Lucia didn’t scream at all. Beita found her some feet away, staring away from the violence. She looked her over again, not finding any injuries.

“It’s going to be okay,” Beita said, not sure who she was trying to assure. “We’ll get your dad and get out of here.”

She didn’t want to think about what could have happened to him. Lucia didn’t respond.

Jordan was bleeding from the neck, the wound open to the night air. She knew he could feel the injury despite how he acted. He tossed the second body their way, the one he took out with the axe. She numbly looked from it back to him, seeing Jordan wiping the axe off on his pants leg.

“Check that.”

She watched him methodically search the corpse of the first man. He retrieved the knife, pocketing it, but otherwise came up short. Eventually what he said snapped into place and she realized what he meant. Cringing, she approached the corpse.

They appeared, from the neck down, to be human. She couldn’t see all of it, but the hands looked fine, the proportions were right. The skin may have been too pale, but in the dark, it was hard to discern. Some of his skin seemed to be dry, cracking in places. She turned her attention to what was his head.

This was the big problem. The face and most of the head was pulverized, but she didn’t find what she expected to. The skin, when pierced, flaked away. There were still bones, the skull was mostly correct from what she could tell, teeth and jaws- what was left-but all the soft tissue was wrong. The muscles that should have been there were twisted, overgrown and dense, eating into the bones in places. The muscle completely overtook the eyes, filling the cavity. They were a brown color, secreting a black liquid that smelled rank. Diseased.

The damage done to the head extended slightly to the neck, Beita poking at the skin there. It felt like paper, dried and moving away from the meat below without much issue. More brown muscle was revealed, twisting along the throat and beyond. Beita took a step back, needing to breathe.

“Thoughts?”

She blinked. Right. She slapped her cheeks, gathering herself.

“If these were human, they’re not now. Something’s changed them. Is the other one like this?”

He nodded.

“That’s troubling. I don’t know what could have prompted this kind of transformation. The way they smell, I’d bet it’s a virus but how that works is puzzling.” Beita pushed away the emotional, pushed away the visceral. This was a problem to be solved. “Viruses cannot survive on meteors or comets, no way. We’re not sure this is related, though the timing would point to it. I need to think about it, Jordan.”

“Sure.” He approached Lucia who remained on her knees, seemingly lost to shock. “Can you stand?”

She stared at him for a moment. “Is this happening?”

“Yes.”

“I, I knew those men. I think. They weren’t, I knew them, they couldn’t have been…!” She started screaming, grasping at her head. “This isn’t possible!”

Beita hugged her, holding the girl tight. “Don’t lose hope! We’ll figure out what’s going on. I promise.”

Lucia locked eyes with Jordan, ignoring the girl trying to comfort her. “You still refuse to take me away from here?”

“I do.”

“This is your idea of safe? You’ve been stabbed! You just murdered two men! How is any of this safe?”

“Are you hurt?”

“That’s not the point! This is awful! Take me to the mainland so we can get some real help!”

He turned towards the town. “We’re not leaving.”

Beita frowned, but he wasn’t wrong. This wasn’t a case of people acting weird.

He didn’t reply at first, keeping his gaze on the path to town before them. Eventually he looked back at Lucia. “Where is your home?”

Beita was going to protest again until she stood up out of her grasp. Lucia, glaring at the larger man, marched ahead of them.

“I’ll show you.”

Beita trotted alongside Jordan as they approached a white stone wall along the border of the town. Lucia was keeping her distance, walking with her head held high.

“What is going on? You’re acting weird.”

“Not sure,” he said.

Lucia kept glaring back at them. That made sense to her at least.

They walked along the stone wall, ancient as the town itself. It was relatively pristine, unbothered by the recent events. It ran all around the town, on the high cliff before the drop off to the ocean and the beach. The dock was to their left, Beita noticing that there were many boats still there untouched.

They made it within. She felt her breath catch at the beauty of the town. Many of the buildings were made of stone, ancient in construction. Most were two stories. Despite how spacious the island was, relative to people, the buildings were cramped, tightly packed into this one corner. It felt like a completely different place. The church could be seen off to the side, near the cliff where the ocean waited beyond. It had two bell towers, though she could make out little else from where they were.

What she could see made her heart drop. A sea of people, dozens if not hundreds, congregated outside of the church walls. They stood motionless, staring at the ground. If any noticed their arrival, the mob did not show it. Lucia waved them over, crouching as she went by. Beita followed, bending low but moving fast. Jordan remained for a moment, staring at the masses. Eventually he kept moving, though he did not stoop like they did.

