyes.

Soren was back to sitting at the bar, looking over social media and news media posts. The warning had been extended and Soren waited until twenty minutes after the warning ended before heading upstairs. Avery stood up and followed Soren, putting the gun away as he went.

Soren's phone let out a ding and he pulled it out to look at the text message he had just received. His lips curled up in a smirk as he sent a reply and continued moving upstairs. On the main floor, before they got near the front door, there was a knock. A second later there were two more knocks.

Right before Soren made it to the front door the smirk on his face disappeared and he took on a friendlier mask.

"Agent Issac, what brings you to our humble abode? I didn't think we'd see you so soon."

Agent Issac stood at the door, his hair was unkempt, his shirt only half-tucked into his pants, and his tie missing. This was not the usual Agent Issac.

"The world has gone to hell."

Soren stepped back and motioned for Agent Issac to come in. Soren motioned to the couch and Agent Issac sat down, but almost immediately stood up and ran a hand through his hair. Agent Issac's eyes were a touch too wide.

"Did you see that a tornado touched down?"

Soren nodded, "Yeah. Is your sister ok?"

"I honestly don't know. I can't get a hold of her or any of her friends. The tornado took out a lot of things. It cut a path along the edge of Culton before it stopped. The news was comparing it to the tornado that hit Joplin when everything went bad."

"What?" Soren sat down then on the recliner, motioning for Agent Issac to sit down again. "Explain, what went bad?"

Agent Issac took his phone out, pulled up his photos, and handed it to Soren. The pictures on the agent's phone showed some of the destruction from the tornado. Bodies could be seen strewn about in what could be assumed as victims of the storm. The pictures moved closer and showed that every body laying on the ground had been mawed. Some of the bodies were missing body parts or had their stomach torn open displaying their lack of contents.

There were more pictures of dead bodies in other settings. Then, there were pictures of the mutated. The first few pictures only showed one to three, but the further in Soren went the more mutated he was seeing. There were groups of three, eight, five. No more single or double teams. One picture nearly covered the view.

"All of KC has been under assault. There are hundreds of them, it's as if the world exploded with mutated. This isn't just here in KC, or Culton, it's everywhere in the US, in other countries. It's almost as if…"

"As if the virus was reintroduced."

"Exactly. The going theory is that Dr. Valle has help and that the lab explosion was just a test run for what they did this morning. The tornado touching down here was just a bonus for him. It's bad enough that the President has gone underground. Commander Hayes has ordered everyone to fall back to Fort Karmen.

"My sister is out there and they won't let me go look for her. Hell, they don't give a damn about the people. Commander Hayes let it slip that the vaccine was only going to important officials and leaders, and their families."

Agent Issac moved to go down on one knee in front of Soren.

"I'm here to take you up on your offer. I want to have the power to find my sister and help the people."