Aaron, Harry, Jade, and Kyle drove off into the forest in a jeep they found at the facility, contemplating whether they'd ever visit it again. Aaron was at the driver's seat while his three undead companions occupied the passenger seats. The suitcase of evidence was settled down at Harry's feet, but Aaron had to keep glancing down at it to make sure Harry didn't accidentally damage it. He returned his eyes to the forest in front of them as they raced to the Dead Center to confront their invaders.

"Hey, Aaron," Kyle said. "Just out of curiosity, did you find out what makes an Abnormal Deadman?"

"I'm afraid not," Aaron replied. "That's what I've been theorizing the most about."

"Got any ideas?"

"Well like I said earlier, the Ambrosia seems to have a mind of its own. I believe it judges its host based on its usefulness and decides whether or not he or she is worthy of receiving more power. Like maybe it realizes the person it's controlling has a deeper meaning than just a puppet. Almost like it understands what it's been through."

"Understands?" Kyle repeated.

"Yeah. Bloodletter told me it takes more than your own death to become an Abnormal. Maybe grief influences the Ambrosia to grant its host special abilities because it somehow feels sympathetic. He also told me he wasn't the only one who was supposed to die. So maybe the Ambrosia is working with him to get revenge."

"Aaron, look out!" Harry shouted.

Aaron pounded his foot on the brake, and the jeep violently skidded to a halt. The four of them were at the entrance of a street leading into the Dead Center. Many of the buildings surrounding them were ravished by bombs, with windows shattered and most of the walls crumbled to the ground. Piles of bricks littered the streets and hordes of Deadmen stampeded through town like wild animals.

"What the hell happened here?" Kyle asked.

Gunfire followed his sentence, and the four of them watched as a group of Deadmen dropped to the ground like flies, bullet holes riddling their bodies. Aaron then heard the distinct sound of a rocket launcher being fired. "Get down!" he shouted.

The corner of the roof of the building next to them exploded. Loose bricks and building materials rained down on the four of them, but they endured the destructive downpour as they crouched into their seats and shielded their heads. The falling debris loudly crashed against the surface of their jeep, leaving behind unrepairable dents and damage. Aaron watched as a pipe obliterated the windshield and impaled Harry through his leg. Jade's head was bloodied by a stray brick while Kyle's face was scratched by the glass. Luckily, none of them felt it.

"You guys okay?" Aaron groaned as he slowly emerged from his position.

"I think we should call a plumber or something," Harry replied nonchalantly as he stared at the pipe lodged in his thigh.

"Can you move your leg?"

"Yeah, I think so." Harry bent his leg, resulting in disgustingly loud crunching noises as his leg bent into unnatural positions. "Well every bone in my leg has been destroyed, so that's great."

"Don't mess with Matheson, motherfuckers!" shouted a young man from deep within the Dead Center. Aaron looked up to see two DZI officers with their rifles unholstered, standing above the pile of Deadmen executed a few seconds ago. He didn't recognize either of them.

"Is the gun still back there?" Aaron asked Jade and Kyle.

"Yeah, here," Jade replied as she wiped the blood off her forehead and handed him a pistol.

Once Aaron had the gun in his hands, he quickly turned toward the DZI soldiers and fired multiple shots, nailing one in the head and requiring two shots to take down the other. A horde of Deadmen appeared out of nowhere and ripped the DZI's corpses apart like nothing.

"Food!" Harry shouted as he yanked the pipe out of his healing leg, and he, Harry, and Jade jumped out of the jeep to join the other Deadmen feasting on the bodies.

"Wait!" Aaron exclaimed. He shoved the gun into his pocket and jumped out of the vehicle, leaving behind the evidence. "Fucking wait!"

The trio of Deadmen rushed into the scene like superheroes. However, superheroes, they were not. Aaron lost a bit of trust in Kyle after seeing him pull a knife out of his pocket. He didn't even know he had that with him the entire time.

"Kyle!" Aaron shouted. "How long have you had that knife?"

"Don't you remember?" Kyle replied, the four of them approaching what was left of the bodies. "I have table manners. I use utensils when eating."

"Table manners? You look like Jack the Ripper!"

Before Kyle could reply, he and Aaron noticed the DZI soldiers far away from them, armed and ready to kill. The two of them ducked to the ground, having to pull Harry and Jade down with them, as more gunfire filled the air. The other Deadmen around them crashed to the street with bullet holes in their skulls.

"Aaron," Jade whispered. "Who the hell are those guys?"

"We've got two men down!" one of the DZI soldiers shouted.

