Dr. Reed moved towards the door.

“Stop!” Zac yelled, though he couldn't have said why.

The woman paused and glanced at him.

He shook his head quickly. “Don't... don't go alone.”

“Why not?”

“I...” memory teased. The smell of burning flesh, gunpowder, fresh turned scorched earth. Blood. So much blood you tasted it when you breathed. “Am I the only... specimen... you have?”

“What's it to you?” Alex asked, his question punctuated by the sound of the chilling laughter growing closer.

Zac ignored Alex. “Am I?”

Both humans drew closer together as the sound approached. Some instinct made them pull closer to the nearest warm, living body. If Zac were free to move he'd have done the same, even though the nearest warm, living bodies had only briefly paused in torturing him.

“There is one other specimen,” Dr. Reed announced. “It was found in an abandoned construction site after a violent incident. Although it was reported to be the aggressor, it appeared to be deceased at the time of capture.”

“What does it look like?”

“You know something, freak?” Alex demanded. “Spit it out.”

The laughter stopped. There was no sound, not even breathing. The two humans had frozen like rabbits before a wolf. Zac had stopped breathing because the sudden silence had finally triggered the memory.

He knew what was coming. He knew that laugh. He'd last heard it on a battlefield a century ago. He and his squad had come across the aftermath of a skirmish. At least, that's what they thought. There were bodies everywhere, piles of them, enemy mixed with ally, most of them torn limb from limb. There was a thing on the battlefield. A man in form, but enormous, armed only with its bloodied hands. It had laughed, and turned, and Zac remembered falling to his knees in fear. It had dropped a mangled corpse onto a pile of mangled corpses, taken a step, and vanished.

Zac and his squadron had searched the bodies for any survivor, ally or enemy. They found one boy, who died in Zac's arms, crying from empty eye sockets. He'd said only one word.

He'd begged for his mother.

A few other survivors staggered at the edges of the field. They never spoke, only screamed. Most killed themselves before dawn. The rest died of their wounds in field hospitals, no matter how hard the medics fought to save them.

The laughter was the same. Was it the same creature? Impossible. Or not. Zac had later learned the creature was a revenant, feeding off the pain and fear of war. The things were nigh invincible, immortal, basically unstoppable killing machines.

“Run!” Zac screamed.

It was too late. The thing appeared as if it melted out of the shadows themselves. It just stood there, looming over the tiny scientist, with no signs of having taken a single step to move next to her. It was massive, human in shape but in no way human. Or perhaps, human in the worst ways. It easily towered seven feet high, maybe more. Broad shoulders shook with deep, chilling laughter. It wore a tattered, long coat in the style of an old blacksmith. A deep hood obscured its facial features into misty darkness; only fiery red eyes glared out from the void. The sleeves trailed off, ripped halfway down the forearms to reveal leathery, muscled arms, pitted iron manacles around each wrist, and fists each the size of a ham.

The scientist followed Zac's petrified gaze up at the creature.

“Impossible... this specimen was deceased,” she muttered. “I conducted a necropsy myself.”

“Run!” Zac shouted at her. He really didn't even know why. It wasn't like she stood a chance. Not now that that thing had its attention locked to her.

The creature lifted both hands, and wrapped them around the woman's upper arms. It lifted, holding her straight out in front of its body. It carried her deeper into the lab.

“Stop right there!” Alex, who, honestly Zac had forgotten about for a moment, stepped forward with a gun balanced in his hands. “Put her down.”

The creature looked down at Alex, right into his eyes, and laughed. Alex emptied his gun, every bullet into its face. Not for a moment did it pause in its laughter. It then strolled over to the wall, with the woman held out before it. Impressively, not one of Alex's shots had even clipped her.

“If you've more bullets,” Zac said to him, “perhaps shoot the woman.”

“Shut it, freak!” Alex snapped.

“You'd be doing her a favor," Zac said.

“What is that thing?” Alex demanded.

He was frantically trying to reload his pistol with shaking hands. Zac was a little surprised how amusing he found that sight. Wasn't nice, huh? Being so afraid? He glanced back at the creature.

The creature held the woman against the wall with one hand, while the other reached out blindly until it found a long, metal pole that had once supported a mannequin. The metal pole was forced, slowly, agonizingly, through the woman's upper chest. It wouldn't pierce anything immediately lethal. The creature knew what it was doing. No quick death for the scientist.

Zac was more shocked to find that he pitied her.

The woman soon dangled from the wall like a butterfly pinned in a collection.

“It's a revenant. A slasher,” Zac informed Alex. “I witnessed the aftermath of one in the war.”

“Which war?”

“Great War. The War That Couldn't Even End All Wars for a whole freaking decade. That one.” Zac tugged at his bonds as the woman shrieked. It burned, but he still struggled. Why did her screams trouble him so, when his hadn't affected her in the least? “I saw one such creature decimate an entire battlefield. Left broken corpses and madmen behind. Ripped them apart slowly. Left them to bleed on the ground, buried under the mutilated bodies of comrades and enemies both. It didn't care for sides, just pain, and fear.”

“You have weaknesses,” Alex snarled, emptying his gun into the back of the creature's head with exactly as much effect as it had had before. None. “It must have them, too. What are they?”

“I'm not like that thing.” Zac paused. Made an offer even he barely believed. “I can fight it, though. Let me loose. I'll... I'll try to save her.”

