Mutagen

<strong>Day 22 – 8:15 AM – Barangay Daraitan, Tanay, Rizal</strong>

Under Amihan's wind control in the area preventing the smell and sound from scattering outside as much as possible, Mark hurriedly removed the dead bodies throwing them into a house he randomly picked. He then made the red blob clean up the scattered blood on the dirt road. Fortunately, it was one of the qualities of the blob. It could absorb the blood even on the dirt while rejecting the non-blood related things out of its body.

Actually, cleaning the area was not really necessary if he was only going here for a short while but considering that the state of the place was different from what he expected, he must observe the place and plan first before making a move. A tourist spot in a zombie apocalypse that started during the holidays was not something to joke about. Especially here that most people could only flee into the forest and mountains. Mark was sure that events like the wave of infected in Cavite would not happen here. Instead, the infected would group up in this area which was noisier and filled with carnage.

After cleaning up and retrieving the red blob, Mark jumped with Amihan onto the roof of a house that was slightly hidden by a large mango tree to observe the area.

Undeveloped dirt roads, wooden houses, old styled concrete houses, fruit trees everywhere and even the clothes of most of the infected were rather out of style. It was larger than a village but smaller than a town. There was no doubt that it should be your typical countryside barrio…

Well, at least several years ago.

From the roof Mark stood on, the lodging houses, restaurants and other tourist aimed buildings were too noticeable. Not only the buildings seemed newer but were styled differently from the common houses. Brightly painted tourist sign posts and sign boards could be seen here and there. Looking at some of the closer sign boards, Mark could tell that this place had been developing into a lodging and recreation area for the hikers and tourists that wanted to climb up the mountain.

Looking at the north western side near the center of the barrio, he could see the remains of right wing of the airplane along with the burnt out engine on that wing. From the northwestern side to the southwestern side, he could see the trail of collapsed houses and tourist buildings. Not only the houses but the trees were also toppled to the side. Following the trail of destruction was the tail of the airplane that crash landed.

It seemed that the body of the airplane remained mostly intact because it slid down the mountain and brought destruction to this place before stopping over the river.

As for the number of infected, Mark did not want to count. He could see the infected at the outskirts and the streets close by but the coverage of what he could see on this roof was very limited. However, he could tell that it would be a large number. It was because in the limited area he could see, there were nearly a hundred infected.

Furthermore, another alarming thing was that a large number of those infected seemed to be mutated ones. There were those who were moving on all fours, some that had elongated body parts and there was even a woman with a bloated belly.

'Wait… That woman should be a normal one, she's just pregnant.'

Mark scratched his head. He already saw a lot of bloated looking infected before which made him think that this pregnant infected was one of them.

"My Lord, these people you call infected… they really looked scary…"

Amihan could not help but whisper with fear apparent on her face. The appearance of the infected looked even worse and scarier compared to most evil spirits.

"You better get used to it."

"Yes…"

The little sylph took a deep breath trying to calm her mind. Seeing how this naïve little critter was trying hard, Mark could not help but pat her little head with his finger.

Looking back at the scene, Mark started to think which place he needed to go to search for medicine. Looking at the northern side of the barrio, he saw a large structure that seemed to be an open covered basketball court. The design of the structure was something generic to covered courts built by the local government and public schools. There was also one of these kinds of covered court in Queens Row and inside the Queens Row Elementary School. Aside from those two, there was also one beside the Molino III barangay hall which he saw long before the outbreak. Since it was with the same design, it was likely that it was built beside the barangay hall of this place.

If there was a barangay hall, there should be a health center near it or at least inside the barangay hall, there should be an area or room dedicated for the ill. If not, this place would fail to be a tourist stop at all.

The other candidates were the lodging restaurants and inns. Since they were offering lodging services, those places should have medicine in them.

As for the best place that would surely have medicine…

It was the airplane.

Any passenger airplane would surely have medicine stored for their passengers especially since any kind of medical emergencies could happen during every flight. Still, the plane was the most dangerous place to search in Mark's view. He still remembered the videos of crashed planes he downloaded in the mall before. For every video, there would be something that seemed to have come from the world of nightmares popping out of the airplanes.

It crashed at the time the outbreak started. Since the airplane's body was mostly intact, the nightmarish thing on that plane would most likely be still inside. Who knows what he would encounter if he tried to intrude into that airplane.

The airplane was the last place he would search. For the first target, it should be the covered court. It was slightly near the northern outskirts of the barrio and would be easy to access once he managed to get rid of the infected. As for the way to lure the infected to the further side of this place, he looked at Amihan on his shoulder.

"M-my Lord… You want me to do something dangerous aren't you…?"

Amihan flinched noticing his emotionless gaze.

