The Mound Builders Conclusion Part 2
by demented20

*I didn't plan for this to turn into a miniature series, but I hope you enjoy*

Bruce was winded as he made his way to the correct street. He didn't slow down, no he didn't even dare look over his shoulder. They were behind him, always behind him. He could hear them and smell them. He had to be careful since they'd just fed. They had the speed and strength to overpower him and eat him, but they didn't want to do that. Deep down inside those dead brains knew that Bruce was merely a shepherd leading the flock to the next meal. This one was a family huddled together in their home with the lights out and the doors locked shut. It looked like the family had fled, but Bruce knew better. He'd seen them out earlier in the day, and there were other people with them. Somehow they'd missed at being rescued by Mrs. Bernhardt and her people. It was too bad for them. If they had been down in the south end of Hidden Glen with Mrs. Bernhardt and the others, that family might have lived for another night, but as Bruce lead his congregation towards the darkened house their lives spanned minutes.

He stood by the door until the first creature came within ten feet or so. This was one of the old zombies. It was possible to see through the gaps in his rotted flesh to the creatures coming behind him, but this ancient creature hungered like the others. The hunger never stopped. It drove them, it fueled them, and Bruce used it to control them. They began to beat on the door, finally able to smell the life inside the house. The house itself shook as the fists pounded incessantly. Finally they broke in, never lost on their search for food. They found the family where they hid. Bruce sat on the sidewalk listening to screams. He wondered if he would scream when the time came, or would he take the coward's way out. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the pistol that he'd gotten from that stupid helicopter pilot. He had to wipe some blood off it, but the creatures had no need for guns. Bruce turned the heavy steel gun over and over, not really paying attention to the continued pleas and shrieks from inside the house until a shape streaked across his peripheral vision. Someone was trying to make a run for it with two zombies close behind. Bruce jumped up from the curb, aimed the gun and fired. The big .45 nearly kicked out of his hand, but he held on to squeeze off another shot and then another. Finally he heard a muffled squeal. He jumped in triumph at hitting something, but when he ran over he saw only some drops of blood and no body. Well, the creatures would find whoever he'd shot. The blood would draw them. Bruce would have given chase himself, but he had other things to worry about. It was time to gather more creatures, all the ones he could find and hide them. He didn't want Mrs. Bernhardt or her cronies to kill the monsters when they were weak. No he had to keep them out of sight until the sun went down, and then it would be time for Mrs. Bernhardt to finally get hers.

A few hours earlier in the south end of the Glen at Ethan's house, several people were waiting. A hundred watt bulb shined through the smoky haze highlighting the stoic faces of the people crammed around a rough rectangular table. Fear, foreboding, and hope filled the room in equal parts, wafting from person to person like the smoke from the half dozen cigarettes burning in nervous hands. All of these people were individually scared for their own lives, or in many cases the lives of their loved ones, but they'd been called into this room because they were the responsible ones. Sometimes through happenstance or perhaps through choice, these people had become leaders among the survivors in Hidden Glen. Retired Sheriff Jack Waller was there with his son Stevie, and his cadre of men who'd stepped up to defend the people in his section of the Glen from the damned zombies. Morris, the former short order cook who'd been taking night classes to become an accountant was there, as was Cindy, a high school senior who'd watched in horror as her house had burned to the ground. She'd never gotten to say good-bye to her dead parents, but she'd become the defacto headmistress of the first safe-house. A woman named Mabel held the same distinction in the second recently set up safe-house next door to Ethan's armored home. Men were in that house adding steel and wooden protection to that house as this meeting was about to begin. The meeting was slightly late because two important people had yet to show up.

No one said a word as the door finally open. Anna walked in quickly, tying her pink robe tightly around her impossibly tight waist. Her long raven colored hair was braided into a single long rope tossed over one shoulder. She moved with a purpose and had a get to business look written all over her exotic face. Mike came in right behind his wife and closed the door behind himself. He looked a bit embarrassed while Anna didn't have a trace of it. She was completely unapologetic about the fact that she and her husband had been in the middle of post sex cuddling when the knock and the summons for this meeting had come via Jimmy. Disapproving and envious looks were all the couple got as they found some space around the table. Everybody had seen earlier that it wasn't good to get on Anna's bad side. Mr. Robinson was still favoring his right arm while Anna looked fresh faced, and rather radiant considering the current situation.

"Now that we're all here", Ethan began and started layering maps, charts, and other materials on the rough top of the table. "We have a lot to cover, so let's get started. Our plan for escape is rather simple. There are two large busses located about three blocks from here. We're going to load everybody onto those busses and make our way over this pre-planed route to the exit. We should up armor the busses and prepare them to fight off the monsters for the duration of the route. That would be more effective and safer than having men at static points along the route risking their lives. We might need to make more than one trip, but that shouldn't be a problem."

"I don't see how in the world we're going to get through the fallen rubble at the entrance to the tunnel", Eli, one of Jack's men asked.

"Leave that to me", Ethan said. "Back in the Corps I was a sapper. I can breach a fallen pile of rocks with my eyes closed, and I have more than enough ordinance to do it. So do we have drivers for the busses?" Cindy and Mabel nodded.

"Now, onto the fortifying of the houses", Ethan said and Mike cleared his throat.

"I've been going over this with a few guys, and we believe that we should bolster the existing fence on the eastern side of the first safe-house and eliminate the fence that separates this house from the second safe-house. We can..", Mike paused and cocked his head to one side. "Anybody hear that?", he asked.

"What?", Anna asked her husband.

"Sounded like rotors…. Oh well. Anyway, I think we can use that lumber to help strengthen the fence on the west side. We'll have to build catwalks and hardened emplacements so we can defend against zombie attacks, especially at night. We'll need people who know how to wire up the external lights that Ethan has available and of course every hand who isn't engaged in some other specific task needs to be available to help build the defenses. Our perimeter isn't huge which is a good thing. We should be able to get all of this done in one day's time, so we can defend against the zombies tomorrow night if the need arises."

"I don't understand why we can't just leave", Brenda, one of Mabel's daughters said. "Why build defenses and fight off zombies? Why don't we just load the busses and leave in the morning?"

"I wish we could", Anna spoke up for the first time, "but if we do that those zombies will follow the busses out to the world at large. We have to kill them here in the Glen, or we'll never really be safe. The preparations for destroying all of these walking corpses are going to take at least one full day. That way Ethan and I can go underground during the light of day when the creatures are less dangerous."

"Why in the world do you have to go underground in the first place?"

"For two reasons", Ethan started then pulled out the map of the valley from twenty years ago. "There was a mound built here, a very special mound that sealed these creatures underground for centuries. The Mound Builders kept those creatures under this valley, and some of their power is still protecting us. They told me in a song when they saved my life way back when. They used some of their power to heal me, so that I could do what I'm doing now."

"Wait, are you telling me that ancient Indian Mound Builders came to you in a vision and spoke perfect English?"

Ethan and Anna laughed. "No, I didn't understand a word that they'd said to me until a couple of days ago. I don't speak their language."

"Then who does."

"I do", Anna replied, suddenly feeling all the weight of responsibility on her shoulders. "It's an ancient version of the language that my tribe speaks. The song didn't explain everything, but it did say that the heart of the problem is located underground. I have to find it and hopefully figure out a way to kill it."

"How are you going to do that?"

Anna looked at Ethan who grinned. "With a mixture of very old magic and quite modern engineering. Anyone ever wonder why there are two large parks on either side of the Glen in places that would be perfect for houses?"

The people around the room looked at one another. "Yeah, I did sort of wonder why they'd designed the neighborhoods and even the streets around those open areas."

"Well, I know why", Ethan allowed with a grin. "And those open spaces just might be our ticket to killing every zombie in the Glen." The meeting lasted for another hour as every detail of the next two days was scripted out by the people in charge. Once the meeting was over no one hung around. They had to rest as best they could. The next day was going to be a busy one, but none of them had any idea how busy.

Bruce was finally able to close the last door, temporarily locking another group of zombies inside a house. He'd protect them like this. He hoped they wouldn't try and break out. Even if they did, he'd done all he could. It was time for him to rest now. He didn't feel tired, but he knew that he'd have to be at his best. He looked at the brightening horizon and pulled up a manhole cover with a bit of effort. He moved it to the side just enough to climb down it. He pulled the cover back into place and settled down in the safety of the thick concrete walls of the storm drain access area. The pipes leading in all directions were too small to allow a person through, and unless it rained he was pretty safe from the creatures, for now anyway. His time would come; soon everybody's time would come.

At the south end of the Glen the survivors were getting to work as Bruce was closing his eyes. The sun was shining brightly and there was barely a cloud in the sky. The sounds of saws, hammers, grunts, and groans filled the air. Men toted heavy loads of wood and other materials being used to build defenses. Every able-bodied person who wasn't assigned to a specific duty were being used as labor. A couple hours after dawn someone rigged up a stereo.

Anna smiled at the distraction. A hard snaking groove from The Meters rang out in the backyard causing some people to nod their heads and others to look on in confusion. Some weren't in the know when it came to this sort of stuff, but one of Anna's roommates at OU had been a funk bassist so she considered herself somewhat of a second hand expert on the genre. She bobbed her head a little as she leaned forward to steady the post while two men pounded stakes to keep it in place permanently. Her bare arms were rock hard and bathed in sweat from the morning's work. One man could barely hit the top of the stake for looking at her. He'd admired her face from a distance, but she'd been so serious then. Now as she stood with her eyes half closed holding the post and bobbing her head, he felt a tingle go through him. He studied every sweep and contour of Anna's remarkable face. She was striking in her differences from any of the women he'd been around. She seemed totally oblivious to the affects she had on people, especially men, but she wasn't.

