You can tell who's been bitten by the glassy, dry texture of their eyes now that they no longer need to blink. That and the bruising around their jaw where it dislocated around the time they died as the creature becomes developed enough to chew through their oesophagus and peer through their mouth.
By the time they're fully grown, their meat-suit is usually too decayed to move. That's when they are most likely to attack, bite and infect a new human. We'd been taking photos of the bitten ones, timing them to see how long it takes before they're within the biting period in the hopes that, with a timeframe, we could plan our supply trips better and keep ourselves safe.
We didn't take into account that they might be able to bite before the meat-suit is spoiled (honestly it's less painful to think of them as just moving meat instead of remembering their names and what they meant to us). The bitten outnumber us a couple of hundred to one but we're learning how to blend in now.
Still, at this moment we don't even know when they become able to bite - is it as soon as they kill their host or is it when they're able to extend past the host's own teeth or is it something that they are capable of right from the moment they're able to move?
With any luck we'll find out before we join them.
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