Angel Hernandez

A lot of time had passed since they last heard anything from Ground Control. After six more months of being trapped on Zhengzhou Station, there was no communication with anyone on the planet. The crew’s frustration began to set in. Reece and Naeva spent a good deal of their time with the Beckers and despite their suspicions, they became at least friendly, if not friends. Reece and Naeva’s relationship also deepened, though she seemed hesitant to open up with him completely.

They socialized with the rest of the crew as much as was practical. Sharing a meal in the mess hall. Giving each other haircuts. Loitering in the control room between duties. Tending to the garden. The crew got to know each other better with each passing day.

Eventually, Aika started speaking with Reece again. As time went on, their conversations became longer and more natural until they were hanging out on a regular basis. He considered her a tentative but growing friend as he could sense a twinge of pain just beneath the surface of her demeanor. He continued to do yoga with Thato, Sora, and Naeva. He also started jogging with Aika and doing resistance training on his own. The companionship helped pass the time and the exercise kept his body as prepared as it could be.

The commander seemed to spend time with either the Becker wives or Thomas and Pasha. The latter pair both continued to joke around and provide humorous entertainment for the crew, but there was a sadness behind every word they spoke. They were haunted by what they knew was happening across the planet... they all were. What was worse was watching the planet. If anyone thought it was some elaborate prank, they just needed to look at the planet.

Wherever the night fell across the Earth told them a different story. Where once they could see cities of lights across most of the major continents, now there was almost complete darkness. The plague of so-called zombies had taken over the entire planet. They had spread city by city until nothing of civilization was left.

However, it was apparent that the water still had some remnants of humanity. Small lights could be seen from time to time on the oceans, seas, and lakes of the planet. They were indications of the last vestiges of the human race. They were all the hope that the small crew of the station had left for a future. It seemed the last voice from Ground Control was right about that part of the situation.

As for the crew, they were no closer to figuring out who or if there was an enemy on their station with them. Reece still suspected the group that the commander had indoctrinated him into. He still wasn’t any closer to determining for sure if they were the enemy, though deep down he knew the answer. Until he could do something about it, it really didn’t matter. He had no idea how many other crew members belonged to the group, and he didn’t want to find himself outnumbered and stranded on the station.

Strangely, the commander never brought it up again. The days and weeks had ticked by and lulled the crew into a sense of complacency. They slowly stopped taking the three-person rule seriously, and even occasionally worked on their own. Reece was able to get to know everyone better as they commiserated over their shared fate and the fate of the world.

One day, everything changed. Reece was deep within a nightmare. A charred landscape was the backdrop for a scene of absolute terror as a horde of horribly mutilated and rotted corpses crawled, ran, limped, and dragged themselves towards him. They were clawing and trampling each other to reach him and be the first to take a bite out of his tender flesh. He turned away in revulsion and terror. Trying to run, it felt like his whole body was moving through wet cement. It made it impossible to escape, and so the zombies kept gaining. They shambled closer and closer until they were nearly on top of him. The lead corpse resembled a once beautiful woman, now covered in rot, dried blood, and dirt. She reached out a ghastly arm for him and skeletal fingers grasped at his body.

As the emaciated zombie got ahold of his throat; he awoke. Instead of the rotting fleshy arm of the horrific creature, Stephanie Becker was going for his neck with something shiny. His arm was already moving on its own to block the dream attack, so instead, the arm intercepted Stephanie’s vicious knife thrust.

Hot pain instantly shot through his forearm and radiated across his body, but the move had saved his life. Reece instinctively wrenched his arm away. He winced as he saw the long kitchen knife sticking completely through it. Using his good arm, he grabbed Stephanie’s chin and forced her head up so she couldn’t effectively attack again.

As he struggled with Stephanie, a movement from the corner of his eye caused him to look in the direction of Naeva who had been sleeping right next to him. Zia had plunged a knife into Naeva’s throat, yet Naeva had grabbed ahold of Zia’s arms and was forcing the knife slowly back out of her flesh. As soon as the knife was clear, Naeva forced Zia’s hands to turn the knife towards herself.

With a jerk, Naeva forced Zia’s hands to plunge the knife into her own chest. Naeva immediately withdrew the knife from Zia with her right hand and forcefully stabbed Stephanie in the side of her head. Reece immediately felt her struggles weaken until she fell off the side of the bed. Zia gurgled for a moment before falling backward off the foot of the bed and landing on the floor.

Blood spread out in two growing crimson pools that merged together as one on the floor of the quarters. Reece looked over at Naeva and saw her bloody throat. He sat up and reached over to her to try and stop the bleeding.

“I’m... okay,” she gurgled.

