Era of Madness

New Westminster Bridge

John and Tyler both reacted in time to protect their necks but, as the former managed to stay up, the latter rolled on the ground. The abomination ignored the other to focus on the drunkard, it's mouth opening to an extent that shouldn't be possible with sinister noises of cracking bones. John tried to hold it to prevent his friend from being attacked, but the abomination dislocated its limbs and successfully slipped out of his grip, ready to try to either kill Tyler or rip off his suit, which would likely give the same result.

Before, with this suit on him to limit his movements, Tyler would've likely not get up in time. But after one and a half month of training, things were different: he swiftly adapted his movements to the suits so he could get up without being bothered by it. Then, he stopped the creature with a palm strike on his chest, not to push it back but to keep it to the correct distance to chain his strike on it.

And he did just that, landing strike after strike on the creature, without it however seemingly having any effect. The creature wasn't feeling pain from injuries, nor did it let those stop it from attacking. At this rate, Tyler would just exhaust himself.

Going for the limbs obviously wouldn't work against the dislocated abomination, so what to do? The creature seemed to be a mix of a zombie and a puppet. In movie, people killed zombie by shooting their head, which was actually correct considering that parasites often chose to locate themselves in the head because it was the best spot to effectively control the nervous system.

It seemed to be plausible here too, considering the moisture that was only running from the abomination empty eye socket. So should they aim for the head? It was worth a try, so Tyler pushed the abomination back with a kick, sending it crashing against a nearby wall. John, having reached a similar conclusion, had already picked up his firearm.

He shot the abomination right between the eyes. The creature had a spasm, and fell on the ground, not moving.

'Phew, it's finally over' John thought.

Just at this moment, the creature suddenly jumped on him with its last streak of strength, once again shot in the head right before it reached its target, this time by Tyler himself.

Its head, already fragilized by a first bullet, along with years of rotting on its own, exploded as an infamous mix of moisture and rotten brain matter splattered around the corpse. Despite this terrible injury, John and Tyler didn't relax, not until they saw the creature's wooden parts coming back to flesh, and its entire corpse rotting away, living only mashed rotten flesh and a puddle of dark-green moisture behind it.

"What... what just happened?" Tyler asked, more to calm himself than in wait of a real answer.

"I don't know, I really don't know" John replied. "Either the mist's abilities are far worse than what we predicted, or the zombie apocalypse is finally happening and began here... or..."

"... Or the Silent One really exist, and we just saw with our own eyes what one of Their intervention looks like"

Both remained silent. Tyler didn't want to admit the possibility that the Devil really existed, and thinking about it probably wouldn't help him to reach any conclusion that could be useful in this situation, anyway. Therefore, he focused his mind on other questions:

"Tell me John, how many people were there in New London before it became Ghost London?" he asked.

"Good question. From what I know, the original London had around fifteen millions inhabitants at its peak, but that was mainly due to the surpopulation on Earth at that time" John replied after a period of reflection. "On the other side, New London was still one of the most important touristic cities of the galaxy, and it was also extended vertically too thanks to the Fefnir tech, so the overall number before the tragedy was probably around the same"