Pulling the dagger free, Abe spilled blood across the ground and steadied his feet. Twirling the stiletto around his hand, and almost dropping it in the process—Abe cast an embarrassed frown as he eyed the zombie.

The lashing tentacles flung around for a moment in anger before it charged toward him.

Narrowing on the monster Abe readied for its attack, but a feinting tentacle to his right made him flinch whilst another shot from his left, slamming into him and sending him flying toward the cavern wall.

“Fuck, that sucked,” Abe spat ichor and realigned his dizzy vision as the creature enclosed.

He had flown past two pillars of rock which the tentacle zombie climbed atop, arching over him as its tentacles perched to attack.

Abe rolled as the first slammed into where he had been sitting. A second tentacle crashed down on him a second later. 

No time to dodge.

Stabbing upward, he drove the stiletto up to where the mouth should open up with an angry roar, and thick, foul blood spilled down.

An echoing shriek blasted out from the remaining tentacles as they flailed above.

“That’s two down.” 

The two remaining tentacle arms shot toward him simultaneously—widening his eyes.

Instead of hitting—they bit into his flesh, the pin-like dagger teeth piercing his hardened flesh with ease.

They chomped down, removing chunks of flesh, and then retreated. Then swiped back down for follow-up attacks. Abe was ready this time, swinging out to counter them, but to his surprise, they were feinting attacks, and the weight of the zombie flung forward, crashing into him.

Atop him, the zombie pinned him to the ground whilst the tentacles slapped at bit at his sides.

“Dumb fuck,” Abe sneered as the dead, central zombie’s head rolled toward him, and he bit into it.  Crunching through the skull he found flesh in seconds and lapped up its insides.

The sweet, empowering taste against his tongue told him his assumption had been right. Unlike the weak mass of zombies above, this brain would replenish him and make him stronger.

Pushing against the zombie’s weight, he took advantage of the surge in strength from feeding and flung the zombie to the side. Bouncing over, he mounted it.

Picking a target—he ignored the others, letting them feed on him as he drove the dagger down, the tentacle pinned between his knees as he began to stab.

The tentacles paused a second to screech again before resuming their attack, and Abe responded by snatching one of them mid-attack and stabbing it through the mouth.

The last two screeched and tumbled, throwing Abe off as they propped the body up and tried to create distance.

They still appeared faster than Abe, but he leaped for them before any distance could be created, tackling one of the tentacles and stabbing it furiously.

The last whimpered and slowed, struggling to carry the weight of five dead tentacles and a zombie alone.

Abe almost pitied the pathetic sight as he charged it down, stomping on the tail end of the tentacle to halt its flight, pinning it down with his other leg, and stabbing the defensiveless tentacle until the body was completely still.

He could smell the sweet scent of brains on the tentacles, and by cutting the flesh behind their mouths, he found little brains. He consumed them all.

Within minutes he had healed, the missing chunks of flesh they had devoured growing back. And his muscles and senses tightened, the unmistakable sensation of growing stronger pumping through his veins.

He then checked the zombie mother’s head, but the brains had been entirely devoured.

“Oh, and they’re still here,” Abe grunted as he saw yellow eyes staring at him from the connecting tunnel. “Finally coming to defend your ugly ass mom?” he said, bounding down from the corpse. 

Behind it was another tunnel, marked by more sap.

Abe shrugged and walked through it. The zombies might be troublesome in large enough numbers, but they weren’t particularly quick.

 

Minutes went by as he climbed up the subtle incline, finally reaching another cavern sometime later. Supporting timbers ran along the entire tunnel, but he hadn’t wanted to risk damaging them whilst he was still inside—especially when he wasn’t too worried about the zombies catching up. However, it was probably best to keep them unground and out of trouble, so when he reached the cavern, he ripped several beams apart, kicking and pounding against walls they had been pressed against until cracks began to spread across it, and leaped back out of the cave.

Once outside, he continued striking around the cave as the cracks had petered out. A few minutes later, the tunnel began to cave in on itself.

