CHAPTER 14: Zombies.

They finally reached the wall around the mansion. Theo immediately noticed that there were people inside, real, living humans.

They slammed themselves against the gate, screaming that they were alive and needed to get in now before getting faced with the horde.

If not for the roof that had been built over the wall, preventing the broken humans from stacking up and climbing over the wall, Theo could have gone inside and opened the gate for them.

But now their lives completely depended on whether or not the people inside opened the gate.

At long last someone opened the gate just a crack, and one by one the group slipped in, closing the gate just behind them.

Out of breath they nearly collapsed against the closed gate.

Theo looked up and saw two people standing in front of them pointing weapons at their faces.

"Did any of you get scratched, bitten or have shown any signs of feeling unwell?" The middle-aged man who stood closest to them asked with a concerned look in his eyes.

"N-no, I don't think so." Timon stammered.

"Father, what is that thing?" A boy in his late teens who stood beside the middle-aged man asked.

"I don't know." He looked at Gwen and Timon. "Is the blue creature hostile?"

"No." Timon was the first to reply. To which Gwen looked at him with fury in her eyes.

"Excuse me? He scratched my shoulder open back in the cells. How is that not hostile? It still hurts!"

Theo sighed and crossed his arm. "Don't sweat it. I just needed to get out of my chains, it was nothing personal. But if you continue to run your mouth like that, I won't mind doing that again."

The middle-aged man and the boy standing beside him looked dumbfounded at Theo. "It talks?"

Theo shot an uninterested glance at the man who now slightly lowered his weapon. "Of course, I can talk. What's your point?"

"I-I am sorry if it was offensive. I have never seen anything like you before, I did not expect you to understand human speech. Are you perhaps one of the mutants from the ruins?"

Theo shook his head. "No, as you should know the mutants can't live longer than a year outside the ruins. And if they were to reproduce with normal animals then the offspring can live ten years at most depending on the species. And I have long surpassed that point. But don't question it further, even I don't know what I am."

The man sighed and put down his weapon. "In that case, I'm sorry but for safety protocol I can't let you three near the other people for at least a day. We will quarantine you in one of the side buildings. We need to see if one of you got infected without noticing, or if you carry any other infectious diseases. After that we will examine all of you and judge on that if you are ready to join us."

The three of them stood up and Theo non gallantly stretched his wings for a moment. "Seems fine by me. It's better than being out there."

The man smiled and led them to where they would be staying for a solid twenty-four hours.

Though the boy did not seem to trust any of the new commers and aimed his weapon at their backs for the entire time. He was especially focused on Theo.

On their way to the side buildings Timon couldn't help but to question the man.

"What do you think is actually going on outside?"

The man just shrugged. "If you ask me, it is zombies. You can see that the body is just a mass of flesh controlled by the two aspects of your soul. The ti-ban-ange and the gros-ban-ange. The first one holds the emotions, consciousness, and personality. The second one holds the instincts and controls the body. Some people can steal the first part of your soul, and the one that has it in their possession controls the zombie. We either need to find the person that controls them, or we need to give the zombies salt, so they remember that they are dead and go back to their graves."

They finally reached the side building, and the man opened the door. "There's some food and water on the table. I will check on you in a few hours."

The three of them entered the building and gazed upon the interior. There were four beds all stationed in a row following one of the walls. Since there were no windows, the room was lit using a single lantern that was stationed on the table in the middle of the room.

"You really think that those things outside are zombies?" Gwen asked her brother while she walked through the room to check certain areas a little better.

But before he could reply Theo answered instead. "No, at least not in the way that that man described them. The zombies he talked about were vodou zombies. But that can't be it. Vodou zombies are puppets controlled by a master, they feel no pain. But these definitely felt that, and I doubt that one person could command so many at the same time. But the term zombie can also be used for someone that came back from the dead. And even though I can't tell for sure if these people actually died and came back like this, I believe that calling them zombies is quite fitting."

Theo walked towards one of the beds and let himself basically collapse on it. he didn't even bother to properly fold his wings and let them loosely hang over the sides of the bed.

"If you don't mind. I'm going to finally catch some sleep. Wake me up if something is wrong or if you want to lose one of your limbs."