Chapter 36 They're coming for you, Jannet !!!

She put on her glasses and the scan showed several rooms below her.

"Shit," she muttered. 

Alex pocketed his tablet from her and looked at it. 

"Mei! Put that thing down!" came from Min, who came in and stopped before her run. 

"There are bodies moving around down there ..."

" Ttzz don't be like that..." she looked at Liz.

"A new kind of infected..." 

She raised an eyebrow. 

Gunshots rang out from the kitchen, they ran to it. Standing in the outdated kitchen, Gitte shot a monk who had changed, his skin was covered in blisters and pus was oozing from his face. 

"He's suddenly changed." 

"Mei, block the gate!" shouted Alex. Min ran to help. 

Mother Superior came in and turned pale.

"I thought we were past this..."

"Everyone into the chapel until the quarantine team arrives."

"Why?"

"There are infected people lurking around in their basement," came from Liz. She looked at Liz and turned even paler.

"Then that's what the old woman told me on her deathbed..."

Liz looked at her mother, who was turning the corpse over with her boot, the monk became agitated and reached for her. She shot him several bullets in the head, then the corpse lay motionless. 

"Bbrr reminds me of the old hams Alex always eats," she commented. 

Alex was busy with his tablet.

"He doesn't have a brand ..."

"Brother Lion was fresh from training..." heard Liz from the Mother Superior. 

A shout came from outside.

"Liz, go and check, I'll keep an eye on things," came from her mother. 

Liz ran outside, in the corridor nuns and monks were running in panic towards the chapel. She ran to the source of the scream. She saw Jannet guarding the door of the chapel. Liz entered the courtyard. It looked picturesque. Her eyes lingered on a group of three men kneeling over something. 

She walked closer and saw a pool of blood spreading among the three. She shot at them, but they didn't react. She shot them in the head and came closer, aiming at the entrance, now she saw that it was 2 monks and a decayed infected, they had brutally eaten a nun. Liz gurgled and tried to get up, her face eaten away and her eyes bloody.

She shot herself in the head and looked around, the scanner going crazy. 

"How many entrances are there to the basement? " she asked over the radio and looked into the room, a food storage room. She saw an old floor hatch, opened it and walked towards it.

She heard a rattling sound coming from it.

"No... please don't be there..." she heard a voice above her. 

The noises from the hatch grew louder. She looked up and saw a nun on a second level looking at her, startled. Liz put her finger on her mask to signal her to be quiet.

"There are two, one from your location and one in the main corridor which is closed off with a steel grate. " her father echoed in her ear. 

Liz quickly checked how many spare magazines she had. Out of habit, she had taken six with her. She had used two.

"It just got him," the nun began quietly. The bottom flap shook, began to lift, and a hand worked to the bone slid out, followed by a gurgle.

Liz went through all the vision modes on her glasses, even the infected mode only showed something faintly. The outline of the hand was only dimly visible. She drew her cutlass and sliced the arm off, the bottom flap snapped back and the arm twitched and still moved. The longer she looked at it, the more rotten it looked, she looked at the nun, gesturing with her hands for her to come down quietly. But with every movement she made, the floor flap shook. 

This confused Liz, she walked around the flap as the nun stood still and nothing happened, she looked around and found a barrel. Which she pulled to the bottom hatch, panting, and placed on it. 

"Ka..." 

The flap shook, but didn't lift from her weight.

"Yes, come down, run to the chapel..." Liz watched the bottom flap shake as the nun came down. A symbol appeared in her field of vision, in the form of a grinning cat's face. 

She grabbed her ear.

"Dad, I have a grinning cat in my glasses. "

"That's Ai Liz, be nice to her."

Liz grumbled.

" Ai ... hhmm ..." 

The cat nodded.

" And you hear me too... with what?" 

The symbol for her collar appeared. 

Liz looked down at the floor, all she could hear was scratching and gurgling. 

"You wouldn't happen to be able to set the scanners on the goggles like that.... You know ... like this on corpses?"

The face turned thoughtful, then sad.

 "Because?" 

Liz felt like she was in the wrong world, talking to an Ai. The face changed and became a lazy cat. 

Liz sighed and reached for the radio.

"Dad... I have an idea, but it would require the Ai at the Sanner to do something."

Silence fell, a piece of wood cracked, fingers pushed through the opening. 

"The quarantine team will be here in ten minutes, you can stay until then," it came. 

Liz grinned from under the mask. The Ai lit up and Liz's vision flickered, she looked at the fingers, which suddenly lit up and then went out again.

"Wait a second." 

It changed back again and the fingers lit up in her vision, then became an arm and a grimace. She looked around and a shiver ran down her spine. She saw 40 figures below her, wandering aimlessly. 8 of them were with her 3 off to the side and seemed to be passing an obstacle.

She reached for the radio, felt a hand on her head and winced.

"And what has your experiment achieved now?" her father asked.

She looked at him, glancing below her in confusion, the figures backing away.

"Um... there are eight below us and three at the other entrance?" 

He looked at her scrutinizingly. 

"Hhmm."

She heard the click of menus and her image flickered again, the Ai glowing with a gear in the corner. Liz saw a 3D model of the monastery with all the outlines. Green outlines in the chapel, orange and 8 blue ones.

"Mei you guard the iron grate, Min Gitte to Jannet in the chapel. 3 infected people there. The person at the altar, back left in the corner and storage room".

"Don't forget, shoot in the head," came dryly from Gitte. 

Liz saw 3 blue dots move and the green ones spread out, leaving 3 other dots alone. They turned orange shortly afterwards. 

