Variant Strain

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Peter licked his lips nervously. He wondered if it should bother him more that he was contemplating how best to kill as many infectees as possible. Whatever else they were now, they had once been people.

'Once been' being the operative phrase, Connors whispered, They aren't that now.

Yes, I know. Unless they get stopped they're going to pose a danger to everyone we know. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, trying to steady himself. To keep everyone else safe, they had to go.

Awww. Lookit the hard man, makin' hard choices, Cletus cackled.

Peter thought back sourly, Do you want me to do this or not?

Shoot, 'course I do. Y'all are gonna do it anyway, so you may as well enjoy yourself, right?

"Take the Hive out first?" Peter murmured aloud as he felt his senses sharpen and the numbers began to take shape in his mind. Precise range and distance on every Vulture, estimated flight paths and speeds, comparing their possible ranges against his own possible path down...

If he timed it right, he could rocket past the Vultures before they would have an opportunity to react. By the time they realized he was there, he'd already be on the ground and causing damage. If he used that mass flare, he was fairly certain he could do some major damage to the mobile Hive in one blow.

No, Cain murmured back. Not yet. The Hive's the only thing holding the infected back. The Hive goes, so does any restraint this mob has.

Then how the hell are we supposed to-- Peter began, but then realized that the Rhino was just about ready to charge.

At that point doing something... anything... would have been better than just watching it blow through the barricade and letting the killing start.

Killing started already. We're trying to get it to stop. Donna pointed out.

There's never enough time to just sit and think, Connors lamented softly.

Peter crouched down, leaning almost his entire body off the edge of the roof and shifting the pull of gravity on himself subtly to keep him in place. He held position for a few seconds, watching and calculating. He mentally projected the flight paths of the Vultures to ensure they would be out of range to intercept him. The Rhino would be at the end of his trajectory. The Hunters would jump him then, but not before he could manage to manage at least one good shot at the Rhino.

One shot, Make it count. Cain whispered.

Cletus laughed once more. No pressure.

Peter felt the faint prickling of heat spread across his spine and shoulders and knew the spider-shaped organ beneath his skin was blazing to crimson life once more. His face blanked out to Cletus's mask and he launched himself, the air screaming as he blazed down.

He was faster. He could feel the difference in not just speed, but control as he arrowed headfirst down towards the Rhino.

He hurtled past the startled Vultures, accelerating wildly as he doubled and redoubled his mass. Was it mass or was it a shift in gravity's effect on him? Hank's memories of his studies into the matter were annoyingly vague and filled with math he hadn't had time to interpret.

Focus, Donna chided gently.

He was within a few feet of the Rhino, close enough to see the furious, confused expression on its distorted face and realize that this Rhino had once been a woman.

Not that it matters, Donna pointed out sharply.

Then there wasn't any more time to notice anything.

He crossed his arms over his head as heat flared out of him at the moment of impact. There was simply the thunderous smash and a pressure wave that sent him plowing into the Rhino, knocking her-- it-- back a half-dozen feet. That sent them smashing into two Hunters and a crowd of Walkers.

Where the Rhino crashed, deep cracks radiated out of the pavement. The impact had smashed flat nearly everything in his immediate vicinity. A set of Hunter's legs stuck out from beneath the Rhino, projecting out near the Rhino's shoulder, twitching comically. The Walkers they'd landed on were pulped by the impact. Practically the only thing in his immediate vicinity that was still intact was the Rhino itself, but even then, although the center of its gray-skinned, armored torso seemed to be intact, it was also somewhat caved in.

Within five feet of him, there were still Walkers and a few hunters, but they'd been knocked down and crippled by the blast of impact. Further out, the Infected had been knocked over, but not too obviously injured.

Peter took all of that in during the fraction of a second it took for him to kick back to his feet, standing on its chest.

The Rhino took a pained, gasping, gurgling gulp of air. He could feel things rattle brokenly in her-- its-- torso beneath his feet. It bellowed in obvious distress and surprise. It reached oversized hands up intending to grab him.

