Chapter 7 - 06: Humanity and Tragic Ends (1/2)

It's been about a few minutes since Alice arrived on the scene looking at the helicopters in the skies and news crews from who knows where to surround the cemetery with only a perimeter of police officers to stop them from trespassing on the horrifying scene.

Before Alice could begin her approach Jacob, her partner, hurriedly jogs toward her with his calm but easily seen through face, as she's just about to exit her car. He stops and looks around before leaning closer and saying, ”OK Alice look, The Assistant FBI Director wants to talk to you and right now he's pissed as all hell so I don't think it's a good idea to keep him waiting any longer.”

As they walk together through the crew Alice could finally see the officers keeping guard of the perimeter who let them through once they flashed their badges. Once they made it through the perimeter it was like a scene from a movie, all of the graves were and crypts were destroyed and broken as if people fought their way out of them. When she looked toward Jacob he kept a straight face as if not trying to look at the graves as sweat dripped down his face.

After walking past several FBI agents investigating and gathering samples from the surrounding area they finally met up with the Assistant FBI Director, James Mattheson. He was standing in front of six agents giving them orders when he heard Alice and Jacob approaching from behind him. He turned around and said, ”Ok people meeting over with you have your assignments, so get to them.”

As the six FBI agents walked off in separate directions Mattheson said, ”Bout damn time you arrived. Alice, I need you to head to the 2nd police precinct to interrogate the four survivors. I and the top brass believe that as soon as they arrived on the scene where the unidentified flying object landed they and the groundskeeper were ambushed by an unknown group.”

Alice listening to Mattheson looks around at all the empty graves and asks, ”Ok you also want me to ask them about the graves because for an unknown group to dig out graves 7 feet under and to breakout of stone crypts that seems a bit strange don't you think?”

Mattheson looked around and leaned closer and said, ” Look we're still confused about this whole situation as well. When we arrived here the four survivors were in shock talking about the walking dead and skeleton. Our first assumption was they were in shock or under the effects of a hallucinogen so that's why we're having you and Jacob go talk to all four of them once they calm themselves down.”

As Mattheson finished speaking to Alice and Jacob he received a phone call and from the look of the stress on his face it was no good. After listening to what the other person on the phone had said he snapped, both Alice and Jacob looked shocked and bewildered as they heard Mattheson yelling about a brother who was found shot dead in his home.

At the moment Jacob felt sympathetic towards Mattheson as he too had lost his brother a few months back to a robbery gone wrong, But unlike Jacob Alice felt a shiver go down her back as what little information she had gotten from Mattheson's yelling she couldn't help but feel as if the actions of her mother and his brother's murder was one and the same.

As Mattheson walks away toward the more private area of the crime scene Alice and Jacob begin their walk back to their cars to begin their long night of interrogating the four survivors. After both Alice and Jacob had split to go to their cars Alice grabbed her phone from her back pocket and dial a number. On the other end was the voice of a calm Alexia who had said, ”Hello.”

”Mom, I believe things have gotten more complicated,” Alice says while giving Mattheson one last glance before leaving the parking lot of the graveyard.

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It's been a day since John and his horde had entered the sewer system of Hornbrew city through the sewer entrance a mile from the graveyard. It was an almost silent march if not for the m.o.a.ns and shuffling of his horde.

John could have gave them sentience but chose to hold off on that until he could fully understand his limits. As far as he could understand he could see and sense all that is alive and dead through his undead army even when they are a vast distance away.

He tested his control with his undead as he willed his zombie dogs to scout far and wide throughout the sewer system while remembering and mapping out the tunnels as he let them scout the nooks and crannies. Within hours he had almost half of the entire sewer system of Hornbrew city mapped out along with the locations of several medium-sized homeless camps that he ordered his dogs to go around until he could make them a part of his legion without survivors letting the surface know him and his army of undead.

It took John a while to find a base of operations that he came to call The Grave Center. It was a huge open space in the shape of a circle with an 80-meter radius from the center with only one entrance which stood behind John and his horde. It looked as if the area hadn't been used in years as the pipes that ran parallel and a few that crossed over giving it a steampunk vibe as all of the pipes converged to the center of the ceiling through a hole leading to the newer tunnels.

When Hornbrew city had gone through its first wave of renovations to modernize the city they completely abandoned the old sewer system and built on top of it as if it had never existed and leaving it out books in order to hide the many violations that were never fixed by modern standards. The only people that really knew about the old tunnel system were the groups of homeless that lived throughout the new and old sewer systems along with support groups that had the intention of helping the homeless out of poverty. John knew about this as he had lived amongst them for a while before someone he didn't think survived the fire when he was six years old came and gave him a home of his own, his younger brother, James Mattheson, who went by the name of his foster family.

He'd spent several years down in the new sewers and never bothered to go very deep and enter the old sewer system, although now he was at the center of the old sewer system which also put him right under the center of the new one and the middle of the city. It was the perfect spot as he knew if he quickly got rid of the homeless population and added them to his army there would be very few to know the existence of the old sewer system then the first part of his operation would be complete. Dixie who had chosen to physically manifest herself looked at john as with a pleased smile said, ”Well even though I exist mostly in your head most of your thoughts do get jumbled even to me, so tell me oh so merciless leader what exactly do you have planned so far.

John walking in the middle of the open space while listening to Dixie said, ”Operation: Shadow Snatch is a multi-step plan that depends on patience Dixie. It goes as follows, Step one, kill and add the majority of the homeless populations from the sewers, alleys, and bridges above ground. Step two my poor Dixie, is where our patience will be tested the most as we will infect those near major areas of transportation with my undead curse as they spread state to state and country to country. Step three Dixie, Is where things become interesting, while waiting for the spread of my curse and growing hordes of undead in secret under their cities, I'll attempt to make a magic capable of disrupting communications worldwide to make the flow of information almost non-existent. Step four Dixie is the main course as we make our big reveal and begin our main attack on humanity on multiple fronts ensuring mass confusion and hysteria. If there's one thing I can promise, Dixie, is that the chance the gods have given me will not be in vain.”