The large door before me has no key hole like the other doors. Instead it just appears to be a slab of metal. Through Magical Sonar I can tell that the locking mechanism for the door is two bars that slide into the wall.

  A circular handle on the other side of the door controls the large dead bolts along with what I believe to be electrical motors. With the power out I can’t just push the button on the other side of the door and make it unlock itself. Instead I wrap the wheel on the other side of the door with my mana.

  The mechanism is heavy. Really heavy. It resists me as I try to turn it. The weight is just too much for my mana.

  I pull back my mana after burning off about five percent of my reserves. Instead I move to the window set in the wall next to the door. Through my Magical Sonar I can tell that the wall itself is thin.

  I wrap my tire iron with mana and send it to spiral. The energy hums as I form tiny teeth in the blue energy. The energy coated metal slides through the wall as if it was nothing. A few seconds later the window falls out of the wall with a thud.

  “Mana is really useful isn’t it.” Kyle says.

  He sounds sad as he talks. Out of the corner of my eye I watch Abby pat his shoulder. I feel butterflies in my gut grow angry at this.

  I shake my head at the foreign feelings and return my focus to what’s on the other side of the wall. Through the hole in the wall I see a tiny room with a desk, some monitors, and a chair sitting in there. It’s pretty much just a closet.

  I crawl through the hole in the wall and turn towards the door. Testing the handle I find it locked. My mana enters the key hole and a second later I feel the bolt slide into the door.

  I swing open the door and turn to the large door separating me from the others. The metal wheel that is too heavy to move with my mana greets me.

  I take the cold metal in both hands and twist with all my might. The wheel slowly moves counter clockwise as I twist it. It takes a few turns but eventually I unlock the door.

  It swings open with a creek and I regroup with the others. We travel down the hall finding ourselves passing another office like space. It’s empty and has two rooms that lead to different gender restrooms. We find another door that leads to the jail room.

  Five cells greet us, one with a group of four zombies. A zombie dressed as a policeman stands to greet us as we enter the room. Abby takes it out with a well placed Rifle Round. Kyle pikes the ones in the cells with his spear as we pass through the room.

  As we make our way through the building we encounter a few more policeman zombies. However the highest level one is level three. Abby handled it leaving me to mostly guide us through the building.

  After a while we stumble upon the evidence room. A locked door label ‘Evidence’ leads to a room with a desk in front of a caged off area. I unlock the cage door and we take a second to make sure that the evidence room has no surprise beings.

  Once sure the room is safe we continue our search of the building. We find a staircase leading to a basement. Following it we find ourselves in the armory portion of the police station. It too is separated like the evidence room.

  Inside of the portioned off section I sense three zombies. I call out to the zombies hoping to draw them to me. A few moments later they’re pressing themselves against the metal bars preventing people form sneaking in and taking whatever they want.

  Kyle, Abby, and I each take out a zombie leaving me to believe the room is cleared. The moment the last zombie drops a booming voice sounds out.

  “CONGRATULATIONS! A Safe Zone has been established. Owner of the Safe Zone is Joel Dyllan, for contributing the most.”

  “What was that?” Abby asks.

  “I think it’s what happens when you clear a building of zombies.” I say.

  “That also happened when we finished clearing the horde in the garage.” Andy says.

  “I didn’t hear that when you rescued us from the restaurant.” Kyle says.

  Thinking back to it there was no booming announcement when Decker and I killed the Zombie Butcher. Does that mean there was a zombie in there that we didn’t find? We’re we still in danger after the fight?

  I shake the thoughts out of my head. I’ll head back later and see if I can find anything. I don’t really care to be in ownership of buildings but I want to find out if the safe zones are established when we clear a building. If that’s the case then knowing when to stop hunting in a building will be a lot easier.

  “So do you have that zone management screen like Decker now?” Abby asks me.

  With a thought I pull up the large list of items. At the top now rests a countdown.

  “Yeah I do.” I tell her.

  She mumbles something to herself and I’m tempted to ask her to repeat herself. But a memory of asking my father that stops me. I logically know she isn’t going to hit me for asking a question but for some reason I lose the interest in doing so. Instead I turn my focus back on the armory before me.