It was hurt, but not badly enough to put it down. Surrounding them, the Hunters and Walkers were getting back on their feet and orienting on him.

One shot, Peter thought furiously. Well, he supposed. It worked before.

He kicked it sharply in the face. Literally. His talons raked across its vulnerable eyes, eliciting another, pained roar. An open mouth presented Peter with the Rhino's far more vulnerable insides.

He jammed his taloned foot into its mouth, using the blades to hold his mouth open as his arm blurred and changed. He aimed the blade of his whip-arm at the open mouth and shot it, almost as soon as veins in his transformed arm had blazed red.

The blade crossed the short distance almost instantaneously. A razor keen bone blade backed by almost a ton of mass at just below Mach one into the vulnerable, unarmored mouth of a Rhino. It was a foregone conclusion.

The blade embedded in the cracked pavement beneath the Rhino, having severed its spine just below the base of the skull from inside the mouth. The over large, too flat, too white teeth were still intact, even as the top half of its head fell away, its eyes still hateful and vaguely confused. The body, however, did not quite notice what should have been a fatal injury. The rest of the Rhino only seemed to have lost its urgency as the hands hesitated in mid-grab and just seemed to stir and twitch feebly.

Peter could still hear its rattling breath whistling out of the top of its now open windpipe. Well, the back of where its throat had once been.

He was so elated at the unexpected success in dealing with the Rhino that he almost missed Cain's warning.

Behind-- was as far as Cain got before Peter tried to turn.

Unfortunately, his blade arm was still embedded and his other taloned foot hadn't let go of the Rhino, leaving him unable to maneuver as a Hunter pounced him, raking claws digging into his shoulders.

The move pinned him awkwardly on top of the twitching Rhino's body. The Hunter putting its full and considerable weight on him. One leg was bent at a painful angle and his whip arm stuck behind his head.

The claws dug in further, keeping a firm hold on his upper body even as it leaned in, trying to sink its teeth into his neck. His struggles were enough to make it miss somewhat, but sharp needle teeth digging into his collarbone weren't as much of an improvement as one would think.

It straddled him across the waist, its spine bent almost double to keep its position on him. A second Hunter leaped in, claws going for his free leg and more were closing the distance. All eager to get in on the act and all ready to tear him apart.

The impact smash that he'd used required that he be moving to work. He could lift cars over his head, there should have been no way for him not to be able to lift the few hundred pounds of Hunter off of him, but they'd managed to keep him from getting any leverage and the claws digging painfully into his body kept him from easily dislodging them.

His own voice drawled at him, Stop being bada, Kl'rt.

Peter grit his teeth and realized that the Hunter trying to bite its way into him really had made a mistake. He still had one arm free. With more desperation than technique, we smashed his fist into the side of the first Hunter's head. The blow sent it flying into an approaching crowd of Walkers, but in the process also raked bleeding wounds on Peter's shoulders and chest where teeth and claws had been dislodged.

He lost track of that one as his concentration turned to the other Hunter on him. The Hunter pinning his other leg down looked up at that and seemed to realize that its prey was no longer quite as trapped as it had been. Peter growled as he felt it's claws dug into his upper thigh, the Hunter obviously hoping to cripple him before he could get away.

Peter roared and he felt the heat blaze in his body again as he gave an upwards kick. In a motion that in no way should have worked if examined mechanically, the Hunter was suddenly flung straight upwards, torn free from Peter's leg. He let his body follow the rest of the motion, rolling over backwards to get himself back on his feet.

He got back to his feet shakily, just barely in time to avoid being pinned by a third Hunter, whose pounce landed it on the still twitching Rhino body.

Peter's tendrils blurred his body, sealing the wounds and chewing through his accumulated biomass to repair the damage. There was still plenty to work with and although the pain was still there, he could push through that. What worried him more was that if they did pin him down, they could start causing damage faster than he could heal. Then he'd run out of bio-mass and that would be that.

The sinuous snap his arm made as it retracted back pulled his attention entirely back to his current situation.

The Hunter snarled, reaching an a clawed arm out to tear at Peter's mid-section. He moved to parry with the immense blade at the end of his arm, the movement sliced effortlessly through the Hunter's elbow.

