"What have you done?"
I'm backed up against the wall close to the sealed door. My finger bones are digging into the concrete, tearing at the plaster. I stare with shock and disgust at the zom heads as they squat close to Mark's remains, licking their fingers clean, dipping them back inside his emptied skull in search of any last tidbits. They look happy, sated, full. They pay no attention to me. Like junkies after a fix. Spaced out. In a world of their own. A world of murder, cannibalism and sweet, sweet brains.
"Oh, God, what have you sick bastards done?" I moan, shaking my head, trying to close my eyes to the nightmare, praying for tears that will never come.
Tiberius glances at me and frowns. He gazes at Mark, then at his fingers. For a moment he looks like himself and he cringes. A look of regret and terror flickers across his face. Then his jaw tightens and I see him turn away from remorse. He gives himself over to the pleasure of the feed and zones out again.
Cathy is giggling. She pokes out one of Mark's eyes, the way I poked out Dr. Cerveris's earlier, and plays with it. She puts it in her mouth, sucks on it a while, then spits it up into the air and tries to catch it with her tongue as it drops. She misses. It hits her chin and bounces away. She giggles again.
Peder and Gokhan are still fishing for scraps of brain. Gokhan is muttering, "Innit. Innit. Innit." Peder nudges him aside, crouches over Mark like a dog and sticks his face into the cavity of the dead boy's head to lick out any last morsels.
"You're monsters," I sob. But they're not really. They're just hungry creatures who fed when prey was presented to them. I identify with the zom heads too closely to condemn them completely. I had to fight hard not to turn on Mark. If it had been five minutes later, or ten or thirty or however long I have left before my senses crumble, I would have joined in.
I could be harsh and say that they haven't regressed, they're still revitalizeds, they had a choice. But who am I to judge? I was able to fight temptation because I can naturally hold out longer or because I ate slightly more of Dr. Cerveris's brain than they did. Maybe they weren't able to resist the way I was.
Either way, I'm sure they'll feel guilty later, once the feeding frenzy passes and they recover their wits. They'll probably spend the rest of their conscious days regretting the way they gave in to their base instincts. That won't do poor Mark any good, but at least they'll suffer. I think they'll probably envy me once I lose my grip and regress. The only way they're ever going to escape the awful memory of their crime is by shedding their humanity entirely and becoming dumb reviveds again.
As I pause between moans, I hear a noise in one of the corridors. Footsteps. I tear my gaze away from the vile spectacle and watch sluggishly as Josh Massoglia enters the room, a small team of soldiers spreading out to flank him.
Two of the soldiers are carrying flamethrowers.