A tight red t-backed shirt showed off the transformation of Anna's muscles from tightened to flexed. Grooves and valleys deepened as the muscles rose and thickened. Her deltoids divided into three prominent heads, but that didn't last long. Deep pinkie deep striations feathered across Anna's shoulders until the muscles looked like a forest of tightly flexing fibers fighting for space. The more she flexed the sexier she became. Her triceps were like big thick fruit hanging from a tree and her biceps peaked like the jagged peaks of the high Sierra as she continued to flex her body. The sweat wet t-shirt stuck to her rising and falling chest, and to her six pack. The details of Anna's lower abs made the men's hands itch to see what she felt like. Their eyes passed down her abdomen towards the cut off denim shorts to her legs.

They were equally as sculpted and strong as the rest of her body. She stood with her right leg back, her toes pressed down into the dirt. Her left leg was bent with her knee only a few inches from the post. With her standing as she was, with her butt pushed out. Anna had always had a round ass that one of her ex-boyfriends had worshipped. In this pose Anna looked like an Amazon pin-up. Her single sable colored braid swept across her defined back as she moved her head, the edges of that braid were tantalizingly close to her supple ass, but never quite touching. The curve of her hips flowing from the tightness of her tiny waist made Anna look both feminine and powerful. The men had never thought that muscles on a woman would be so alluring, but she was so much woman, so strong and so damned sexy. Every woman wants to feel beautiful, but with Anna, her allure was always tinged with mystery and a bit of intimidation.

Anna continued her small muscle show until the last stake was driven in to hold the last beam. Now it was time to build the catwalk floor. They didn't need her for that. The two men wielding the hammers were sorry to see Anna go, but she had other things to do now. For a moment though she stood in the center of the now combined back yards and marveled at how so much had gotten done in so short a time. People could do so much when they all pulled in same direction. Mr. Robinson was hard at work helping to wire the external lights. Their eyes met once, but neither had anything to say to the other.

That was only one part of the linger tension. Those creatures had tunneled from beneath the ground before, and there was a chance that they could do that again. Ethan assured Anna and the rest of the people that they were safe from that eventuality. He went on about the rock formations under three of the lots here in this corner of the Glen, but nobody felt completely safe, not yet… maybe they never would again.

While most people were engaged in building the defenses, others were keeping the area clear of zombies. Instead of using bullets or shot gun shells, people had perfected the daytime kill. It took two, one to get the creature's attention and the second to come from behind with an ax or hatchet, or in the case of one young man, his late father's souvenir Samurai sword from the war. That particular weapon was frighteningly efficient and lopping off heads or any body part he aimed at. As long as he managed not to slice himself to the bone, he'd do pretty well. Anna herself wasn't out braving zombies. There was a near unanimous feeling among the survivors that Anna had done enough fighting on behalf of others. It was time for them to fight for themselves. Plus, it didn't matter how strong and capable Anna actually was, grown men did not like their battles being fought by a woman.

Anna was relegated to cheerleader mostly, and she offered occasional muscle to hold something or steady it. People were always happy to have her come by and give them her attention. On the one hand she was appreciative of their respect, but on the other hand she was only one part of this group and didn't want more credit than she deserved. Maybe they all knew that she had to go underground. She had to go into the zombies' den if there was going to be any chance of escape. Anna herself tried not to dwell on that fact. She was going to go down the next morning and do what had to be done, and that was as far as she liked to think about it. There were so many tragedies that Anna had a hard time feeling sorry for herself. Her husband was alive and well, and her little Alex was not only unharmed and near. He was starting to help Mary with the children. He had actually come up with a way for the children to help the adults. It wasn't much, and it mostly had the benefit of keeping the young children from being underfoot. That was perfect and Anna was so proud of her son that she couldn't even express it. So many women had become widows, and many of those children that Alex was helping had become orphans. It was heartbreaking, but they had to keep their focus on the future, or they'd get buried.

Anna went inside the house to grab more ice to keep the worker's water cold and ran into Ethan and her husband arming themselves. "I thought you guys weren't going to the tunnel until later."

"You remember that sound I heard last night. Turned out some other people heard it too. They said it sounded like a helicopter. They may have dropped us a radio or some other way to signal them on the outside. We're heading to the tunnel, but first we're going to search around. If they didn't leave anything behind then we're still on schedule."

"Do you want me to come with you guys?", Anna asked, hoping that Mike would say yes.

"No, that's okay Honey", Mike replied and took Anna by the shoulders. "We're taking Robby and Chester with us. We're not going out looking for trouble. We won't get into anything too dangerous." Anna looked on skeptically as Robby and Chester showed up.

"Just be careful and hurry back", she said to all involved, but mostly to her husband. He gave a little grin and headed towards the garage. Ethan was just closing the trunk of his Speedster when Mike walked in with Robby and Chester close behind him. The four men drove off with few words spoken. Anna watched them leave from the front door. She watched  until the street curved out of view. She wasn't worried about Mike's safety, but she was worried that she wasn't with him facing the same danger he was, but it was daytime. Everything should be fine.

While she was in the house, she decided to check on Jimmy who was in charge of guarding the ammunition and firearms. He was particularly suited to that task since no one without a gun would want to tangle with him. He looked big and mean, but in reality he was just big. He was holding a shotgun in his thick hands standing near closed ammo room door.  The key to the lock was on a lanyard around Jimmy's neck should the door need be opened quickly. "Have you had any trouble?", Anna asked as she entered.

"No, I haven't had any problems at all. Everybody's been following the rules. I think you scared all the trouble makers last night when you almost broke Robinson's arm", he informed with a chuckle.

"I didn't almost break his arm", Anna defended herself. "I just beat him."

"Yeah, whatever you say, but I went one better. I told everybody that you're even stronger than I am. That probably scared them even more."

"Well, I'm not trying to scare anybody Jimmy, and I'm only stronger than you at certain things. Not everything."

"Uh huh", he began and raised up his hand. "You can tell that to my dislocated fingers."

Ethan drove in slow circuits looking for some sort of smoke streamer or package left by the mystery helicopter, but when they turned a corner, he stopped the car. The Huey was sitting in the middle of the street. The men looked through the windows at the scene of utter carnage. Blood and pieces of unrecognizable flesh were scattered in every direction for fifteen feet around the Huey. Chester had seen his share of death, but he was forced to open the door quickly to vomit on the street. The smell of blood and death on the outside only added to his nausea causing him to wretch even harder.

"Lord have mercy", Robby breathed as he shook his head. He didn't even want to imagine what the poor men in that helicopter had gone through. "I wonder why the hell those guys landed", he asked angrily. "Didn't they see the damn creeping fucking zombies?"

Ethan sighed. "They had no idea what they were getting into. We better check the radio", Ethan said reluctantly.

"I doubt it'll work down here in the Glen, but it's worth a try", Mike agreed. The four men got out of the car and slowly made their way towards the chopper. The smell was so bad that they had to cover their noses. Mike pulled open the pilot's door and had to look away. The laid open torso of the pilot and part of his skull were spread out over the cockpit. He'd seen partially eaten bodies over the last couple of days, but this man's bones had even been gnawed to nubs. Small bits of the pilot's tissue mixed with his bodily fluids on the floor of the chopper into a congealed paste. The smell was horrid and the flies were rather thick. Mike hesitated a moment then reached inside and flipped on the radio. He grabbed the front of the helmet and had to turn it over to dump out a piece of scalp before he pulled it closer to activate the mic. He tried it a couple of times, but got only static. He dropped the helmet back in the chopper and the men walked away.

"Whoever sent those poor bastards in here is going to come looking for them", Mike began.

"And when they come in, they'll let the zombies out", Ethan finished with a sigh.

Outside the blocked tunnel leading into Hidden Glen a colonel dressed in Army fatigues was fretting over the loss of a helicopter and more importantly the helicopter crew. Those were men with families and he hadn't been able to raise them on the radio since the night before. He'd been trying ever since, but even he was giving up hope. He wondered aloud what the hell was going on in that valley, but nobody knew, not him and not the engineer weenies. They were the ones tasked with getting through the tunnel without bringing the entire hill down on top of them.

"Sir. Sir!", an engineer called out and hurried towards his superior who was standing very near the colonel. "We haven't finished the analysis of the tunnel collapse just yet, but we're sure it wasn't car fires that brought down the tunnel entrance. The collapse is too localized and the cement had ceramic fibers built in. A car fire wouldn't get hot enough to weaken it. That tunnel was brought down by well placed… no expertly placed high explosives, either military or high grade construction stuff."

"Why the hell would somebody blow up the tunnel?", the supervisor asked while trying to figure out the best way to get through the rubble. "I wonder if they're trying to keep us out, or keep the people of the Glen trapped inside?"

"Doesn't matter", the colonel fumed. "I'm going to get into that Glen if I have to blow a hole in it myself." He walked over to the mobile communications station and lifted the receiver. It was time to call in a favor.

Anna was in the back yard of Ethan's house when Cindy hurried over. "Mrs. Bernhardt, some men are looking for you. Seems like they're having a problem with one of the busses. They were hoping you could help."