It jerked back, blinking in surprise for a brief moment at losing its arm so easily. It might have had some further response, but Peter didn't give it an opportunity to do so. Heat flared through his body as he followed through on the movement, culminating in a downward roundhouse punch at the Hunter's head with his untransformed hand. The blow hammered it down, it's pulped head completely shattering on the Rhino's dented chest.

That was the last clear view he had before the Walkers closed in. Seconds. It had been bare seconds since he'd landed and the place had turned into a madhouse.

The cohesive, organized attack of the Walkers as they swarmed him simply broke down into individual chaos once they got within a few feet of him. He hadn't remembered the crowds of infected under Jessica's direct command beneath Gentek Tower having been so crazed.

Whatever coordination they had seemed to have broken down. Those closest to him, had stopped working together and in a number of cases, Hunters trying to reach through the screen of infected had ended up tearing apart Walkers that got in their way. They still hemmed Peter in as effectively as they had in the tunnels, but it didn't feel as though they were really fighting together anymore. Even the infected under the control of the deli Hive had worked together better.

Peter lost track of what he was doing, instinct taking over the work of fighting them off, with fist, knees and elbow, with blade, with talon and with claw. He could actually hear Cletus cheering him on, offering encouragements alongside Cain's urgent suggestions. The fight, as the infected surrounding him clawed and tore and bit, just seemed to keep going and going. The Walkers couldn't hurt him faster than his body could heal. The much more dangerous Hunters were finding themselves having to fight through the Walkers to get to him and that was giving him the critical few moments to deal with them, whether with blades through the spine, limbs ripped off or simplest of all, just throwing them into the nearest obstacle.

Cletus reveled in the carnage and some small part of Peter that he couldn't completely fault was caught up in it as well. They could cut him. Hurt him, certainly. But they couldn't put him down. They couldn't stop him. He was among them, a living, breathing engine of destruction tearing them apart and they could do nothing to stop him.

Deeper still, a part of himself recoiling in disgust. At the infected for forcing him to do this. At himself for loving what he was doing. There would be time for guilt and for recriminations later. Perhaps there would even be time for him to add their faces to the gallery on his phone.

But all that would have to be for later. If there was one. The problem was that while he was incapacitating and tearing apart the infected by the score, for every one he took out, another would take its place. He knew there were only-- Only. Hah!-- a few thousand of them, he wasn't taking them out fast enough. He suspected some of those fallen bodies were also being dragged off to feed the Hive allowing it to spit out even more Walkers. Or worse. Hunters.

Stalemate, he thought angrily. His frustration ramping higher at the uselessness of the slaughter, even as he absently clubbed aside a Walker with its own arm.

Not a stalemate, Cain countered sharply. We're stuck in one spot. They're free to keep moving. They can stall you here til they get a new Rhino. Or resurrect the old one. Or just start sending infected over the barricade. You're playing the Hive's game again.

He couldn't really maneuver. Despite their sudden lack of cohesive effort, the infected were all still pressed in too close for him to leap up or just break out of them. If anything the sheer press of bodies was moving him deeper into the mass rather than letting him get to a building or anything else that he could use to his advantage.

You have more options now than you did yesterday. Your arm! Use your arm! Cain urged.

Peter groaned internally at his stupidity and let his arm blur and reform back to its whip-arm form.

Another image overlaid the one in his mind that his arm should have taken. There was another blur of red and black tendrils that ran down the outer edge of his arm causing a row of bone blades to extend out from each of the vertebra-like bones that now comprised his arm. He gave the modification a momentary thoughtful glance and realized that it was exactly what he needed.

He had no target in mind, but simply let his arm blaze with heat and shot the immense blade at the end of it into the crowd. He knew he'd impaled or mauled at least a half dozen infected in that single motion. More were damaged in passing by the newer smaller side-blades.

