The pain in my leg hit like lightning—sharp, unexpected. I fell hard onto the ground.
I turned and saw the faceless figure—the one I had shot in the chest, point-blank. Somehow, impossibly, he was still moving. Still alive.
He held a sharpened bone, rammed straight into my calf. Even through two layers of fabric, the force was brutal. He leaned in, opening that gaping void of a mouth. In the faint light from the collapsed tent, I saw rows of needle-sharp, triangular teeth—like a piranha's, grown out of both the upper and lower jaw. His mouth clamped down on the tip of my boot.
His throat emitted a ghastly, wet rasping noise. His eyes—or what remained of them—were locked onto mine.
I didn't scream. I didn't move. I wasn't afraid. I was stunned.
I'd seen many strange things in my career. But this… this broke all the rules. A creature shot through the heart, still breathing? Still biting?
Why?
The word slipped from my lips.
His jaws tightened over my boot. I could feel the heat of his breath through the leather. Slowly, deliberately, he swallowed the toe of my boot into his mouth.
I raised the gun, aimed at his head, and pulled the trigger.
Boom.
His head exploded in a mist of black and red, bits scattering across the ground. The body kept twitching.
I remembered stories from the early '90s—Chernobyl rats the size of pigs, snakes with infant faces, creatures that walked like men but wouldn't die. This was something like that.
I raised my camera and took another picture. Then I stood and examined the corpse. His severed arm still clutched the bone shard he'd used to stab me.
I kicked his arm away and picked up the weapon—his rib. It was his own rib, sharpened like a dagger. I felt a wave of disgust so deep it nearly made me retch.
I tore a strip of cloth and bandaged my wound. It was messy, but I could still walk.
At dawn, the light softened the landscape. After a night like that, even the mountain's silence felt like a reprieve.
I found a black bag beneath the collapsed canvas—Dr. Crane's.
I bent down to open it, but my hands froze halfway.
Something inside me screamed: Don't look. Not again. Not tonight.
So I lit a fire and burned it all. Bag and contents. Better that way.
Then I turned toward the sanatorium. I still needed to photograph Cain's severed arm. I also wanted to document everything Dr. Crane had pulled from the old rooms. If someone came later—if anyone cared—they'd need evidence.
Once I was done, I stepped outside and came face to face with a man.
"You're not dead?" we both said at the same time.
It was Cain. He stood with one arm propped against the doorway. The other arm—the missing one—was gone below the shoulder, covered in yellowed parchment, the kind used in ancient rituals. Crimson sigils marked the bandages.
"Your arm?" I asked, though I knew.
He looked up toward the second floor of the sanatorium. "Still up there," he said softly.
He pointed to my leg. "You're hurt."
I nodded. "Where did you go?"
Cain didn't answer at first. He pulled out a crushed pack of cigarettes, struggled with one hand to get one free.
"Light it for me," he said.
I lit two, placed one in my mouth, and handed the other to him.
He took a long drag. "I did what needed doing," he said.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I reinforced the boundary. Realigned the wards." His voice was calm, deliberate.
I said nothing, just stared at the sky as smoke curled upward.
"Crane's dead," I said eventually.
Cain didn't flinch. "I figured."
"We need to leave."
"Leave?" He laughed, a bitter, empty sound. "We're not going back."
I grabbed his collar, forced him against the wall. "I don't know what your plan is, Cain, and I don't care. But you're coming with me. End of story."
He choked, his face turning purple. His good hand pressed against my chest, struggling, but I didn't let go. In that moment, I felt something… dark. A whisper in my mind.
What if I killed him? Buried him? Told the brass I found only one survivor—myself?
No contradictions. No loose ends.
"Let go," he rasped. "Please…"
My hands were trembling. I didn't want to be this man. I released him and shoved him away.
He stumbled back, gasping. Then, slowly, he began to laugh.
"I'm not going back," he said, voice hoarse.
I raised my weapon. "Try running. You'll take a bullet to the spine."
He stood still, breathing hard.
"You still have the rations Crane gave you?" he asked suddenly.
"What?"
"The food. Did you eat any?"
I frowned. "You ate it too."
"Good," he muttered, half to himself. "That simplifies things."
He took a step closer, eyes wild. "You don't feel pain in that leg, do you?"
I paused. It was true. After the initial wound, I'd felt… nothing. No ache. No sting. Just numbness.
"I thought you were dead," I said quietly.
"I wanted to live."
He smiled wide, too wide. "But maybe we're already dead."
Then he lunged forward, laughing maniacally.
I slammed the butt of my rifle into his skull. He hit the ground hard.
I crouched, pried the parchment seal from his shoulder.
The stench hit me first—rot and sulfur. The sigils were drawn in dark, clotted blood. And beneath the paper, his wound still wept black fluid.
Something clicked in my brain. I turned and ran back to the tent.
Dr. Crane's body was gone.
Back at the doorway, Cain Mercer had vanished too.
I stood alone in the dawn light, stunned and hollow, staring at the empty world.