Mutagen

<strong>Day 6 – 9:28 AM – Parking Area, Queens Row Elementary School, Queens Row Area A, Bacoor City, Cavite</strong>

Due to the emergency situation, the meeting was cut short and Mark's choice of route was accepted without much contradiction aside from a few questions.

After that, Mark was handed a radio that was set up for the bandwidth Captain Dela Rosa directly used and another radio what would be given to each vehicle driver. The second radio would be used to issue command to each of the vehicle in the convoy.

This time, the people in the settlement were even more restless. Though, it seemed that the soldiers still did not fully disclose the situation to the refugees as Mark could feel that most of the restlessness came from the soldiers. They were under pressure as they hurried the refugees into boarding their respective vehicles.

Mark at the moment was chaining the motorbike he asked Captain Dela Rosa to prepare unto the back of their vehicle. It was not the time for him to use this vehicle yet. He would likely switch to this one after they joined with the survivors in Citta Italia.

Around him, everyone was busy. Nikky's group was also moving their things into their jeep. The same were for Jason's group and the group led by the parents of the cat boy he treated yesterday. Mark really wanted to take away their infected daughter and observe her together with Janette but it seemed he would not be able to do so in the meantime. The only thing he could do now was to tell the Captain to do some arrangements to this and request some support from General Perez.

Emika's family on the other hand was already escorted into a military vehicle for their security and their vehicle would be escorted with two military Humvees to guard them all the way.

As for the rest of his group, they were already inside the vehicle. Even Mara was inside sitting beside Janette.

"Bro! There seem to be something wrong with Fein."

Carlo peeked out of the open side door to call unto Mark who was working at the back of the vehicle.

After affirming the stability of the chains on the motorbike, Mark went to take a look at Fein. There really seemed to be something wrong. Fein was timid and easy to scare but that was when there was something scary, now however, the weak-hearted beetle was hiding inside one of the few vacant spaces under the sofa while weakly shivering. Mark could also feel that it was scared of something.

At that moment, Mark noticed that Mei who sat at the front passenger seat beside Odelina opened the window and was staring upwards. He followed where she was looking at and found that she seem to be looking at something at the sky beyond the gaps of the two buildings to the south east. Her pupils were dilating unstably as if she was trying to control her new ability.

There was also something wrong with the way she was behaving.

"Mei'er, what's wrong?"

Mark asked from outside the window.

"Gege, I see a lot of spots in the sky that direction. The spots were still far away and were blocked by the buildings so I can't see clearly but they look like insects. It looks like they are flying our direction."

Mei replied making Mark frown.

"Mei'er, close the window and don't go out. Everyone! Stay inside the vehicle!"

Mark told everyone before looking at the gap between the buildings once more. He could not see anything but with what Mei said, and when he remembered the cockroaches back then near his house, there was a high possibility. Those were likely to be oversized infected insects.

He then approached Rollan and Nikky preparing the jeep.

"All of you, abandon, the jeep quick! Get inside ours!"

"What's wrong?"

Rollan asked.

"Infected flying insects are coming!"

"What?"

Everyone in Nikky's group was shocked.

Not wanting to waste time on unessential blabber, he started to push Rollan and Nikky towards their vehicle making Maverick and Delia follow. As there was not enough space in the vehicle anymore, Carlo and Maverick were forced to sit on the floor.

"All of you too, get inside your car! Quick! Close the windows and hide!"

Mark bellowed at Harvey and Monique who was watching his actions since their van was just a few meters away.

It seemed that the commotion he created took the attention of the people around.

"What's happening?"

A soldier approached, he was Oscar, the soldier tasked to drive the multi-cab containing the LPG tanks. Behind him were Irene and Keene who seemed to be helping with handing the radios to the drivers.

However, Mark just shoved them into the multi-cab without explaining too much aside from making them close the windows.

It was then some people started to notice small shadows on the eastern sky. First, it was confusion as they could not make a clear picture of what those shadows were but as the shadows grew larger, their confusion were replaced with fear and panic.

Mark could now make out what those insects were. On the sky was a swarm of flies. Human head sized flies. Furthermore, there were some odd looking and larger sized flies among the swarm.

Without hesitation, Mark entered their vehicle and closed the door. He could hear the radio issued by the military being noisy issuing emergency orders but he could care less about it.

A few seconds later, the swarm started to descend. The people Mark forced into the vehicles now knew why he did so.

Under their eyes, they saw the people remaining outside get attacked by the large number of flies.

The soldiers tried to fight back shooting the flies but even if they could hit and kill some of the large flies, more and more would just flock towards them. It did not take long for casualties to occur.