That, wasn't the end of it. He twitched at the shoulder, sweeping the arm across the street. He felt his feet reform into talons of their own accord and heat blaze across his shoulders and down his legs to hold him in place against the forces being generated by his movement. Peter couldn't say for sure just how heavy the blade at the end of his arm was as it slashed chest-high through the crowds in front of him, but he did know that everywhere the trailing cable of flesh scythed through left only twitching pieces. A Hunter that he vaguely remembered crippling earlier hadn't moved as fast as it's brethren to duck the whip-arm had ended up impaled on one of the side blades.

The rest of the cable whipped around the Hunter who had tried to resist and only found the rest of the arm had whipped around to twine around the obstacle. It gave a keening cry as it found itself trapped in a whirling cage of blades. Peter retracted his arm quickly and the trapped Hunter exploded into a blur of feeding tendrils. By the time his arm had contracted entirely, the Hunter was little more than a knot of flesh and twitching feeding tendrils that were settling down.

He could feel the biomass added to his body. The bits of damage he'd taken had piled up and made a dent in the reserves he'd build up. This was just what he needed. The Hunter had fortunately had very little mind left to it and Peter only got a brief impression of driving a truck before its thoughts and memories settled into its own slot within his mind.

... I meant you should use the arm to get to pulling yourself up to a building. Out of their reach. Cain's mental voice was faintly stunned. This works fine too.

Peter had cleared a twenty foot circle centered on himself with that one move. Bodies were scattered all around him and he could see the ones longest dead-- minutes, it had barely been minutes-- had already begun breaking down. The worst were half absorbed into the dense viral matting on the street around him. His legs he realized were embedded past the ankles in the material and he could actually feel a portion of the matting as part of himself already.

Yeehaw! Do that again! Cletus cheered.

He was all set to congratulate himself on figuring out how to start taking the infected out faster when he felt claws tear open his back. He growled and rolled forward, tearing his feet free of the viral matting right before a follow up blow from the Hunter that would have ripped his head off.

He could feel the tendrils stitching his back shut, the repairs chewing through more of his biomass as he eyed the Hunter.

The crowd began closing in on the open space around him once more and he responded with another swing of his extended whip-arm. The Hunter, easily leaped backwards, the crowd opening up to admit it. Their coordination seemed to work just fine when they were further away from him, once they got in closer, it all seemed to break apart.

Hank could communicate with his own infected. Peter supposed it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to imagine that he'd picked up something of the trick. Although he couldn't quite take control as Jessica did... he seemed to at least be able to disrupt their communications somewhat, which had its uses.

The whip-arm swing easily scythed through the infected, dropping them where they stood with almost contemptuous ease. They couldn't close in now and he actually had a chance to do some real damage... except for another blow from behind. This one even better aimed than the one from before.

He fell on his side, no longer able to feel his right leg.

He blinked then looked down at himself. He gave a startled scream as he realized that it was simply gone. Torn from him mid-thigh. There was the ragged stump showing splintered bone where there should have been a leg.

The sight of it sent fresh, hot pain running up his spine. As though realizing what had happened had triggered sleeping nerves to start firing.

He chanted to himself, I can heal this. I can heal this.

He had to cling to that. The wound spurted blood in time to his heart beat once, twice, then stopped as he felt unfamiliar muscles in his thigh clench, cutting the blood flow off.

The Hunter who had done it entered his field of view, brandishing the leg by its ankle. The Hunter's toothy mouth parted in an unmistakeable grin. It almost looked as though it were about to take a bite out of the leg, when it suddenly collapsed into a mass of viral matting and flailing tendrils that fell to the street.

That galvanized him to action. Peter rolled back up to his one good leg, clamping down on any further screams as the movement set his nerves ablaze once more. The crowd of infected tried to close in and this time, Peter didn't give them the chance.

He aimed his whip-arm upward and at an angle, embedding the blade into the fifth story of a nearby building. Heat blazed down his arm and he relaxed his talons, allowing himself to be bodily pulled up and out of the crowd.

He dug the talons of his one good leg into the building, his personal gravity shifted to allow him to perch against the wall of the apartment building as easily as if it were horizontal. He panted, in terror and exhilaration. Loathe as he was to admit it, right up til that last moment, he'd started been reveling in his strength and near invulnerability. Cletus wasn't the only part of him enjoying itself.

