Reece considered Karina’s question to split up for only a moment before making a decision.

“Nah, I don’t want us to get separated. We don’t know what kind of monsters they’ve cooked up down here,” answered Reece.

“Ah, good point,” replied Karina as she led the way down the first of the two whitewashed concrete halls.

Ciera came next, rifle at the ready. Reece followed her and Naeva brought up the rear. The group crept forward cautiously, spacing themselves about two meters apart. The plain white hall stretched ahead over twenty meters before angling to the right and out of sight. There were a pair of plain metal grey doors built into the walls on each side of the visible section of the hallway. Karina checked the two doors on the right with Ciera covering her, while Reece checked the doors on the left with Naeva covering him.

All four rooms were filled with highly organized supplies and equipment stacked on numbered shelves and labeled by category. Most of the categories were biological sounding in nature, with some engineering categories as well. Microscopes, glass slides, test tubes, computer parts, and the like were all spread neatly across the floor while others were still sitting on the silvery metal shelving units. They found no one inside any of the rooms, so the group continued to the angled hallway.

Karina took a step past the short-angled section of the hallway and into a second straight hallway that continued down the way they were heading. As soon as she did, four shots rang out. Despite her speed at ducking back, she still took a bullet to her face, grazing her cheek before impacting the concrete wall behind her. She gave Ciera an unamused look to which the lilin simply nodded and stepped into the hallway with her rifle at the ready. She fired one shot and waited a moment. Then she fired a second shot.

“Did you hit him?” asked Reece.

Ciera gave him a mock wounded look but said nothing. Karina resumed her lead position even as the small gash in her cheek swiftly closed. They passed several other doors, each one containing a different lab set up, some with closets, others with electrical rooms to power their experiments. At the end of the hall was a set of metal double doors with brackets for a cross beam, though the beam wasn’t present.

Laying in the last two doors before the double doors were two dead uniforms, a man and woman, their bodies both bleeding out on the floor. All the rooms here were empty of people as well. Karina decided to use her spear to push one of the double doors open. She chose the left and carefully pushed it inward. She took a quick look before ducking back behind the door. It was good that she did.

The moment she stuck her head in, she saw several people in uniforms and others in lab coats. All of them were nervously pointing their guns at the door. No sooner had she pulled her head back than a hail of bullets from a dozen trajectories impacted the door around where her head had been.

“Found ‘em,” she piped up in her little girl voice before giggling loudly enough for those on the other side of the door to hear. Karina was truly a master of psychological warfare.

“Ciera and I can handle this,” she said before looking at Ciera. “There’s about twelve of them, and they are all spread out. If I open the door with my spear again, stay behind me and wait for a shot. As long as we don’t enter the room, only a couple of them will even have a shot at us through the crack in the doorway. You ready?”

Ciera nodded and stood to the side behind Karina. Karina carefully opened the door again and stuck her head into the room and immediately pulled it back. A few more bullets whizzed from inside the room to bounce off the door, but less than the first time. As soon as it stopped, Ciera moved where she could see two guns aimed at the opening. She fired off two shots before ducking back.

“This is like shooting fish in a barrel,” squealed Karina, faking delight.

That’s all it took to break the cornered members of the Order, but instead of surrendering they did something else. Reece and the girls heard cursing, a struggle, and even shots being fired before a series of loud clangs rang out from behind the door. There was a moment of silence before an awful sound like the cross between a roar and a scream emanated from behind the door. It sounded both human and animal at the same time.

That’s when the yelling started, and more shots rang out from inside. All at once, the yelling turned to screams, and Karina peaked her head in again. One of the scientists bowled her over as he ran out of the room. Ciera instantly put a bullet in him. Karina looked a bit shaken but readied her spear as she backed away from the door. It wasn’t long before all the screaming stopped, and it was deathly quiet again.

Then, from under the door came a flow of blood that filled the first meter of the hallway in front of the door. Karina indicated everyone should back off, which they quickly did. The four all held their weapons at the ready and waited since three of them didn’t know what to expect. They didn’t have to wait long.

The first crash made them all jump a bit as something threw itself against the metal doors. Since they could easily have opened inward, the small group figured they’d be taking on something with an animal’s intelligence. The second thump caused the left door to bulge outward, freeing one of the clasps that went flying over the group to land behind them. The group looked nervously at each other until the third hit sent the left door crumpling and sliding down the hallway towards them.

Karina lifted the front of her foot to stop the door as it slid underneath it, wedging itself against her heel. The grotesque wolf-thing that came through the door couldn’t be described as an animal. Naeva grew pale when she saw its hideous appearance, familiar yet grotesquely alien. It had the form of a wolf-like Lycaon, like her, but stuck somewhere between human and animal form and covered in rot and festering boils. Its skin was pale and its body misshapen, with large swaths of missing fur and even skin. Its eyes were glazed over with a whitish color and fresh blood dripped from its overlarge fangs and claws.

