Harker clutched his head, disbelieving the conclusion he just came upon himself. But it was the only rational explanation.
"No…. Don't fucking tell me…."
Mina put a hand on his shoulder. "What is it? What's wrong?"
Harker gritted his teeth. "Victoria said she didn't know anything about the curse. And yet she knew about the zombies. This man's body was sent for research…."
The truth was hard to swallow, but he had to.
"What if…. There was never a curse? The zombies didn't appear because of G.G. Faust at all."
Chloe frowned. "What are you talking about? You said that as soon as you burned G.G. Faust's corpse, the zombies started going back to the cemetery—"
"But we don't even know for sure that it was G.G. Faust! It could have been some random zombie in a leather jacket that we have mistaken to be him!"
Everyone went silent. Something seemed to be tormenting Harker very deeply, down to his soul. And with the present events, that was more than understandable, but people would find it hard to understand him if he was under duress and not explain things clearly.
Mina tried her best to coax him. "It's fine, Harker…. Whatever has happened, we have put an end to it now. The other zombies were destroyed from the explosion of Victoria's lab and we knew the truth, so you can relax—"
"We can't relax. Not while Victoria is still alive." Harker slumped. "Can't you see? This is all my…."
Roland went by his side, only observing his friend until now. But when he heard him falter like that, he instantly knew what was going on.
"Harker…. Are you saying that it was Victoria that brought the zombies to life?" Roland concluded. "Not some curse or anything occult at all…."
"But using science and the SS cells you gave her."
Everyone's expression darkened at this, and the tension rose from the air. Now they understand.
Harker nodded slowly. "My mother's corpse was nothing but a skeleton at this point. The regeneration…. It made sense now if it was somehow due to enhancing my Shapeshifting cells. But that's not enough…"
He turned to the head of his mom, where a priest's mind resides. "The brain is the control center of all functions. Victoria specializes in neurology. She needed to insert brains in these SS-cell zombies first for them to be able to move."
This truly shocked them to the core, especially Chloe. All this time, she really thought it was G.G. Faust to blame.
She didn't know what SS cells were, but she knew enough to reach a certain conclusion.
"Were these cells…. also the ones that cured me when you gave me your blood?"
Mina, Roland, and Harker all nodded, confirming this. So in hindsight, this was also Harker's fault. The zombies appeared because of him, not by some ancient curse.
Still, it wasn't him to blame. It was that scientist.
"Look, you shouldn't feel guilty." She placed her hand on Harker's shoulder too. "This scientist…. Victoria…. She is the one who used your cells on corpses in Marble Cemetery. She was the one who put the brain of a criminal in our mother's head."
"Thanks, Chloe. But…" Harker sighed. "I dunno…just wished I learned the truth faster. I put you and others in danger because of it. I even almost got you killed."
The priest continued to recite prayers while sobbing, and Chloe just shoved her shoe on his mouth to shut him up.
"It's alright. None of us could have ever known all this at first glance. This is really fucked up." Chloe said.
None of them dared to scold her for cursing, because she was right. It really was a fucked up ploy by Victoria.
Harker agreed. " It was. They were the ones who cut off the hospital's electricity, and set the zombies free to feast on flesh and regenerate. My shapeshifting is based on DNA absorption after all. Then once the cops were about to arrive, they took the zombies back along with this pedo cannibal. She must be trying to have at least one of them to be sentient. "
"The timing was just right. We were at the hospital, and this priest was inside Mom's body, so we were fooled." His face darkened.
Had she been aware that this was Harker's mother and decided to place the freshest and arguably 'best' brain she had in store?
Or was it just a coincidence?
He thought Yan may even say 'fate'.
Harker couldn't help but think that if that was the case, then what a sickeningly cruel fate it was. Playing with his emotions and making him hope for nothing.
Roland patted him. "We'll find Victoria soon. She said she had placed a GPS on these zombies, right? We can reverse track it, see where the device that was tracking these chips were. I promise we'll find her before she makes any more zombies with SS cells."
Mina nodded. "The chip must have been in the brain, and would be protected by the flesh. We could pry it out of him right now."
Father Gerard squirmed as her long claws came to crack Jospehine Jone's skull open. As they drew closer…..
The pieces of flesh dispersed, like a hoard of ants that had their anthill be destroyed. They ran in different directions. One of them carried that small GPS chip.
"Get them!" Harker exclaimed, trying to take the chip.
But the flesh just disperse again to even smaller pieces to evade him. Every time people tried to grab them, they did this disperse and reconnect technique. They rushed out in all different directions, confusing them of where the chip was.
It was like that trick with the cups hiding a ball inside, and you have to guess which one had it as they shuffled so fast. Only that this was 100000x harder than that.
However, Harker's sharp eyes kept track of where the GPS chip was. He found the piece of flesh holding it, heading under the limousine.
"That bastard! He's trying to creep inside the engine!!"
And he was right, some of them were really aiming to hide inside the limousine's engine. They managed to get rid of the pesky pieces of flesh on time.
But some of them….
Went inside the mouths of the unconscious gasoline station manager and the cashier boy while they were distracted. It painted a pretty nasty and visceral picture that they never noticed, with the zombie's flesh crawling up like little parasites into someone else's.
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