Corbin sits alone in the waiting room of the police station. His tired, bandaged body is slumped over lifelessly with his head hanging. In his hand, he holds a piece of paper: a missing person's flyer with two young women's pictures printed on them.
"You are related to this lass with the short blonde hair, right?"
Lieutenant Faisal walks over and sets a cup of hot tea on the small table next to Corbin, trying his best to speak in a consoling voice. Corbin nods slowly without lifting his eyes, the paper scrunches in his grip. He recalls having tried to reach Colette the night after Lilia's murder to deliver the dreadful news, but Colette never answered her phone or returned his call, and now he knows why.
"The other person has been identified as her flatmate. Neither of them have been seen since the Halloween Festival last weekend. Somebody in the flatmate's band reported her missing when she didn't answer her call or show up for three days. Both of their mobile phones have gone completely dead, and a search of their apartment indicated no activities there over the past week."
"Are they...? Is Colette...?"
Corbin responds in a low, shaky voice, eyes still on the ground. Faisal slowly shakes his head.
"We don't know if she is dead or alive. But the timing and the fact that she was friends with our murder victim lead us to believe the two cases are related. We will be investigating these cases together. We'll find out who's behind it, and we'll find your sister, alive."
The 30-something police lieutenant pats the dejected young man's shoulder. Corbin shifts his body slightly, glances up, first at the lieutenant, and then past the lieutenant up at the wall clock. He slowly rises to his feet.
"Pardon me, sir..."
He offers a slight bow to the officer, then turns to leave.
"I have to go pick up my son."
Lieutenant Faisal gazes upon the back of the departing young man with a look of sympathy.
In the dark, cold cellar of Jericho, Mother Rahab stands with the umbrella in one hand for support, in the other hand holding a stopwatch.
"One minutes thirty seconds."
She declares to the rapid moving figure in the shadow, which comes to a stop as the nun presses the stop button.
"This is better than the last run."
"Why are we doing so much running? Aren't you supposed to be teaching me how to hunt Rippers?"
Kazelle steps out of the shadow, wearing a black sports bra and black leggings, along with a pair of heavy-set black metal-studded leather boots. Her raven-black hair is tied into a ponytail with a streak running over her ocean-blue eyes, but without a drop of sweat or gasp for air.
"What? Are you tired?"
"Strangely, no."
"No, of course not. You're dead. The dead doesn't feel fatigue, doesn't gasp for air, and certainly doesn't get to complain about the way I choose to enforce my training."
"I'm sorry."
"But if you must know: I'm building up your speed, your agility, your combat skills- all without the limit imposed by human fatigue. These are all abilities you should possess before you should even think about confronting a Ripper, especially one of the Alphas."
"What's an Alpha?"
"The Alphas possess abnormal abilities. What kind of abilities and how they got them? I'm not entirely sure. But hopefully with your help I can find out. Here, come over here..."
Mother Rahab gestures for Kazelle to follow as they approach one of the walls.
"You've done all the speed runs, agility training, evasive maneuvers, hand and kick strike exercises with the sandbags for the past week..."
"I've been training in this blackhole nonstop for one week?!"
"Yes. Why do you think I keep leaving in the middle of your exercises? I need sleep. I need to eat. You don't. Now hush and listen... all that was just stage one. Now it's time we move on to stage two: a real combat exercise."
"Real combat?"
Kazelle glances over at the elderly nun dubiously.
"With whom? You?"
Rahab snorts again, and jabs at a switch on the wall with the tip of her umbrella. A light flashes on, causing Kazelle to squint momentarily. As Kazelle begins adjusting to the sudden blaze, she gradually makes out the scene before her:
Against a well-lit section of the wall, there is a transparent panel, revealing a padded room. Inside the hollowed space, a muscular, middle-aged man with ash-gray skin complexion sits in a chair bolted to the floor, his arms and legs tightly restrained by leather straps. His head twitches about, mouthing something inaudible. His bulging, fiery red eyes darting about wildly, glancing several times in her direction but apparently without seeing her. He wears an eerie grin that crawls up to the edge of his thin, long lips, as if trying to stifle a laughter from hearing a funny joke.
"Who...?"
Kazelle turns to the nun incredulously.
"Who the hell is this?! How long has he been here?!"
"His name is Nikolai Murgov."
