Chapter 11: Monster? Zombies? Drugs? (Part 2)

No one spoke for a moment after Arthur's words. The weight of them settled over the group like a cold fog.

Katherine stood far from the body, careful not to get close. Her eyes scanned the torn flesh around the wound, then the dark, unnatural veins stretching outward from the heart. "This doesn't look like a disease or illness I've seen before," she said quietly. 

Migs shifted beside her, gripping his weapon tighter. "Yeah, and it doesn't look dead either," he muttered. "Not like in those zombie movies. No rot, no empty stare. It looks like it just stopped functioning normally."

Migs said, frowning. "This thing wasn't mindless either. Not completely. You saw the arm. It knew what it was reaching for." 

John stepped forward, eyes narrowing as he looked over the body. "It also bit that student earlier," he said, his voice low. "That could be how it spreads—through the blood. That student was still moving after being bit so if that's the way it infects… it's slow. At least at first." 

Migs rubbed the back of his neck, eyes flicking uneasily between the body and the hallway. "So what is this, then? Some kind of zombie?"

"Doesn't feel like that," Katherine replied, shaking her head. "There's no rot, no decomposition. And it didn't act brain-dead. It was coordinated—just... off."

Arthur spoke up, voice low and bitter. "Maybe it's not dead at all. Maybe it's just mutated—jacked up on something none of us understand."

John nodded slowly, his gaze fixed on the collapsed body. "It has to be alive. Or at least, it was."

He crouched down, careful not to get too close. "Something altered its biology. Rewired it. The brain wasn't in control—hell, the head barely moved. But the heart… that thing kept everything going."

Migs muttered under his breath, "Jesus... So it's alive, but not really alive. No brain. Just instinct, direction, and one goal: infect."

Richson added quietly, "Makes sense why the arm moved the most. Maybe it was prioritizing movement—whatever the heart thought it needed."

They all stood in silence again, the pieces beginning to form a terrifying whole.

Katherine broke it. "If this thing can survive without a head... what happens when it adapts better?"

John walked around the body slowly, eyes narrowed as he scanned its shape, the way it had fallen, the exposed muscle and pulsing dark veins that still hadn't faded. Then he stopped—frozen for half a second—before muttering under his breath:

"Oh shit…"

Everyone looked up.

Katherine turned first, alert. "What? What is it?"

John hesitated. He scratched at the back of his neck, suddenly looking a little uncomfortable. "Okay, uh… this is gonna sound weird, and I swear I'm not proud of it, but I know some… less-than-legal types."

Migs raised an eyebrow. "What, like dealers?"

"Yeah," John said with an awkward shrug. "Dealers. Club people. Folks who liked mixing things they really shouldn't have been mixing."

Katherine gave him a look. "And?"

John gestured toward the body. "There were rumors, stuff that became a hit. About experimental combos. One in particular… a mix of ketamine and meth. They'd call it 'Deadwake.' Supposed to mess with the brain and body in insane ways. Ketamine acts like a tranquilizer, putting your body in this dissociated, almost paralyzed state. And meth… it does the opposite. Hyperstimulation. Cranks aggression, movement, everything. The body's slow, lagging, like it's being sedated. But the arm, the aggression—that's pure stimulant. It's like the two halves of the body are fighting for control."

"Except now it's not just a high," Katherine said quietly. "It's evolution. A system that figured out how to use the heart to substitute for the brain. Sedate the brain, stimulate the limbs… hijack the host." 

John crossed his arms. "If this is based on something man-made, someone designed it to push past normal human limits."

The officer's jaw tightened. "Or someone lost control of it."