Memories poured into Jake McIntosh's mind like acid, devouring and destroying everything in their path. The last thing he remembered was the old man and the noise that felt like it was tearing him apart cell by cell.
He heard the same noise now, and felt the same pain, though it was greatly reduced. He was pinned down to a flat surface, weighed down by metal that seemed to cover every inch of his deformed body.
And he was weak.
So weak.
The fatigue he felt reminded him of days back at Moorcroft; days when he had awoken after an indeterminate amount of time spent drugged and comatose. And it reminded him of waking for the first time after he had escaped the underground base, when starvation had attacked while he slept, debilitating even his extraordinary body.
Blood.
I need blood.
There was blood nearby. Jake could smell it. Warm blood, ripe with the stench of fear. Approaching him slowly.
He opened his eyes and found a spotlight burning into them painfully. It took a moment to adjust, and by then the other sense had kicked in. The new one that had been gifted to him by the blood of an Infected creature. He saw not with his eyes, but with his mind. Saw that he was in a vast space, and there were a handful of humans dotted around him, far away and indistinct.
And one that was standing right next to him.
Jake could not lift his head, couldn't move a muscle as the infernal sound poisoned him, but he was able to point his eyes towards the trembling scientist who stood inches away, holding a large needle that was buried deeply into Jake's arm.
The one that drugged me, Jake thought. The last person who had drugged him had their neck ripped open and their still-warm corpse desecrated. That had been when he had been human; back when he had been plain old Jake McIntosh, version 1.0. He dearly wanted to do much, much worse to the man who trembled alongside him now, but the wall of noise prevented it.
A bright star of fury went supernova in Jake's mind when he felt the blood being pulled from his arm, and he stared at the human, wishing with every corner of his dark soul that his hatred could kill.
And then he heard something else. Something that rode above the painful low noise that held him in agonising stasis. The clattering of gunfire.
And suddenly the world was dark, and the terrible noise had ceased.
Freedom.
For a fraction of a second Jake wondered if he might be too weak to escape the metal prison that pinned him down, but fury fuelled him, and he tore the steel manacles and chains that had pinned him apart, tossing them aside like confetti.
He knocked the scientist to the floor before the man’s face had even registered surprise, and paused for a moment as dim red lights flicked on, illuminating the group of human soldiers who surrounded his prison, pointing their pathetic weapons at him.
Jake laughed in delight as he saw the bullets floating toward him, drifting in his direction like feathers carried on a soft breeze. Avoiding them—even in his weakened state—was no more challenging than blinking or drawing in his next breath.
When the roar of the weapons gave way to confused, delectable whimpering and the frantic click of pointless reloading, Jake pinned the scientist to the floor, and felt the human’s heart beat once—a single glorious, deliciously terrified pulse—before Jake tore away the man's right leg and consumed it.
Energy flowed through his deformed veins, lighting him up like a city at night.
The man's screams were almost as delicious as his blood.
Jake heard retreating, scrambling footsteps as the soldiers beyond the cage took the only option left to them and ran.
Heard a human voice screaming lock it!
Another voice responding that it was impossible; that there was no power.
He smiled. No lock could hold him in any case. Not now that he had fed. And now that he understood the weapon they had used against him, no human would get another chance to use it again. Ever.
The human beneath his foot writhed and screamed as his body's precious fuel pumped out of the torn stump that had been his right leg seconds earlier.
Jake allowed himself a moment to drink it in; savouring the man’s agony like it was his first kill all over again, the one that had confirmed to him that he was different to everybody else. The one that told him he was something better, long before his body evolved and transformed belief into undeniable fact.
He stooped, until his face was inches away from the screaming man's pudgy mask of unhinged panic, and took a wrist in each of his huge hands. When he extended the man's arms fully, he saw horrified awareness replace the fear and pain that twisted his pitiful face.
"The old man," Jake rumbled. "Where is the old man?"
"On another ship," the scientist wailed.
"We're on a ship?"
"Yes, yes! Sullivan is with the main fleet."
Jake leaned even closer, until his face was almost touching the scientist's. He licked his deformed lips slowly before speaking.
"Where?"
"F-f-five miles east of here. Please, I-"
Jake ripped the man's arms away, taking an enormous bite from one and shuddering in ecstasy at the power the warm meat sent coursing through him.
There was more meat nearby. No need to gorge himself on this one.
He looked at the scientist's other arm for a moment; dangled it in front of the man's horrified face so he could see what had been done to him, and cackled when he saw the broken insanity boiling in the man's eyes.
So much fun.
Slowly and deliberately, Jake inserted the scientist's dismembered limb into his own mouth, forcing it down into his throat so that he too might understand just how delicious his flesh tasted.
As he filled the man's throat with his own arm, Jake doubted very much that the man understood.
But he did stop screaming.