"The Dead Zone Infantry," Aaron replied back.

"Aren't those your old friends?" Harry asked.

"They're the ones who want me dead. I do have two friends in the DZI, but I doubt they're here."

"So what do we do then?"

Aaron cocked his pistol. "You guys hungry? They're the food. Just make sure you kill them before they kill you."

A strand of drool dangled out of Harry's mouth. "Hell yeah."

"And like I said, don't die. For fuck's sake, you guys are gonna be my only friends by the time this is all over, so I'd prefer if you all get out in one piece."

"Don't worry, lad," Kyle replied, brandishing his knife. "We are the masters of taking evasive action. We'll see you in a bit."

The three of them set off running into the smoke, leaving Aaron behind. Meanwhile, Aaron crawled over to one of the dead soldier's bodies and took his mask, a dark green kind that covered the face and nose like a gas mask. He took what felt like his last breath and pulled it over his face. He knew those masks had grips of steel. He had worn one a few times during some of his more violent missions, and each time it stayed strapped tightly to his face like a boa constrictor.

Aaron bolted into the nearest wrecked building. It was practically an obstacle course. Lights hung from the ceiling like jungle vines, and shattered glass and furniture littered the floor. As Aaron maneuvered around the dangerous fragments, he was on edge because of the sudden explosions going on outside rattling the building and everything inside it. One blast seemed closer than it should've been, and Aaron could hear destruction in the floor above him. The ceiling felt like it could crash down on top of him at any second.

Aaron glanced around the room to look for whatever qualified as a weapon, only finding shards of glass. He considered using the wooden fragments like stakes, but they didn't seem sharp enough. He ducked to the floor to dodge some incoming gunfire.

"Search the place!" he heard the familiar voice of Shaw order.

"Shit," Aaron whispered. He looked ahead to see the door wide open, leading out to the next building. Gun in hand, he bolted for the exit.

As he leaped through the door, he seemed to fall in slow-motion, noticing every particle of ash and dust floating in the air along with the DZI soldier unslinging his rifle off his shoulder. He extended his own gun at the soldier and fired, driving a bullet through his throat. The soldier began to fall backwards as blood sprayed out of his neck like a burst pipe and Aaron landed back on the ground, his sense of time returning to normal as he broke through the next door.

He immediately scrambled to the floor and crawled toward the nearest window, making sure he remained unseen. He could hear another soldier approach the one he just killed as she started reciting the MercyMark activation sequence: "R. Hutchins. MercyMark, activate." And once he heard the brief muffled bang that indicated the soldier's face exploding to prevent a gruesome death, he jumped from his hiding spot and fired through the window, taking down the other soldier.

Multiple Deadmen swarmed around the bodies, but Shaw emerged from the corner of the wrecked building and gunned them all down in a single swoop of his gun. Two of the bullets impacted with Aaron's ribs, but he didn't feel a single one and continued firing until his gun was empty. Shaw fell to his knees in pain. Aaron had shot him in his legs and his hip, all non-fatal injuries. Shaw struggled to pull his rifle back up and returned fire, filling Aaron with more lead. It wasn't enough to kill Aaron, but he still ducked to the floor, worrying about blood loss as all of the bullets sprouted back out of his wounds and clattered to the floor. He held on to his pistol and shoved it back into his pocket, hoping to reload eventually.

"Colonel Schaefer, this is Shaw!" Shaw screamed into his walkie both in pain and in order to speak over the rest of the chaos around him. "We've got a situation in the eastern part of the village! I think we've encountered one of those Cutthroats from Lovecraft again! One of them shot me four times, but I'll make it."

"We've already established this, Shaw," Schaefer's staticky voice replied. "Unless they're children, we take no prisoners."

"What if it's O'Connor? You don't think it's him, is it?"

Aaron didn't even comment. He sped out of the room again and jumped through a hole where a window used to be, only to be tackled down by another DZI officer. He wore the same mask as Aaron along with reflective goggles that hid his eyes. Unlike most DZI officers, he wore tons of padding and bulletproof armor. Must've been one of the Pyro Boys.

"Fuck off!" Aaron exclaimed, and he blocked the soldier's knife with his hand, the blade stabbing directly through the other side of his hand.

"I've found O'Connor!" the soldier yelled out. "I've got him!"