“How are you… your throat...,” Reece mumbled in shocked confusion before alarm set in. “Let me see it. We need to...”

Reece trailed off as he gazed at the station’s doctor, her body cooling in a pool of her own blood.

As Reece looked back at Naeva, he noticed her eyes had changed to an inhuman yellow color. A wolf’s eyes.

“I’m fine,” she reiterated with little trace of the bloody gurgling sound. “See.”

As she said the last word, Reece noticed her teeth were different too. They had lengthened a bit and were much sharper. She looked like a beautiful predator. As Reece’s mind processed what he was seeing, she removed her hands from her throat and the only sign of the mortal wound was a smear of her blood. Despite her fearsome appearance, the look on her face pleaded with him for acceptance.

“What the fuck!” gasped Reece as he recoiled from her and shook his head to wake up. “I must still be dreaming.”

“Sorry love, but you’re very much awake. Please,” she implored with her eyes as much as with her words. “Please... give me a moment and I’ll explain.”

She closed her eyes and slowed her breathing. Reece recognized Naeva’s meditative state from their yoga sessions. She was trying to calm herself. A moment later, she opened her eyes and smiled. She was herself again. At least she wore the face with which Reece was so familiar. Following her example, Reece also started to relax his body and mind with a slow deep breath. He chased the elusive feeling of tranquility until his sense of panic began to subside. As a shred of calm returned to him, he nodded towards Naeva to continue.

“Thank you, Reece,” she began. “I want you to know that what you saw is natural and your reaction is also completely natural. I’ve always been like this. It is part of who I am. I’m no different now than when we first got together. This doesn’t need to change anything between us.”

She paused a moment as if considering her next words.

“I think you know that I love you. I also think you know I’ve been somewhat distant... hesitant to get too comfortable with you. What I am, it’s important to me. I want to have children someday. To do that, I need to find someone who is my own kind. Despite that. I’m torn. You’re important to me, too. I don’t want you to... No... I couldn’t bear it if you looked at me like I’m a monster. That look you gave me a moment ago pierced me deeper than Zia’s knife ever could have. Now, the Beckers just tried to kill us. We don’t know why, and we need to deal with that too.”

Reece took in her words. He believed her. Deep inside, despite what he just saw, he knew he loved this woman too. He couldn’t leave her waiting in fear of his reaction any longer. He forced himself to remain calm and even give the insecure woman a genuine smile.

“It’s going to be okay. I wasn’t sure until now, but I love you too. I trust you and I believe you. Whatever your secrets mean for our future, I want you to know you have my support. Whatever you need,” answered Reece.

“That’s what I love most about you,” she said as her body noticeably relaxed. “Thank you.”

“No worries, love,” replied Reece as his smile disappeared. “Besides, we have more pressing issues to deal with. The Beckers were trying to kill us. Is there a chance they found out your secret and this was just a tragic misunderstanding?”

“No, I don’t think so. They tried to kill us both,” responded Naeva before a concerned look spread across her face. “Speaking of which, we need to deal with the knife sticking out of your forearm.”

Naeva moved towards Reece, so he offered her his arm.

“The bleeding makes this looks bad, but I think it went in straight,” she explained as she examined the wound. “It should be mainly superficial, despite going clean through. we need to get you to the infirmary and bandage this up so it can heal.”

“Okay, but before we go, I must know,” Reece began weakly, as he was suffering from blood loss and information overload. “What are you, if you’re not human?”

“Okay, to keep it simple, I’m still a human being. I’m just not the same breed of human as you and most other people. For now, think of me as a werewolf. I’ll explain more later.”

“What do you mean, a werewolf? Like a lycanthrope?” asked Reece as the blood loss was addling his brain and keeping him from simply listening to her.

Naeva giggled sweetly. “No, a lycanthrope is a human that merely thinks they’re an animal. And, like I implied, 'werewolf' isn’t quite right either. It’s just the term that humans had coined centuries ago, and it’s stuck. We are descendants of a people from the ancient city of Lycosura, but have always called ourselves Lycaons with my particular tribe known as Lupins due to our animal form's resemblance to wolves. We are descendants of the first man, Pelasgus. Legend has it that the god, Zeus, gifted all of our tribe's ancestors with long life and the ability to transform ourselves into animal-like creatures. In exchange, we were to act as defenders of nature and the natural order.

Whatever the real story is, we do act as nature’s defenders to a degree and when it matters, as that is our tribe’s heritage. I’ve told you far more than I have any right to, so will you come with me to the infirmary now?”

