Another silenced gunshot chipped the granite headstone, spraying Rex's face with stone dust.
He scrambled backwards in the mud, his dress shoes slipping frantically. He was trapped. The two Aeterna suits were advancing in a practiced, tactical spread, their weapons raised. To his left, Father Thomas—now something else entirely—was tearing into the neck of a screaming mourner, the sickening sound of wet tearing filling the air.
Suddenly, a hand grabbed the collar of Rex's suit jacket and hauled him violently to his feet.
"Rex! Run!"
It was his mother. Her black mourning veil was torn, her eyes wide with a terror Rex had never seen in her before. She didn't freeze like the others. She pulled him hard towards the rear of the cemetery, weaving through the towering marble mausoleums.
"Mom! What's happening?!" Rex yelled, his lungs burning as he slipped on the wet grass. "Who are those guys?!"
"Keep your head down!" she screamed back, ignoring his question.
They sprinted down a narrow, claustrophobic path lined with ancient weeping angel statues. The sounds of the town tearing itself apart echoed over the cemetery walls—car horns, shattering glass, and that horrible, collective clicking hiss of the infected.
Behind them, the crunch of gravel signaled the Aeterna men closing in. They weren't running; they were walking with cold, terrifying purpose.
Thwip. Thwip.
A bullet shattered the wing of a stone angel right next to Rex's head.
"The maintenance gate!" his mother gasped, pointing towards the heavy, wrought-iron fence at the back of the graveyard that led into a dark alleyway. "If we can reach the street, we can lose them in the crowds!"
Rex pushed harder, his adrenaline spiking. They were ten feet away. Five feet. Rex reached out, his hand slamming against the rusted latch of the gate. He shoved it open, the hinges screaming in protest.
"Come on!" Rex yelled, turning back.
Crack.
It wasn't a silenced round this time. It was loud. Deafening.
His mother's forward momentum abruptly stopped. She gasped, a sharp, wet sound, and her back arched violently.
"Mom?!"
She stumbled forward, collapsing onto the wet cobblestones of the alleyway. Rex dropped to his knees, sliding in the mud to catch her. His hands instinctively went to her back, pulling away slick with hot, dark crimson. The black fabric of her mourning dress was soaked through.
"No, no, no, hey, look at me," Rex panicked, his voice cracking into a high, terrified pitch. The reality of the situation crashed over him like a physical weight. "Mom, get up. We have to go, they're right behind us!"
She grabbed his wrist. Her grip was startlingly weak, her hands trembling. Her face was pale, the life draining out of her eyes in the freezing rain.
"I can't," she choked out, blood bubbling at the corner of her lips.
"I'm not leaving you!" Rex sobbed, trying to hook his arms under her shoulders to drag her.
"Rex, stop! Listen to me!" Her voice found a sudden, desperate strength. She reached into the collar of her dress, her bloody fingers fumbling with a heavy silver chain around her neck. She tore it loose and pressed it into Rex's palm, closing his fingers tightly around it.
Rex looked down. It wasn't a crucifix. It was a heavy, intricate key. It looked almost antique, forged from dark, gunmetal iron, but the teeth of the key were cut into sharp, complex geometric patterns—something highly technological. Engraved on the base was a single, stylized word: RELIQUARY .
"Mom, what is this?" Rex pleaded, tears cutting through the rain and dirt on his face.
"Your father..." she gasped, her eyes losing focus. "He didn't die in a fire... he hid it. You have to... don't let Aeterna get the..."
She inhaled sharply, a rattling breath that never found its way out. Her grip on Rex's wrist went slack. Her hand fell to the wet cobblestones.
"Mom?" Rex whispered. He shook her shoulder. "Mom, please."
Crunch. Crunch.
The footsteps were right on the other side of the gate.
"Target is down in the alley. Sweep for the boy," a cold voice ordered.
Rex's breath hitched. He looked at the heavy, strange key in his bloody hand. He didn't understand what it was, or what his father had done, but his mother had just died to give it to him.
He shoved the key deep into his pocket. He wiped his nose on his sleeve, a cold, hardening resolve fighting through his grief. He looked back at his mother one last time, swallowed the scream building in his throat, and bolted down the dark alleyway, vanishing into the chaos of the infected city.