Josiah  reached the lab door just as Cody was coming out. He immediately noticed a 5 inch long, deep open wound across Cody's right fore-arm.  He stared at it briefly.  It was jagged at one end. He was not sure if it  resembled teeth marks and that frightened him.  Bright red blood trickled slowly down to Cody's large farm hand. From behind him in a back corner of the room he could see the rabid female thrashing her legs and arms as she sat strapped with some kind of cords and a mans belt to a chair.

 He felt a shiver of fear run through him as he waited for Cody to speak.  He knew what he wanted to hear from him, but as much as he tried to fight it the sting of a  deadly fear began enveloping him.  "Its not a bite. In my struggle with her" he motioned toward the lab with his head "one of the cabinets shattered. Pieces of glass flew everywhere.  I am thinking my arm must have took the brunt of the hit. Its not bad. It does  not feel like there is any  glass in it." He said wanting to reassure Josiah. "Man -We have to stop the bleeding." Josiah ripped a large strip of cloth from the tattered sleeve that hung on one of Cody's massive arms.  Cody made no movement as Josiah  made a tourniquet  for the wound.  Quickly he scanned his new friend for any other possible wounds.  "Are you sure she did not get you anywhere?' "No,  she put up a good fight for a little thing but  I held her back. It was her thrashing limbs that caused us to dance a bit."  Josiah looked at Cody.   The man was huge he could have easily crushed her skull with his hand he thought to himself.  But he didn't.  Even in danger Cody remained a true cowboy.  A gentleman to the ladies.  Cody almost felt a bit embarrassed that  a filly had given him that much trouble.  Even if she was a crazed  flesh eating one at that,  she  was a female and he had been taught how to treat a lady.

 He could almost still hear the words of his wise  Grandfather Frank.  A huge cowboy like himself.  A man who loved the ladies and they loved him back.  "See son its our job to protect the woman". He told him,  one day when he was about 5or 6.  He and his  older sister Missy had began wrestling over an old hand me down hat of his.  Missy  had felt her two years Senior over Cody had out ranked any right he had to claim an item as valuable as the old stetson.  She needed it to be like calamity Jane.    Cody had no intentions of letting his sister romp around in the great mans hat.    "Even if they get on our last nerve we got to treat em right.  We gotta treat them like a lady even  if they are not always acting like one.   As men its our job to keep them safe and always be a gentleman to them.  They are soft and pretty and well one day you are gonna see how valuable they really are.    God made it that way, Its just that simple."  Cody lived by those words. 

Josiah now feeling a bit relieved replied.  "Those gnashing teeth just don't stop.  "They are like a piranhas.'  Cody answered back. "  "She came close a few times but she secure for now.  And I didn't  see anymore of those beings. Lets just let her sit there for now until we get Blake help and can decide whats next."

Tony could hardly look at Blake as he stood next to where he laid.  The smell filling the hallway was intense. It was taking everything he had to not hurl again.  If the smell of death and rotting flesh was not bad enough the site around him was even more gruesome than the smell. He was not sure what direction to even look.  He was disgusted that things had gotten this out of control.  He needed to get out of there fast.   Further more he could not understand what was taking Cody and Josiah  so long to get back.  He looked down at his now stained Armani slacks. " Ruined ' he murmured to himself.  "Christ".  He brushed at his legs as if somehow it would remove the droplets of blood that had sprayed him earlier.

Every so often a surge of pain ripped through Blake's legs and traveled  up his back.  He winced inwardly with each wave and felt nauseous as he road it out. It felt almost like several jagged knives were   being shoved deeper into his thigh muscles.