About three miles from the opening in the subway Rhett Volle, George Pardue, and Zoe Tooker are walking through the near empty streets of Saint Grey City.

"Why aren't there any service men cleaning this place up?" George Pardue breaks the ominous silence.

"They're busy with the Red War, dropping Cyaneca on innocent people," Rhett says. "And this is what we get for it."

"What is Cyaneca anyway?" George asks.

"All I know, all most people know, if that its some kinda of chemical agent that the ROL government developed, but barely tested," Rhett explains.

"Oh, they tested it," Zoe jumps in. "They tested it on a zorilla of mine that was dying of rabies. It didn't seem to do anything to it. It was rather anxious for an hour or two, but that’s it. Granted, it was just a tiny amount of that stuff. They told me it was some kind of rabies vaccination."

"The one that bit you?" George asks.

"Yep, and I'm surprised I didn't get its rabies."

"I'm surprised you didn't get something worse," Rhett says.

"What do you mean?" Zoe asks concerned.

"Who knows what else that Cyaneca could have done," Rhett says. "Anyway, we need a car."

"What for?" George asks.

"To get around a little bit faster. To see if anyone's around," Rhett answers.

"What about that one," Zoe suggests pointing her clawed finger to an ash covered SUV parked by the side of an apartment. A car's almost in perfect condition with the exception of a cracked windshield and the light gray ash all over it.

"Lets hope the keys are in it," Rhett smiles.

The three of them walk over to the vehicle, Rhett reaches for the door handle and tries to open it, but instead, the car's alarm blares and echoes through the empty street. Slightly annoyed, Rhett tugs on the handle harder, and harder, and with a snap the handle breaks right off.

"Good one," George says as Rhett kicks the door leaving a nice sized dent. "Move out of the way," George warns.

George Pardue stands in front of the car window as the alarms loud enough to make Zoe cover her ears. George puts the heels of his hand together and curls his fingers back so both of his palms are parallel to the SUV's driver-side window. Then a bright purple blade jets out of his hands, leaving purple smoke after it, through both front seat windows and into the apartment in the path chipping the brick of the building and leaving a small crater in the side of the building.

"Pop the hood," Rhett orders George.

George reached in the car, opens the door from the inside and pops the hood. Rhett lifts the hood, reaches down the side and rips out the alarm box. He rears back and tosses it at the apartment. The alarm shatters upon impact as the ear-splitting alarm stops not a moment too soon.

Rhett slams the hood down and walks to the drivers seat, passing George who has a cynical smile on his face.

"Yea, Rhett," George begins as he walks to the other side of the car. "I don't think that alarm will be giving you any more shit."

"Get in," Rhett says not appreciating his humor at the moment.

George walks over and opens the passenger seat door for Zoe who gives a kind smile in return as George goes to the back seat. Rhett attempts to get in he hits his horn off the side of the door. The bone on metal clang gets the attention of Zoe who covers her mouth trying not to laugh loud enough to upset Rhett. George looks to the back seat at a grinning George.

"I'm not going to say anything," George tells him. "Just drive, and try not to give us a sunroof with that spike on your forehead."

Rhett just shakes his head, puts the key in the ignition, and drives away. Soon after the sly humor George was sharing with his friends dies off as they see smoke, crumbled buildings and landmarks, and corpses sprawled out on the sidewalks and streets. The tires of the SUV leaves tracks in the ash covered road, much like driving after a significant snowfall. Zoe looks out the window at some of the people, none that she knows personally, but when she sees the charred bodies of men, women, mothers, fathers and children, she can't help shedding a tear.

"Can we go to the Zoo? Please?" Zoe begs.

Rhett knows that the Saint Grey Zoo isn't too far from their location, but noticing the tear that ran down her eye, he hesitates an answer. He knows that Zoe has a huge love for animals of all kinds. He also knows, by watching the small television back in their subway gate, the zoo isn't all that far from where the first bombing's ground zero. Somewhere, deep down in his seen-it-all-and-nothing-scares-me heart, he doesn't want to see the heartbreak all those dead animals would cause Zoe. But, not wanting to be a stuck up prick he knows he should at least take her to what would be left of the gates of the zoo.

""Sure," is all he says hoping that she'll just see the demolished zoo and that will be enough for her.