The shock was setting in. Instead of obeying the woman, he did what he always did when overwhelmed with curiosity. Reece was a problem-solver and for him, his curiosity was simply a manifestation of his need to characterize all the variables of the situation. His sole ally right now was a werewolf. Understanding what she was capable of would be beneficial in making his future decisions. It also allowed him to avoid thinking about his relationship with Naeva, a werewolf. So, Reece focused on logic. He tried to make some sense of what he was being told by blurting out the only things he could remember about werewolves... or rather, lupins.

“So, you can only be killed by silver and you turn at a full moon. How do you suppress the change aboard the station if what you are saying is true?”

Naeva just shook her head and snickered. “You’re killing me, love. Silver is for vampires and we really don’t have anything to do with the full moon. That came from wolves and dogs howling at the moon and the fact that lycanthropy gets worse during full moons. You’ve heard the term ‘lunatic’ right. It’s proven that insanity in general is heightened during the full moon. Don’t know why, just that it often gets misattributed to werewolf legends.”

“Okay, so you’re part of the Lupin tribe, which means that you can become wolf-like or turn into a wolf?” asked Reece, trying to wrap his head around Naeva's confession.

“Wolf-like, but yes...to both. And, my dear...there are a lot more tribes out there, and they don’t all have forms that resemble wolves. Look, we’ll have time to delve into this later. Right now, we need to get you to the infirmary.”

His oxygen-starved mind began to swim madly. Thoughts coalesced chaotically in his mind.

“I need a therapist, except there weren’t any therapists left anymore. My head hurts. My arm hurts too. Oh, I have a knife sticking out of my arm. I’ve got a werewolf... Lupin... whatever... in my bed. Two dead women are laying on the floor… I’ve been having sex with a werewolf... Lupin...ugh... for months...and…did she say something about…vampires? They had tried to kill him. Not the vampires...the women. And something about zombies...why couldn’t they have been unicorns...I was good at riding horses...brrr, it’s cold...covfefe?”

Reece’s eyes rolled into the back of his head as he passed out cold, the blood incessantly flowing from his wound.

Sometime later, he awoke on a hospital bed surrounded by white curtains. He was obviously in the infirmary. How he got there, he hadn’t the foggiest idea. His arm was still throbbing, though the pain wasn’t as bad as he remembered it. He noticed that someone had tightly bandaged the wound. As he adjusted to consciousness, he could hear arguing coming from the other side of the curtain. Once his head cleared a bit, he was able to make out Naeva and Aika’s voices. They seemed to be arguing over whether to leave him where he was or move him.

“He’s lost too much blood to try to move him without the others seeing us,” explained Aika. “It would take us half-an-hour to move him all the way over to the gym module. There’s no way we could make it quickly enough not to be spotted.”

“It’ll be fine,” answered Naeva, “I can carry him. I already did it once. If we stay here, they’ll eventually find us.

Reece forced himself to sit up, groaning from a sudden wave of nausea. As his neck and back pulled away from the pillow, he felt a coolness that suggested he was sweating. His head felt fuzzy and his left arm was weak. He didn’t dare put any weight on his right. It still had a dull throbbing pain shooting through it. Regardless, he turned and slid his legs off the bed in a futile effort to stand up. He stopped himself as the room started to spin and his stomach knotted up with a suddenly more intense feeling of nausea.

The feeling rippled through his entire body in slow waves. Frustrated, he groaned and carefully laid back on the slightly damp pillow. The cool wetness felt nice and helped to soothe the queasiness he was feeling. He noticed that the two women had stopped talking just as Naeva peeked her head inside the curtain. She had her hair pulled back into a braided ponytail and had changed into a grey flight suit and black boots. Clearly, some time had passed since he had passed out.

“Good, you're awake,” she said relieved. “Don’t try to stand up. You lost a lot of blood yesterday. The blade had severed an artery as it turns out. That’s why I’m not a doctor. Luckily, Aika had been a field medic during her stint in the marines. She was able to stop the bleeding and stitch you up. However, you’re in no condition to be walking around right now. You’ll need a couple of days of rest to recover your strength.”

“Did you say yesterday? How long was I out? What’s going on with the rest of the crew? Do they know about the Beckers?” asked Reece, alarmed so much time had obviously passed.

He couldn’t believe she was acting so normal, but he was glad for it. The last things he remembered involved betrayal, attempted murder, miraculous healing, and... werewolves?

“Relax,” soothed Naeva as she withdrew her head from between the curtains. “Aika, can you give us a minute?”

“Sure,” came Aika’s voice from behind the curtain.

A few moments later, Naeva stepped close to him and knelt down to be near enough to speak in a low voice.

“We have some time. Would you like me to fill you in on what happened?” she asked matter-of-factly.

“Uh, yeah,” said Reece. “Right now, I’m clueless.”

“Fair enough. Where to begin?” she asked. “Ah, yes.”