Through the alleyways Lucia ushered them, until reaching an innocuous home. It was situated in the middle of a cluster, one ordinary house of many, square and with white paint flaking off. The door opened without issue, Lucia waiting as she and Jordan passed by. There was precious little light, but Beita could tell something was wrong. That same odor pervaded the room, though not as intense as it was on the two men outside.

She stepped on something and felt it break. For all the world it reminded her of porcelain. Looking down, she found a shattered face staring back at her.

She screamed.

Quickly she clasped her own mouth shut, throwing herself away from the horrid thing. Jordan moved swiftly, going to the front door, but that was all she could focus on. Instead, eyes adjusting to the darkness, she saw the full horror of the room. Across the floor, pieces of what was once a man lay.

Stained, partially dissolved bones, brittle, glass-like skin, clothes seeped in a wretched fluid…it made her stomach roil. She realized Lucia hadn’t yet made it in.

“Stay out!” She cried. If this was what she feared, the girl didn’t deserve to see it. “Stay with Jordan outside!”

“Everything alright? What happened to my house? Is my father in there?”

She couldn’t keep playing around.

“Give me a moment,” Beita swallowed, trying to push back her revulsion. Her thoughts quickened, her perception of the world racing. Time slowed to a crawl as her eyes glowed with a seafoam light. “Give me a second.”

What was before her was not enough mass to be a full-grown adult male. Too much was missing. No organs, no muscle, no blood, only the bones and what was left of the skin. Lucidly she picked up a chunk of the skin, finding it to be little more than a husk. Completely removed of all nutrients, even the nervous system was gone. In her hand it crumbled to pieces.

This was different. The men from before showed signs of mutation, but this was more extreme. With her heightened senses, she realized that there was another presence in the air. It felt familiar, distinct, but odorless. It clicked, thinking it through, that this was related to the odor given by the men, and by these remains.

Why, she wondered. There was no odor from the masses, nor from the worshipers. The worshipers seemed odd as well but that wasn’t something she had time to ponder. Why, she worked it out, visualizing what the scent was. It was the same, but rancid. Decaying. Not a diseased smell, but a disease itself.

An airborne virus that decayed when the host died. That became perceptible only at that moment and was otherwise undetectable by normal sensory methods.

The light in her eyes faded and the world returned to normal. In the time it took her to finish talking she was done.

Beita frowned, tears welling up at the fact that this had to be Lucia’s father. Wiping them away, she steeled her resolve. They would stop this. She exited the home, unable to meet the girl’s eyes. Explaining to Jordan what she discovered, he looked passively around.

“So, a virus, but also something else. Something that uses hosts to make a virus?” She was confusing herself. “But those men were different. They didn’t have a parasite.”

“Slow down, Beita.” His voice was warm, comforting.

Calming. “Right. Parasite that uses a host to make other organisms like it into similar kind of creatures. Like a tapeworm that could turn your insides into tapeworms. Only this thing, it steals your skeleton, it strips away everything and leaves nothing but a husk and bones. A Bone Thief.”

Lucia looked down the street. “Maybe it’s in the church? Your Bone Thief. Could that be why they’re all standing around it?”

“Maybe!” Beita clapped her hands. “We should try to get in there and see. Right?”

“But, what about my dad?”

Beita froze.

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry,” she started to say.

Lucia, eyes red, shook her head. “Don’t be. It’s not your fault.” She hugged Beita. “Thank you for trying.”

But something felt wrong. Beita knew she was missing something. Jordan stepped past her, looking into the doorway. She went to hug Lucia back when he spoke.

“Aren’t you tired of pretending?”

Beita looked back at him, then at her. The dark-haired islander’s head was lowered, a placid grin on her face. She bit back a scream as the girl’s body cracked into pieces. The arms hugging her went limp, brown, glistening muscle breaking through them. Beita jumped backwards, allowing her natural strength to take hold for a moment, landing a few yards away.

“You’re very rude, Jordan,” the voice of the entity echoed through Lucia’s own. It was raspy and twisted, echoing in the most unnatural of ways. “I was trying to get us somewhere more dramatic for our showdown.”

Her back exploded, as well as the top and sides of her skull, the parasite unfurling from within the poor girl to its full size. She was massive but thin, made completely of the ropey brown muscular tissue. The top of her head extended a few feet above Jordan and reminded Beita of a lamprey. Disgustingly, Lucia’s face remained embedded within her chest.

The Bone Thief twisted and writhed, her limbs looking like strands of a nervous system enlarged to the macro size. Her many toothed head tilted down.

