Akira looked at her with wide eyes of disbelief, "Do you realize that you've taken so much of my strength? Now you want me to help you carry something so heavy."
"Don't help me, then." Willow shrugged and began to look for a plastic cover used to cover up the body.
She pulled out the large cart she obtained from the back of that convenience store and placed the body on it. With a frown of disgust under her mask, she quickly hurried away with the cart that had been fortunately silent as the wheels worked without much effort with the oil she had slathered on it.
Though the thought of Akira riding the cart would be easier than him following, the cat was completely against it even before she could mention it to him. It was a surprise since they've only been together for a few days, but it looks as though he's known her for a month.
Quite unusual.
They walked for hours before Willow could finally find an abandoned hotel free of any people or undead. The windows were smashed open, but the interior was empty and mostly organized. After checking on her phone, she came to understand that the place was supposedly closed down for maintenance around a month before the plague began.
With a raised brow, Willow had Akira cautiously examine the interior of the place and found that the place on the first floor was completely empty.
Not only that but there already had been robbed of any remaining provisions or more useful supplies making Willow wish that she had stashed away a little more of instant noodles and meals from the convenience store earlier.
She didn't have to check twice to know that the place didn't have much working electricity, so she took out her little key kit and began looking for a room. However, much to her disappointment, the doors on the rest of the floors all had electronic locks on them and, for the first time, she cursed at the advancement of technology, much to Akira's amusement. Knowing the cat was having too much fun watching her fiddle uselessly at the lock to help, Willow sighed and took out a few of pieces of yellow paper from her pockets. Tired and annoyed, she placed one on the lock and was about to make Akira bite her hand when the fox scowled, "You want out lives to be bound, you moron?"
Hearing his words, Willow assumed that adding blood to their contract would change from one dying and the other living to both facing the same fate, even if the fox was the one who lives.
With a nod, she changed her mind and went to around till she found a pin in the drawers of the front desk and pricked her finger before smudging it onto the paper.
It was then that she could hear the latch click and Willow turned the handle to find the door easily gave way to the empty dark room. She entered the dark room and found that the place was still neat and tidy despite the building supposedly having closed down for maintenance.
Willow then turned on the flashlight and examined the room to find that the place was completely empty before using the interior lock to keep the door open. She went ahead and unlocked the other one before dragging the body into the room. By now, tracks of ashes have already been trekked into the halls and stairs after having dragged the body off the cart.
After doing so, she went down to the generator room and used the spell again. With her flashlight, she and Akira went in before she found the switch to the hotel's electrical outlet and interior lights.
Turning on those lights were tricky making Willow want to cower in anxiety upon the thought of the hotel blowing up just because she can't turn the electricity on in the hotel. After turning it on, she returned to the body.
"Check the place for any magic presence or anything unusual." Willow told Akira as she began to rummage through her bag.
After taking out the first aid kit she took from the convenience store and the Chemistry kit, she turned to the body, "If you can't stomach it better than I can later, just turn away."
"Right..." Akira sighed in exasperation before setting off to his work.
Before Willow began her work, she took out the tape and the VCR machine she had taken from the store. Attaching the wires to the television set before her, she turned on the TV and inserted the tape and began looking upon the screen and saw that the clerk from the ID at the register selling the products.
The time was a month before the plague occurred. With a frown, Willow began to speed past the time with her finger on the button of the VCR machine.
An hour after, she found the part when the eruption occurred just as Akira returned to her side to watch curious as to what had turned the capital city of a strong country upside down.
Willow watched intently with agitation and renewed anger gripping her chest strongly followed with great reluctance to be thrown off again.
This was the time when she learned of the betrayal and her own foolishness. It would seem that, although some of the staff was no longer around due to the plague, the manager somehow managed to make do with the remaining staff before the eruption of the volcano.
The place panicked as the camera shook with great force. However, after a few hours, the manager and some of the staff returned busying themselves with their task while some of the younger staff occassionally wiped away a tear or a drip of sweat fro the heat of the new volcano that had only erupted a few days prior.
Suddenly, something caught Willow's eye as one of the few customers and the businessman she had seen earlier entered the store hoping to acquire some rations or lunch. It was then that Willow saw it.
"Akira." She called to her familiar for affirmation of what she was seeing.
"I know." The cat replied while the fur on his back raised like a porcupine.
One of the customers was gripping their head and suddenly collapsed on the spot while his companion who came with him was leaning against the counter of the register with great pain writhing across his face.
The manager and the businessman panicked followed by a few of the customers only for another to scream in agony and grabbed their love one's arm for support. One of them began to call on their phone while the manager tried to do the same when the first two suddenly stopped trembling.
One of the staff member was about to reach out to the man on the counter when he snapped his head up and tried to grab a hold of her. The manager quickly pulled her back and pushed her into the staff room. The businessman tried to run as well, but the group of panicked people didn't give him the chance as he was suddenly chased by the customer that ripped out the throat of his loved one or female family member that now lay dead on her back. Willow frowned as she watched the manager push the remainder of the staff into the staff room while the remaining one out the door, but was pulled back by the possessed-like monster that took a bit out of his arm. She watched as the two were cornered to the front of the staff room and down to their demise. It was then that the door to the staff room was opened ajar to make certain that the coast was clear only for them rest of the staff to fall upon their demise when the monsters now caught a glimpse of them and forced the door open.
Just as the door closed, the businessman's corpse slumped over the staff room door and multiple signs of the door open failed due to the intervention of the body.
Willow was able to conclude that this was what led to the demise of the group of dead people. However, when she entered the room, those zombies had already been devoid of any functions.
Willow frowned as an idea had set into her mind with her vague suspicions having proved true that those zombies had something to do with the strange number of bites and abandoned bodies, but who would've known that those zombies were a part of the pile of flesh.
Willow grimaced at the sight of this before proceeding to go and put on her goggles. Akira, hearing her movement, called out to her, "What do you plan to do first?"
Willow thought for a bit before she sighed, "Find me a saw, would you? I already have a pretty good idea where the problem lies."
Akira watched as Willow took out an apron and puffy individual sleeves used by workers to protect their arms. As she put them on, Akira sighed and turned into his child form, much to Willow's surprise, before turning to the door then left in search for her requested materials.
It was then that Willow realized her error as she cursed under her breath with her scalpel in hand, "Dang it! I forgot to tell him not to steal if he can."
A few hours had passed since Willow began the procedure. Akira had already returned with a saw which she used to cut open the skull.
Willow silently scolded herself as what would've been a two hours try grew long as she had to fight the urge to drop everything and run outside at the sight of the grotesque image in her hands. She had taken many courses during her days in college and many cases at work regardless of her patients gender, but she never really expected that any of them would prepare her for what would eventually land in her hands.
Yet, if she doesn't do this, she would be closer to death either on the battlefield or in the claws of her new biological father. Despite the problems she's facing, this type of work has become a battlefield of another level to her. Even if she did become a good doctor, that didn't prepare her to perform an autopsy before.
There was a reason why she never took the course, even when it had been offered in her college. Yet, in the end, the results still bore some fruits.
"Akira, take a look at this." Willow called out to her familiar with the petri dish in hand.
"What did you find?" Akira came over to her curiously as she showed the dish to the child.
"Our murderer." She replied with a frown.