The rest of the ride was uneventful. Except for the constant signs of disrepair and decay of everything around them, Reece could have imagined he was on a joy ride before everything changed. However, without human intervention, the humidity and weather were taking their toll on the state of things.
When they were an hour out from the cape, Reece started smelling salt on the air. The ocean was nearby. He remembered that the airbase was situated on the large cape east of a small island and separated from it by a wide river. The highway they were taking would lead across the island and into the cape from the north.
Reece didn’t know what would be awaiting them if anything, but he would play it safe and enter the cape from the sliver of land to the east of the river. The sliver was many kilometers long and barely wider than South Atlantic Avenue, the road that ran along it, with a river on the right and the ocean on the left.
Luckily, its isolation kept it clear of walking corpses. That allowed them to make great time as they traveled over the strip of land until the base came within view. Despite his own reluctance, Reece finally laid his eyes on Cape Canaveral again. He had been there a couple of times before; once when he was still in the service, and again as an astronaut in training.
Not knowing what to expect, Reece slowed down as he approached the base. As a precaution, he parked the Helios a good couple of kilometers back. He hid it under a small stand of leafy trees growing along the side of the road. He placed his helmet on the solar cycle and covered it all with a blanket he happened to find lying nearby.
Once he was satisfied everything was well-hidden, he withdrew the Hel-Shrieker and some extra rounds. He placed them in his side satchel after looping it over his shoulder. He also looped the bandolier of grenades over his other shoulder, checking his twin pistols a moment later. Ready to go, Reece drew the katana from his back and looked over at the girl next to him.
“I don’t know what we’re going to find here,” Reece told Karina as they carefully approached the base. “We know it was overrun shortly after the plague had begun. Also, anyone on Zhengzhou would have figured this is one of the places we may try to get to, once we reached the surface. Be on your guard. These bastards may have a trap in store for intruders.”
“I hope they do,” snarled Karina. “I have a powerful need to rend and destroy these undead abominations, not to mention those that are controlling them. You could say that I owe them a whole lot of pain”
As they continued creeping closer, they noticed that the gate and much of the fence-line had collapsed completely. There wasn’t a single zombie in sight as they entered the base, stepping over the broken wire-mesh gate to gain entry.
“Where to?” asked Karina in a whisper.
“I’m not sure, but let’s start with the headquarters,” replied Reece, taking her cue and whispering as well. “It’s that big building on the left, down a good couple kilometers.”
The two continued towards the squat but sprawling building, with nothing but the sound of the salty wind blowing across the empty base. Reece felt that to say that the scene was eerie would have been an understatement. The hairs on the back of his neck suddenly stood up and he backed behind a shed he had just been passing on his way to the headquarters. Karina nodded and approached him.
“Something is wrong here,” she whispered in his ear. “I can’t determine what it is, but I’m sure that something is waiting for us. Something very bad and very powerful. Look around, there’s nothing living here, no animals and no birds even.”
Reece nodded at the diminutive young lady as she gripped her spear and twisted it, returning it to its full three-meter glory. She looked battle-ready. Reece thought better of his approach and slid his katana back into its sheath. Instead, he readied the rocket launcher he had slung along his side. It would pack a lot more punch. He checked the firing mechanism and flicked the safety off. Once their adjustments were made, they sprinted from building to building until they had reached the headquarters building.
Reece did a slow scan of the area. Nothing moved of its own accord. The wind continued to blow a couple of tattered flags affixed to their poles and random paper and leaves across the ground. Those were the only things moving. Something didn’t feel right, but they couldn’t just sit there. They had already come too far to turn back now. Silently nodding, the pair watched and listened all around them as they crossed the last stretch towards the building.
Just as the pair approached the front doors, Reece saw a both familiar and very unfamiliar face. The incredibly mutated creature before him had once been Jared, the commander’s right-hand man aboard Zhengzhou. It still looked like Jared, except that its arms and legs looked like they had been painfully stretched to inhuman lengths. He was severely hunched over but looked to still be about two meters tall.
