Michael tried not to smile when he saw Kyrie in the morning. Her nose was a bit puffy. She had two black eyes, and some vessels in her left eye had apparently burst transforming half the white in the eye to a cloudy red. The executive zombie had really smacked her in the face pretty good the day before.

Michael had bruises of his own. He had one pale bruise on his sternum, from where he had taken a hit on one of the earlier floors. His right side on the other hand had a dark bruise that covered the space including and between three of his ribs. It would ache anytime he moved his right arm, since he used his right arm to fight it would probably ache a lot today. The wound on the side of his forehead had basically just scabbed over. It would likely leave a scar. Not that scars worried him on his normal body, let alone his avatar.

Still his biggest concern was his left foot. The sprain was basically better. Perhaps if he bent it wrong it would protest angrily, but his missing pinky toe still hurt. Several days had not allowed that wound to disappear despite the accelerated healing his avatar seemingly experienced. Perhaps if he stayed off it, it would heal faster, but Michael could not afford to waste more time. He would just suffer more today, like he had for the past few days.

The sun had been up for well over an hour, before they had set out. A bit of a late start, but yesterday had been brutal. They had both improved by big strides, but it had been a lot of fighting. Between 39 floors they had taken down well over a thousand zombies. They had both earned 10 plus attribute points, item upgrades, and new gear.

Michael felt a bit silly, but he wore his shin/knee pads over his pants. They would hold up against a good amount of abuse, and they were good quality so they would regenerate some damage slowly. His machete on the other hand had even more nicks on it. Another couple days of abuse, and he might need to find something else.

Kyrie on the other hand now wore her black fingerless gloves with reinforced metal studs. They would do more damage and protect her hands. They completed her ensemble with her black leather biker jacket and black combat pants. The fact that she had a sheathed sword on her left side, made her look extremely badass. Whereas, Michaels gear looked to be more on the odd side.

Their damp clothes had dried, by the time they had made it down 39 flights of stairs. The outside street was empty. They started South. They were actually headed to the outpost to the southeast, but they would have to cross the river first. There were two bridges in the direction. The first was due south of them. The second was a bridge to the east, and was near where the dog track and country club they had passed through had been. Likely they would have to cut through the outer edges of the country club to get to it, if they choose that way, but neither had wanted to go back in that way. They both desired to see more of the city.

They made it to the bridge without difficulty. Several groups of zombies came at them, but after their slog through the tower of zombies the day before, these zombies fell quite easily. Most of the tier 1’s they encountered were newly evolved, but even the ones that weren’t had not progressed too far in the tier. The bridge was a rusted iron arch bridge that was now a dirty reddish brown in color. It was wide enough to allow two lanes each way and a median in the middle. They bashed through another group of zombies who challenged their crossing.

Michael picked up his second white drop of the morning, using it the same as the first to bring his stamina to 20. He had made sure to work in his skill whenever possible into the fights. It was not really needed, but he wanted to get comfortable with the skill as well as to push it towards level 4.

Similarly he had tried out his upgraded bracer. It did not disappoint. The bolts without pulse clearly had more stopping power. With 3 points of pulse they would punch right through the head of an early stage tier 1 zombie. If Michael lined it up right, he might even be able to bring down several zombies with one shot.

The river was not extremely wide. A couple hundred feet, although it appeared to be fairly deep. They got to the other side of the bridge within a couple of minutes before freezing in place. Off to their left was a relatively small district called the abandoned factory district. Right beside the bridge was a lumber mill. They had only been traveling for a couple of hours, but they had already found their next blue drop. The tactical map each kept up in the corner of their vision showed the lumber mill with the familiar blue haze. They both looked at each other, but neither needed to voice it. With the potential of obtaining another blue drop before lunch time there was little question on what they would do.

They exited off the bridge ambling down to the left of the river embankment. The lumber mill was old and rusted. Trees were growing all around it, and grass had even grown over the edges of the cement. The buildings looked to be on the verge of being swallowed back by nature. It definitely stood out from the rest of the city, making Michael and Kyrie all the more cautious.

The lumber mill consisted of one extremely large warehouse sized building. It was not a singularly housed space, but was an amalgam of separate sectional add ons that looked to have been added as expansions overtime. However, one section of the building jutted up a whole story above the rest of the building, its roof running perpendicular to the rest of the roof. The section had a balcony that overlooked the river. It had likely once been fairly ornate although now it was worn down like the rest of the facility. Michal guessed that was where the lumber mill boss's office had once been.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

Other than the building there were several chutes from the river, piles of stacked lumber, and various support equipment: trucks, forklifts, etcetera… All equally as rusted as the facility they had once supported.