As soon as the nightmarish creature spotted them, it let out another horrific scream and charged. Ciera had seen enough, firing her weapon before it could reach them. She hit it right between the eyes, but the bullet barely slowed it down. Then all three gun-wielders aimed and fired upon it, unloading their entire clips into the beast’s head and body. They connected with nearly every shot, but the beast kept snarling and loping towards them on all fours, spittle, and blood splattering on the floor and walls as the twisted beast came on.

Karina set her spear with her foot as it leaped at her and, through its mindless bloodlust, managed to completely impale itself on the deadly weapon. Still ‘alive’, it clawed at Karina, but she stepped back and withdrew her spear from its body with a sickening slurp. Reece drew out his pistols and unloaded both into the thing’s head as Karina swung her spear in a diagonal arc, using all the space available in the enclosed hallway to gain momentum. She was able to partially sever the beast's head, but the creature kept thrashing and dragging itself towards them, refusing to die.

“Bad doggie,” berated Karina as she stepped back. Reece and Ciera followed suit and took several shots at the last chunks of meat that held its head on its body. When the head finally let loose from the bloody stump of its neck, the thing kicked twice more and then lay still as its dark blood spread across the floor.

“I think we got them all, but I’ll go and make sure,” said Karina as she leaped onto the thing’s body and over it, avoiding the large pool of blood beneath it. The next pool was unavoidable as it covered the entire end of the hallway and most of the room beyond. She tentatively tip-toed through it as she worked her way into the room and beyond.

While Karina searched for enemies, Naeva inspected the corpse of the wolf-thing.

Karina was only gone a minute before returning with a disgusted look on her face.

“The sickos are all dead,” she spat. “There’s a bunch of other cages in there with horribly mutated experiments. There’s nothing in there that can be saved, but we need to put them all out of their misery.”

“And we need to completely destroy this thing before it regenerates,” added Naeva. “Somehow, this Order was able to recreate a Vrykolakas, an undead creature of legend. They are abominations of Lycaon and vampire genetics and don’t stay dead easily. There’s only one way to ensure that...with fire.”

“I’ve got just the thing,” said Reece as he turned and headed back to the entrance before turning back towards the group once again. “Karina, can you go and check the other hallway, just in case there are prisoners?”

“On it,” replied the lilitu as she sped back down the hallway.

He grabbed one of the carts and wheeled it to one of the supply rooms. Using an auto-jack, Reece picked up a 160-liter barrel of benzene and set it gently on the cart. Once the barrel had settled, he carefully pushed the cart out into the hall and down to where the Vrykolakas still lay. Telling everybody to back up, he pushed the barrel over and backpedaled out of range of the liquid benzene as it splashed and covered the floor. By this time, Karina had come back.

“Not much on that end,” the lilitu told them. “Past the first couple of rooms, the hallway was completely collapsed from the space station’s impact.”

Reece nodded silently. Using his trusty ZPO-Corp spark light, he lit the edge of the liquid and watched for a moment to ensure the flame ignited everything the benzene touched. Much of the benzene had flowed into the room on the other side of the doors, and that ignited violently as well. It didn’t take long for the fire to spread towards Reece and the girls, as smoke quickly filled the enclosed area. The small group high-tailed it out of the bunker as the whole compound quickly went up in flames.

“Well,” Ciera piped up with a wicked grin. “Looks like we’re done. Now, let’s find someplace to lie low for a bit. I was promised some tasty nourishment, and I intend on collecting. After all, I am famished. Plus, I think I’ve earned it.”

“Well, you can’t argue with that,” added Karina. “But first, let’s get out of here.”

“Sounds like a plan,” said Naeva as she headed over to the trike and hopped on.

Ciera followed her, swaying her hips seductively as she went. Reece sighed in acceptance and headed for the solar cycle, not that he completely minded the attention. After he hopped on it, he patted the seat in front of him. Karina twisted her spear, causing it to shrink down so she could lodge it into its improvised sheath on the now-familiar bike. Then she slid up in front of him as he put his helmet on, visor up. He took a deep breath to calm his nerves.

“Karina, I have something I need to say to you. I know I’m supposed to give Ciera what she needs, and I’ll do it because I promised. But I’m scared it’ll change things between us, and I don’t want it to.”

Karina slid to the side so she could look at Reece directly. She said nothing, letting him continue to get his feelings off his chest. She simply smiled.

“Look, she’s attractive...and I do like her. The thing is...well...I care about you, a lot.”

Karina frowned at that. Reece picked up on her change in demeanor as he started over.

“Look, I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant,” he continued before taking a deep breath. “Despite my best efforts, I’ve...I’ve fallen in love with you.”

He finally managed to say it, blurting it out at the end of his little speech. Karina’s frown instantly turned into a genuine smile.