At that moment, nearly every swear word in the English language went through Aaron's head. He grabbed the soldier's gun and ripped it out of his holster, surprising himself since he didn't plan on tearing it off. He quickly jammed it under the soldier's chin and fired. He didn't realize he grabbed a fully automatic handgun until he pulled the trigger and shredded the soldier's skull apart like a firecracker. Blood splashed his face and the walls around him as his enemy's corpse toppled over to the ground, his head completely disfigured.

I didn't even think they had MPK5's here in England, Aaron thought to himself as he looked at his new blood-soaked firearm.

"Find him and kill that son of a bitch!" he heard Shaw exclaim.

"Fuck." Aaron yanked the knife out of his hand and shoved it into one of his pockets, ignoring the blood on the blade along with the deep incision penetrating through the palm of his hand. He snatched the dead soldier's pack of ammunition and ran into the next building as the Deadmen came in and devoured the corpse.

"Fire in the hole!" shouted a younger male voice. And seconds later the destroyed building Aaron took shelter in was set ablaze following the sound of glass breaking. It was a molotov cocktail.

"Lob another one," a female voice declared. The cycle repeated as Aaron's exit out to the next building was blocked by a wall of fire. The only place he could go now was up.

Aaron dashed up the stairs, swearing the whole time. The wound in his hand had sealed up, leaving behind his dry blood smeared on his palm. Once he was upstairs, he ran to the nearest window in a dilapidated bedroom and took cover beneath it, taking glances to study his enemy.

At the front of the building stood Cassandra, Duncan, and the third soldier Aaron saw cleaning up Rupert Cromwell's corpse the other day. Cassandra held a bottle of alcohol in one hand and prepared to stuff a cloth into it to make another cocktail while Duncan and the other soldier fired their guns at the windows and any Deadmen charging at them.

"O'Connor!" the third soldier shouted. "We know you're in there! Come out if you want to die peacefully!"

"What kind of negotiation is that?" Duncan asked.

"At least he's being honest," Cassandra chuckled. "The poor fucker is doomed no matter what he does. Either he dies in flames or he goes out in gunfire. His choice."

"Then I choose you," Aaron muttered quietly.

Cassandra lit the cloth, and a flame sparked inside the bottle of alcohol, preparing the weapon. However, Aaron quickly jumped up to the broken window frame and took a quick shot at the bottle, shattering the glass and sending fire raining down on the two of them. Cassandra and Duncan stumbled to the ground, both of them set ablaze and screaming in agony.

"Take no prisoners," Aaron muttered again but in a louder and more beastly voice. He returned to the window again and launched his knife at the third soldier, who was too distracted by his comrades' gruesomely slow deaths. The knife lodged into the soldier's jugular, and he fell on one knee as he tried to reclaim his quickly departing oxygen.

"Sorry, lads!" he heard Shaw's voice exclaim in the distance. Then the three dying soldiers disappeared in an explosion, their screams instantly ceasing.

"Holy shi—" Aaron tried to add before another explosion rattled the building. He saw the walls disintegrate into dust as he was sent flying into the stairwell. Ringing filled his hears as he tumbled down the stairs, each impact of his body against the steps leaving behind no pain. Half of the roof was gone, and fragments of the structure's materials buried into the room's surface and Aaron's skin.

"Search the area, lads!" Shaw declared. "But be careful. The whole place could come crashing down on top of us."

"And who's fucking fault is that?" Aaron muttered, laying on the ground.

Three pieces of shrapnel were impaled in his chest. He ripped two of them out but struggled with the third, as it was wedged between two of his ribs. The cracking noises he heard once he finally got it out probably didn't mean anything good, but his physical structure immediately began healing itself. He could feel the ribs shifting themselves back into their correct position and the skin patching itself together like a quilt being sewn.

With a tiresome groan, he pulled himself back onto his feet. He grabbed his handgun and glanced around the destroyed second floor. Down the hallway was a window with a direct view of the neighboring house's roof. His next stop.

The sound of footsteps rampantly drumming through the floor beneath him was the only motivation he needed. He ran to the window and jumped through the glass, the shards grazing his skin as he dove into the next building. Luckily for him, there was a wide hole in the side of its exterior, and he entered without any further harm aside from the cuts he received from the first window.

He looked back to see two other DZI officers arriving on the second floor of the previous structure and gunned them down before they could even spot him. Unfortunately, he realized he had alerted Shaw and the other DZI of his location by doing that.

"Why can't today be over already?" he asked himself.

He scanned the room around him. It looked like someone's man cave, made evident by the broken flatscreen TV, the pool table, and the rugby posters lining what remained of the wall. However, an axe lay on a table near the door leading back out into the hall. Aaron jogged over to it and studied it, noticing its nearly perfect condition, as if it had never been touched once.