  I unlock the door to the part of the room with weapons. To be sure that a safe zone means that a building is clear we stalk the armory finding no other zombie. Satisfied we leave the basement and continue our search of the building.

  After a bit we find ourselves in a hallway with a closed door at the end. We cross the hallway and I unlock the closed door. Once I open it we find ourselves back in the front lobby of the building.

  “So are we done?” Andy asks,

  “I think so. We checked every room right?” Kyle asks.

  “I’m pretty sure we did. So what now? Do we radio the others and stay here or do we head back?” Abby asks.

  “I’ll radio Decker and let him know.” I say.

  I take the radio off of it’s place on my utility belt.

  “Hey, it's Joel here. We finished clearing the police building. Over.”

  Silent moments pass as we wait for a response. After an uncomfortable amount of time has passed I feel worry well up in me.

  “Is everything okay? Over.” I ask the radio.

  Silence follows. I feel my stomach plummet as I imagine a horde taking over the office. Are the others in the middle of a fight right now? Is everyone okay? Should we race back?

  “Sorry, could you repeat that? I didn’t catch what you said. Over,” Decker’s voice crackles out from the radio.

  His voice eases my heart as I feel relief flood me.

  “We cleared the police station. What would you like us to do? Over.”

  “Oh perfect. I and the scavenging team will be over in a second. Could you make sure that the street is clear? I don’t want to be surprised by any nasties. Over.”

  “On it. Over.”

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  I clip the radio back to my belt. I turn to the group behind me.

  “Did you guys catch all of that?” I ask them.

  They all nod and we make our way back outside. Once on the street I see a few zombies milling about further up the block. I send out a few Rifle Rounds killing them all instantly.

  The street to the office is clear of zombies. After a few moments I see a group of four quickly making their way towards us. Just to be safe I ready the mana inside of me in case they’re high leveled zombies. However, my precaution is unwarranted as I quickly realize the group is Decker and the others.

  “How did it go?” Decker asks me when he reaches us.

  “Good. Not a lot of zombies and we found the armory and evidence room.”

  “Good good. Could you show us to the armory?”

  The scavenging group follows us into the building. Decker has Abby and Andy stay at the front door just in case anything tries to follow. Part of me wishes that he didn’t group Andy with Abby. The guy just screams unreliable to me.

  I show the scavenging group down to the armory. They pull duffle bags and backpacks off of their shoulders.

  “Where did you get those?” I ask them.

  “The lockers in the gym on the second floor.” Haley says.

  The armory is full of guns, ammo, canisters of tear gas, riot armor, and other various items. Decker guides them to focus mostly on the guns and ammo for now. I have to unlock locks keeping the guns strapped to the walls. After some time they fill their bags full.

  “This should last us a bit but I would like to eventually get everything in here over to the office.” Decker says.

  I nod and watch as the others lug the now full and heavy bags over their shoulders. We make our way back to the lobby where we find Andy and Abby waiting for us.

  “We got everything we can. I think we’re going to head back to the building. You said that you wanted to go check your home or something right?” Decker asks Abby.

  She nods her head.

  “Yeah I want to see if my family is okay.”

  “And it’s not too far away?” He asks.

  “Only about five blocks from here.”

  Decker looks back at me.

  “And you guys are good with going?” He asks.

  I nod. Then I look at Kyle and Andy. Kyle nods too, leaving only Andy. He glares at me but nods as well.

  “Well alright then. Be safe and run back if anything happens. Do you know the distance on these radios?” He asks me.

  “Pretty far. My company used them to radio across downtown so a few blocks is nothing to them.” I say.

  “Good. Radio if anything happens. If you can’t make it back safely then hold up somewhere we can always work on rescuing you.” He says.

  I nod and watch them exit the building and head back towards the office. Once I know that they’ve made it safely I turn back to the group.

  “So are you guys ready?” I ask them.

  “Are we walking there?” Kyle asks.

  “I figured we would. Why? Have something in mind?” I ask.

  “Why don’t we use one of the cars?” He asks.

  I take a second to think it over. Why haven’t we been using cars? I know the sound would probably draw attention but there’s some cars that can be pretty silent today. Especially the electric ones. I guess we just haven’t thought to use them since you don’t see them moving around anymore.