Reece thought that Jared’s skin could best be described as bark-like. It had a sickly greyish pallor, contrasting sharply with his glowing greens eyes. Jared opened his mouth in a big grin and an elongated split tongue snaked out from between multiple rows of sharpened teeth. His hair, lips, and nails were jet black and the nails had grown into wickedly curving talons, many centimeters long.
“Grrreeetingsss, again...Reeeeesssse,” hissed the Jared-creature. “Look how glorrriousssss I have become. It’sssss too bad you didn’t take the commander’ssssss deal, or you too could wield this kind of power! Now, you are merely prey...”
“Neptune’s balls, Jared...what the fuck happened to you?” asked Reece in horror. “You look like hammered shit.”
“The serum blesssssesss usss all differently, you ssssee...heee, heee, heee...” replied the slender creature as it produced a sickly wheezing laugh.
“Okay, I’m...uh, happy for you?” Reece answered, unsure how to react to the creature’s insane musings. “So, the commander left you behind to deal with me, yourself? Okay, well...too bad for you, but I’ve got backup.”
“Hee, hee, hee, hee...,” giggled a clearly insane Jared. “So do I...”
“Uh, what?” asked Reece as he narrowed his eyes, suddenly worried by Jared’s response.
“Oh, um...Reece, behind us...,” gasped Karina, tugging on his arm frantically.
Reece wheeled around to see a horde of mutated creatures from the darkest of nightmares. They came in numerous varieties, but all were hideous. A couple of the larger ones were even gliding overhead. Large leathery wings pumped, keeping the grey-skinned humanoids hovering over the area above the buildings.
All the creatures on the ground and in the air seemed sickly and misshapen. They had come from nowhere and now they were everywhere. Bulbous red, yellow, or green eyes all stared at the pair of intruders with murderous looks. The looks they gave them from what could only loosely be described as their faces indicated that their minds were just as twisted as their bodies. Unfortunately, the creatures weren’t Jared’s only surprise.
Standing in front of the mass of twisted monstrosities was Commander Rogers. He too had undergone some changes, but nothing as dramatic as Jared, who was barely recognizable. He seemed a bit bigger in general, with more muscles and his skin was now a reddish-brown color. His brow was more pronounced, as was his jaw, giving the look of a fiendish sort of caveman. Reece frowned when he noticed the look on his old commander’s brutish face. He was smiling.
“Reece, we missed you so,” soothed Commander Rogers mockingly. “Have you come back to join us? We’d be glad to have you, of course.”
Reece suddenly had a horrifying thought. If Jared and the Commander both survived the shuttle landing, that didn’t bode too well for Naeva’s chances. He needed to know what had happened to her, but he had to play it smart.
“You guys made it! What a relief,” said Reece, feigning joy. “Did anybody else make it out okay?”
Stolen story; please report.
“You must mean your spy, the Iranian bitch. Oh, she got off easy. Not like what is about to happen to you, if you don’t back down and learn your place. And I see you brought a little girl with a big stick to help you. Aawww, how small she is. Now, my friend... will you join us and share in the glory of the Order? Or will you spend your remaining years as a brain-dead blood bag while your little friend dies here and now with no one left to mourn her? Hmmm, on second thought, she is quite cute. Maybe we’ll keep her around after all. We could use another plaything. They seem to break so easily.”
The commander eyed the lilitu girl lustily before returning his gaze to Reece. “This is your final chance; will you join us?”
Reece ignored the commander’s goading as he looked over at Karina. She was staring back at him, a hard look on her face. As soon as they made eye contact, her angry stare broke. She winked at him with a subtle smirk and gave him a slight nod. This wasn’t her first dance. She had been around a very long time. It would take a lot more than the commander’s meager threats to shake the steel-willed girl. Reece gave the girl a half-smile as he made up his mind. It wasn’t like there was a real choice.
“Sure,” said Reece as he aimed the Hel-Shrieker missile launcher right at the commander. “Here’s my RSVP.”