“That wasn’t so hard, now was it?” she asked rhetorically. “I love you too, of course. But a lady never says it first. I have loved you ever since I first saw you. Tasting your delicious blood was only a side benefit. So, don’t worry yourself sick. Enjoy Ciera, Naeva too. Love them even. It won’t diminish our love in the least.”

“Look,” she continued. “I’ve been around a long, long time. You know this. Trust me when I say that you and I are bound together... by fate or by chance, it doesn’t matter. So, when you and Ciera have finished, I want you to rest well and clean yourself up. Take a long hot shower or bath. Then come to me. I’ll be waiting. We can have fun with the others later. I want the first time to be just you and me and I want it to last the whole night. Does that sound fair?”

Reece just shook his head and smiled. “More than fair and more than I deserve. Look, you all have my head spinning. It’s a lot to process.”

“Hey, are you two done whispering to each other over there so we can get out of here?” asked Naeva in mock anger as she smiled and shook her head.

“They’ll catch up,” added Ciera, smiling playfully. “Let’s go!”

Naeva energized the trike and spun it around, facing back towards the highway, and then took off. Reece flipped down his visor before taking off after them, leaving the burning remains of the Order’s Atlanta base behind them.

One thing was still bothering him about the now burning base. He didn’t understand how the Order was able to keep the zombies in their little defensive line. He figured they used the dread wolves’ instincts to drive them, and many of the other undead had rudimentary intelligence. But the Z’s were just ravenous eating machines with little in the way of intelligence. And appealing to their instincts didn’t work because standing in a line would have been against their nature. In their natural state, they wandered aimlessly, sometimes following sounds made by others, or chasing after anything that they deemed ‘food’.

Reece surmised that maybe deep down they had some basic limited intellect left. That scared him a little bit. Instead of continuing to worry about it, he looked ahead at the two ladies in the cherry-red trike and wondered where they were leading them. They hadn’t decided on a destination after they finished at the base. The two vehicles got back on the highway and headed back the way they had originally come from, towards the direction of the checkpoint.

Ciera and Naeva’s trike barely made it two hundred meters or so before undead poured onto the road ahead and around it. They were all Z’s, most of them moving quickly. Based on their speed, they must be fresh and would be harder to avoid and kill.

“This is an ambush!” Reece shouted to the two suddenly trapped women.

Noticing the zombie’s formation, Reece could tell they weren’t randomly wandering. “They’re being controlled. Look for anyone alive.”

Taking his own advice, Reece looked around and noticed a couple of uniforms moving about the small horde. After hearing his words, Ciera looked around and noticed them too. Just as the zombies closed on the pair, Ciera turned the Spear rifle to semi-auto and took them both out before taking down one zombie after another right in front of her.

Naeva brought the trike up short and joined her, going fully automatic on the zombies closing in on her side. What she lacked in precision, she made up for in a generous use of ammunition. They slowed the zombies down enough that Karina could enter the fray. She unsheathed her spear and leaped from her seat in front of Reece, landing near the two girls who were fighting for their lives.

Reece stopped the Helios and got off, removing his helmet and letting it fall to the ground. Pulling out Aika’s katana, he ran towards the mob of rotting corpses that were swarming his three companions. They were fixated on their current prey, so Reece was able to slice through them with impunity.

He had taken down over ten of the creatures before they even noticed him. By the time they did, it didn’t matter. Before they could attack in a big enough group to overwhelm him, Reece beheaded them one at a time. It took less than thirty seconds and the group had wiped out all the zombies that had ambushed them.

Reece felt a pang of fear as he realized the survivors that they had freed must have come this way as well. “Karina, is there any sign of the survivors we freed?”

Karina gave Reece a startled look and raced off up the road. A minute later and she was back. “No, it looks like they were long gone by the time this ambush was set up. They had left a good hour before we had.”

Reece relaxed as relief filled his body with its calming effect. Turning his mind back to something he had some control over, he began looking for the uniforms that must have been controlling the Z’s and noticed them both lying dead. He reasoned that they may have some device they used to control this group of zombies. He searched them both but didn’t find anything of note.

“What are you looking for?” asked Karina when she saw him rummaging through the men’s uniforms.

“Just curious how they’re able to control the Z’s,” replied Reece. “Maybe if we figure that out, we can turn it off and remove a weapon from their arsenal.”

“Alright, did you find anything?” asked the lilitu.

“Nope,” replied Reece curtly, still angry with himself for the near tragedy he had caused earlier. He just wasn’t that much in the disposition to talk to anyone.

“’kay,” Karina replied softly, clearly sensing his mood.

“These must have been the rest of the zombie wall,” surmised Naeva.

“Well, maybe part of it,” Reece responded flatly. “If the wall went completely around the base, there would have been hundreds of them. We really should leave.”

The ladies all agreed. After cleaning themselves up, the four got quickly underway once again. They all wanted to get well out of enemy territory before any more surprises showed up. Reece did his best to put his foul mood behind him.