Anna went to the front door and found five armed men waiting for her. They served as her escort the two blocks to the busses that Ethan planned to use to get the people out of the Glen. Anna didn't think she needed an escort to walk a couple of blocks. She'd already killed her share of zombies, but in a way it felt nice to be pampered. They led her to an house where the late owner had been killed by the creatures. He'd planned to donate the busses to a church. He had an old school bus and huge dual axled over the road bus

His old school bus was already running. They'd pulled it out to the street, but the other bus was presenting some problems. This one was far larger than the school bus. It was a big three axle bus that had been customized at one time or another. Anna walked around slowly and finally settled near the engine hatch. Three men were standing there with hands on hips. It was easy to see that they were at their wits' end. They looked hopeful when Anna appeared around the corner.

"We'd heard that your father was a truck driver and we were hoping that you might be able to help us get this started."

"Well let's see", Anna said and poked her head in. This dual engine set up was rare, but she recognized Detroit Diesel engines with a glance. She knew exactly what the problem was. She reached her arm deep into the engine compartment and peered up. "Rotate the first engine." One of the men hurried to the driver's seat and after a couple of tries the engine roared to life. The second engine fired up on the first rotation.

"Wow, we were about to lose hope."

Anna smiled while wiping grease and grime from her hand and arm. "Oh, I've seen that problem a lot with these engines. I've always preferred a Cummins like we had."

"What kinda truck did you and your father have?", a man asked as they shut the engine hatch.

"We had a '51 Peterbilt 350 with a tiny little sleeper in the back. We went all over the place in that truck. I wish I hadn't sold it", she answered as they made it to the front of the idling bus. The inside of the bus was a little rough, but it didn't have to be a royal coach. It just had to work. They all climbed onto the idling bus. Anna took a seat a row from the front and waited, but one of the men stepped next to her.

"Umm, Mrs. Bernhardt---"

"Call me Anna, please."

"Sorry", he began with a nervous grin. "Anna, I'm supposed to be the guy driving this bus, but whoever was working on it changed a bunch of stuff like the transmission. I've double clutched, but I was wondering since you've driven a semi, if you might… know how to drive a twin stick. I've never driven one of these before", the Proposed driver admitted shamefully.

Anna stood up and patted him on the back. "Nothing to it", she lied and sat down behind the wheel. "You watch while I drive us around. Then we'll switch places." It was a good thing for him that Anna was a teacher by trade and very patient by nature.

Ethan was more than happy to leave the gruesome scene at the helicopter. He drove quickly to the area of the Glen where he, Mike, and Anna had been mistaken as looters and attacked by Jack's men. A day can, and often does make a difference. Now Ethan and his carload were greeted by Jack and some of his men. They were walking the perimeter looking for zombies, but not seeing any. Jack and extended his hand. Ethan shook it. "How's it coming along?"

"Hell, bout finished. I've got to give it to you. That damn hole was in the basement right where you said it would be. Let me show you."

Jack lead the group down the stairs through the house that Mike and Anna had been in. The evidence of Anna's attempted escape was still quite fresh. Chunks of broken drywall from the ceiling and wall were sitting atop the broken dining room table right next to the destroyed china cabinet. Being trampled underfoot was a link in the handcuff chain that she'd broken. The basement wasn't much more orderly. Two sweaty guys holding jackhammers were barely visible through the concrete dust. They were tired, but pleased.

"This what you looking for Mr. Chase?", Jack asked and pointed down.

Ethan shined a light and it all came to him in a rush. The skeletons were there. His old flashlight was sitting in the hole undisturbed after two decades under this basement. "This is the place", Ethan said slowly. "I know you can't imagine it now, but right where we're standing was the corner of the Mound. It was forty feet high and big enough to play baseball and football at the same time on the top of it. It was the only rise in the middle of this frying pan shaped valley. I remember driving into this valley the first day and thinking that it was gorgeous, but I should have known that a paradise would hold the gate to hell."

Mike was standing on the basement stairs while Ethan bravely stuck his head down into the hole searching for movement. "Hey", a guy from behind got Mike's attention. He turned.

"Can I help you?"

"Yeah, you're the guy", the man said with a smirk. "Is it true about what happened here in this house the other day?"

"That me and my wife got jumped? Yeah that's true."

"My buddy told me that a woman broke some fucking handcuffs and threw men around the room like toys. Is that true too?"

Mike grinned. "So you've never met my wife Anna I guess. Yeah, it's probably not a good idea to piss her off. She's pretty damn strong normally, but when her adrenaline gets going there's no telling what she's capable of."

"Damn", the guy said in disbelief. "I mean, I saw a woman where I grew up who was strong as any man I knew, but she had to weigh damn near 300 pounds. They say that the woman who broke the handcuffs ain't 300 pounds."

Mike laughed. "No, my Anna's about yay big." He used his hands to show, or rather to brag about his wife's figure. "Anna's kind of like a little Porsche engine, tuned so tight that it can put out as much horsepower as a big block Chevy with a fraction the size", Make informed with a smile. Usually he wouldn't talk about his wife to a stranger like this, but she was becoming something a folk legend within the survivors of the Glen. Might as well let that legend grow.

"Must be hard being her husband."

"How so?"

"Just hearing the stories about what's she done. I mean I hear that you've done a lot of shit too, but with a gun and stuff, but they say that she broke a tree in half with her bare fucking hands and tore a zombie's legs off his damn body. It's gotta make you feel sort of nothing in comparison."

Mike frowned and stood up straighter on the step. "I don't see how Anna being what she is makes me any less of what I am", he told the guy and walked down the stairs. He'd had enough of that conversation.

In the basement Ethan got off his knees and looked around with a smile. "Okay, put the cover on the hole until tomorrow. Nicely done", he congratulated the men who had carved out this hole through the concrete foundation of this house. The same men went to the side of the basement and began dragging steel plates to cover the hole. After the first plate was in place one of the men turned to Ethan and asked, "Mr. Chase, why are none of those things coming up through this hole like they came up in all the other houses?"

"This one's protected. The Mound Builders are still protecting this little part of the valley I guess."

Ethan started up the stairs and Mike rolled his eyes. The only thing that needed to go down that hole was a bomb. He couldn't wrap his mind around all this hocus pocus that Ethan was talking about. The men in Ethan's Studebaker were chatty as they drove away. Ethan was watching a plan come together.

Now that the access to the underground was finished, it was time for Ethan to head to the blocked exit. They stopped the car as close to the top of the hill as they could, passing many cars that had been there since the first day the zombies appeared. Most of them were still in working order, and tomorrow when the busses were ready to leave, the plan was simply to drive the cars that started out of the way, and push aside the ones that didn't. It would be easier now because there were no dead bodies here. Ethan had systematically shot the dead in the cars, but desperate for food, the zombies had scavenged kills they'd already made. That didn't bother the four men who got out of the Studebaker. At least they didn't have to see rotting corpses staring at them. They did see two creatures tearing chunks of meat off a man who'd grown desperate after hiding out in this attic for nearly three days. There was an ax buried in the back of one of the zombies that was chewing on him. One ill aimed blow was all it took for this man's life to end, not that he could have gotten through the tunnel anyway. Aside from the wrecked burned out hulk of an Oldsmobile blocking there was also a massive pile of rubble making the entrance to the tunnel look like the rest of the hillside.

Mike put his hand on his shotgun, but Robby and Chester approached the creatures with hatchets. It was better to save the ammo. The two dispatched those two rather quickly and went in search for any more that might be lurking.

"This place was crawling with monsters a couple of days ago and now they've moved on cause I know we haven't killed that many of them", Mike said.

"No, there's no more food here so they're searching the Glen for more people to kill. They'll make it to the south end of the Glen eventually", Ethan said fatalistically. He went to the trunk of his car and started pulling out medium sized wooden crates.

"So that's the explosives?"

"Yep. Took me a while to get this much together."

"That doesn't look like c-4", Mike observed as Ethan opened the first crate.

"It's semtex. I got it from Europe. You'd be surprised what real American green backs can get in Bratislava. It works a lot like c-4."

"You sure you know what you're doing?", Mike asked and stepped further back, as if a few feet would have mattered with that much plastic explosive near him. "Do you know where to set this stuff up to breach this rubble?"

"I told you last night that I could breach this stuff in my sleep. I told you I was a sapper back in the day. We didn't have anything this cool back on Saipan, but it's not too hard to use. It worked pretty well when I brought down the tunnels in the first place."

"You WHAT!!!??!!", Mike yelled and stepped back. "You mean you're the one that trapped us in here with the goddamned flesh eating monsters. You killed all these people!" Mike motioned to the line of cars stretching down the hill, cars that had been full of dead people at one time. "I have half a mind to put a bullet in you Ethan. My family is trapped in here because of you. You've got Anna risking her life because of the bullshit you've filled her head with, and you're the reason we're stuck here in the first place!"

Ethan looked unmoved. "Are you finished?"

"I don't know if I'm finished or not. I haven't shot you yet!"

"Could you imagine those creatures getting out to the world at large? For every one you kill, they're three or four more to take its place. They'd have overrun the county in a couple of days and then the state and then what? An international traveler gets scratched by a man who'd gotten scratched the day before. He flies back to where he came from and then scratches or bites someone there. Where does it end Mike?"

"That's some shit, Ethan. You sacrificed us on the off chance that some crazy scenario took place."

"There's nothing crazy about the scenario I just laid out, nothing crazy at all. This started here in this valley, and this is where it needs to stay. If even one of those creatures gets out of this Glen, then we've failed. By the time people understand what they are up against, it would be too late. I can't take that risk, and I would think that you wouldn't want to take that chance either."

"You… you're fucking insane", Mike said feeling too weak to even raise his gun.

"You're damned right I'm insane!!", Ethan yelled, suddenly irate. "I've known for twenty years what was coming, and a sane man would have blown up this fucking valley years ago killing you and the damned zombies at the same time, but you're right I am crazy. I decided to try and save as many people as I could and fight these damned monsters!"