He squeezed the trigger and the launcher fired a foot-long missile directly at the commander. The man who had once had Reece’s respect leaped out of the way with surprising speed, possibly even matching that of Karina. True to its name, the missile shrieked as it flew past the man, his quick reaction saving him. The mob of mutated monstrosities behind him wasn’t so fast or lucky, however. The missile exploded in a ten-meter radius blast, atomizing half the nightmarish mob and blowing the rest across the courtyard.
Reece knelt to reload the launcher before the remaining creatures could recover. He could hear fighting behind him as Karina battled toe to toe with Jared. The combatants both moved with speed and agility no normal human could hope to achieve. She continuously thrust and sliced into the creature, but he always managed to get his arms in the way and block the attacks.
The wounds on his arms healed almost instantly, but he was protecting his torso and head. The veteran warrior she was, she quickly surmised that there was a good chance she could do real damage if she could land a head or body blow.
While Karina and Jared battled ferociously, Reece fired the rocket he had just loaded as the commander stood back up. It narrowly missed him as he twisted to the side, dodging the incoming projectile with inhuman speed. The shrieking rocket exploded into a huge behemoth made of quivering body parts directly behind the enhanced man, blowing Rogers forward and onto his face as the behemoth exploded into a spray of ichor and viscera.
Reece drew one of his pistols and rapidly emptied it into the commander’s head and face as the man stood back up. Changing tactics, Reece tossed the spent Hel-Shrieker launcher to the side as he finished filling the man’s face with holes. Once the pistol’s clip was spent, he swiftly holstered it and drew Aika’s katana from his back. Gripping the weapon in both hands, he rushed forward, winding up in hopes of finishing off the incredibly resilient commander.
Even after taking a full clip to the face, the commander still managed to stand back up and scowl. Before Reece could reach the quickly recovering man, one of the grey leathery-winged creatures grabbed him from behind with its wickedly clawed hands and yanked him up into the air. Forced to change targets, Reece drove the katana up and through the bottom of the creature’s jaw. The blade penetrated into its brain where he used both hands to twist it violently.
Both Reece and the creature collapsed back to the ground, the large creature landing right on top of him. Shaking the stars from his eyes, Reece found that his legs were pinned underneath the dead beast. Looking around, Reece saw the rocket launcher lying nearby, but it was just out of reach. He had managed to keep hold of the katana, so he used the extra reach it afforded him to pull the launcher’s shoulder strap close enough to grab. As soon as the strap was within reach, he let go of the katana and took hold of it, using it to pull the launcher to him.
Seeing the commander shaking his head as his wounds slowly closed, Reece pulled the last missile from his satchel. He knew he didn’t have much time before the commander was recovered enough to finish him off, helpless as he was. With the last missile in hand, he loaded the Hel-Shrieker launcher with it and aimed the weapon at his target.
“Karina!” called Reece at the top of his lungs.
She backed off enough to look back at him, blinking twice as she realized his plan, and swiftly dove to the side. Reece squeezed the trigger and the last Hel-Shrieker missile took off in a fiery shrieking streak straight towards a slack-jawed Jared who just started to comprehend what was happening when he took it full in the chest. The intense explosion left nothing in its wake. Tiny bits of Jared, misshapen and mutated, rained down over the whole area a moment later.
Reece heard a monstrous cry of anger and noticed a second winged creature diving towards him, its grotesque face screaming in rage. He was still trapped under its mate, so he defiantly held his blade between him and the swiftly plunging monster. He needn’t have bothered with the futile move to defend himself. Almost instantly, Karina was in front of him, planting her body for a powerful attack.
The monster’s charge was brought short as the lilitu brought her spear down in a devastating arc into the creature’s head and body, slicing the beast nearly in two with the razor-sharp edge of the weapon. Not quite finished, Karina also redirected the beast’s momentum, causing it to plunge powerfully into the ground in front of her. The impact of the creature made a sickening crunch as its body was reduced to a mushy pile of grey skin, protruding bones, and greenish gore.
She backed off from the oozing mess and quickly looked away from the sickening sight. Grabbing Reece by the scruff of his jacket, she dragged him out from under the other dead flying mutation. Both of his legs hurt badly as they were pulled clear, but then he was free of the dead weight.