If he weren't so hurt, maybe, maybe with the blood trance he could promise the woman her life. As it was? He could kill her quickly and possibly give the rest a chance at escape.

“Yeah, right,” Alex snorted, and picked up a massive knife from the nearest table. “You'll just run away. Or join forces with it!”

Zac cursed him loudly and in every language he knew; which was quite a few. He cursed as Alex rained useless blows down on the slasher. He cursed as the slasher turned and pawed through the various carts, choosing needles, scalpels, forceps, all manner of implements. He laid them out on a tray next to the woman, and caressed her face. She screamed. Huh. She knew a few languages too.

Alex tried to punch the creature in the face. It batted him away. Alex slashed at its wrists with a scalpel as it picked up a handful of syringes.

“Let me go!” Zac screamed at him.

He could fight it. He could. He couldn't win, not likely, but damn it, this was killing him. Okay, no, the iron even still burning new definitions of pain into his flesh was killing him but... but this. Damned creature had made sure he could see it all, too. It could have chosen a wall out of his view.

Alex was reduced to punching the thing's back as it shoved the syringes one after another into the woman's flesh, pumping her veins full of who knew what was in there. She shrieked, pain and rage and terror mixing with the sound of the thing's dark laughter. Alex was literally hanging from its arm as it reached for a pair of forceps and started pulling out her teeth.

“RELEASE ME YOU DAMNED FOOL!” Zac screamed.

The creature paused, and glanced back at Zac. Zac froze, looked into those fiery pits. Tears leaked freely down his face. It wasn't the same monster. It wasn't. But it could have been. It looked at him, and he could feel it smile. He heard the forceps clatter to the ground. It threw Alex in Zac's general direction, and grabbed the scalpel Alex had dropped.

Zac closed his eyes then. He couldn't close his ears. He heard the woman's screams of profanity become incoherent shrieks, and then moans, and then whimpers. And finally, finally silence. He heard Alex throw up several times, and then get up to throw himself at the creature time and again. Zac shocked himself by admiring the courage that took.

After there had been nothing but silence for some minutes, Zac heard footsteps approach. He waited.

“Are you alive?” Alex's voice asked. “Or did the iron finally kill you?”

Zac let his eyes open and wished he hadn't. The creature was gone; probably melted back into the darkness after doing its work. The woman was very, very dead. Needles and syringes poked out from her flesh. One eye was gone, the other stared out into the room blindly. One of her arms lay on the ground several feet away. Cuts desecrated her skin all over, tracing her skeleton. Bit of glass, oh, those were microscope slides, had been pressed into her face and neck.

Alex looked wrecked. Vomit covered the floor and his shirt. Blood covered his hands. He was probably almost as bruised as Zac, as many times as he'd been tossed.

“Can you... could you have really. Killed it?” Alex asked.

“Maybe,” Zac said.

“That's not good enough!” Alex kicked at the table holding Zac.

Zac met his eyes. “You did not listen when it would have mattered.”

“How do I know if I let you go you won't get revenge for...”

“For betraying me? For hurting me for no damned reason?” Zac snarled. “You don't. But I won't. Because I am not a monster.”

Alex paced back to the scientist's remains. Returned to Zac's side. Grabbed Zac by the hair and lifted his head slightly. Zac looked into his eyes. Saw such fear. Helpless as he was, Alex still feared him.

“You... you thought we were friends," Alex spoke, voice barely above a whisper.

“Yeah," Zac admitted. He felt like a fool for it.

“I was planning this," Alex told him. "Since I figured out what you were. That you were too old to be just a student. That you couldn't be human.”

Zac wondered what had given him away, but didn't bother to ask. At this point, it no longer mattered.

“You'd let that thing do that to me, wouldn't you?” Alex pointed towards the woman's corpse.

“No.” Zac said. “I might not be capable of stopping it. But I will try.”

“Why?” Alex asked.

Zac wished he had an answer. But he didn't. All he knew was that let free, he would fight the creature. Perhaps just because such monstrosities must be fought.

Alex asked. “Why would you make an offer like that?”

Zac said. “I'm dying. My options now, are die on my feet trying to save the bastards who tortured me, or die on my back slowly and agonizingly by iron poisoning. While I listen to that thing kill everyone around me, and wonder if it's coming for me next.” Zac paused. “For some fool reason I would prefer the former. But. It's your choice. Friend.”

Alex released Zac's hair, slamming the back of his head into the metal. Zac hissed at renewed pain and waited to be abandoned.

Screams tore through the silence.

“That's Jacob!” Alex yelped.

“Who?” The name sounded familiar.

“The kid! He's just a damned kid!” Alex's voice wavered between a whisper and a scream.

Zac stared at him. Glanced at the corpse, and back. He didn't bother to speak.

Alex pulled a key from his pocket. Unlatched Zac's wrists, and stepped back. Zac was quick to free himself from the straps; they weren't locked only looped over little hooks on the side of the table. It hurt to grab the straps but who cared? He rolled off the table and landed on all fours. At his enemy's feet like an animal.

He didn't thank Alex. Some things he could not do.

“Your back...” Alex's voice trailed off.

Zac crawled to his feet. “The scream came from that way.” He looked around. Nothing here would be a weapon for him; everything was designed to hurt him. Oh, wait. The obsidian knife. He took that from the tray. It'd break on first use, but it was better than nothing.

“How are you even standing?” Alex asked.

Zac bared his teeth, “I do what I have to do.”