She filled him in on her heritage to the extent that she was able. She wasn’t supposed to tell anyone the secret, even the ones she was close with. It wasn’t just her secret to keep. She had already told him that she belonged to one of the tribes from Lycosura, the Lupins. She explained that Lycaons, as they collectively called themselves, evolved in parallel with the rest of humanity.

These people traced their roots back to before the time of ancient Greek myth. Through their occasional contact with humans, Naeva's tribe came to be known as werewolves. However, they weren’t related to wolves. There was merely a passing resemblance while in their more animalistic forms. Many other tribes existed, each with differing physical characteristics.

Over time, humanity named many of them in relation to the animals they resembled. India’s rakshasa, the Norse berserker, China’s weretigers, Meso-American nahual, the Ethiopian bouda, and the list went on and on. Most of the legends were wildly inaccurate, but they all were based on some seed of truth.

He started to understand why she felt that she couldn’t have a permanent relationship with him. He was a normal human. She was not. Of course, their love for each other complicated things.

“Now,” she finished. “I know that was a lot to process, so take your time. But for now, we have more immediate issues to address.”

“Okay, you win…,” Reece replied, “Speaking of which, I overheard you talking about being spotted. Who’s looking for us? I thought we had just killed the two conspirators of this nightmare. Are there more?”

“Yeah, well…a couple of things; first, the two women that we ‘killed’, well…they didn’t stay dead. I have a feeling that whatever this mystery group was up to on this station, they did something to themselves.”

“So, they’re zombies. Why would they do that?”

“No. They didn’t become mindless or anything like that. Shortly after I wrapped your wound, I left and found Aika in the mess hall. She agreed to check you out before we moved you to the infirmary and patched up your wounds properly. When we arrived back in our room, both bodies were already starting to twitch and move. While we were pulling you from the room, I saw Zia’s eyes snap open and look directly at us. That’s when she spoke.”

“What did she say?” asked Reece.

“Something along the lines of ‘You’ve got nowhere to run.’, before coughing up blood. It was hard to understand her through that gurgling voice. I must have done a good deal of damage when I stabbed her,” answered Naeva as she shivered at the recollection. “She started laughing in that same gurgling manner. It was sickening seeing someone I thought was a friend turned into something like that.”

“I can imagine….it…it baffles me as well. I mean how could someone be friendly for so long and just turn around and try to kill us?” mused Reece. “Who does that?”

“I don’t know, but there’s more,” said Naeva.

“Seriously?” replied Reece as he narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”

“The Beckers aren’t the only problem,” answered Naeva. “The commander had a pistol on the station. He must have smuggled it on somehow. I don’t know. Maybe it was already here. Whatever the case, he told Jared to shoot everyone who was in the control room at the time. Reece, Pasha told us that Jared shot Thomas and Thato. Pasha took a couple of hits to the arm and shoulder but managed to escape. Aika patched him up and he’s currently watching the entryway.”

“Both Thomas and Thato?” replied Reece in anguish. “Monstrous...just...monstrous. We need to stop them from taking over Zhengzhou Station. If they do, then they can just lock us down to this module. If that happens, we’re dead. The only silver lining is that we now know who the enemy is.”

“Do they know how to do that? To lock us down?” interjected Aika.

“I’m not sure, but I know how to do it,” answered Reece. “So, it’s possible that they could figure it out too. If they do that, we’d be trapped here with no food. They could just wait and starve us to death.”

“It sounds like we need to trap them before they trap us,” answered Aika with conviction.

“Right,” replied Reece as a plan began to formulate in his head. “We need to lock them down first. Look, I’m too weak to walk. I’ll need to explain it to you two and you’ll have to do it. First, do we know where they are?”

“Our best bet is in Station Control,” said Aika.

“Figures,” sighed Reece as he rolled his eyes. “Okay, so we’re in the infirmary. I’ll need the two of you to each take a direction around the station and make it as far as you can. Make sure you don’t run into them. I’ll explain how we can disable the intermediate bulkheads. They’re the ones separating each module. That’ll divide Zhengzhou Station into two parts. The bigger our part is, the better off we’ll be. If they’re in the control room, they’ll be able to control most of the station remotely. That’s why we’ll have to disable all of their remote connections too.”

“Alright, that sounds like a plan,” said Naeva smiling. “Now, just tell us what we have to do.”

“I’ll need a tablet to pull up the schematics you’ll need.”

Aika retrieved one of the medical diagnostics tablets and held it up. “Will this work?”

“Sure will,” replied Reece as he took the tablet and closed the medical applications. “All of these tablets are basically the same, they just load different programs on them depending on their purpose. I just need to download the schematics and the reader program from the mainframe, and we’ll be in business.”