Looking up, he saw the commander curse and retreat as the remaining distorted creatures closed ranks to allow the man his escape. Pulling Reece to his feet, Karina planted a kiss on his lips. Reece found the kiss odd but didn’t have time to consider it further. Surprisingly, he felt good despite being crushed by the falling monster.
Picking up Aika’s katana, he stood beside his companion as the remnants of the nightmarish horde closed in on them. Karina and Reece efficiently executed the pitiful lot of sickly monstrosities, swiftly hacking and slicing their way through the heads, limbs, and bodies of the motley group of sorry-looking beings until there were none left to face them.
However, the zombies and other warped monstrosities had done their job. The commander had managed to retreat out of harm’s way, to stand near a man that Reece didn’t recognize. This man was tall and pale, with black greasy hair swept back from his face. He was ridiculously over-dressed in Reece’s opinion, wearing a finely fitted suit of an unknown style, perhaps from a bygone era.
The light grey button-up vest and black slacks looked okay on the man, but the long black overcoat was a bit much. He exuded an aura of 'pompous ass'. Topping it off, he held a long walking stick in his hand and seemed to be smiling, though it was hard for Reece to tell from the distance separating them.
Behind the two men waited dozens more infected, but these looked like the run-of-the-mill zombies they’d fought before. Looking closer, Reece noticed these zombies were outfitted with blades, barbs, armor and spiked helmets and a dozen of the large dread wolves stood off to either side.
“Well, I must admit, I am somewhat impressed that you managed to destroy most of our failed experiments,” announced the dark-haired man. “I really didn’t think that I’d have to take care of you myself. But it makes sense, I suppose, considering the company you keep. Hello Karina Ragnarsdottir. It’s been far too long.”
“Do you know this guy, Karina?” asked Reece in sudden bewilderment, a chill running down his spine.
“Unfortunately, yes...” replied Karina distastefully, clearly displeased with this turn of events. “Things are starting to make a lot more sense now.”
“What do you mean?” asked Reece with an edge to his voice as the feeling of dread encompassed his whole being.
“Don’t worry, he may be an ancient vampire, but he’s still an idiot,” replied Karina before addressing the vampire directly. “So, Sebastian...I see you’re one of the arrogant fools behind this moronic scourge that you’ve released upon the world. I was wondering which rock you had slithered under all those decades ago, but I never imagined the levels of depravity you were willing to sink to. What did you think the endgame of this bone-headed move would be? You’ll never change, will you?”
The black-haired man, Sebastian, merely smiled through Karina’s assessment of his shortcomings until she had finished.
“Yes, well...things didn’t exactly work out the way they were supposed to,” responded the man as he defended himself from her accusations. “It became apparent that there were other forces at work against us and we had to release the serum before it was ready.”
“So, stop me if I’m off base,” cut in Reece. “You simply wanted a compliant workforce, right? Not a rampaging scourge that would virtually end all human life on the planet. After all, all of you aren’t insane, merely monsters. Well, despite your little setback, you still chose to release this plague on all of us. Tell me, how exactly does that benefit anyone?”
Sebastian stood there smiling with confidence but didn’t answer Reece’s question, preferring to keep that little secret to himself. However, Karina answered for him.
“They are still working on the control formula, and they think they can make it work,” she explained as she pieced it together herself. “Once they do that, they’ve basically won, and this messy beginning can be left in the past and forgotten.”
“Well, it sounds like we didn’t come all this way for nothing,” stated Reece with a wicked smile as he faced down his enemies. “So, Karina, what do you think our chances are here?”
The vampire, Sebastian, laughed at the comment. “You may have a powerful companion in little Karina there, but even she is no match for a fellow vampire and his entire retinue. Maybe, one-on-one, she’d have a chance. But I don’t fight fair if I can help it, and right now, I can most definitely help it.”
Reece looked to Karina, but she merely frowned. Whether from being referred to as a vampire or the situation in general, he couldn’t tell.