Mike wiped his forehead and turned his back. "I can't believe this Ethan. I trusted you, and my wife does too. She wouldn't be doing all of this if she knew what you'd done!"

Ethan stood contemplating his words carefully, and finally decided to say nothing. While Mike smoldered, Ethan went to the side of the pile of rubble and moved a few stones. Just that easily he made a hole big enough for a man to climb through. Ethan didn't ask for help. He put two cases of explosives and a spool of wire through the opening before he climbed in. Mike waited for nearly an hour for Ethan to place the charges. He ran several lengths of wire and prepped the ends. He didn't attach them to anything. Instead he taped the ends to a big rock then waited for Robby to get back. He'd had some experience with explosives while working at a mine. Both Robby and Chester could tell that something had transpired between Ethan and Mike, but no one explained what it was. Mike paced while Ethan calmly showed Robby how he'd run the wire and where the charges had been placed. It didn't take long for Robby to demonstrate that he understood everything. The four men got back in the Studebaker and headed across the Glen in absolute silence.

They arrived in time to see Anna's student driver pull the bus to the designated parking place next to the other bus behind a fortified gate still under construction. A group of men had already started adding some goodies to the first bus and the larger bus was next on their agenda. Anna walked over as Ethan pulled his car into the garage.

Mike hurriedly came to his wife. "We need to talk", he said urgently. "That guy Ethan isn't who you thought he was."

"I don't understand."

Mike looked over his shoulder and saw Ethan approaching. He looked at the people working diligently and decided not to have this discussion in front of them. "We'll talk later."

"Okay, Honey. Whenever you want", Anna told Mike. A frown had replaced her hopeful smile.

Ethan wasn't smiling either. He stood across from her as both watched Mike trudge into the house. "Anna, why didn't you tell your husband that I was the one who brought down the tunnel entrance?", Ethan asked as soon as Mike was out of sight.

Anna sighed and looked at the ground. "I was hoping I wouldn't have to tell him. I mean I understood why you did that, but Mike never would. He doesn't understand about the visions or messages or about the Mound Builders. I love him, but when it comes to spiritual stuff Mike is not the one to talk to."

"Well, I thought he was going to shoot me earlier when he found out."

"Good thing he didn't. And don't worry about him. I'll talk to him later today when I get a quiet moment."

Ethan mentally pushed that topic out of his mind and turned to his right. "I see both busses worked. I figured one of them would, but that big one I wasn't sure about."

"Yeah it's a big sucker, but it runs just fine. I just hope the driver remembers how to shift the gears." Anna chuckled then and shrugged her shoulders. "Oh well, you know what they say about shifting gears. If you can't find it, grind it."

Two engineers were looking at the preliminary findings on the tunnel collapse when they heard a semi pulling up the road carrying an oversized load. A black sedan came roaring up right behind the semi. The colonel straightened his uniform a little and approached the rear door. He pulled the door open and a tall spare man with a hawkish gaze stepped out. He was dressed much like the colonel except there were two stars on his lapel in stead of an eagle. "It's good to see you, General."

"Likewise", the Reserve Army general replied sharply. He did everything sharply. His eyes even moved quickly as he took at the situation. "I heard what you said over the phone, and I brought a man who knows how to get us into that valley post haste."

The passenger door of the semi opened and a man climbed out rather carefully, but once on the ground he moved like a man who was used to being in charge. "That's Paul Burnett. He helped make this goddamn tunnel and he'll know how to move the earth to get us through it."

"Terrific!", the colonel exclaimed and looked over his shoulder at the pile of rocks blocking his way. "I have a few men who are ready to augment the police when they are ready to go in."

"Not so fast", the general said with a wave of his hand. "I've got more up my sleeve than just a big construction toy. I put a call in to the guys down at the base. We've got two companies coming up here with all of their gear. I'm talking Sheridans and m113's, the whole nine yards. I don't know what's happening on the other side of those hills, but if they took down a Huey, I'm not taking any chances. We're going in strong and assess the situation before we let the civilians in. And don't give me any ands or buts. I talked to the governor before I came. He gave me leeway to handle this situation. An entire subdivision being lost down is bad for business, especially in an election year.

That night all the survivors were pleasantly surprised by makeshift tables set up in the now fortified backyards. Morris and his group had managed to make a real meal for the first time since the creatures had showed up. Families ate together and even laughed together despite the danger all around them. The meal was quickly dubbed Morris' Miracle. He took the pats on the back well. Anna complimented him like so many others, but she spent most of her time seated with her son and husband, although Mike barely said a word and only ate because his stomach was grumbling. After dinner, and after the last of the workers had hooked up the sodium lights, Anna and Mike walked in the yard off to themselves.

"You already knew didn't you", Mike accused after being silent. "About Ethan blowing up the exit to the Glen." Anna nodded and didn't say anything. From the tone of his voice, she didn't want to risk speaking. "When did he tell you? Or are you going to keep that secret from me too?"

"I don't know what you're talking about", Anna defended herself.

Mike stopped walking and shook his head. "So this is how it is between us? You know ever since all this started, I've begun to realize that there're a lot of things you didn't tell me."

"How can you say that?", Anna asked, her voice quivering slightly at the end.

"You won't even answer my damned question!", Mike nearly yelled.

"He told me the second night we were here, after we'd rescued Eddie and his family. I didn't agree with it even if I did understand it, but why is this such a big deal to you?"

"It's not!"

"Then we are you yelling and why are you so upset?"

"Because it's like I never knew you!" Mike tried to calm himself. "All this stuff about your Indian tribe and the stories and your father, and the things you did growing up… you didn't share any of that stuff with me. You kept all these secrets. It's like you wanted to present this picture of yourself and now I'm finding out that my wife used to drive a rig across country, and you told someone that you didn't even go to high school. You were on the road with your father. Wow, that's something to share with a stranger, but not with your husband! Did your first husband know all this stuff about you, or did you keep him in the dark too?"

"That's quite enough!", Anna warned in the voice she usually used only in the classroom. "I've been nothing but devoted to you, Mike, and now you accuse me like this."

"There's so much about you that you just conveniently left out of any of our discussions. Like all that Indian tribe stuff. I thought you're an English teacher. You went to school for that, but now I found out that you're some repository for Indian history and lore. You take it seriously enough to remember it all, and to be able to speak the language and all that. Why didn't I know that? It's like you hid it from me on purpose, like you were just playing a role or something."

"Oh that's not fair!", Anna shouted and turned her back to him. Usually Mike would have put his hands on her shoulders, but he stood back. Anna didn't give him time anyway. She turned around sharply and pointed her finger in his face.

"I am the woman you thought I was. I'm not pretending or putting on. I certainly wouldn't have said 'until death do us part' if I was playing some sort of character that I'd have to maintain for the rest of my life. I've tried to be the best wife I could because I love you and I respect you. Did I leave some things out, you're damned right I did. You're getting hung up on my adventures as a kid, wow they were so much fun", she said mocking his facial expression as she waved her hands in his face.

"But did you really want to know that there were times when loads were hard to find that Dad and I had to share a bologna sandwich for dinner, or that sometimes my father would pretend like he'd eaten just so I would eat an entire meal? Did your lawfirm partner dad and society woman mother really want to know that their future daughter-in-law used to hustle for money? Over dinner at your parents' house I could have opened up and explained that I can play every card game known to man and that I can shoot craps with the best of them. Maybe they wanted to imagine me arm wrestling some big sweaty guy in a dimly lit bar with a stack of dollars sitting between us. I don't think you wanted me to do that Mike. They'd probably rather think of me as that cute red skinned girl from Oklahoma who teaches English in high school and quotes Chaucer and Yeats.

"And yes there were a couple of years that I didn't see the inside of a classroom, but do you know what I bought the money I had? Books. I had stacks and stacks of them in our truck. I'd read them until the pages fell out. I graduated early from high school and I earned a full ride to OU. I paid my own way through grad school, and I never asked for anybody's charity. I probably would have thrown it back in their face if they'd offered it. I pulled myself up!" Anna finally took a breath and stared at Mike. He didn't know if she was about to cry or attack him. She stepped closer and pointed her finger right in his face.

"And don't pretend like you would have given a damn about my tribal history or our customs. To you it's all some quaint folklore that you see in movies or read about in cheap novels, but to me it's real. And we aren't Indians! I am Shawnee. And there are Cherokee, Kiowa, Arapahoe, Seminole, Potawatomi, Comanche! You don't know anything about that, and I knew you didn't want to learn so I never forced it on you!"

"What did I ever do to make you think that I didn't want to share in all of your life, Anna? What did I ever say to make you feel the need to… to compartmentalize me?"

Anna sighed and looked away. "It was no one thing, but a thousand little things. Just admit it, Mike, you were happy with the way things were, and so was I. I wish everything had stayed the way it was", she sighed and turned to walk away.

"I'm sorry", Mike called out and made her stop. She turned to face him wiping tears from her eyes. "I'm sorry that I made you feel like you had to hide big huge pieces of yourself from me, but there's no going back, Anna. Things won't ever be like they used to be, and I won't be happy again." Anna looked as though she'd fall to pieces at his words. Her limbs began to shake, her normally proud broad shoulders slumped and tears dropped to the ground. Mike gently put his arms around her.

"I won't be happy Anna until you share yourself with me, all of yourself", he whispered in her ear. "I probably won't understand half of it, but if it's important to you then it's important to me. I love you so much. I just want you to know that you can trust me… with anything."

