The kilometers slid by in a blur as Reece contemplated everything that had led him up to this point: selected to be an astronaut, taking a shuttle to Zhengzhou International Space Station, zombies, the Order, and betrayal. Not to mention, crashing the station into the ground in a gambit to survive. Losing so many friends...and Aika. Finding Karina. And more zombies. It was enough to drive anyone insane.

After a good while, Ciera patted him with one of the hands she had wrapped around his waist. She was quite insistent, so he pulled the cycle over and removed his helmet.

“What is it?” he asked the lilin as Karina instantly appeared next to them.

“We’re here,” she said with a slight quiver in her voice as she pointed her finger down a small road leading off the highway.

Reece studied the innocuous-looking dirt road. He easily could have missed it if Ciera hadn’t gotten his attention and showed him it was there. The narrow path stretched deep into a large copse of red maples and went out of sight as it hooked to the right.

“Can we expect traps or guards?” asked Karina.

“I don’t know,” replied Ciera shaking her head. “I don’t know of any traps, but there is a gate further up the road. It may still be guarded.”

“How are you feeling, Karina?” asked Reece of his vampiric companion. She was breathing hard after her long run beside him.

“I’m okay, she said...but I could use a little top off, if you don’t mind,” replied Karina with a pout on her cute little face.

Reese couldn’t resist.

“Sure, I’m feeling a lot better, physically. Just don’t take too much,” he answered as he bared his neck for her pointy little smile.

Karina planted the spiked butt of her spear in the asphalt and hung the chain-scythe from it before crawling onto the front of the bike in front of Reece, facing him. Reece removed his helmet to give her better access. She leaned into his neck and kissed the spot a couple of times before biting down, staring Ciera in the eyes through the whole affair. The older-looking girl looked away uncomfortably after a short time. Honoring Reece’s request, she stopped far short of draining him to the point of weakness and fatigue.

“Yummy, she said as she pricked her finger and quickly healed him with it by rubbing the small wounds she had just made. Then she slowly slid off the bike and walked back to her planted spear and retrieved the weapons.

“Thank you, love,” she teased. “I feel much better now.”

Reece could feel Ciera squirm uncomfortably behind him. Reece then retrieved a thermos of orange juice that had been harvested from one of their small groves and drank it down to help replenish what he had just lost.

“Right, let’s go see who’s still home,” he stated as he slid his helmet back on and flipped the visor down before taking off down the small dirt road. Ciera hugged him closer as the road started to get bumpy. Karina raced ahead of him, her long white-blonde ponytail whipping furiously in her wake. She rounded the corner a good five seconds before Reece’s bike reached it. He had to go quite a bit slower than her on the narrow and bumpy road. She was clearly feeling much better after her meal.

When the rest of the road came into Reece’s view from the turn, so too did a large chain-link gate. It was adorned with razor wire along its top and stood flanked by two tall but thin guard towers. The twin structures framed the gate and rose over ten meters from the dirt road between them. They were little more than scaffolding with a ladder and a couple of guard platforms. Crowning each was a feudal-era alarm system, metal bells slightly bigger than a man’s head with ropes to set them ringing.

Two darkly uniformed men stood in each tower, one man above the other on the separate platforms. Any of the four men had access to the ropes which would ring the bells and call down any number of foes or surprises for the intruding trio.

Reece felt Ciera shuffling behind him, just as Karina used her speed to toss her spear into the man on the higher platform on the left tower as she sprinted forward, closing the distance to the tower in an instant. She tackled the man on the lower platform and twisted his head clean off with her bare hands. As Karina was performing her grisly task, Reece saw the Spear rifle come up over his shoulder and fire two quick bursts. The only sound Reece could hear from the weapon was the click of the trigger and the zip-zip of the bullets.