He stared down at his stump, not quite ready to accept that he'd been injured that badly. Much less with a single blow.

Stop being such a wuss. You've been shot in the head. This is nothing, Cletus taunted.

"It still hurts!" Peter growled back. "I just need a minute here. Just... a minute to think. Heal."

The ragged edges had transformed into tendrils that were weaving and blurring in red and black down where his leg had been. A thinly fleshed skeletal leg the size of a child's had formed out of the stump and was rapidly growing into a full one.

He tried to wiggle his toes and all he got for his effort was a small shaky twitch of the whole leg.

The process took moments. First a skeletal child's leg. Then a skeletal leg of the right size. Then a fully fleshed, skinless leg with all the muscles on display. Finally, skin and a pant-leg and a shoe. That then shifted to talon-form and allowed him to perch better against the wall.

See? Good as new. Cletus replied.

Which still leaves us with a street full of infected that we barely made a dent in. Donna murmured.

Peter had to admit, other than dealing with the Rhino, the entire exercise had been a fiasco. He stared down at the spot where he'd been fighting the infected and realized to his dull horror that once the infected had closed ranks, there seemed to be no sign left at all of the damage he'd done.

None.

He needed something that did more damage. Something to wipe the street clean. The impact smash did some damage, but it needed him to be in motion to do its work. It just wasn't going to be practical to keep using. His whip-arm could do the trick to some extent, but while it was tremendously fast in a straight line attack, when he used it to sweep, it was considerably slower. Slow enough that the Hunters had little trouble avoiding it. Worse than that, they were quick to capitalize on the fact that he was rooted while he was using it in a sweep.

We could hijack a transport down there and get ourselves some heavier munitions. Cletus suggested offhandedly. Hell, I dunno. Maybe throw that refuelin' truck they have down there in the middle of that bunch and set it off. Y'all keep goin' on about bein' a tool usin' animal.

Cain gave the mental equivalent of a shake of his non-existent head, We should consider ourselves lucky that the soldiers didn't decide to start shooting at us while we were busy.

And doing that would set the infected on fire, Connors added, Which experience tells us just means they'll keep walking and burning until they take enough damage and stop, but in the meant time they'll be setting fire to everything else they touch.

Yeah, let's not do that. Cain replied. Or get the military's attention any sooner than we have to.

I'm surprised they didn't see what was happening. Peter responded curiously.

They lost their over watch when the choppers went down, Cain pointed out, If their commander had any brains at all, he'd have gotten some men positioned on the rooftops, but I think they're in too big of a hurry to get out.

This still leaves us with the same problem. Donna pointed out.

I'm more surprised the Hunters haven't chased us up here by now. Cain replied.

Moving with the whip-arm's faster than they can track, I think, Peter thought back. They lost sight and scent of us.

These Walkers shouldn't have been Walkers. Connors whispered suddenly. Normally they would have been Sleepers or dead.

Which means... what? Peter asked, not quite following what Connors was driving at.

Their bodies are primed to fall apart into viral matting. You've seen the Hunters feed on the viral matting or on Walkers to repair themselves before. This is an even more extreme case. Individually, these... Sleepwalkers... are even more fragile than regular Walkers and are eager to be consumed.

Is there a specific point you're trying to make? Donna gently prodded.

Peter stared down at the crowd. Then thought of the viral matting beneath their feet.

Then he thought of his blood and the remnants of his leg which was no doubt already taken in by the viral matting that was all over the street.

All that yielding, obedient, and helpful biomass just waiting underfoot. He remembered how he'd used it in the tunnels beneath Gentek, worming through and beneath it to defeat Connors. That flesh had once been Hank's, but Jessica had released it from his control, without quite managing to claim it for her own.

A similar situation was on the street. He didn't think the mobile Hive had quite the same influence on the viral matting spread all around as it would have had were that its own flesh.