Anna put her arms around her husband's waist and tucked her head into his chest. "Lawé-pi-éssi", she uttered softly.

"What?", Mike asked, still holding his wife tightly.

"That's my name, well my tribal name, what my father usually called me. It means one who travels about."

Mike laughed. "That's appropriate."

Anna chuckled and stared into Mike's eyes. "This was a stupid argument."

"I don't know, Honey", Mike began. "This might have been the most fruitful spat we've ever had, Lawepiessi", he added, getting the pronunciation pretty close for the first time. They held hands and walked around the yard close to the newly built catwalk and reinforced fence. There were other people in the yard, but they gave Anna and Mike their space, staying at a respectful distance. There are always stresses in a relationship, but with life turned upside down stress was turned to eleven. Cracks, breaches, and old wounds were showing up even in relationships that had endured decades. Husbands were snapping on wives and vice versa. Mike and Anna weren't immune, but it looked like they were going to come out of the backend of this argument relatively unscathed. The people in the yard were under no illusions about how much they needed Anna if there was going to be hope of continuing to live, and she needed Mike.

It was calm now. People were counting down the hours until the sun returned and they would begin their journey out of this place. People had packed up what little they had and some had already loaded it on the busses while other waited and still others had nothing but themselves. A group of children were in the yard playing in an organized to go. Mary was standing very near them like a mother hen keeping her mind and her hands busy trying to forget the terrible week she'd spent alone in her house with her undead family trying to kill her. She wasn't the vibrant young woman that Anna remembered from school, and she might never be that again, but she was alive. And she did manage to smile every now and then. Usually it had something to do with Anna's son Alex who had really blossomed in the last couple of days. He was a companion for the kids and a liaison between them and Mary who was more than a decade older than some of the children she was watching. Anna didn't try and get Alex's attention. She was so proud of him. Usually she'd have snatched him up and held him close, but now she just observed. Alex was being Mary's second in command and Anna kind of liked the look of that. Maybe Mike had been right. Instead of protecting him, she'd been smothering Alex with her love.

Bruce used a hammer to pulled out the nails that he'd sealed the doors of this house with and allowed the creatures to come out. He had to be careful as the zombies he'd locked up came out of the house after him. He hurried into a waiting car while the undead joined the throng that was coming behind him. He had a couple more houses to go before he would switch to leading his disparate bands of undead on foot. About two hours after he'd started releasing the zombies he was at the last house. He unlocked this group and they joined in, following the scent of his life as he lead them south towards the edge of the Glen where a feast awaited.

A pair of eyes had looked out from behind a shrub as Bruce had unlocked the last house. Tears of pain and fear stung the eyes as they saw what Bruce was doing. The girl cradled her arm, but she knew that she couldn't stay where she was. She'd been on the run since the day before, and shortly she would be running again. She had no idea if living another day was possible, but she wasn't going to give up. Bruce almost saw her as she ran south as fast as her legs would carry her, but he didn't. He was too focused on getting the zombies together.

"I see somebody!", one of the sentries yelled and pointed. He shined his spotlight in the direction while half a dozen guns trained on the target. Anna and Mike, fresh from their argument, ran up the ladder to the catwalk above the wall and strained their eyes in the near darkness to make out a shape running and tripping and running again. There was a look of relief when the young woman realized that there were people up ahead. She waved her one unhurt arm. "Help me!", she screamed. "They're coming!"

"Run to the front door!", several people yelled down. Anna was satisfied that one more person was going to have a chance to live. She climbed down and hurried into the house expecting to see the young woman safely inside, but there was a problem.

"She's got a wound and blood on her. It looks like a scrape or a scratch. One of those zombies could have already gotten to her", the guy manning the door explained as soon as Anna came close.

"Let her in anyway", Anna said quickly. "If she's already been affected then it'll show and we'll have to do what we have to."

That seemed to satisfy everybody around. They unbolted and unlatched the six mechanisms that locked door. It swung open like a vault. The young woman pushed her way inside and dropped to the floor from exhaustion after taking three steps. Her mouth moved, but she couldn't make words come out as she sat on the floor sucking air. They took her to a couch and got her some water and started treating the wound in her arm.

"Who shot you?"

"The same one who led them to us. Me and my fiancée were hiding with his parents, but some guy… a teenager it looked like, lead them to us. He waited outside while they butchered us. My fiancée broke out a window and pushed me outside. I tried to pull him out with me, but it was too late." She stopped, threatening to break into tears, but she held herself together. "The guy who led the zombies to the house had a gun, a pistol, and he shot at me when I was running away. He's coming now!"

"Well one man with a pistol isn't much of a threat", a man said with a chuckle. He nearly choked on his chuckle when the young woman's eyes met his. They were grey like a battleship's hull on a stormy day, and filled with emotion that her words couldn't even express. "He's bringing them all. They're following him here to this place."

"You mean he's got some creatures following him?", another man asked with a cocked eyebrow.

"No, not some creatures… all of them."

Outside a sentry manning the walls had seen movement, off in the distance. It couldn't be a person. It was too big for that. It looked more like the horizon was moving closer, but the light was low in the distance and obviously his eyes were playing tricks on him. He was used to that though. He'd spent some time in the Army. He'd never seen combat thank God, but he'd spent many a night looking off into the darkness at nothing. Sometimes nothing tended to look back. This had to be that. He rubbed his eyes even though he wasn't tired and looked where he'd been looking. He saw the same thing as before. He looked away again, and took a sip of coffee from a thermos. When he looked back up he saw a zombie. It was wearing modern clothing and stumbling along like zombies did. Behind his wall and high on his catwalk, the sentry didn't feel the least bit threatened by this lone creature. He almost felt a little sorry for it. A few days ago he'd been a living breathing man, but now he was just a flesh eating piece of nothing that was about to get shot. The sentry leveled his rifle and looked down the sights. He judged the shot as long but makeable, but as he tried to estimate for a one shot kill he saw another zombie and then another and another. He pulled his head away from his rifle stock and scanned the horizon. The first zombie passed beneath a street lamp and within a moment more passed beneath the cone of light. The sentry's blood ran arctic cold as he saw hundreds of heads bobbing as they moved with a purpose.  They moved like a horde. Blood and gore dripped from their hungry mouths. Torn, tattered, and bloodstained clothes clung to their grey sagging flesh. Their dead eyes focused on one goal, and to this sentry's absolute horror, they were moving closer.

The sentry fumbled it twice and nearly dropped it completely before shoving the whistle in his mouth and blowing it repeatedly. Eyes turned to scan for the threat, and they saw it. Another whistle blew on the other side of the compound followed by another. People had expected some sort of zombie contact, but not like this. "HERE THEY COME!!!", a sentry yelled at the top of his lungs.

"OVER HERE TOO!!", another sentry yelled.

"Oh my God", a sentry breathed as he tried to aim his weapon at a single target within the sea of undeath. A shot rang out. A bullet struck a zombie in the head from 150 yards away. It was as he'd thrown a pebble into the ocean. There was barely a ripple in the oncoming horde.

Mike grabbed his rifle and climbed back to the catwalk. He leaned against the rail and steadied the bolt action rifle as he took aim down the sights. Fear crept up the back his spine as he finally saw the numbers coming against them. "Aim before you fire!", Mike yelled. "Don't waste ammo, we're sure as hell gonna need it!"

Ethan ran from the second safe-house, climbed to the catwalk near his own house and his mouth fell open. Anna saw him standing there and rushed next to him. "This can't be", he muttered, not for the first time. "It's not supposed to be like this." His voice sounded as if his lungs had stopped working and no oxygen got to his brain no matter how many times he inhaled.

"What do you mean?", Anna tried not to scream.

"They can't communicate or work together. They are simple beasts that hunt food. They don't work together. Not like this. They're a…. they're a fucking army! I… umm.. I didn't plan for this." His pupils narrowed as his vision closed in on the hungry mouths of creatures.

"Ethan", Anna said and he didn't respond. "Ethan!", she yelled and shook him. She spun him to face her, but he looked right over her head. "Ethan!", she screamed and slapped him in the face. His hazelly eyes locked on Anna's face. "Pull it together. We need you. We'll get through this. Think! What do you need to do to make this situation better?"

"Heavier guns", Ethan muttered. He took a breath. "We need the big stuff", he said like he was getting his thoughts under control. "Come on Anna!" He clasped his hands around her arms before hurrying down the ladder. He ran towards his house with Anna close behind.

Jimmy was still watching the armory and most of the people in the house had no idea how bad the situation outside was. They knew that there were zombies outside, but only when they saw the look on Ethan and Anna's faces did they understand that something serious was going on.

"Is the shit hittin the fan?", Jimmy asked.

"Maybe", Anna told him as reassuringly as she could. Jimmy pulled the keys from around his neck and thrust it into the lock and opened the door.

Ethan struggled a little as he picked up a crate and let it fall to the ground near Anna's feet. "Here take this up to the catwalk", he told Anna then looked over to Jimmy. "Grab this ammo, and both of you hurry back."

Anna's muscles flexed as she lifted a crate that she should have been much too heavy for her to lug like she did, but she went out the back door with it. It was a little bit of a struggle to get the long cumbersome crate up the ladder, but she managed. She carried it next to her husband who was firing his bolt action rifle as quickly as he could. "Here Honey help me open this up."

Mike fired one more shot before he turned to Anna and flipped out his Buck knife. He pried open the top and smiled. "Damn I was just about to yell for these." Mike reached down and pulled out a pristine Browning Automatic Rifle. He searched through the crate and pulled out a cleaning rod. "Here, pull the bolt back like this, and ram this rod and the swatch down it a couple of times to get the packing grease out as best you can. Then hand these to anybody who says that he can use one."