In front of their vehicle, a fly landed on the back of a defenseless worker that was working on one of the vehicles earlier. The legs of the fly drilled on the unfortunate worker's back before the fly's pointed tongue shot towards and pierced through the worker's neck. The tip of the fly's tongue that drilled into the worker's nape could be seen on where his Adam's apple should have been. The worker looked shocked as the pain permeated his mind before he fell on the pavement profusely bleeding from the hole on his neck and back.

Not far from them, a soldier shooting the flies was ganged by several flies. Not only that his body was pierced by the legs and tongues of the flies, one of the flies shot its tongue unto his left eye. Before the soldier fell, the tongue retracted pulling the pierced eye along with it.

The scene was worse at the side of the refugees. About half of the refugees had not boarded the vehicles yet. Due to the sudden emergence of the swarm of the infected flies, the queue of refugees fell into disarray. They started running and pushing each other. The weaker, older and younger ones were pushed around with some of them ending up trampled under the feet of other people.

Some of the refugees made it into their vehicles while some managed to squeeze into vehicles that should have been full already. Unfortunately, there were those who became muddle headed due to panic and ended up running back into the rooms and buildings they should have abandoned already. Furthermore, there were also those who forced open some of the vehicles with weaker refugees wanting to enter the vehicle but just ended up letting the flies enter the vehicle before they could.

It was a disaster.

In the short moment, a lot of people, with the majority being the refugees died due to the flies. Screams of despair and pain echoed across the settlement along with the deafening sounds of gunshots and buzzing of the wings of the flies.

It did not take long and outside the vehicles were filled not only with swarming flies but also infected. Those people who died due to the tongue of flies piercing their body immediately turned into infected.

Those who Mark pushed into the vehicles were all frightened. Even the soldiers Keene, Irene and Oscar were not an exception as they tried to shrink their bodies hiding from the flies.

"Keene! Irene! Where are you?!"

Captain Dela Rosa's worried voice echoed from the radio. He did not even try to abide the military protocol on radio communications anymore. The sounds of gunshots could also be heard in the background.

"Father, I'm fine, Irene is with me. Luckily, we've been "violently" pushed to safety inside a multi-cab."

Keene replied. The sigh of relief could be heard from the other side.

"The multi-cab with the LPG tanks? Is Pvt. Oscar there?"

"Yes, he's here."

"Good."

Next was Mark.

"Mark? Are you there?"

"I am."

"Alright, prepare for departure."

Several more radio confirmations followed but not everyone mentioned was able to answer back.

Then, the radios that were issued to the drivers sounded all over the convoy.

"To everyone who is still alive, we'll be departing from this settlement. Carefully follow the vehicles in front of yours. Godspeed!"

Then, the roaring engines of the vehicles sounded one after another.

BRRROOOOR! BAM!!!

The main gates were smashed open by the leading dump truck. The V-shaped ram of the dump truck parted the infected that started to congregate outside the gates allowing the vehicles behind to go out safely.

As they exited the settlement, the vehicles would ram unto the flies and infected but the modifications on the vehicles kept the vehicles from falling apart. While the vehicles of the remaining survivors and soldiers moved, about less than half of the vehicles remained in place. Majority of the vehicles that remained in place were vehicles that were supposed to transport he refugees.

Under the wheels of the leaving vehicles, many bodies were crushed into pieces. Those were bodies of those who supposed to be leaving the settlement with everyone else.

The people inside the moving vehicles could also see several refugees that ran back into the classrooms who seemed to be pleading not to get left behind. Unfortunately, there was nothing the soldiers could do anymore. They suffered a huge blow themselves. This swarm of flies was not something that everyone here could handle. Those who were left could only fend by themselves.

Some of them could not accept being left behind making them run out trying to catch up to the vehicles only to get swarmed by the flies and infected.

When they left, the sounds of the vehicles attracted some of the flies but as several screams echoed inside the settlement, the flies started to lose interest on the vehicles that they could not see the people inside and continued ravaging the both the living and dead bodies of people that remained inside the settlement.

Many soldiers felt downhearted due to what happened. They know that it was not their fault but they still felt the guilt trying to overwhelm them. Dead bodies were one thing but they had to abandon people that they were supposed to protect.

Driving on the intended route, the remaining soldiers that were dispatched to scout and delay the horde managed to catch up. Their numbers also dwindled significantly but they felt more remorse seeing what remained of the supposed to be large convoy heading to Bay City.

Whether they want to accept it or now, they suffered an aggrieving defeat this time. They lost miserably.

They could not help but think.

"If it was like this, would there be any chance for them to survive in the future?"

Still, that thought was for tomorrow. What they needed to think about now was to not let the horde catch up to them.