Chapter 4: Between Thin Lines

Jason Slater watches carefully as George Tennyson uses tweezers to remove some pieces of skin that Nikolai Kalinic keeps touching as he has this unconscious need to remove them on his own, however he knows he can't do it as he could get infected, so it wasn't long before the paramedic was called to the scene with a man with half of his face burned and to top it all off he has been blinded in one eye.

"I'm afraid you won't be able to get out in this condition."

George expresses as with some gauze he wipes away the lines of blood that are present when the skins are removed.

Nikolai doesn't respond, just stares at George with that characteristic unfriendly face.

Nikolai grunts.

"Can you explain to me again how this happened?"

"Some guy turned on the gas taps of a club and blew it to bits. Nikolai was too close and..."

Jason Slater decides to stop. He passes saliva and looks at Nikolai, looks at his burned shoulder, looks at the area where once there was hair, where once there was skin.

"At least there's one less pest in the mall. That guy was the same guy who murdered Chris and Clark's partners, plus... he was the same person Megan warned me about. The crazy cop who killed people for sport finally died."

"Jason. Do you have a minute?"

Clark Kennedy called out to Jason as he stood in the doorway of the room designated as the infirmary.

"Is something wrong, Clark?"

Jason got up from his seat and walked in the direction of the bald man who looked uneasy.

"We're being watched by someone. Yesterday while you guys were at the club... I saw a man. I tried to get Megan's help to track him down and tell me where he went, but to no avail. Checking the cameras I saw that the bastard has been watching us."

"Our position could be compromised..."

"I thought so. By the way, Greg is calling you. In view of the fact that Nikolai... well, he's not available..."

Hearing that Kalinic got up from the couch where he was being attended to and approached Clark. Kennedy watched as something about Nikolai had changed, he didn't know why he looked bigger, why the expression on his face had transformed to something completely different. He knew that in front of him, that that man with the naked torso full of scars and burns was anything but a man.

He was a monster.

A group of men lay gathered on the roof of the shelter. All of them were wearing suits that protected the most sensitive parts of their bodies, they were heavily armed. Anyone who saw them would think that they were surely some group in charge of sowing chaos, for the sight of such happy men with bloody axes in hand, their uniforms painted red and large-caliber weapons seemed the prelude to something horrible.

Then they all saw Nikolai, they all saw their leader with his vacant stare, his large, expressionless eyes and his slow, heavy breathing.

None of them made a comment, so intimidating was Kalinic's stare that the one who dared to look him in the eye was Jason.

"Clark told us you wanted to see us."

Jason said, crossing his arms.

"That's right, son."

"I'm not your son. You know my name, use it."

Greg was surprised by Jason's response and could see out of the corner of his eye how Nikolai cracked a smile.

"Jason... I was talking to your men and explaining that we need to clear Grand Mont Plaza. There are a lot of dead bodies we need to clear out of the hallways. We think we can throw them out a window into the parking lot, we know the dead eat each other, almost like nature's cleaner, like flies and cockroaches."

"How many of us will be down there, just them?"

Jason turned to a group of easily seven men, he could recognize Matthew and Bryan among them.

"We'll be together, united, as a group. We have weapons we can use melee, plus some of them will give us support from the roof of the shoe store using the rifles."

"I see you did your job and know what we're counting on."

Jason smiled.

"It's my job. I'm an observant man. That's why I called you, Jason. You should accompany us... that's why..."

"I'll accompany you, if that's what you mean."

Jason said goodbye to Nikolai and told him he would be back. Jason took one of the masks Harry offered him and put it on.

The group of men walked down to Grand Mont Plaza and surveyed the halls of the place. The bodies lying on the floor were crawling with flies and maggots wriggling around in their cavities, invading every nook and cranny. The stench it gave off was indescribable, a very strong odor that didn't even come close to the smell emanating from the rotting flesh, something much more fetid.

The men laughed as they stabbed the heads of the fallen, as they hacked them to pieces with their weapons and stripped them of the only thing that made them human, if they had ever been.

Jason didn't understand why the men he risked his life for, those men who were found under desperate circumstances were now taking advantage of the outbreak and like the group of savages they were they were pouncing on the dead who were still standing and cutting them down while those sick smiles on their faces didn't fade.

They found pleasure in taking life from something that had none, perhaps in a way they were somehow satisfied with killing people because they were already dead, yet their state allowed them to take so many liberties that no one could say anything to them.

Jason didn't understand why they mutilated bodies when a shot to the head or a stab to the brain was enough. No, they were going further.

Bryan and Markus would charge some that were still active and throw them into the first floor and listen to their bodies hit the ground.

Chris and Clark split a man in half as they cut a slit in his crotch and after each taking a foot they began stretching and stretching until they left a split entity and his viscera strewn across the floor.

Jason didn't know why Michael stabbed one to his second death and left the features of his face unrecognizable.

And of course, Harry and Matthew... shooting without even blinking, showing nothing beyond that smile.

Jason realized a truth as he watched the carnage his men were making. They no longer saw the dead as a threat, but as a way to vent their desires because he knew there was no other explanation as to why they tortured the fallen and taunted them, mocked how they incapacitated and high-fived them as between them they picked up the corpses and threw them into the parking lot.

One of the bodies landed on a car and the fact that the alarm went off was a source of laughter to them.

Jason stood, holding a machete that he never used because his men were doing their job.

By the time they were done Jason was in front of a group of men who had their eyes dilated revealing that they showed no remorse for the things they did. They looked like they were having fun.

What made Jason fear for his life wasn't their bloody weapons or their suits stained with fluids that he'd rather not know where they came from...it was the sinister of their smiles.

Jason understood one thing.

He finally understood one single thing.

Jason removed his mask and for the first time he understood.

**Jason smiled.**