Anna nodded and did as her husband instructed. Within a few minutes, the sounds of single rifle shots were supplanted by the staccato rapport of the BAR. Aiming didn't matter so much now as a burst of big .30 caliber bullets could cut a zombie in half. It might not be dead, but a zombie with no legs wasn't much of a threat. Of course lots of bullets did hit heads.

Anna made another trip, practically jumping down the ladder and sprinting back with another crate of weapons. She didn't know how to shoot very well, but she had plenty of muscle to carry guns and ammo. After a third trip, Ethan came out of the house with a box. He got to the catwalk and flipped open the lid.

"Where'd you get those?", Mike asked quickly while reloading his magazine with bullets.

"A quartermaster in California about ten years ago. Let's hope they still work", Ethan shouted then pulled the pin on the grenade. He popped off the safety and threw it into a clump of zombies. The explosion sent bodies and pieces of bodies flying in all directions. Some of the creatures got back to their feet while others didn't. Cheers and whistles went up from the men nearest Ethan who'd seen the explosion. He didn't wait for more accolades. He pulled another pin and threw another grenade.

Bruce was incensed. This wasn't going the way it was supposed to go. He'd fantasized about this moment all day, but they had machine guns and grenades. They were supposed to have hunting rifles and shotguns. Then on the western side of the defenses he saw a bright flash and flames as a Molotov cocktail exploded when it hit the ground. The balls of fire stuck to the zombies as they moved. The older creatures burned like dried wood while the newer ones burned slowly. They kept moving in their pursuit of the living until the searing flames reduced some of them to ash. Despite the attacks by grenades and Molotov cocktails and automatic rifles, the leading edge of the undead army reached the wooden walls that the survivors had constructed. They were being cut down by the guns. Bruce looked on wanting to do something, wanting to speed up the inevitable. Finally he had an idea. He rushed to the car he'd been driving all day. He had one more destination to go.

Anna flinched when a grenade exploded on the other side of the fence. The concussion rattled her teeth as she ran back to the house to grab more ammunition. She paused in the back door and scanned the people in the house. There were lots of hugging and more than a few tears, but they seemed to be keeping their heads. Eyes turned towards her as she hurried to the ammo room. Jimmy was no longer protecting it. He'd gone upstairs to shoot down on the creatures trying to break into the armored house. Anna pushed the door open and quickly counted the green painted steel ammo crates. They were down to seven. She grabbed up two boxes and started for the back door. She paused and without even thinking about it, her dark brown eyes searched for her son. Alex had one arm around Mary and the other around Julie the young girl that Anna had saved a couple of days earlier. Every fiber of Anna wanted to run over, snatch up her son and wrap her arms around him, but she turned away and ran out the back door towards the catwalk.

She was breathing hard as she ran awkwardly with the ammo boxes. The handles were wet like it was raining, but it was just the sweat dripping down her arms. These boxes were destined for the western side of the defenses near the second safe house. This catwalk was manned by Jack, his son Stevie, and the rest of that crew. Anna could hear their shots raining lead down on the creatures. In the distance she could still hear her husband's group firing on the eastern side. Anna couldn't think about the dangers everybody was facing. She had to concentrate on what she was doing.

She ran into the ladder to keep from falling over as she reached her destination. She was sucking wind and her muscles were burning as she let one of the ammo boxes drop to the sod. She only carried one box up the ladder at time. Half of the men took turns getting rounds from the box and refilling their 20 round magazines while the other half continued firing. Anna peeked over the fence, but knew she shouldn't have. Zombies were climbing over their own vanquished, their claw like hands nearly reaching the top of the fence. She hurried down the ladder and bent to grab the second box when she thought she heard the rev of an engine. She was too caught up in the moment to use any energy to try and figure out the source. She opened the second box and men came over instantly. The bullets in those boxes represented life itself. She saw Eli and Herbie and Walter holding their ground against the ever advancing horde of flesh eating monsters. The mix of BARs and Molotov cocktails was working for now, but everybody had a limit. Anna was near the end of her endurance. Her limbs were shaking as she supported herself on the ladder to put her foot on the first run. She was halfway down when she heard a man yell, "Oh fuck!" Two gunshots and a prolonged scream followed.

Anna jerked her head in the direction of the sound in time to see the man's legs fly up and over the fence. The men swiveled the sodium lights in that direction and men concentrated their fire, but it was too late. One of their own was gone over to the other side now, if they didn't eat him to bones first. The helpless feeling of loss permeated the group. Anna could only hope it didn't last.

Through the chaos of the moment, Anna distantly heard the engine again. Zombies didn't drive. The ground began to shake, and before her mind could even come up with a source there was a violent crash and a bright blinding flash. She didn't know if she screamed when she fell, but Anna found herself on the ground looking up at the sky. She blinked as the world rushed back at her. Her vision cleared and she heard a mix of gunfire, curses, and groans. She smelled smoke and the aroma of burning flesh. The smoke stung her eyes and filled her nose, adding to the fog in her mind. That fog didn't clear until she heard Jack's voice, "There he is! The bastard's running that way!"

Anna strained her neck to look backwards and saw a male shape running and nearly falling as he escaped rifle fire aimed his direction. The shifting flames played tricks with her vision, but Anna knew who that was. She rose to sitting and looked at the fifteen foot hole that had just been made in the defensive fence and the part of the safe house that had been caved in by a Dodge Dart. Flames were licking at the Dart and at the side of the house. Anna saw that the crate full of Molotovs had been hit by the car and were now burning the house and the man who'd made the cocktails in the first place. His body was the source of the smell of cooking flesh.

Anna turned away from the fire and saw two men running after the man who'd driven the Dodge through their fence. As she sat on the cold damp grass looking at the ruin of all that they had built, she got angry. All the fatigue and pain went away in an instant. She jumped to her feet. "Bruce", she spat in a hiss.

People were moving away from the breach as the zombies began to fill it. Bruce had run some of them over, but that didn't kill them or even keep them down for long. Some of the defenders were too close. They had to get back, and everybody was urging them to get away, but some men were injured from their fall. Defenders moved towards the breach while others tried to keep the zombies back. The men on the still standing portion of the catwalk had their rifles on full automatic trying in vain to keep the zombies at bay while the injured were pull to safety. Anna ran in with Herbie on her right. A man with a broken leg was trying to move away, but he wasn't going fast enough.

"You get his arms. I'll keep them off you", Herbie said and both of them ran towards the zombies. Anna's heart leapt into her throat as she closed the distance. Dead eyes all turned towards her as she got closer, but she couldn't let them scare her. Herbie stood near a leaning section of fence to shield his right side while Anna ran in and hooked her arms under the wounded man's shoulders. He was nearly twice her size and she shouldn't have been able to move him, but everybody knew that she was more than strong enough. She lifted his upper body off the ground and pulled him backwards. He whimpered as his broken legs bounced across the uneven ground and over debris. He didn't complain as Anna pulled him back to the rest of the group. Herbie had planned to come just behind her, but the leaning section of fence gave way under the pressure of the zombies. They rush at him from both sides and circled.

Anna screamed his name as Herbie disappeared behind a wall of zombies. Their uneven movements had a strange flow to them as they prepared for their latest meal. Anna dropped her wounded man and ran towards the breach. "Herbie", she echoed a chorus of men calling for their friend.

They heard his voice and the rapport of his rifle as he fought. Then he broke through the wall of zombies. He made it about five feet before he lost his footing and fell face first to the ground. That was the best thing he could have done. As soon as he hit the ground, nine Brownings opened up and tore the front rank of zombies to pieces.

"I'm coming!", Anna yelled and ran in as soon as the men paused their firing.

"Leave me!", Herbie protested, but Anna didn't even begin to listen. She bent down and wrapped her arms around Herbie's waist and with an insanely powerful motion that she made look easy, Anna lifted Herbie and his rifle from the ground and put him on her shoulder. She carried him away from the breach and carefully laid him near a tulip tree.

"That was stupid Anna. Brave but stupid and not worth it."

"What do you mean?", she asked, a slight smile showing on her face. She was glad that he'd made it, but her smile fell away when he rolled to the side a bit so she could see his leg. "Oh no."

"One of those things bit me. I was trying to tell you, but I should have known you wouldn't listen."

"How is he?", Jack asked hopefully, but his hope melted away as soon as he saw the wound. Everybody knew what that meant. Anna and Jack stood in silence not knowing what to say. Herbie had a death sentence. There was nothing to say.

"There's too many of them!", a defender yelled and Anna turned around to see a wave of zombies heading towards them. The bullets were dropping individual creatures, but that was not nearly enough.

"Fall back!", Jack ordered.

Herbie struggled to his feet and loaded another magazine into his rifle. "Leave me here. I'll hold them off as long as I can."

Jack would hear none of that. "Bullshit. You fall back with the rest of us. You're good for a few hours Herbie you know that, besides all of us might be dead in a few hours."

Herbie looked at Anna to see what she thought. "There's nothing wrong with being a hero. Just don't try to do it too early."

Herbie laughed. "Look who's talking."

The group moved back orderly with alternating groups moving and supporting. They were nearly fifty feet from the house when Anna looked over at Jack. "We have to tell Mike and Ethan what's happened here. They have to know that the wall's been breached and that Bruce is loose somewhere."