Rahab explains plainly, looking straight ahead at her bound prisoner without a slight change in her tone or expression.
"Or should I say, a genetically-engineered clone of Nikolai Murgov... You see, the real Murgov was a convicted child rapist-murderer. He once set an orphanage on fire, and snatched up any orphans who escaped from the blaze and..."
"Okay, okay, I get it. What the hell is he doing in there?"
"Like I said, this is a clone. The real Murgov was captured after that incident with the orphanage. He was sentenced and then executed by lethal injection."
"So why do you have a... clone of a serial child rapist-murderer strapped up in there?"
"So you can kill him."
"Me? You want me to kill him?"
"He is... was a known member of the Rippers Society. You'll need to complete this test if you want to hunt Rippers."
"This guy looks... dangerous."
Kazelle steps forward and places a hand on the glass, a sense of unease looming over her as she watches the man struggling savagely to break free.
"Do you have the syringe?"
"This thing?"
Kazelle pulls it out from her sports bra, where she had it tucked between her cleavage in a small plastic case.
"This will be your key to defeating the Rippers."
"What is it, anyways? You called it the... the z-formula?"
"The z-serum. Simply put: it contains a genetically-modified strain of a certain necrotizing virus."
"So this is some kind of poison? Do I stab him with it?"
"It's not for him. It's for you."
Seeing the bewildered look in Kazelle's eyes, Mother Rahab continues:
"The original strain of the virus causes necrosis- cell death and the decay of body tissue. But I've managed to uncover another function of this virus- the alteration of genetic sequences in the neuron that temporarily stimulates synaptic activities ten to twenty-fold, causing an exponential spike in the host's strength, speed, and reaction time, before crashing and causing rapid deterioration in all major organs and body functions."
"..."
Kazelle stares at Mother Rahab, furling her brow and pursing her lips in silence.
"You didn't understand what I said, did you?"
"I'm sorry, but I studied music production in college, not bio... chemical- whatever this is."
Rahab draws a deep breath and puts a hand to her chin, pondering how to further simplify her explanation.
"In layman's terms: It will make you stronger and faster. But it will also make you go crazy. And it will make your body decay faster. It'll basically turn you into a zombie weapon."
"So I use it once, kill him, and then I die?"
"Unless..."
Mother Rahab taps her skull with a finger.
"You can negate the effects of the neural crash, by eating his brains."
"Eat his brains? So you want to turn me into a real zombie?"
"Or a ghoul, whatever the term you prefer. But yes, it's the only way to prevent your body from decaying, regardless of whether or not you use the z-serum. See, look for yourself..."
At Mother Rahab's prompt, Kazelle examines her own body up and down and observes chunks of skin starting to peel off, revealing decaying flesh and muscles underneath. Alarmed, she places a hand on the nearest wound. Why hasn't she felt it?
Rahab studies her reaction for a moment, then, reaching up with the tip of her umbrella, taps on another button, causing the restraints on the man behind the invisible barricade to snap off. He immediately springs to his feet and slams his palms against the transparent panel, pressing his face menacingly against the glass, his wild eyes peering into the darkness beyond.
"Now then, I think that's enough explanations. It's time to commence the next stage."
"Wa... wait a minu...!"
Before Kazelle can object, Rahab presses another button with her umbrella. With a deafening, whirring sound, the transparent panel begins to split open down the middle. Before it has barely opened a slit, Murgoz quickly squirms through like a gigantic cockroach and hurls himself towards Kazelle. An unrestrained wail escapes his wide, drooling grin, his red eyes filled with wild bloodlust.
Kazelle instinctively jumps back to avoid his initial attempt at seizing her. Her nonstop, week-long training has driven it into her like second nature. She continues to evade as the wild man throws himself at her again and again, slowly backing herself into the opposing wall.
"This won't do. You must go on the attack against the likes of him."
Sensing her peril, Kazelle raises her fists in front of her face with her back to the wall. But before she can secure her defensive stance, Murgov has driven himself into her ribs, slamming her against the stone wall and knocking her to the ground. Before Kazelle can react, Murgov quickly mounts her belly and savagely tears at her sports bra, giggling wildly, a glop of drool plopping on the tattoo over her left breast.
