Chapter XXI: The King Is Hungry

Before the outbreak, the roar meant the show was about to begin.

You could hear it from almost anywhere in the carnival. Games would briefly fall quiet, children would turn toward the Big Top, and newcomers would look around nervously while everyone who had visited before simply smiled.

The lion had always been one of The Carney's greatest attractions.

They called him The Mane Event.

He was enormous even before the infection. His golden mane surrounded a scarred face earned through years of traveling, performing, and growing older beneath the carnival lights. Despite his size, he had always been remarkably calm around the people he trusted. The Ringmaster could walk beside him without hesitation. The Beard Master had stood within feet of him beneath the Big Top. Children pressed against the railings just to watch him sleep in the afternoon sun.

He wasn't simply another attraction.

He was part of the carnival.

Every evening, when The Mane Event entered the ring, the crowd erupted. He needed no tricks. No knives. No strange costumes. No elaborate illusion. He merely stepped beneath the lights, lifted his head, and roared.

That was enough.

The sound shook the canvas overhead and vibrated through the wooden seats. Children screamed before immediately laughing. Parents clapped. The Beard Master stood proudly at the edge of the ring while the great lion slowly circled his stage.

The king had arrived.

Then The Stranger came to Boron.

Nobody remembered seeing him near the animal enclosures. There were too many people moving through the carnival that week and too many treats passing between hands. Caramel apples, candied apples, roasted nuts and sweets seemed to be everywhere.

Someone must have dropped one.

At least, that's what everyone assumed.

One of The Stranger's crimson apples rolled beneath the fencing near The Mane Event's enclosure sometime before sunset. Perhaps a child dropped it. Perhaps a carnival worker did.

Or perhaps it had been placed there intentionally.

Nobody would ever know.

The lion found it before anyone else did.

By morning, something was wrong.

He refused his food.

His breathing became heavy. His golden eyes appeared cloudy, and the muscles beneath his coat twitched even while he remained perfectly still. The Ringmaster immediately ordered everyone away from the enclosure.

The Mane Event paced throughout the afternoon.

Back.

Forth.

Back.

Forth.

The animal that had spent years calmly watching the carnival suddenly seemed unable to tolerate the walls around him.

Then his body began changing.

The infection had already demonstrated that it treated every host differently. In some, it destroyed. In others, it strengthened. In a rare few, it produced mutations even Runecorp couldn't explain.

Nobody had considered what it might do to an animal that was already one of the most powerful predators in Boron.

The Mane Event grew.

His shoulders broadened. His claws thickened. The muscles across his back swelled beneath his coat until the familiar proportions of the great lion began disappearing. Patches of his once-beautiful mane darkened and tangled while strange veins became visible beneath his skin.

Whatever The Stranger's infection had done to the people of Boron, it had found something entirely different inside the lion.

Something ancient.

Something built to hunt.

Runecorp noticed immediately.

Deep beneath the mountains, another classification appeared across the observation screens.

NON-HUMAN TRANSMISSION CONFIRMED.

That message frightened the researchers more than almost anything they had seen since Patient Zero.

Until that moment, they had believed they understood at least one boundary of the experiment.

That boundary was gone.

The Mane Event struck the enclosure shortly after nightfall.

The first impact bent the iron fencing.

The second tore one of the supports loose.

The third opened the cage.

The lion stepped onto the abandoned midway.

There was no applause waiting for him this time.

The carnival had already fallen mostly silent. Torn banners moved in the autumn wind. Abandoned prizes sat beneath dark game booths. The Ferris wheel stood motionless against the night sky.

The Mane Event stopped in the center of it all.

For a moment, something familiar seemed to remain.

He looked toward the Big Top.

The place where thousands had once cheered for him.

Then a sound came from somewhere beyond the tents.

His head turned.

Whatever recognition remained disappeared.

The predator took over.

By midnight, survivors began hearing the roar.

It no longer sounded like the one they remembered.

The old roar had been powerful.

This was something else.

It rolled through Boron like thunder, echoing between buildings and across the surrounding forests. Every infected creature within earshot seemed to respond. Some scattered. Others became strangely still.

Even The Alpha disappeared from the streets for a time.

The Zombie Hunter heard it from the edge of the carnival.

He stopped walking.

Another roar shook the darkness.

He slowly looked toward the animal enclosures.

For the first time since returning to Boron, his confidence faded slightly.

Zombies he understood.

Mutations he could learn.

But hunting something that had spent its entire existence being better at hunting than he was?

That was different.

Another roar erupted from somewhere beyond the Big Top.

Closer this time.

The Zombie Hunter adjusted his grip and continued forward.

The Stranger's experiment had crossed another line.

People were no longer the only things in Boron capable of becoming infected.

And somewhere among the crimson tents and abandoned carnival wagons, the most powerful predator the carnival had ever known was stalking the midway.

Once, thousands gathered beneath the Big Top to hear him roar.

Now everyone still alive in Boron prayed they wouldn't.

Because The Mane Event was no longer performing.

He was hunting.