The monster was massive and obese, similar to the larger obese zombies they had just faced. Only this one looked to be the daddy of them all. Reece figured that Mutagenics must have been at play in the development of such a creature. Over ten meters in height, it had two giant arms and a dozen other mutated, distended, and mottled ones. It also had other body parts melded into its grotesque form. Its yellowed teeth were those of a carnivore, long and sharp. Its two bulbous eyes lolled every which way as it lumbered closer. A large snake-like tongue lashed out towards the pair and bloody slobber rained down on them.

As it towered over the pair, Reece realized that skewering it through an eye was going to be difficult. They wouldn’t even be able to reach the monster’s eyes at such a height. He was at a loss on how to beat the thing. As Reece considered their options, it opened its mouth and spoke.

“Mmmm, meat,” gurgled forth from the hideous monstrosity. “Yum, yum.”

It swung one of its enormous arms back, preparing to strike. It was at that moment that Reece noticed the giant ax in one giant hand and a long chain with a spiked ball in the other. The monster jerked its arm forward, whipping the chain and ball through the air. The huge spiked ball hurtled towards them, narrowly missing Reece. The feeling of relief was short-lived. A sound like a sickening crunch filled his mind with dread. He dove to the side as the creature yanked the spiked ball back for another pass, and looked over to where Aika had been standing beside him. She wasn’t there.

He backed away, wildly scanning the area for Aika as the thing lined up for another attack. Since he couldn’t quickly spot her, he had to focus on keeping himself alive. Now trapped in the open quarry, he had nothing to hide behind. As he continued backing away, he finally noticed that Aika had been thrown back into the side of the quarry. Her broken and bloody body had rolled down to the base of the man-made rise. Her impact with the rise had dislodged some of the dirt and rock, causing it to pour down, partially covering her body. Reece heard her moan weakly. She was still alive.

Another bellow had Reece turn his attention back to the monster. He looked back just in time to see it whip the spiked ball forward again. Knowing the attack, he was able to dodge to the side. Unfortunately, the monstrosity simply used the time to step closer and box Reece in even more. Knowing he was about to die anyway, he made one last gambit to distract the creature from Aika’s prone form in a probably futile attempt to save her life.

“Hey ugly,” Reece yelled at the creature as he ran as fast as he could away from Aika. The increased gravity had helped, and he was able to draw the creature far enough away that he believed he had given her a fighting chance. He remained cornered, but now he was as far from Aika’s body as he could get. With one last yell of defiance, he threw the spear with all his might. The spear flew right at the head of the waddling monster. His aim was true. The hand-crafted spear disappeared into the huge yellowish eyeball, spraying mustard-colored ichor everywhere. The creature gurgled out a wail of pain before speaking again.

“Owie, that hurt,” the thing managed to gurgle out before collapsing into a pile of gore and body parts.

Reece wasted no time celebrating his victory. He raced towards where he had left Aika when a sight made his hope leave him. Two more of the monstrous zombies had shown up to finish the job. He glanced at Aika’s body one last time and saw that it was no longer moving. Defeated, he stared at the two giant heaps of human debris clumsily waddling towards him and despaired. As he awaited the inevitable, he saw something flash across his field of vision.

It was small. Smaller than an adult zombie, it had moved much faster than any of the ones that he and Aika had fought so far. Suspecting another unknown enemy, Reece did the only thing he could and ran as fast as he could. He made it to the edge of the quarry and ran through a small opening they had left between the dirt piles. He finally made it out of the deadly quarry only to run into a third monster. It chased him away from where he had left Aika and the shuttle and onto a dirt road running across the front of the quarry. He hated leaving them behind, but he didn’t have a choice with the three giant monsters chasing him down and no weapon to even wield in defense of his life.

“Hey, you...”

The girl’s voice had come from somewhere in the darkness. Reece whipped his head around, eyes wide. He couldn’t see much in the moon shadows cast by the thick oak trees he had stepped under. Caught between the voice that sounded a bit too sweet and the obvious horror of the gluttonous zombies bearing down on him, Reece backed out into the moonlight. Looking around, the desperate engineer and astronaut realized he was cornered. With nowhere to run, Reece pulled out a knife he had sheathed in his right arm’s cargo pocket. If it was his time to die, he was going to do as much damage as possible on the way out.

As he was preparing for his final battle, Reece sensed movement in the darkness. Swallowing hard, a surge of adrenaline flowed through him. Frustration made him angry and his anger made him fearless. No matter what happened next, he decided he was going to survive it. He hadn’t spent months on the space station in rigorous training to die mere minutes after landing. Pasha was already gone, and Aika most likely was as well. Reece knew that all that remained of his crew was himself, and he needed to survive. Not just for his own sake, but to make sure his crew didn’t die in vain. Their sacrifice would matter.

“Well, come on then. Let’s see what you’ve got,” Reece growled into the darkness. “Show yourself.”