"So that's the little shit's name. Well don't worry. I already sent Eli to warn Ethan and your husband. And before you say it, we're evacuating the house. It's on fire and unless we get a fucking downpour those flames ain't going out." Anna looked at the burning house and he was right. She'd first thought that maybe they could put the flames out, but no. They were too big and too close to the approaching zombies.

"Think we can all fit in Ethan's?", Jack asked as he slammed another magazine into his rifle.

Anna thought about it quickly. "It'll be tight, but I think we can do it for one night. Tell your people to get the house evacuated and I'll go make preparations at Ethan's for the influx."

Outside the Glen preparations were nearing an end. The General had his force primed and the contractors were clearing the rubble. The big earth mover had nearly opened up the entire tunnel entrance. He smiled and turned towards the Colonel. "Have you contacted the utilities?"

"Yes sir. They are cooperating, but the natural gas people say that there is a problem."

"What kind of problem?", the general asked with a steely eyed glare at the junior officer.

The colonel didn't shrink. "It has to do with topography and the way the lines were run. There are tanks here and here. It would take three days for reverse pressure to empty those tanks completely."

"We don't have three days", the general said unnecessarily. "Tell them to cut the flow."

"Sir, they said that doing that could cause problems with their other systems."

"Will it cause problems for our operations in Hidden Glen?"

The colonel shook his head. "Then tell them to do it. We'll be ready within the half hour."

Bruce had lost his hunters in the shadows between he two houses. He held his pistol in his hand, but he dared not use it. The two men after him were much more proficient with their weapons. If it came to a gun battle Bruce would lose. He saw a fountain of yellow light coming from the open back door of the armored house. He tucked the gun into his pants and covered it with his sweater as he wiped his face clean of sweat and walked through the door of Ethan's house.

People looked at him, but didn't pay much attention. He was just another young survivor. They'd never seen him before, but many just believed that he'd come from the other safe house or had come recently like the young woman on the couch who'd been shot. Bruce did take note of the people in the room. He smiled tightly at people who made brief eye contact. A smile was all he could do to hide his contempt. People, no matter how strong or how brave can not fight the inevitable march of the future. The people huddled together in this house were neither strong nor brave. They were the old, the young, the weak, and the useless who were warehoused while the best of the survivors were outside at least trying to fight for their lives.

Bruce looked around for Mrs. Bernhardt, but he knew a woman like her wouldn't be in here among these losers. She'd be out there fighting. Bruce smirked as he thought back to all the days he'd sat in her English class staring at her. He'd undressed her with his eyes hundreds of times and he'd been so very wrong. His imagination didn't come close to the sexiness to her true body. He'd gotten a glimpse of it when she'd killed seven zombies all by her self. That had been the scariest and sexiest moment of his life. When he closed his eyes Bruce could see her standing in front of the class with her long dark hair gently pulled back and a smile on her beautifully exotic face. When anybody remarked about her beauty, Mrs. Bernhardt had replied that where she came from there were lots of girls who looked like her, but Bruce had always been skeptical about that.

Bruce lowered his chin to hide his face he saw several classmates in the next room. Mary McAfee and Cindy Hooper were in there with Curtis Jones. Bruce and Curtis had always gotten along in school, but lots of things had changed since the last school day. Curtis' usually impeccably picked out and manicured afro was uneven and unkempt. His youthfully handsome face was drawn and his eyes were filled with a heaviness that wasn't Bruce's concern. He only worried about the gun in Curtis' hands. He was tasked with being one of the last line of defenders should anything go wrong, and Bruce knew that by now Curtis would have known that Bruce had tried to kill Anna the day before. Curtis was looking the other way as Bruce passed by Mary and a group of children. One of the kids looked up at Bruce, but his gaze didn't linger and there was no chance that any of those munchkins even knew who Bruce was. He continued into the living room.

No one even paid attention to him. He was just like them, another scared survivor. They flinched and sobbed at the sounds of battle outside the walls, and were so worried about the zombies that they paid no attention to the person who had led them here.

The living room wasn't as stuffed with people as the other rooms were. Maybe people were too scared to be near the front door. Bruce grimaced when he saw a man near the door with a rifle in his hands. Like Curtis, this man was one of the last line of defenders. He was an older man, but he held that rifle like he'd used one before. Bruce could hear the steady pounding of the undead's hands. They were on the other side of that armored door. The time was now. He had to act and quickly, but the door was really really locked. Bruce studied it and never once looked in the direction of the couch or at the wounded woman sitting on it. She frowned and her eyes followed the teen as he moved.

While she was looking, two men rushed in through the backdoor. The urgency of their movements made everybody's hackles stand up.

"Have you seen anybody come in?", one of the men pleaded.

The people were startled from their personal thoughts and fears to try and remember, but they shook their heads. They might have seen somebody, but they might not have. They weren't sure, but one of them did. Julie looked at the man and said, "Sir, I think I saw someone come in a couple of minutes ago. He went to the front room." The man smiled down at the girl and hurried.

The young woman on the sofa saw Bruce turn his body to slide between two people seated near the front foyer and she knew. That movement had been the same as the one she'd seen in the shadows the night before. That was the man who'd killed her fiancée and his family. She jumped to her feet and pointed at him. "YOU!", she screamed. "You're the one who shot me! He's in here!", she yelled loudly enough for the men searching to hear.

Bruce panicked for a moment then reached into his waist and pulled out the 45. He wanted to point it at the screaming woman, but instead he turned to the man who'd been peeping out the front door. The old man was already raising his rifle when Bruce turned towards him. If the man had been a little younger or if his hunting rifle hadn't been quite so long he would have beaten Bruce. Instead Bruce fired a bullet that pierced the man's upper torso. He wasn't a good shot, but from so close it was hard to miss.

With the defender down, Bruce ran to the front door and started undoing all the locks. He could hear people running from the back to stop him, but he didn't worry about them. He held his gun under his arm as he used both hands to work the locks. That's when the young women leapt off the couch and threw herself on Bruce. She yelled and screamed and pounded him with her fist. She could barely move her right arm, but she hit him over and over with her left. Bruce put his palm on her face and shoved as hard as he could. She flew off of him, but he'd dropped the gun in the process.

"Bruce what are you doing!!?!!", Curtis screamed as he rounded the corner to the foyer.

"It's too late", Bruce said almost calmly. "The future is now." He turned back to the door to open the last lock but Curtis dragged his former classmate away. Bruce didn't resist as the two adults who'd been chasing him ran up. Bruce held his hands above his head and went with them walking slowly enough to make one of the men prod him in the back. He was moving slowly on purpose. The door had been bowing when all the locks had been applied. Now that only one lock was holding, it was only a matter of time.

The crash took everybody by surprise. The sound of steel armored plates hitting each other was loud, and the unmuffled sounds of gunfire and grenades made everybody jump. Women screamed and men yelled as the first zombie lurched into the house. Its thin moss covered arms reached out for the living and its mouth opened ready to receive the flesh. More came in behind the first one. Their numbers seemed endless.

Panic erupted inside the house. The feeling of relative safety evaporated like a desert mirage and now people who had no plan knew that they had to get out of the house. They ran over and through anything in their path heading towards the back door. Curtis and Cindy and Jimmy tried to keep order but fear was much more powerful than reason. They crush of people knocked Jimmy down as he tried to keep the people from stampeding like cattle, but even as strong as he was he was no match for the rush of people. Eddie ran from upstairs with a shotgun in his hand, but one sight at the chaos downstairs told him that there was nothing he could do. He had to find his sister. "JULIE!!!", he screamed trying to be heard over the din. There was no chance. His sister had been in the back room with the rest of the young children when the adults had come streaming from the front of the house like a tsunami.

Mary had tried to keep the children together, but some parents came and snatched their children up knocking over other children without regard while some people had simply trampled the small on their way towards the back door. Mary knew something was wrong, but she didn't know what. She had thought about what to do if the zombies got into the house, and it had involved going out into the yard, but one look at the single back door told her that wasn't going to happen. People were crushing themselves trying to squeeze through a door only wide enough to accommodate one at a time.

Through the blurring rush of people running by, Curtis came up to Mary and the kids. "We have to get out of here."

"What's happening?"

"Bruce let the zombies in through the front door! I didn't see him either, but we have to get these little kids moved."

"Where?", Mary asked frantically.

"The ammunition room", a small voice said. Both teens turned to Alex and the wisdom of the idea hit them both. It was the most armored room in this armored house.

"Okay", Curtis said and racked the slide of his shotgun. "Stay close behind me and have the kids hold hands or something."

Towards the front of the house the sounds of people in the last throws of life chilled the ears of everybody who heard, but the zombies kept coming, moving, flowing towards the life. Curtis heard a shotgun blast and then a rifle shot. "This way!", he yelled to anybody who could hear and understand.

Eddie shoved Cindy back around a corner. She was initially angry, but saw Curtis moving a group through the crowd and made her way towards him. Her eyes got saucer big when Curtis turned with his shotgun right towards her. "DUCK!!", he yelled and fired after she'd moved. The stinking dead flesh of a zombie splashed against the wall. He motioned for her to hurry up. She took his hand and he pulled her close. They had to go against the grain a bit to get to the ammo room. They had to cross a small hall and then down another short hall before they came to what had been designed as a walk-in closet. They made it most of the way before the zombies fell upon them. Curtis went from leading the group to trailing as he worked the shotgun as quickly as he could.

"Keep going!", he yelled to Cindy and Mary. He shot and shot and shot, but the zombies kept moving. He backed up into the kitchen and out of sight of the group he'd been leading. They could hear his curses and gunshots from around the corner, but he was out of sight maybe forever.