Rhett flicks on his right turn signal and slows to make the turn onto the highway that would take them to the Saint Grey Zoo. As he begins to make the turn onto the next street he slows the car to a stop. He just stares at the green blinking arrow and the soft dings the turn signal creates. For several seconds he stares stone faced at the green lit arrow. He lifts his head to look out of the cracked windshield and sees the burnt, ash covered body of a woman in her late twenties. The woman is covering an object, sheltering it in her coat. Rhett squints to figure out what it is. His breath gets taken away when he realizes its a small infant, burned and covered in ash as well. For the first time in his life he feels like bursting out in tears. Nothing made him feel like this before. All the people he shot and killed in the Navy's Pegazus recon team, the blood of his enemies and friends splashing him in the face, soldiers with missing limbs screaming to be put out of their misery, nothing made him feel like he does now. Nothing. Once he regains his composure again he finds himself staring at the green arrow next to the speedometer which is at zero. He realizes he doesn't need the turn signal. Nobody's going to drive into him. No cop is going to pull him over because he failed to signal his turn. For all he knows, they are all dead.

He reaches up to the stick and flicks the turn signal off and watches the arrow lights up and dings one more time until silence fills the air again. Only the hum of the motor can be heard. No beeping car horns. No yelling, no road rage-filled drivers. Nothing but the hum of the motor.

"Rhett," George says from the backseat looking at Rhett in the rear-view mirror. "The zoo? We were going to the zoo. I thought we were anyway. You alright?"

"Yeah, the zoo," Rhett answers quietly as he presses on the gas pedal again to complete the turn.

George looks around like he missed something but soon sits back in his seat again. They drive on, to a less damaged part of the metropolis. A section where there is just streets covered in ash and not near as many fallen or damaged buildings. In fact, the section of the city they are in now looks relatively unscaved. The open street, however, shows more damage about a mile ahead. Zoe looks out of the passenger side window at a grocery store, a park, some residential buildings and a bank go whizzing by.

"Rhett! Stop!" Zoe shouts as Rhett slams on the brakes sending the SUV sliding on the ashes.

They come to a stop angled in the road.

"There were people in the bank," Zoe says excited.

"Dead?" Rhett asks.

"No! They were moving. Dressed in black, like policemen, or bank security guards. We were going by so fast that I couldn't make them out, but there were people in the bank. We got to go back."

Rhett puts the car in reverse to back up just a little more since they were already perpendicular to the road, and drives back towards the bank. He stops the car across the street from the bank. The road is too wide to make out what kind of uniforms the two people in the bank were wearing. They could be cops, or just people in dark business suits. They sit in the car for a minute trying to make out who the people are, and what they were doing in the bank. Rhett squints again to see one of the guys in the bank go into the walk-in vault where they keep all the money. Shortly he sees a massive amount of money spew out of the door. Rhett opens the door of the car and gets out just as the second person walks over the pile of money and goes in the door too. George and Zoe both get out of the car as well.

"What’s going on Rhett?" Zoe asks.

"They're looting," Rhett starts. "They are fucking looting and stealing the money from the bank."

The three walk across the street and towards the plate glass walls of the bank. Both men have gone into the vault and can't be seen, but every so often one of their black clothed arms sticks out of the door. Their interest is so much on the robbers that they don't know they are stepping over some very odd foot prints in the ash. Foot prints that don't look at all human, more like insects. Human sized insects.

They stop at the large sidewalks in front of the bank. About 10 feet from it. The men still haven't come out of the vault. Rhett reaches out his arms to his sides to stop Zoe and George, who are on either side of him, from getting any closer.

"Who the hell would be robbing a bank during a national crisis like this?" George asks.

"Haven't a clue," Rhett answers.

They continue to look into the bank, trying to see who these people were, and how dangerous they were, before they try and save the day. One of the men's arms comes out of the door and stays in site long enough for them to get a good visual. But they weren't human arms, they were black as coal, but shiny, like they had plastic wrapped around them, or some sort of exoskeleton. Before Rhett can get a good visual of the appendage the man, or thing, sticks its head out, reveling its more of a thing than a man.

The thing's head was just as black as its arm. It had two large eyes that had several pentagon shaped glares shifting in the light, like its eyes were segmented. It didn't have a nose, just two holes below its spider-like eyes. Its open mouth had a pink tongue and small white teeth much like a human, but it had two thick tusks protruding from the sides. Tusks that could move horizontally. There were no ears on it and the only hair it had were a few thick black threads standing straight out from its hardened skin.

"What the f..." Zoe started but never got to finish.

Not even a second later Rhett sees Zoe hit the ground out of the corner of his right eye, and George's body slamming into the ground from the left side of his body. Before he could even turn and lower his head to check their condition Rhett gets the wind knocked out of him and gets sent flying through the plate glass window of the bank. He flies and hits a wall in the bank with such intensity it leaves a crack in the wooden wall. Rhett shakes the dizziness out of his head and looks up in a kneeling position. He sees several feathers from his wings floating down to the ground, and then the shattered glass on the floor, then out of the door he violently made of the window, to Zoe and George looking around in horror, and then between his friends he sees an eight-limbed monstrosity with a tail.

Go back to part 2
Part 4 coming March 1st