Liz heard shots and screams. 

"The stinkers on the grate are restless.... ah fuck!"

The rattle of Mei's rifle sounded. 

Shortly after, the engines of jet helicopters roared and blue dots appeared. 

"Team one to access two on your map, two to the iron grid. Set your scanners to my frequency. Target area head."

Liz only heard the confirmation and shortly afterwards the unloading of weapons. The teams moved in and the oranges diminished. 

20 minutes later a signal came that all was safe and Liz was no longer serving as a live communication base. She sat on a bench in the courtyard, breathing mask on her belt, goggles pushed up, blowing a cloud of smoke in front of her. 

Monks and nuns were quarantined by doctors in protective suits, scientists, also in protective suits, loaded the corpses. Her gaze lingered on the head being carried past in a transparent box, eyes staring at her. She saw John, who came hurriedly through the gate.

"You really can't be left alone!" Liz grinned, he stopped in front of her and looked at her. 

"Where is he?"

" Downstairs, checking out the labs. I hope you brought your breathing mask..." 

He looked at her.

"Breathing mask?"

" I heard someone from the science department say that the air down there is contaminated. They're pumping it all out right now and they're going to blow up the access so the trucks can get in to take it out."

"You were only supposed to ..."

"Yes, and then a mutated wild boar came along and then I ..."

" Write me a report ..."

Liz took a drag on the fag.

"You should grab the mother superior," Liz pointed at her, who was watching the removal in a state of disarray.

"For what?"

"She had hinted something about knowing what was going on."

"Hmmm," he headed in her direction.

Liz grinned again, leaned back and glanced at her cell phone, one eyebrow raised as the Ai flashed on the display. 

She clicked on it and the interface changed. It was light blue and looked futuristic. 

"What the ..." 

The cat's face blinked.

"Was that your idea ... the symbol?"

The Ai nodded and beamed.

"And what gives me the honor of your presence?"

A lazy cat appeared, then sleeping symbols beside it.

Liz had to think, blew out a small cloud. Mei came exhausted and sat down next to her. 

"Bah, that's sleeping...., they've booted up the computers down there."

Liz looked at the screen and the Ai had a gear above her.

"Well, another relic from the past."

" This is more like a Pandora's box Liz" she lit one for herself. 

" I heard some of the morons. They said it was an artificial mutation."

Liz rolled her eyes.

"But they barely reacted to us."

" Because we're changed ..." Mei looked around. 

"Your mom's talking about zombies ... whatever that is ..."

Liz moved aside and looked at John, who was talking to the mother superior. 

"They're undead, Mei, Dad has countless movies with them. Corpses that come back to life after death." 

Mei looked at her in amazement. 

Liz looked at her cell phone and Ai was back to normal.

"Mei, have you seen the Ai before?"

Mei shook her head, her eyes growing wide as Liz showed her the screen.

" That's the northern Ai?!"

The Ai blinked, showing a question mark. 

"Cool, if that's the Ai. Are we really dealing with zombies?" 

The Ai made a horrified face, then a gear spun and a graphic of infected appeared. 

Liz skimmed over the information and sighed. 

"Oh shit..." was all that came from Mei. 

A shadow settled over the two of them and Mei fell silent.

"Hi Dad..." 

Liz looked at her questioningly, then forward. Alex stood in front of them and looked at them.

Ai tried to close the window in a panic.

" So you don't want to socialize...? "

Ai put a halo over herself. 

" Send me your report."

It goes ping.

" We leave in half an hour. "

" Um dad ... If this stuff here ..."

He looked at Liz, squatting down in front of them both.

" This is the basic building block for the drug that was found in Paris."

"That comes out of there?"

"Yep. The plant down there dates back to the outbreak of the infection," he stood up.

"But the damn things aren't easy to kill," came from Mei.

Liz stared at her father. 

"But I don't understand, if someone had been downstairs, they would have been attacked by the critters."

"He was just using the computer to get the formula for the serum. The scratches on the door indicate that."

"Why didn't you get Uncle Uther ..." 

Alex looked at her.

"Because of Paris, I was able to get permission from the Council for something like this, and Paris convinced them it was a great danger. "

Liz looked at him.

"But ... he didn't know about it, I mean ... "

"Ai, is there any record of Uther ever being here?" asked Alex.

Liz looked at her cell phone, the Ai seemed to be working, then a red X appeared. 

"Gitte don't bother with zombies!" Liz looked at Jannet, who came out of the chapel closely followed by Gitte.

"But there are, Jan, you saw it yourself!"

Jannet stopped and looked at Gitte.

"They're more advanced infected, Gitte."

Gitte put her head to one side.

"Really, I saw you staring at the body you shot when it got back up."

Liz saw Min sneak up behind Jannet, grab her in a police grip and put her earlobe in her mouth. Jannet screamed in panic, then kicked at Gitte, who grabbed her foot and grinned dirty.

Alex sighed.

"We leave in half an hour, I have to take care of the three of them."

He stood up and walked towards the three of them, Min let go, Gitte too, they looked at Alex innocently. Jannet struggled for breath and nerves.

Liz looked at Mei, who shrugged her shoulders. 

She looked at the cell phone where Ai was browsing through her gallery. 

After two hours, they left. The monastery was closed for cleaning. Liz had to drive back and Mei next to her, because the three of them had snuggled up to Alex in the back, who had dozed off. 

Liz was always amazed that even though the three of them were so annoyed with each other, they quickly made up and gave Jannet the main cuddling spot to make up for it. Liz learned from Ai on the trip that Jannet doesn't tolerate horror movies very well.