Kyrie pointed toward the window of the office near the balcony. There was a faint blue glow coming from within. It was hard to tell for sure, but it was very likely that it was the blue drop they would be looking for.

They proceeded wordlessly forward. The eerily silent city was foreboding, but the abandoned lumber mill was plain ominous. There was no hint or movement indicating what threat the facility would offer. Yesterday they had fought their way through a tower of normal zombies, but that had been the exception to what they had both witnessed up to that point. Anytime there were drop locations marked on the map, then there was something guarding it, but as of yet there was no indication what it was.

Some of the questions on what they would be facing was answered moments later when they saw the top third of a woman’s body lying in the dirt maybe twenty steps from the open front doors located in a midsection crotch of the building. Only the head and shoulders were left, and one arm left stretching forward. The other arm had been severed above the elbow. Other than the portion of the body, there was a dried pool of blood on the dirt and some marks to suggest something heavy had passed.

“What the hell could have done that,” Kyrie proclaimed softly in disgust.

“Well I think it is safe to assume it was a beast of some sort. Hopefully, the boss of this place. If some lowly minion was able to do that then we are screwed. It looks like it chomped her in half,” Michael answered back. He used a quiet tone, but did not whisper.

“If it fit the bottom half of her body in its mouth, it must be absolutely monstrous,” Kyrie exclaimed.

“Well it could have chomped off her legs first and then gone back in for a second bite,” Michael mused thoughtfully.

“Yeah that makes me feel better about it,” Kyrie said sarcastically. “Now I have to face the horror of it slowly eating me bite by bite.”

“Well it's better we make it out of this alive,” Michael shrugged.

Kyrie shook her head, silently letting him know she thought he was an idiot. “Oh no!” she exclaimed a moment later. “I thought something seemed familiar. She was on our contact list. We met her at the outpost.”

“Makes sense, I’m not an expert, but it does not look like much time has passed based on how things look. Probably last night,” Michael said solemnly.

“If I remember correctly she was a part of a group with two others. Both guys, a Benson and another Michael. Do you think they were still with her?” Kyrie asked, concerned.

“If they were, they probably did not fare much better. Let's hope the beastie does not get a chance to eat a Michael for the second day in a row,” Michael smirked.

“That is incredibly callous of you,” Kyrie remarked.

Michael stood leaving their temporary cover behind the scoop of a large excavator. Kyrie stood from her crouch behind the machine’s treads and followed silently after him. Michael made light of it, but inside he felt a sinking feeling. Their path took them right by the body. Michael tried to keep himself from looking, but he shot one glance down at the corpse. Pale skin and open eyes stared lifelessly and the mouth was fixed agape. As if in a silent scream. Yup, he should not have looked, but it was just an addition to the things he had seen and would see that would likely haunt him for the rest of his life.

They found more blood and the bottom half of a male arm near the doorway. It was not all that was left of the body, just what they had noticed first. The rest of the body lay face down ten feet away. It had not been eaten at all.

“The group of contenders had apparently decided to run for it, but had died in fairly quick succession,” Michael hypothesized.

Michael took a closer look. There were four slashes across the chest. A large creature had slashed across the man’s chest and ripped through the guy's arm with the same strike. Michael stepped back in alarm. One attack had done this. This was a solid step up in difficulty and danger over anything else they had faced up to this point.

“I think we might be dealing with a tier 2 beast,” Michael said quietly.

“Seriously, you just came to that conclusion. What about the mostly eaten girl outside?” Kyrie whispered.

“Well I thought it might have been eating her post mortem. This guy was killed and had his arm ripped off in one swipe.” Michael said, also moving toward the door. Whatever had done this might be beyond them. It was seemingly quick if it had overtaken the other trio of contenders when they were likely running full sprint away from it. It was also strong and dangerous, and while he did not have any evidence to prove it was the case, it would probably be difficult to kill.

They both made it to the door when they heard a loud hissing sound coming from outside. “Damn wasn’t it supposed to be inside the abandoned factory. What is it doing laying out to warm up in the morning sun?” Michael remarked dryly.

“Maybe it wants to do the whole horror movie with us running through an abandoned factory scene,” Kyrie morbidly joked. A large reptilian head swiveled out from behind a pile of logs.

[Giant Monitor, tier 2]

That settled it. They were facing their first tier 2. The long creature stepped forward slowly revealing the rest of itself. It had a long serpentine neck and tail that both swayed back and forth as it moved. The body was held maybe a foot off the ground on four limbs that each ended with dark black claws. In total the creature likely was 15 feet in length although over half of its length were due to its tail and neck. A forked tongue shot out an additional four feet as it tested the air.