  “I think they would be too loud.” Abby says.

  “I saw an electric car in the parking lot. If we keep it under 20 miles an hour it’s practically silent.” Kyle says.

  “But we don’t have keys for it.” Andy chips in.

  “It was a police vehicle. The keys should be somewhere in the building.” Kyle says.

  “Why do the police have electric cars?” Abby asks.

  “Environmental laws are starting to push for police and other government bodies to use more eco-friendly vehicles.” I answer.

  My mind races back to a conversation I had with one of the officers that helped my company. He was excited that the police were getting some new patrol vehicles and he was hoping that he was going to get to drive one of them. He later pouted because he wasn’t one of the guys chosen to drive the new cars.

  We make our way back outside to the parking lot. Kyle walks up to black electric police car and walks around it. He pulls on the handle only to find the car locked. He circles the vehicle again and stops at the back end of the passenger side.

  “It’s number is 37.” He calls out.

  Unsure what to do with the information I open my mouth to ask him what he means, but Abby cuts me off before I can.

  “Hey this lock is 37. Do you think the keys to the car are in here?” She asks.

  She stands next to the lock boxes set into the wall of the building. She’s pointing at a lock in the third row of boxes. I walk over and quickly unlock the box. Inside we find some keys.

  Abby grabs the keys and presses on the unlock button. Lights behind us flash as the car next to Kyle responds to the keys.

  With keys in hand we walk back to the car. For a second we freeze as we surround the vehicle. Kyle stands in front of the driver’s door looking down at Abby expectantly.

  “I thought you didn't have your license.” He says.

  Abby’s face grows red at his words. Her bottom lip sticks out in a cute pout.

  “And?”

  “I think it’d be safer to have someone that knows how to drive behind the wheel.” He says.

  She pouts more and part of me wants to say let her drive. But the guy’s logic is sound. This isn’t really the time to be playing around.

  Abby seems to get this without it being said. As a moment later she hands Kyle the keys.

  He unlocks the car and gets into the driver seat. Abby opens the back door and shuffles in. Andy opens the front passenger seat and stops moving.

  “The hell am I suppose to do with these?” He asks

   He gestures to something in the passenger seat. I peek into the car and see some rig holding a computer and some other electronics hanging over the passenger seat.

  “Give me a second.” I say.

  As I do so I push my mana out of me. I rake it over the rig following the wires that lead into the car. After a bit the tingle in my mind whispers to me. Giving me the feeling that it’s safe just to cut the stuff out.

  With that in mind I tentatively wrap my mana around the cords. A blue ring of energy forms around the black cables. With a mental command the energy rotates fast enough to cause a humming sound. Then it shrinks.

  The cables fall as I sever them. Next I work on the metal arm holding the computer. For it I have to use Mana Saw on my tire iron to cut it out. Once it is Andy gets into the passenger seat without even thanking me.

  “Thanks man.” Kyle says.

  I nod at him and get into the back seat with Abby.

  The car starts with a low hum and we make our way to the gate in the fence. I get out and open the gate letting the car drive out slowly. Once the car is on the street I close the gate and get back in the car.

  Abby guides Kyle to her home apartment. As she does so I pull out the radio.

  “Hey, this is Joel. Nothing’s wrong but I wanted to let you know that we found an electric car. We are using it to move around faster. Over.”

  “Sounds good. When you’re on your way back let us know. We’ll open the garage for you. Over” Decker says through the radio.

  With that done we move silently through the streets. Occasionally we pass a zombie or two. I kill them with a Rifle Round as we pass. In almost no time at all we pull up on a three story building that Abby says is her home.

  As Kyle slows down in the street the tingle in my mind sounds off. However, I have no clue what it’s trying to tell me. All it leaves me with is a sense of being cautious.

  We get out of the car, leaving it in the middle of the street. Kyle locks it once everyone is out.

  “Alright, is everyone ready?” I ask the group.

  The group gives a collective yes. As we draw closer to the building Abby starts glowing a faint blue. I follow suit as I command my mana to be ready for anything. It surges inside of me filling me with a comfortable heat.

  “Alright let's go.” I say opening the door to the building.