Kazelle has no choice now. She tries to fend off the eager predator with one hand, and with the other seizes a hold of the syringe and plunges it into her arm, instantly injecting the content, and immediately starts twitching out of control,
The next moment, Murgov is sent flying across the room, crashing into the chair from which he escaped and shattering it into splinters.
Kazelle slowly rises to her feet, hanging her head and making no attempt to cover the torn garment exposing her breasts and tattoo. From under her dangling black hair, she lets out a low-toned growl, her eyes a bloodshot red, glaring straight ahead at Murgov, her mouth foaming with blood and saliva, more skin and flesh can be seen peeling off her face and body.
Murgov, seemingly unaware- or unbothered- by the sudden changes to his prey, climbs to his feet and quickly dashes forward again.
The next moment, there was a splatter of blood against the wall.
Murgov stumbles back, screaming wildly, holding a stump where his right arm used to be. Kazelle stands where she was, holding in her hand a severed arm, gnawing on a chunk of flesh from the detached muscle fibers.
Murgov prepares to make another attempt to charge, but hesitates for a moment. That moment was all Kazelle needed: She quickly dashes forward like a bolt of lightning, seizes the supposed predator by the skull, and slams it full force against the wall.
With a grotesque thud, Murgov's skull cracks open like a melon, smearing the wall with bloody brain matter. His arms twitch for a moment and then goes limp. Kazelle doesn't let up. She bashes the fractured skull against the wall again and again, until the head is shattered like a rotten pumpkin and barely recognizable.
With her hand smeared in blood, she lets the headless body slump to the ground. She stoops down and starts gnawing away at the loose chunks of brain that have been scattered about by the brutal impact, slurping up both flesh and blood indiscriminately.
"I would say this was a successful test."
Mother Rahab steps forward with a hint of pride in her raspy voice. Kazelle glares up at her and grinds her teeth, her bloodshot eyes filled with something inhuman.
"Lost yourself, haven't you. That was to be expected..."
Rahab assesses calmly as Kazelle slowly rises to her feet and bares her bloodstained teeth at the elderly nun, who holds the tip of her umbrella up to the semi-conscious undead woman and presses a button on the handle, discharging a sparkling volt with a loud buzzing sound.
Kazelle lets out a monstrous roar, staggers backward, and falls into the pool of blood, motionless.
"The second stage is complete, Gothic Ghoul."
Just outside of Eastend Primary School, Corbin is leaning against the concrete wall of a nearby building, listening to somebody frantically speaking on his mobile phone.
"Don't worry... I'm working with the local police department on it. We'll find her. Yes... they have a team working on it..."
As he ends the call, he draws a deep breath and rubs his eyes, slumping against the wall: His dear parents reacted to his sister's disappearance as he expected they would. He had assured them that she was alive but he was sure they could tell in his voice that he himself was not convinced.
He feels a heaviness coursing through his whole body and soul, as if weighed down by concrete. But he would have to steel himself. School would be out soon, and he would need to put on a lively face for Iley...
Speaking of which, a chorus of excited shouts and chatter can be heard as uniformed schoolchildren flood out of the main entrance. He spots Iley with some of his friends, and strolls over with his hands in his pocket, forcing a smile on his face.
"How was school today, Iley?"
Iley sees him and bids his friends goodbye, scampering over excitedly.
"Mister Corbin! Guess what? We had a special guest today who brought a giant lizard! It had eyes like this and a tongue that goes like..."
Iley props open his eyes wide and mimics the slithering motion of the reptile's tongue. Corbin chuckles lightly.
"Did it really look like that? Did you get to touch it?"
Iley shakes his head as Corbin leads him by the hand.
"No, the guest speaker said if everyone touched it the lizard would get really stressed, and he might bite somebody. And, Mister Corbin...?"
"Yes, my boy?"
Iley glances about and lowers his eyes to the ground.
"When will mum come back? I want her to hear about the giant lizard..."
"She's... well... mum will be away for a bit longer... but I'll be sure to tell her about it when I get the chance..."
Corbin grits his teeth under his forced smile, struggling within himself not to crack, fighting the urge to pour out the dreadful truth to this small innocent boy, telling himself over and over again that Iley isn't ready for it...
"Say, Iley. Why don't we go for some ice cream?"
Corbin leads the boy away by the hand, trying his best to hide the look of pain on his face.