"It can't be that simple." Peter murmured, continuing to stare as strange mental images began to take shape. He could almost hear the nasty little snicker of the dog as it began pushing images and thoughts at him. The dog's alto voice sang softly, Yes, Mr. Todd, Yes, Mr. Todd, Yes, Mr. Todd...

Connors replied quietly, No matter how much I hated Hank, he did give us more options.

Peter nodded then watched the Vultures again. Their flight paths had changed. The ones who'd been closest to the action weren't circling where they'd been any longer.

His eyes narrowed and he felt the sharp pain as his eyes reshaped themselves to focus at that distance.

They're carrying something, he realized.

They weren't just flying randomly. They were keeping their eyes on things in the crowd. Cain replied.

Peter nodded. The largest group still flew in long lazy circles around where the mobile Hive was located. The others closest to where the fight had been were flying slowly away from their appointed spots carrying humanoid figures with oversized heads.

Becks, Peter thought. That explains how the Hive was coordinating even at that smaller size. That was why it kept smelling as though he were in the middle of a Hive. Essentially he was. The viral matting coating the street and the Sleepwalkers. All part of the Hive's flesh. The entire horde was the mobile Hive. Not fixed to a structure. With the Becks as its mind.

We leave them be for now, Cain rumbled. If this still doesn't work, we need 'em to keep broadcasting the message to not attack.

Peter pointed out. Those ones are fleeing from where the fighting was. But there's still a bunch of others scattered all over the place. Pretty much where a Vulture is, there's probably a Beck.

Mighty considerate of 'em to mark the targets for us, right, kids? Cletus chuckled.

They're all targets, Cain replied roughly.

Peter swept his gaze back across the barricade. The vehicles were already beginning to pull away. The tanks and APCs closest to the barricade would be the last to leave. He couldn't spot the people he knew anymore. There were at least a dozen buses in the center of the formation that had been obviously pressed into service to get the evacuees out. More people were simply walking alongside the vehicles.

That doesn't seem like a lot of people does it? His voice drawled at him. Not compared to how many Hydra's gotten to already.

Most had already left. He would have to keep telling himself that. Even if these things never got past the barricade, there were already too many victims. He had to stop this here.

Then Jessica. His mental drawl had just a bite of Brian Watson's fury beneath it.

Peter shuddered. No more distractions. He took stock once more. He worked out his trajectory. It was easier this time. None of the Vultures were within range of his route, much less the projected impact point. Pretty much the same spot he'd landed in before. What few were close by were still burdened by their Becks and weren't likely to go after him with that sort of vulnerable cargo.

He could scent the edges of the viral matting to some degree. It covered a huge part of the street. It would be enough. He hoped it would be enough for what he had in mind.

You don't even know if you'll have enough time to pull this off. Cain murmured.

We'll manage. He thought back sharply. We'll have to.

Peter launched himself headfirst once more, accelerating to his maximum speed. He needed to buy himself time, What he had in mind was bigger than his little trick against Connors, but he had slightly more help this time, he hoped.

It would have been a shame to have lost that leg for nothing.

He cocked an arm back just a moment before impact then swung it forward. His fist crashed into, then through, the torso of a Hunter. Time seemed to slow.

Unlike before, he was actually paying attention to the process this time. The pressure wave blossomed out at the point of impact, flattening the hunter into a paste and grinding what was left of its body into the viral matting beneath them. The wave of red heat haze blossoming out of him smashed into the closest infected, crushing them against the pavement, but not quite as thoroughly as his first victim. The globe of pressure continued to expand, losing strength as it did, until it did little more than shove down those at its outermost peripheries.

Just enough room to work.

The infected rallied quickly, getting back to their feet. Hunters began leaping over the crowd to get to him, but Peter was too deeply intent on what he was doing to pay them any more attention.

His arm was buried elbow deep in the street. Or more precisely the thick viral matting that had covered it. The few minutes he'd taken for a breather had been more than enough to completely render the bodies from his battle earlier into little more than anonymous lumps of flesh. Undifferentiated, anonymous flesh.

His arm divided into a mass of tendrils spreading and burrowing through the all too welcoming viral matting. He had bled copiously here. And his leg had fallen nearby, its material spread through the area. This flesh had partaken of his flesh and all that had once been part of him was eager to rejoin.