“About time,” Abe shook his head as he walked away.

Sniffing the air, he caught the scent of more sap and followed the trail it made.

The zigzagging tunnels continued for quite some time before he emerged from a mountaintop cave—blanketed in snow. 

At the cave’s mouth were several crates, all also covered in snow, alongside a variety of discarded tools.

“They must have used this as well,” he remarked, scanning the opening. 

Pines and dark skeletal trees flanked the opening, whilst the front opened up to a cliff face overlooking the town. Several homes and what looked like an apartment block had been partially turned to rubble near the center of town.

“Well, it was already a shithole,” Abe shrugged, eyeing the destruction, and turned to the crates around him. “Doubt it was easy dragging all this shit up here,” he muttered, wiping away snow from the crates. “Machine parts and tools, from the looks of it.”

Abe turned his gaze to the snow-covered town, lights piercing through the dusting of snow falling upon it, “Almost looks peaceful from here… in a kind of shitty, rundown kind of way.”

His chest thumped as he turned to the mansion atop the hill, his hunger stirred as he sensed Miss Nia’s presence within.

Before his mind had even begun to tick, he was crunching through the snow toward it.

Lining the trees, crows squawked and fluttered away as Abe marched through the snow-covered floor, deeper into the forest.

The rhythmic crunching of paws through the snow followed, small figures on his periphery straightening their necks, twitching their ears, and then bounding closer.

They had small, beedy blue eyes glowing through the white forest—their sightest fastened on Abe.

Dogs? Abe tilted his head as the little figures got closer.

He turned. More to his left.

“Be good little dogs and stay the fuck away from me,” he hissed under his breath and continued toward the mansion with cautious steps.

Bounding closer, they stopped, tilted their heads, and closed in. Once within a few meters, they crouched low and growled.

Abe glanced back at them, noticing their patchy fur, exposed ribs, and the sections of their bodies where muscle and bone lay naked and exposed, skin either torn or rotted away.

“You’re not alive, are you,” Abe shook his head as he realized. 

Creepingly closer, their growls grew louder.

His hand tightened around the stiletto handle, whilst he stretched out his fingers and accompanying claws of his other.

“Come on then, you little bastards!”

Something moved in the distance and Abe’s gaze drifted up past the hounds, narrowing through the trees.

Glowing blue eyes stared back at him. The figure stood taller than any man he had ever seen, gowned in white robes.

Abe’s brow perked and the figure turned back into the forest.

The growls lowered to a hush, and gradually, the hounds began to backstep. Barking once or twice, the hounds turned and ran back into the forest.

Gradually, Abe straightened, his brow still arched as he watched them disappear.

“Okay,” he hummed, taking a backward step. “That works for me,” he tilted his head, half expecting a trick, but only silence fell across the forest, occasionally interrupted by the caw of a crow. 

Turning back to the manor, Abe to the occasional glance over his shoulder, but there was no sign of them returning.

 

Running the last hundred meters, Abe leaped over the rotting timber fence palings that lined the outer perimeter of the manor, and then found a crumbled section of inner wall to crouch through it.

Passing through the gardens, he took note of how the plants remained green, despite the thick blanket of snow shrouding them. Meeting the paved courtyard, he dashed the final distance to the front doors.

He was relieved and happy to have made it back to the manor.

Grasping his stomach, Abe grimaced.

Was he really past denying his transformation, ready to embrace the monster he had become?

He took the brass handle and pulled.

Creaking open, he stepped through and into the ornate, tiled foyer. 

Appearing from a rear door was the tuxedoed man from before, his face void of expression.

“So, you returned. Where is Elissa?”

“No idea,” Abe shook his head.

The man arched a brow, “Interesting. I presume you know your way back to the Kennels?”

Abe nodded.

“Good, see to it that Ricky cleans you up. The Mistress will no doubt want to hear of this.”

He nodded again and headed for the side door that led down toward the Kennels.

Something had been lost, and he wasn’t sure he cared. The intoxication of his transformation was too much for him to deny.