Then the returning sound of footsteps banging around the house ended his train of thought. He slung the handgun on his back and brandished the axe, slowly traversing down the corridor to meet his next enemy.

"He's up here!" a female DZI soldier exclaimed.

Aaron waited for her to reach the top of the stairs before taking a swing, first colliding the blade with her cheek before dodging a hit from her own knife. Then he swung the blade against the side of her skull, burying the blade in her cranium and yanking it back out. She fell to the floor dead. Aaron didn't even bother stealing her ammo since she didn't even have any.

"Anderson?" another soldier called out from downstairs.

Aaron rushed down the stairs and found the next DZI officer. He dug the axe into the soldier's ribs and took another swing at his kneecap, the soldier collapsing to the ground like a falling tree. He finished him off by driving the axe up toward the soldier's chin, jamming it underneath his skull. Blood splashed his face as he pulled it back out.

"Timber," Aaron said, the soldier's death reminding him of American lumberjacks. "Yeah, too soon."

He ran through the side door. He was almost knocked to the ground after being shot in the ribs by a shotgun as another DZI soldier pursued him into the next building. A part of him hoped it was Shaw so he finally had an excuse to kill him.

"How are you not dead?" the soldier called out, pausing to stare at the massive wound Aaron received from his gun.

"Trust me," Aaron said quietly. "I'm wondering the same thing."

Once Aaron entered the next building, he flipped a table over to distract his pursuer. He pulled out his handgun and turned toward him, opening fire and blasting his chest to pieces. He didn't realize they were flanking him until after another DZI appeared from the other side of the house and restrained him. The soldier then proceeded to repeatedly stab Aaron in the chest and back. Even though it didn't hurt, the coldness of the blade as it entered and exited his flesh was very discomforting.

Much to the officer's surprise, Aaron didn't scream in pain like anyone else would. Aaron then slammed the back of his head against the officer's nose, knocking him back as blood began pouring out of his nostrils. He didn't even notice the axe driving straight toward his head. He crashed into the wall with the axe buried deep into his brain.

"You lousy bastards," Aaron heard Shaw. "Stop disappointing me!"

Now that Aaron was signaled once again to leave, he yanked on the axe and found himself only wielding the handle. The axehead was lost somewhere in that dead soldier's skull, sunken into a pool of blood and brain matter.

"That's fucking disgusting," Aaron winced as he glanced back and forth between the handle and where the axehead was lodged. He dropped the handle and sped for the nearest exit, reloading his gun as he prepared for another fight.

Sure enough he was greeted by gunfire and a few DZI soldiers wielding machetes and axes. He fired at those in the distance and used a brick to pummel the ones closest to him. Fortunately, he also had the aid of a swarm of hungry Deadmen as they ripped apart many of the DZI soldiers or at the very least distracted them long enough to give Aaron the chance to kill them.

He paused in the middle of one fight with a female DZI officer he had finished killing to see Schaefer and several other officers approach in APC's, bombarding him and the other Deadmen with more salvo. He was still surprised at how many times he had been shot without getting hit anywhere vital, this time receiving more wounds in his side and arms.

"You're not going anywhere!" Schaefer declared from his vehicle.

Aaron did what he does best and sprinted to a new hiding place. His clothes were riddled with bullet holes and ripped apart so horribly, the only reason they didn't fall off his body was because all the blood soaked into them made them cling to his skin like an adhesive. One of the last shots he received tore a hole through his cheeks and knocked the mask off. He moved too fast to retrieve it, so he continued his trek through the war-torn Dead Center without it as the hole in his face closed itself up.

As he approached the corner of an abandoned shop, a fist collided with his eye, knocking him to the ground. He stumbled around to regain his balance but froze in place after this new soldier stabbed a knife into his stomach. Aaron returned the favor by shoving him toward the wall of the building closest to him. His mouth was pressed against the soldier's neck as he continued forcing him toward the building's exterior, and he didn't realize he was only driving the knife deeper into his gut. But once he successfully had the man pinned against the wall, he pressed his handgun against the soldier's chest and pulled the trigger, emptying the magazine until his torso was nothing but a bloody pulp.

He pushed himself away from the dead soldier, not realizing he was biting into his neck. He felt something tear off as he moved away from the soldier, and he noticed a crude gash mark on the soldier's throat endlessly bleeding out. It only took him a few more seconds to realize the missing piece of the soldier's neck was in his mouth.

And it tasted better than anything he had ever eaten before in his life.