The tendrils projecting from his arm reached out further. The material merged with him. It had no real sense of self just an... enthusiasm. A genuine, almost desperate desire to accept a mind that would give it direction.

His closed eyes snapped open. They were unseeing but blazing like red lamps.

It was ironic that while he was claiming all of the material on the street for himself, easily tons of new flesh, but he could feel himself burning through his existing biomass reserve to extend his tendrils as far as he could. The loss of biomass bringing the levels lower than they'd ever been, essentially reducing the density of his body down to something actually approximating a normal human.

Hank had been almost too much mind for him to consume... this was almost too much flesh. But he wasn't trying to swallow it.

He was trying to control it.

He was all the way to the edges, all the way to the concrete barricade. There were perfectly described circles where he couldn't touch, but he could pick them out. The Becks were those points of resistance. He didn't push. There was no need. They were so... few in comparison. The rest, though? The rest was all him.

All of it.

An animal growl of a Hunter about to leap was the only warning he had.

It was about to take advantage of his immobility.

Or it would have.

Red threads glowed beneath the skin of the viral matting and its surface began to boil with tendrils. Peter flexed a thousand new fingers and sent a single thought that matched a forested image in his mind.

The entire mass of viral matting for several blocks heaved and bucked underfoot, the contractions strong enough to crack the concrete beneath. The infected fell over or into each other and tried to keep on their feet. The Hunters dropped to all fours to keep from falling down, but all of that just made every single one of them easier targets.

The Hunter that would have attacked him suddenly found itself desperately trying to keep its footing.

The tendrils gathered and the material bunched up in small unevenly distributed lumps the size of baseballs.

Peter roared, willing his fingers to blur and change. All of them.

Each nodule of flesh burst open to grow with immense speed into a six foot long jagged spike of steel hard bone.

The crowded infected all up and down the street were transformed in that split second into an interconnected mass of screaming, writhing agony. A forest of spikes and razor edges had grown out of the viral matting and anything that hadn't been impaled by the initial explosive growth was torn to ribbons as they tried to escape through the densely cross-connected nest of razors.

The Hunter closest to Peter found spikes thrust through its chest and head in a half dozen spots. It's frantic flailing attempts to free itself only succeeded in tearing apart those other infected within its reach as those struggles forced them onto the blades.

The scent of dead Hydra was beginning to overwhelm the live Hydra scent that he'd been drowning in. The scents shifted in strength as more and more of the infected succumbed to their horrific injuries.

Nearly everything that had gathered to attack the barricade had died. Thousands had been here.

Peter realized with awe and no small amount of terror that he'd just killed the entire neighborhood. He'd just personally murdered every single person in Forest Hills.

His arm came free of the viral matting with a wet, sucking noise and he rose shakily to his feet.

His reserves of biomass were depleted. His stomach clenched, unbearably painful. He was light-headed, exhausted. His breathing was fast and uneven. If anything it almost felt like his blood sugar was low and he was just about to completely crash.

He held up the trembling hand that had been in the viral matting and noticed that his skin was just far too pale.

You may have pushed yourself too hard. Donna's voice said gently.

He shook his head.

Y'all are gonna keel over after that stunt, kiddo. Cletus said, his tone faintly awed, Why don't you go eat something.

His eyes finally focused, really focused to survey the carnage. There were twitching bodies. A few still living, but on their last legs. Blood had dripped and spattered and sprayed everywhere. Misshapen, mutated parts of Walkers and Hunters dropped to the greedy all-consuming viral matting below. It was cleaning up after itself to some extent, but there was nothing clean about this. Nothing neat. Mutilated infected hung from the razor edges like overripe fruit.

He took a step closer. Intending... he wasn't sure what he'd been intending, but he realized that his mouth was watering.

Hungry. His mind had murmured to him.

His own voice.

Not Cletus telling him that.

His voice.

Bile rose sharply and suddenly in the back of his throat.

Unable to stop himself, Peter threw up noisily.

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