The two men on the right tower both dropped without flinching, let alone hitting the bell. Reece wasn’t sure when Ciera had reloaded the Spear, because the rounds she fired were of the quiet armor piercing variety, not the incendiary rounds that he had loaded it with previously. It was a smart move, because the explosive incendiary rounds were very noisy and would almost definitely have attracted undue attention. The two girls executed all four men in the span of just over a second without making any sounds louder than a few muffled thumps.

Reece whistled under his breath at the women’s acumen. “I’m sure glad you’re both on my side,” he chuckled as he energized the bike. “Remind me not to piss off either of you two.”

Riding the Helios up to the gate, Reece scanned the four bodies cooling on the ground and the surrounding trees for any signs of movement. Karina smiled wickedly at him as she broke the chain on the gate with her hands and threw it wide open. Reece shrugged as he drove through the gate slowly. Karina retrieved her spear from the red-bearded corpse of the man she had skewered, which was still hanging from a broken leg that had gotten stuck in the scaffolding of the tower when he fell. Wondering how many more guards were about, Reece was once again grateful the solar cycle was nearly silent thanks to its advanced technology.

“These were regular humans, but they smell wrong...like something’s been done to them. I’m even more sure that this is the right place. Plus, even this far out, there’s a hint of the unnatural stench of their serums and experiments in the air,” commented Karina as she walked back up to the bike, crinkling her button nose at the offending odor.

Reece nodded at her assessment as he looked further up the road. He could see a single-story grey-bricked building about forty meters up, off to the left of the road as it widened considerably. The larger dirt road curved around it, disappearing on its far side. The building was large, over fifty meters to a side, and had small windows spaced over two meters up, every three meters or so along the two visible sides. There were no doors on the side facing them, so the trio continued along the road.

Reece hugged the building with his bike, just in case the windows housed lookouts. Karina followed his lead and did the same. They both stopped short of turning the corner. Karina peaked around it faster than the eye could see and held her finger to her lips after she did. Reece slowly and quietly raised his visor as Karina leaned in.

“There’s a fenced-in pen full of Z’s with a couple of the Order’s uniformed lackeys watching over them,” she whispered. “I won’t be able to take all of them out before they start making a lot of racket.”

“Sounds like a job for a sniper,” replied Reece as he purposefully looked back at Ciera.

“Huh, what?” asked the lilin, not paying attention.

“If the gate is any indication, you’re one amazing shot with a rifle. What kind of sharpshooter’s training have you had?” asked Reece curiously.

“Me? None,” she replied. “I’ve been instructed on how to use a gun. What more is there?”

“Being able to use a gun and being able to hit a target are two different things,” answered Reece incredulously, remembering his grueling weapons training in the service.

“They are?” she asked obliviously. “It seems pretty easy to me. Just point and shoot. Whatever you’re aiming at goes down. Unless the gun is warped, or the target has armor or something, it should be child’s play.”

“So, you’ve fired guns before?” asked Reece, suspecting the answer.

“Yeah, a bunch. Before I was captured by the Purifiers,” she replied.

“And how many times do you miss, say, out of 10?” continued Reece.

“Oh, I don’t miss unless it’s the gun’s fault.”

“Seriously!?! That’s insane. It sounds like you’re more than just a natural. Do you think you could take out the guards and Z’s from this distance?” asked Reece hopefully.

“Sure, why not?” asked Ciera.

“Okay, great,” replied Reece. “Now, switch the Spear to single shot mode and show us how it’s done.”

Ciera pulled the Spear rifle out of its bike holster and flipped the mode switch to single shot as Reece had asked. She laid down at the edge of the building and peeked out. The Z’s pen and guard were easily thirty-five meters out. None were looking in their direction. She took one long deep breath and began firing shot after shot, beginning with the guards and moving to the Z’s. The last guard died before the first even hit the ground. The near-mindless zombies continued to mill about even when their fellows dropped one after another.

With no prey in sight, they remained docile even though they were being systematically annihilated. Ciera continued to fire, while Reece counted her shots to pass the time as he kept watch around them. He was also curious of her alleged skill with a gun. After shot number seventy-three, she looked over her shoulder.

