When Shermaine arrived at the floor where the screams had come from, she was hit by the overwhelming stench of blood.
The only thing she saw was a nurse – her face clawed beyond recognition, with a gaping bite wound at her neck. Blood sprayed in rhythmic bursts from the gaping injury.
Shermaine immediately knelt down to check for signs of life, but it was too late. The nurse was already dead. Her phone was still blaring with the alert from GPS.
She glanced at the screen, and the system had just updated the target’s location. The infected woman was now in the adjacent inpatient building, moving steadily upstairs. Shermaine didn’t know who the next victim might be.
As other medical staff rushed to the scene, Shermaine sprinted toward the inpatient ward.
Meanwhile, in the inpatient ward, Jameson was finally starting to feel better, and his appetite had returned. But with surgery coming up, he wasn’t allowed to eat anything and could only sip some water. Bored, he sat in front of the TV, watching the morning news.
He was already thinking about what came next. ‘After this surgery is done, I should head back to Basterel. I’ve got to patch things up with Shermaine and the rest.
‘As for Jason, I’m done with that ungrateful brat. How dare he call the cops on me? What does Natalie’s disappearance have anything to do with me? What could I possibly do to her when I’m this sick?’
The more Jameson dwelled on it, the more furious he became. Just as he lifted his glass of water, a stomach-turning stench hit him. He glanced toward the door – and nearly went into cardiac arrest.
There, half-hidden in the corner, stood a shadowy figure. Her long, claw-like nails glistened with fresh blood which was pattering softly onto the floor.
Jameson choked with fear, his voice quivering. “Wh–who… who are you?”
“Jameson, if I can’t live in peace, neither will you!” she snarled. Her voice was rasping and rough, yet it stabbed his eardrums like glass splinters. With that, Natalie cracked her neck and lunged at him at a terrifying speed.
When Shermaine arrived, Jameson was cowering under the bed in terror, while Natalie, with her messy hair, relentlessly pursued him.
Natalie wrenched the hospital bed clean off the ground and hurled it aside with terrifying strength, leaving him with nowhere left to hide.
Jameson was shaking uncontrollably. “I–I’ve never wronged you. Please leave me alone!” Spotting Shermaine, he screamed desperately, “Sheary, quickly save me!”
At the sight of Shermaine, Natalie’s hatred flared into something far stronger than what she felt for Jameson. She thought bitterly, ‘If it weren’t for Shermaine, I wouldn’t be in this mess.’
With a guttural roar, Natalie shifted her target and lunged straight at Shermaine. Shermaine slammed the door in Natalie’s face hard, trapping her hand between the hinges and causing her to let out a raw, animalistic scream.
The mutated virus may have made her stronger, but it also heightened her sensitivity to pain. And right now, the pain was excruciating.
‘My hand hurts like hell!’ Natalie thought and flew into a rage. With one furious punch, she smashed the door to splinters. With bloodshot eyes, she shrieked madly, “I’ll kill you!”
But killing Shermaine required more than just shouting.
Even though she seemed a lot more formidable now, she was all brute force and no skill. Hence, she couldn’t even graze the hem of Shermaine’s clothes, let alone get anywhere near her.
Shermaine, by contrast, stood perfectly still. Her gaze was intense and piercing – like a predator watching its prey make a fatal mistake. With every passing second, the feeling that she was the prey only grew stronger for Natalie.
At that moment, a middle-aged woman stepped out of a nearby ward – and froze in horror at the sight unfolding before her.
Natalie, already agitated, was enraged by the unexpected presence. She lashed out, throwing her claws toward the woman.
“Get down! Don’t let her touch you!” Shermaine shouted.
The woman dropped to the floor, slammed the door shut with a bang, and hastily locked it. After that, she gasped internally, her legs turning to jelly.
Meanwhile, Shermaine swiftly grabbed a fire hose from the cabinet beside the hallway, looped it into a noose, flung it over Natalie, tightened it, and with a sharp tug, yanked her to the other side.
Just then, Steve burst out of the elevator with some items in his hands and tossed them toward Shermaine. “Dr. Jean, here’s tranquilizer. This stuff can put down an elephant. And here, your gloves.”
Shermaine caught it with perfect precision, slipped on the white gloves without missing a beat, and walked toward Natalie, completely unfazed.
Natalie panicked. She bolted for the window, leapt through it, and in the blink of an eye vanished down a sewer entrance. Once again, she was gone without a trace.