Out of the shadows in front of him stepped a small form with a feminine figure and long flowing hair. From the moonlight, the girl looked like she was in her early teens. Her hair was a light blonde, almost white. She was just a slip of a thing, but she held herself with an air of confidence normally lacking in one so young. Reece couldn’t make out her features, but she didn’t look much like a zombie. Her skin seemed smooth and she was dressed in a simple black shift. He noticed she was barefoot and wore a collar similar to the creatures that had attacked them.

“So, you’re with them too, huh?” Reece asked her as he backed away while trying to keep his eyes on the slowly approaching mountains of undead flesh.

“Hardly,” she laughed as she pulled out a sword and tossed it to him.

He deftly caught it in one hand before realizing it was a sword he recognized. It was one of the katanas that he had fashioned for Aika.

“I found it near the body of a human female,” she stated before pointing down the road the way Reece had been running. “Use it on them as I handle these big ones here,” She said as she pointed her thumb over her shoulder behind her.

Reece didn’t have time to argue as he saw movement down the road. Several figures were scrambling towards him. The smell and the way they clumsily loped towards him announced that they were more zombies. Yelling a battle cry, he charged. As the gap swiftly closed, Reece strafed to the right lopping off the top half of the nearest zombie’s head in the process. The remaining zombies were forced to slow down and turn to meet him. Reece quickly dispatched two more before they could regain their bearings. The three remaining ghouls rushed him all at once. The smell of rancid meat struck him as the creatures salivated in preparation for their feast. It was a feast he would deny them.

Waiting until they were nearly on top of him, a quick side-step from the two on the left and Reece was able to decapitate the one on the right as it passed by. Planting his feet, he reversed momentum and swung the katana behind him in a wide arc, slicing through the faces of the remaining two undead monsters. The rotting bodies both fell to the ground unmoving and Reece anxiously checked his surroundings. Seeing no obvious danger, he decided to check on the mystery teen-aged girl. She must have already dispatched one of the giant zombies. Reece could see its prone form oozing thick liquid onto the road near the quarry’s entrance. Yet, the girl was nowhere to be seen.

The battle was so far down the road that the moonlight only revealed the enormous forms of the fat zombies to him. Reece started jogging towards them. Slowly, the moonlit battle came into focus. The ghoulish monstrosities looked as if they were fighting a gnat. To Reece, the gnat appeared to be winning. He watched the fight progress as he drew closer. The blonde teenager leaped into the air and landed on one of the creature’s flabby pecs. The other behemoth aimed at the small form with a massive cleaver, striking at her with a powerful downward chop. As the wicked blade fell towards her, she leaped away and the blade sunk deep into the first monster’s chest.

Reece could appreciate her ingenuity. She had used their stupidity against them. It took Reece another minute to get back to them. He had exited the quarry through the tree line far from where the road entered the quarry. By the time he arrived, she had finished them both off with a long-spear that was twice her height and way too heavy-looking for her to possibly wield properly. Reece’s mouth dropped as he took in the scene.

“Who in the abyss are you?” Reece managed to ask.

Faster than humanly possible, the red-eyed girl was at his side. He barely even saw her move. She looked at him for a moment with a cute little smile on her angelic face. the bright moonlight enhanced her exquisite features, giving her an ethereal appearance. Reece found her exotically beautiful for one so youthful. His admiration vanished when she opened her lips, revealing her teeth.

“Don’t you mean, ‘What am I?’,” she replied, showing him her razor-sharp smile before launching forward and plunging her face into the side of his neck.

As she started sucking his life force from him, Reece pushed against her with all his might. She might as well have been made of iron. He couldn’t budge her at all. Feeling his imminent death, Reece weakly spoke what he thought were to be his last words.

“Please, save her, save her…you can have me, I won’t fight…just save…”

His speech failed him, but Reece heard her answer just as the blackness of death took him.

“I’m sorry, I did the only thing I could for her.”

Complete and overwhelming anguish filled him the instant his consciousness succumbed to the darkness.

He floated above the ground, much like his zero-G experiences. This time, he was on Earth. A massive landscape stretched out in all directions. There were hills, grasslands, woods, and cities. He held the strange rock in his hand and watched as zombies and other nightmares ran, loped, and flew towards him from all directions. Looking down, he could see the broken bodies of his fellow crewmembers mixed in with countless other lives lost to this horrible plague. He didn’t know what was happening, but he was sure it wasn’t Valhalla or even the Underworld. It just didn’t feel right. He knew he must be dead and should be passing over to something else. Maybe it was simply his brain misfiring as it expired.

“Protect the Orb.”

The soft feminine voice seemed to come from far away, but the words were clear. Somehow, he knew they referenced the black rock that was back at the shuttle. No sooner had the words filled his mind than the dream or vision ended, nothingness settling in.