“That’s all of them,” she told them under her breath.

Karina looked again and nodded in confirmation. Reece chose to push the bike as the trio made their way along the new side of the building. Once they were close enough, Reece did a quick count of the Z’s in the pen. He came up with ninety-six that all looked freshly killed. Confused, he looked over at Ciera.

“You killed more Z’s than the number of shots you took,” he whispered to her with a look of utter bewilderment on his face.

“I know,” she whispered back with a patronizing look on her face. “I thought you wanted to save on ammunition, so I took out two or three at a time whenever they lined up nicely.”

“Is that a lilin ability?” Reece asked Karina.

“How should I know,” she shrugged back at him. “She’s a crack-shot, don’t overthink it.”

“Right,” replied Reece. “Let’s move.”

The trio finally found a door near the other corner of the building. Sneaking up to the corner, Karina peaked around it to the side they hadn’t seen yet.

“There’s a lot more over there. Maybe a couple hundred Z’s and a half-dozen Order members,” she informed them.

“There’s no way we can take them out without alerting anyone inside the building to our presence. And we need to hurry before they discover the bodies over here,” explained Reece. “Let’s try the building.”

Karina grabbed the rusty handle on the plain white door and turned. It resisted, so she turned it harder, breaking the locking mechanism and allowing the door to swing open freely. Ciera had the gun, so she entered first. Reece carefully pulled in his cycle as Karina brought up the rear. They were in a discolored hallway with musty cardboard boxes stacked against one side. There were a couple of grey metal doors on the left as well as one at the end. The first door was hanging completely open.

Karina peaked inside quickly using her tremendous speed. Whatever she saw, she decided to immediately rush into the room. Reece heard two sharp sounds like bones cracking, then Karina was back. She tried the handle of the second door, and it opened easily. Reece peaked into the first room as he caught up to the girl. Two uniformed men were lying dead on the floor of the long room lit by glowing lanterns that were set on a large wooden table. Both of their heads were tilted at unnatural angles. There were no other exits from the now grisly room.

Karina backed out and showed Ciera four fingers, before moving aside for the deadly lilin. Ciera readied the Spear and stepped into the doorway. She waited a moment and then fired three shots in quick succession. Reece heard bodies hit the concrete floor with a thud, but no one cried out.

Reece peaked inside and found another long room with no exits. Four uniformed bodies lay bleeding on the cold hard floor. Four kills with three bullets. Reece shook his head at the almost unnatural shooting skills of Ciera while Karina checked the final door. Unlike the others, this one was locked. Reece put his hand on her shoulder before she tried forcing it.

“Check for keys,” he whispered to her.

She cocked her head quizzically at him for a moment before nodding in agreement. Using her speed, she quickly searched the dead Order members, locating a set of keys on one of unlucky bastards. Trying out several of the keys, she found one that fit the lock. Slowly, she unlocked the door with a small click and turned the handle. Cracking the door open, she peered inside.

“Hey, what the...” came a confused yelp from within before Karina rushed in and broke his neck too. Ciera stepped into the room right after her and fired seven shots in a row. When Reece entered the room, twelve more lay dead and bleeding. Reece shivered at the precision and efficiency of his two companions.

Besides the bodies, this room was different. It had a large steel bolted door on the far end and everyone in the room was heavily armed, though it had done them little good. A control console was set up on one wall with a video feed that showed the insides of several dirty cages. They looked like animal cages, with straw covering the concrete floor and a couple of bowls in the corners of each. Most of the cages were empty, but a few held dirty and mal-nourished people in dirty orange jumpsuits—the bright color probably chosen so they would be easy to spot if any attempted to escape.

Karina approached the locked door and looked back at Reece. He nodded and she undid the bolt and swung the door outward. The next hall was lined on either side by the filthy iron cages they had already seen on the monitors. Several extremely filthy but hopeful forms pressed themselves against the cage doors, begging to be released. Each of them wore what could only be a shock collar.