We loaded up into four separate boats. Everyone headed in the opposite direction from us got cheap rafts I stole from a Walmart before making it here. They weren’t designed to fit the number of people in them, but I was wary of giving more away than I already did. If they couldn’t make it home with the help I gave them, then there wasn’t anything more I could do.

I started the engine, and before I took off towards the mansion, I noticed the lights were still on in the office building next to the hospital… The same office building I used to work in. “Why is the fucking light on?” Thoughts ran through my head, like how the building was still powered even with the flood taking it off the grid. Were people inside? I wasn’t sure, but it had me more than curious, and this light was most likely a beacon for zombies to flock towards.

“We’re going to take a quick detour to that building that still has power.” I let the group with me know what I was doing as I handed Brandy(the female surgeon) a gun, as I explained. “In case zombies show up. The safety is off, don’t go pointing it at anything you’re not planning on shooting.” I watch her look straight down the barrel as my butthole puckers and I slowly pull it out of her hands. “Anyone know how to use a gun?”

Howard(male pediatrician) spoke up. “I’ve hunted before, never used a pistol, but I’m fairly accurate with a rifle.” I hand it over. “The safety is off, don’t aim it at anything you don’t plan on shooting.” I looked at Brandy as I spoke, and she avoided meeting my eye. At least she was aware that looking down the barrel of a loaded gun the moment it’s handed to you is a bad idea.

Jumping out, I wade through the last part of the building before reaching the steps. The ground floor level was just about even with the water level, leaving only an inch or two of water through the building. The door was bashed open, and I slowly made my way inside. I think about attempting to be stealthy, but that’s never been my style, so I call out. “Hello! Anyone alive or the zombies munch your butts?”

I heard some clattering before recognizing the voice that yelled. “That you, Danny!?” I looked around for zombies or traps, but didn’t see any. “Why are you at work? I told Bill the flood was going to be worse than projected twice.” Moving in, I see him and… “Why does Luna have cat ears?” I couldn’t help but be shocked that someone this early stumbled upon a core by accident and had the power to make use of it.

She was a permanent beast form as well. It wasn’t as strong as the activated version, but they had lengthy cooldowns to worry about while the permanent version was always stronger than base humans. She wasn’t a full conversion, which was good. The more the person changed, the dumber(and more feral) they got. Packs of crackers from the vending machine were scattered around her, with twice as many empty wrappers of the crackers showing she had eaten most of them.

As she looked at me, and our eyes met, I knew I was in trouble. The beast form power was fairly rare but common enough for certain things about the power to be known. They loved three things. Food, fighting, and fucking. And the fuck me eyes Luna was giving me meant that I’d have to talk to her brother about this before she started stripping me right in front of him. Luca mentioned.

“You look… Different as well.” I smile and go to talk. “Yeah, I’ve been-.” Luna ran over and hugged me like a koala hugging a tree, her legs wrapping around me as she licked my face. “Been working out.” She ground her crotch against mine with both our clothes still on. It was hard not to get hard from the contact, but this was overkill. She shouldn’t be this pent up unless… “Hey… Was Luna a virgin?” I heard about it before, but thought it was a lie. I thought it was fiction because it was so rare to have someone turn who was still a virgin. 

The people took after wolves, and wolves happen to mate for life. That didn’t seem to apply if the person already had sex, but it did seem to be in effect if the person was a virgin. She chose her mate… Which happened to be me. I heard about it before, a female happened to have a similar power, and her powerless husband led the survivor town they were part of. She would let him get away with constantly cheating on her, even though she was the reason he held all his power, and no one knew why. It turns out she was forced into the situation by the biological instinct her power gave her.

It was nice to confirm that he didn’t have a happy ending, but neither did she. After having their base raided by a stronger force(who would have guessed the powerless man throwing his wife's weight around would be a bad leader), he was brutally killed after giving his wife away, and she died shortly after. Some say it was from a broken heart, while others say she was used as bait to draw out a powerful zombie from a city. The only thing I knew for sure was that the mating thing was real now.

The question now was… How did I explain this to Luca? “I think your sister likes me more than she did before she changed.” She let out a low, bassy moan as she spoke. “Fuuuuck me!” I couldn’t help but look at her brother, who didn’t know what to do. “Let’s get out of here for now, hopefully she’ll calm down in the rain.” Luca turned around and yelled back. “Marco, help arrived! It’s Danny, we’re leaving!”

We loaded up onto the boat, and I was getting a lot of side-eye looks as she did not unlatch herself from me. I mumbled to myself. “This is going to be a rough trip home.” I get a little frustrated at the situation. If this happened a year from now, no one would bat an eye, and both men and women would be jealous. Men, because a beauty clung so desperately to me, women, because someone else ended up with the strongest man.

“Let’s get out of here, then you can judge m-.” The boat capsized as something huge struck it. Our connection finally breaks as I stand up and see a crocodile the size of the boat ripping one of the survivors I hadn’t gotten the name of in half. Instead of fear running through me, I get excited at the sight. An evolved animal! These are even rarer than zombies this early into the timeline.

Animals tended to develop higher resistance to the zombie virus than humans did. Even ten years later, the animals were still able to consume zombie flesh without turning, as long as they didn’t consume too much the first time they could retain their body and not become a zombified animal, but the higher resistance meant that it was even more rare for an animal to become a power. It still happened, but while humans had a ten percent chance, animals might be all the way down to a one in a thousand chance of becoming a powered…

I’m already stabbing a bone spike into the crocodile's eye; his gigantic body was more resilient than iron, but that didn’t matter if you aimed at a huge weak point like the eyeball. Still, it was too big to pierce all at once, as I lost control over the spike before it pierced its brain. It reeled back in pain as Luna jumped on it. Her claws couldn’t pierce its hide, but they most likely didn’t feel pleasant on his back.

It jumps backward in an attempt to crush her, but she’s too quick. Jumping off as he reached a ninety-degree angle, I finally closed the distance. One moment his belly is exposed to the air, the next a giant sword is buried into his soft underbelly, guts spilling into the water as his momentum continues dragging him back. At that moment, he knew he fucked up.

It was already dead, it just didn’t know it yet, as the crocodile righted itself and tried to run. It would die from its guts falling outside its body, but it would be a slow process. I intended to speed that process up. As it attempted to flee, I was building a bone spike the size of my arm and slowly began rotating it. Firing it out like a cannonball, it struck true, piercing the back of the crocodile's neck and severing its spinal cord. I didn’t want to risk destroying his monster core.

That was when the doctor I gave a gun to finally acted. *Bang* *bang* *bang*. Three shots fired into the crocodile… I don’t think a single one pierced his thick hide; it was still a good effort on his part, as he didn’t freeze up like the rest of the survivors. I watch as the crocodile's body begins to shrink back to its original size. Storing the entire corpse for later, I can’t help but smile. Enhanced animal meat, even rat meat, was always super delicious.