“How did you know?”

Jordan stood unflinching. “Lots of things.”

Beita recalled the face of Lucia’s father. She hadn’t noticed outwardly in her panic, but she realized that his lips were covered in the same kind of injuries as his daughter showed. Lots of little things began to fall into place. The fact that Lucia could readily speak English, the fact that the lighthouse would have offered no protection, the virus not affecting her when it hit the rest of the island, how her father could have gotten her here and then have ended up like he did.

Did Jordan know from the start?

Beita stared at the alien. “You came here on the meteor?”

She undulated softly. “A ship, provided for me. Felix found it. If that was his name. Hard to know. Humans are wearily similar.”

“Why? Why infect all of these people?”

“It is in my nature. That is how I propagate. Surely you can understand a need to survive?”

“You,” Beita’s words choked in her throat. “All of these people! Even her! Why didn’t the SUN do something?”

The noise the Bone Thief made could be mistaken for laughter, mirth. Beita didn’t doubt she found this situation funny. “I whispered sweet nothings into their ears. If you’re worried about infection, don’t. They came prepared. I had dearly hoped to trick you into taking me away from here, but alas.”

Suddenly she twisted, her stalk body flexing and her many limbs tensing. “Neither of you are human. You would have succumbed to my sweet scent when you arrived. Some don’t take to it entirely, but they’re driven mad by the experience all the same. You two, it’s like it can’t even take root. Now that I find fascinating.” Her head bobbed to Jordan. “Her more-so.”

Within the moment of finishing her sentence, her limbs struck. Jordan was impaled at his shoulders and hips, dragging him into the air. He hissed in pain, body tensing. She brought him in close before slamming his body into the ground, driving Beita back.

“You’re going to keep me safe, right?” Spoke the voice of the dead Lucia, the Bone Thief slamming him into the wall of an adjacent building. “Oh please, big strong man, come save me! Come whisk me away from my island fucking paradise and be my hero!”

He looked up at her, blood dripping from his wounds. He tilted his head.

“What? Have something to say? Come on boy, I’m all ears!”

His mouth red, he let out a shout as he tore his arm free, ripping the meat of his shoulder through the tendril that impaled it. Grabbing the axe, he hurled it at her, the force of the blade leaving a shallow wound at her neck as it bounced away. The Bone Thief reared back, teeth flaring as her head pulsed outwards.

“Away with you!”

She hurled him into the house with enough force to crash through the stone walls. With another terrifyingly quick strike, she brought the roof of the building down. Beita stared at the creature before her, snapping appendages shattering the stone walkway.

“Now you.”

Beita did not run. Backing up, she balled up her fists. Already she could feel the air shift.

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“Good for you.”

“All you are is a monster.”

The Bone Thief laughed in mock offense. “Why I never. That’s so cruel.”

“I have no need to fear monsters.”

“You’re boring me child. Do you not know how to shut up?”

“You know why?” Beita stood her ground as the xeno-site slithered forward, now only a breath away.

“Do tell!”

It was quiet at first. A muted, drowned thudding noise. Enough for the Bone Thief to twist her head in its direction. It was the rubble she left Jordan at. A heavy mist exuded from within, electric bolts picking up. The Bone Thief twisted around, hissing, as a pillar of lightning exploded from within the rubble.

The debris was reduced to ash, the beacon of light burning into the sky. A figure, kneeling, stood from within. They were tall and broad, body made of grey muscle tissue coated in a heavy, black carapace. The armor extended into spikes, many tiny ones, some major ones. Each upper arm was dominated by five massive spikes, curling and twisting as they reached skyward. They grew in length until the largest ones at his shoulders, with smaller rows adorning them.

His forearms were dominated by twin thorns sprouting from his wrists, similarly, reaching towards his shoulders, covering the space otherwise barren of the spikes. Truly little of the grey body was left exposed, and when there wasn’t the chitinous armor, glowing growths presented themselves. A section of his chest was left bare of the exoskeleton, with a jagged scar of light across it instead. A powerful green glow burned from it and all those like it, green electricity traveling across his body, along the spikes and into the sky.

His head lifted, devoid of anything that could be called a face. Sharp, angular, with a chin covered in similar but smaller spines, and an electric green marking across his face intermixed with four exaggerated blades that started in the middle of his head and reached outwards. The tallest blade reached just above the spike’s height, and two symmetrical marks were on either side of his face, arcing down from where his eyes should have been. Steam poured from his body, obscuring much else about him.

Beita smiled.

“We’re the Lightning Brigade.”