Chapter 4 The Harvesters

The Hollow Creek Morgue reeked of bleach and spoiled flesh.

Detective Vex stood under the buzzing fluorescent lights, the slab in front of him slick with crimson runoff. Bella Grange's remains lay naked and dissected, ribs snapped open like the shattered gates of a ruined cathedral. Her eyes had been stitched closed, but something underneath the lids twitched as if seeing terrible dreams.

The coroner, Dr. Min, moved mechanically, slicing through tendons and muscle. His scalpel shrieked against bone.

"This isn't decomposition," Dr. Min muttered. His voice was a wet rattle. "It's cultivation."

Vex leaned in. Red ivy tendrils coiled through Bella's abdominal cavity, threading through her organs like invasive veins. Some had even drilled through the marrow of her snapped femur, turning her skeleton into a living root system.

"What the hell does that mean?" Vex asked.

Min didn't look up. "She's not rotting. She's growing."

Suddenly Bella's mouth twitched, then gaped wide open, a terrible, dry rasp escaping from her broken jaw. From deep inside her throat, something black and wet wriggled.

Before anyone could react, a thin vine-no thicker than a piano wire, lashed out of Bella's gaping mouth, slicing through Min's throat.

Blood sprayed in a wide arc, drenching the wall, the autopsy table, Vex's face. Min staggered back, gurgling, hands clawing at the ruined remains of his neck. His carotid artery pulsed three times in the open air before he collapsed, spasming.

Vex jerked backward, his chair clattering. The vine retracted into Bella's corpse with a sickening slither, disappearing back into her bloated lungs. The body convulsed once, then went still.

The room filled with the coppery stink of hot blood.

Alarms shrieked. Red lights flashed. Morgue attendants flooded into the room, screaming, slipping in Min's pooling blood.

Vex grabbed his sidearm, keeping the barrel locked on Bella's twitching corpse. But the vine didn't emerge again. It had fed.

And it was still hungry.

The Vault

Two hours later, Vex stumbled into the Black Vale City Hall archives, coat torn, blood drying stiff against his skin.

The old maps he needed were buried deep in the restricted records. He smashed the padlock with his boot, ignoring the ringing in his ears, the vertigo creeping into his skull.

The old town plans showed it clearly:

• Beneath Hollow Creek, an abandoned Cold War-era fallout shelter.

• Miles of tunnels stretching like veins under the soil.

• A strange red notation: "VALECORP EXPERIMENTAL AGRICULTURAL SITE RESTRICTED."

Someone had planted the ivy on purpose.

And they had planted it deep.

As he traced the lines on the map, Vex's head throbbed. The walls seemed to pulse. The overhead lights flickered, buzzing like flies.

Behind him, the door creaked.

Vex turned, gun raised.

In the hall stood a man in ValeCorp security black visor helmet down, semi-automatic in hand. Behind him: two more, clad in riot gear, faces hidden.

Vex stepped back, breath sharp in his throat.

The lead guard lifted his weapon.

Vex fired first two shots into the man's chest. The guard staggered but didn't fall. Instead, he convulsed, shoulder pads snapping outward as thick red vines exploded from the seams of his armor, wrapping his torso in writhing coils.

The guard's mouth gaped behind the visor and hundreds of tiny black seeds spilled out, rattling across the floor like broken teeth.

Vex fired again, straight through the man's forehead. Bone and brain sprayed the wall, but the body only collapsed when the vines inside it shriveled and withdrew into the helmet like startled worms.

The other two guards opened fire. Bullets tore through the archive shelves, shredding centuries of Black Vale's hidden sins.

Vex ducked, rolled, returned fire, hitting one in the leg. The wounded guard screamed, but it wasn't human anymore. Its voice had a rasp, a wet tearing quality. It pulled itself upright, dragging a trail of viscera and flowering ivy behind it, like a corpse unwilling to die.

Vex fled through the labyrinth of musty corridors, heart pounding, gun clutched tight. As he ran, he glimpsed the walls, the ivy was already there, twisting through cracks, pulsing along the tile like veins under skin.

The town itself was infected.

And Vex was running out of time.