"I shouldn't be dangerous. You just need to fly to the other side, that way, away from that building." Mark pointed at the north east first then at the very noticeable roof of the covered court. "Then lure the infected away. You don't need to do anything else. Just do a single shout then fly away."

The little sylph sighed in relief that she only needed to shout. She thought that she needed to show herself to those scary creatures to lure them away. Then, she realized…

"My Lord, I don't think my shout will be heard by all these i-infected."

That was right. Her voice might be louder than her size could tell but it would be impossible for her shout to cover a very large area.

Mark on the other hand remembered that aside from blowing stuff away, including her own body, Amihan did not know any use of her wind control ability. Even the way to mask smell and noises was taught to her by him on the spot when they chased after the escapees last night.

"Remember how I taught you to mask the sound?"

"Yes. You said that I needed to make the wind around the place blow towards us right?"

Amihan had no knowledge pertaining to science so Mark had to word it as simple as possible.

"That's right." Mark replied. "When you shout, do the opposite. Make the wind blow coming from your direction then scatter the wind around the place. It's easy right?"

"Yes!"

Though she still seemed afraid, Mark watched at Amihan flew up into the sky towards the north east direction. After the infected was lured away and Amihan came back, he would immediately make his move.

"WAAAA!"

A tiny but loud shout carried by the wind entered his ear. Soon enough, the infected around the area turned their heads towards that direction. The normal and mutated Biters started running while the normal and mutated Eaters lagged behind. Still, the method worked well. Soon enough, he saw Amihan return with a pale face.

"What happened?"

"Scary… those infected are scary…"

"I told you to return right away after shouting right?"

"I did! But there's a person with several arms and legs running fast like a huge spider! It almost saw me…"

Amihan was really scared. She was shaking.

"Alright…" Mark caressed her head. "I'll leave the red blob inside the house with the bodies to absorb the blood. You stay here to guard."

"Umm… Is that really okay? Will you be fine?"

"I'll be fine alone. I can't have you screaming in my ear while I fight the remaining infected, can I?"

"Uuuuuuh… Yes…"

Amihan felt a little ashamed about what Mark said. Still, even though she wanted to accompany him, she was not confident that she would be able to keep her mouth shut while facing the scary infected.

Leaving the delighted blob and Amihan, Mark cautiously stepped into the clearing.

Even though most infected were lured unto the opposite side of the barrio, there was still quite a number of infected left. Most of them lagged behind either because they moved too slowly due to being Eaters or having injuries on their lower limbs.

It seemed that these infected were too hungry, the moment they noticed Mark, they started to move towards him at their fastest pace.

Drawing his katana once more, Mark started to run toward the incoming infected. With a swing of his blood metal katana, the closest infected had its head flying. Mark did not stop and continued running while the black blade of his katana flashed around him. For every black colored flash, a head would fly and a headless body would fall down.

At this moment, Mark stopped. He saw a female infected moving on fours on the roof of the closest house. The infected was a mutated one and reminded him of the infected that climbed up the wall of cars back then before. It was at that time he burned the horde outside Carlo's fast-food restaurant using the leaking gas from Dozers. While crawling on fours, it could climb up and down vertical surfaces. It also had the very noticeable compound eyes and that large rolled tongue that was similar to a butterfly's proboscis.

This one however looked quite different from the previous one. It made Mark think for a second that it could be either a higher level mutation or a different mutation. One thing was for sure though. The cause of this mutation had something to do with butterflies or moths. In fact, the mutated infected on the roof in front of Mark had a colorful tint and patterns on its skin and every time it moved, there was some dust like particles on its trail.

'Butterfly scales.'

Mark thought as the particles scatter around at the infected's every movement. The appearance of the skin looked rather beautiful due to the color and pattern but the fact that it was a mutated infected with unknown abilities overcame its beauty.

The mutated infected jumped off from the roof using its four limbs making Mark retreat. As it landed, a cloud of miniscule scales scattered around. Mark did not dare get close and retreated further as he did not know what those scales could do. It could be harmless but he would not try it on its body. There were variants of butterflies or moths that could cause allergies or even irritate the eyes. The scales of this mutated infected however, it could be really able to cause blindness or might even be poisonous.

As Mark took his steps back, clicking sounds was heard on his right arm as the folded crossbow took its attacking shape. Before the mutated infected could even charge at him, three black crossbow bolts flew towards its head in a very fast speed. The right most bolt missed the target and penetrated the wooden wall of the house behind the mutated infected but the other two bolts managed to hit its forehead above its left eye while the other penetrated through its right eye.

The mutated infected fell down without moving scattering even more scales. It made Mark lose interest in retrieving the crossbow bolts and continued on his way while avoiding the cloud of scales. In this mind however…

'What should I call that mutated infected…'