The children cried and whimpered as the zombies came closer. Their little bodies were shaking with fear, but they were almost there now. Mary threw open the door and held it while the kids ran inside. Cindy ran in and tapped Mary on the shoulder telling her that the last one was inside, but Mary hesitated despite the fact that the creatures were only steps away. "Curtis!", she screamed at the top of her voice, but she got no reply. She snatched closed the door and locked the knob as two creatures lunged at her. They banged against the steel door, but everybody felt safe inside. Heart rates were slowing, if only slightly; children were regaining control of themselves, and becoming able to form coherent thoughts when the impossible happened.

The doorknob started turning. It wasn't a smooth motion, more the hurky jerky motions of a child , but that knob continued to turn. Tension that had already been high ratcheted up. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. This room had no other doors or windows. The children shrank to the far wall while Mary and Cindy prayed that it was Curtis or Jimmy or Eddie. It wasn't. When the door opened, the half eaten face of a middle aged man stared through the gap. His teeth were visible through a gnawed section of cheek with bits of recently eaten flesh protruding from the hole. He pulled the door open and their horror grew with each inch.

Mary and Cindy both thought at the same time that someone would save them, save them all. Mrs. Bernhardt would come hacking and slicing and kill the creatures, but no sooner had that thought formed in their minds than the utter foolishness of it dawned on them. They couldn't expect Anna to show up in the midst of this. No they had to do what she would do… fight.

Mary lifted an empty ammo box over her head and flung it at the zombie as hard as she could. It didn't feel pain, but the force of the metal box hitting his face knocked him back. Cindy ran up, grabbed the knob. She struggled to pull it closed, but she wasn't nearly strong enough. "Hold on tight", Mary told her friend and took her around the chest and pulled back adding her strength to the effort. The door was closing, but then a creature stuck its hand through the opening. It wouldn't close now, no matter what they did.

Alex was as scared as the other children, but he didn't have his head tucked. He looked at the happenings, willing to face the end of his short life with his eyes open, but as he looked he saw one of Ethan's machetes stored on a shelf. Alex jumped from the embrace of the other children and climbed atop the stack of ammo boxes to reach the blade. He snatched it down and ran next to Cindy and Mary. They saw the young boy with the machete in his hand and before they could say a word, Alex started chopping at the hand. The blade cut deeper with each blow. Pieces of the hand fell to the floor. The chunks of dead flesh looked as if they'd come to life on their own, but they didn't. They lay there as Alex chopped away. Mary and Cindy pulled the door more and more closed after each chop. Just when they were about to be able to close the door completely, more fingers thrust into the gap. The door was forced open and both Mary and Cindy slid behind it, their bodies exposed to the hungry mouths of all the zombies now. Everybody believed that the fight was over, but Alex took a firm grip on the machete and stood up straight.

He could hear Mike's voice in his head as his step-father had tried to teach him how to split wood last winter. Alex brought the blade up and behind his head. It rested there for a tick. Alex's elbows were near his ears when he swung forward. His eyes only looked at one thing, ignoring everything else as the steel whistled through the air. Alex was just short enough for the tip of the blade to miss the door frame. It continued on its arc until it hit the edge of the door slicing through several fingers.

The door closed quickly now that the creatures had lost their grips, but as it closed Alex saw the problem. The key to the lock was sticking out of the knob. He knew that it wouldn't matter if they closed the door a second time and locked it from the inside if a creature could just unlock it again. Without a second thought, Alex reached his arm around the closing door and snatched out the key. It came out easily and he smiled as he pulled his arm inside the door. He almost pulled it in fast enough. He felt a pain like a hundred bee stings. He screamed and shook his arm, but the teeth tore at his skin. Julie jumped forward to pull Alex free. Blood dripped to the floor, but he held onto the key. Mary and Cindy had no idea what had happened until they closed the door. They locked the knob again and turned around. The air seemed to go out of the room when they looked into Alex's eyes.

"Why did you do that?", Mary asked, too shocked to even yell.

Alex turned his hand over and opened his fingers to show a ring of keys smeared with his blood. "They could unlock it. I had to get the keys or they'd get in here." To a child the answer was so simple.

Mary and Cindy had seen the keys in the door, but hadn't believed that a shuffling bag of rotting flesh could use it. They'd been wrong, and Alex had paid for it. They glanced over their shoulders at the door, and the knob wasn't turning. The muted sounds of fists hitting the steel echoed in the small room, but right now everyone in this room was safe. Until Alex died.

Anna ran around the back of the houses and had to skid to a stop before she ran into a mass of people. She couldn't get to within thirty feet of the back door. Frantic people were pushing and shoving and squeezing their way out of Ethan's house. She looked at the house for smoke or flames like the other safe house, but didn't see any. Next she looked for a familiar face, but they were all moving so quickly. It was too much to take in at once. "What's going on?", she demanded.

"The creatures", someone yelled. "They're in the house!"

Anna ran towards the door, but the flow of people was against her. "Where are the children!?!", she screamed. Now it was Anna's turn to panic, but not for her own sake. Her son was inside that house.

Mike ran around and in some cases over people to get to his wife. "What the hell is going on!", he asked her.

"Zombies are in the house!", she screamed. "Alex is still in there!" She felt helpless for the first time in a long time. She had helped save so many people, but now her son was going to perish and there wasn't a damn thing she could do about it. She knew that she couldn't just stand there while her baby stayed in that house alone. She ran to one of the windows and banged her fists in a futile effort to get inside. The armor covered windows simply rattled in their frames. Mike had his rifle in his hands, but no targets to shoot at.

"We can go in through the upstairs window", Anna blurted as soon as the idea came to her. "Give me a boost!", she yelled to her husband who ran up and cupped his hands low by his knees. Anna stepped into his hands and he lifted. She grabbed hold of the gutter and hoped it was strong enough to hold her while she chinned her way to the roof. It held without a problem and as soon as she was on the roof she spun around, laid down flat, and lowered her arms.

Anna took a grip around Mike's wrist, and using little more than her rapidly thickening back, lifted him off his feet. Her elbows bent as his hands got closer and closer to the gutter. He grabbed hold of the galvanized metal and she let go of his wrists. She reached down and grabbed Mike's belt to make sure the gutter held him as he crawled onto the roof. The husband and wife went to the first window and kicked it in. Mike had been prepared to shoot, but there weren't any zombies in the room. They climbed through the broken upstairs window and rushed to the stairs.

They could hear fighting and grunting below. "We're coming down!"

"Mike?", Jimmy asked. "How the hell did you get up there?"

"Where're the children?", Anna yelled, getting to the heart of her worry.

"That young black fella Curtis took them with him."

"Where's Curtis?"

"They went to the ammo room", Eddie replied and fired the second to last shot from his shotgun. "We could use some help!"

"Coming down", Mike told them and bumped his way down the stairs. He saw the situation. Eddie, Jimmy, and Eddie had used the furniture to barricade themselves and they fought off the creatures as they came through, but there weren't nearly as many creatures as there should have been. Dead zombies lay strewn across the rooms, most of them dead by gunshot. Some of the zombies' victims were mixed in with the creatures too. They'd have to be dealt with later.

Mike jumped down behind the barricade and stepped out into the open. Several creatures sneered at him and moved in his direction. That was the very moment he squeezed the trigger of his Browning. The big beast tried to kick out of his hands, but each bullet from the muzzle struck home.

Anna watched from the stairs as Mike and the others finished off the last zombies in sight. When the coast looked clear enough, she ran past them towards the ammo room. Before she even got out of sight, she saw two zombies feasting on the body of a man who'd been alive five minutes before. She hoped it wasn't Curtis. She didn't try to see. She pulled out her own machete and killed the two zombies before they could even lunge in her direction. With them out of the way she continued to the kitchen. Three creatures were trying to get into a cabinet for some reason, but she didn't worry about that. She ran to the ammo room and tried the knob. It was locked from the inside. She smiled and sighed with indescribable relief. Anna pounded on the door with the meat of her fists and yelled for them to open it up. She was so happy that she was about to cry. She flinched when she heard shots from the kitchen.

Mike and the other survivors from the battle inside the house had killed the last three zombies in the kitchen. As soon as they did, the cabinet door opened and Curtis poked his head out like a turtle after a storm. Eddie ran over and helped his classmate out of the tight spot. He surprised that Curtis could even fit in there, but desperation made a person do strange things. The dead bodies of monsters made walking in the kitchen difficult. Curtis had put up one hell of a fight before he'd run out of bullets. Even after his gun had stop firing he'd stabbed more creatures with kitchen knives until that became impossible. Finally he'd been forced to climb into the cabinet and hold it closed.

Mike was amazing and proud of the entire situation. He'd expected more zombies to be in here. He'd expected more and more of them to keep coming through the door that Bruce had opened, but Eddie explained. "It was Mr. Robinson. He fought his way to the front door and forced it closed. I thought he was trying to kill himself, but he did it. I lost sight of him when we turned over the sofa, but I did see him prop his shotgun against the door and wedge it against the wall. I don't know if he got away or not."

"I did", Robinson said as he entered the kitchen. He was sweating profusely as he stripped out of his thick cold weather hunting gear. The stuffing was hanging out in a dozen places from zombie attempts to eat him, but the thick material had kept him safe. "It wasn't easy though."

"I can imagine", Mike observed with a grin. A couple of days ago the two men had been a breath away from fighting, but life was too precious to hold grudges.

"We better hurry", Robinson began and looked back towards the front of the house. "That shotgun isn't going to hold them out forever."

"Okay. Let me get Anna and the kids."

Relief washed over Anna and she rushed into the room snatching her son off the floor. She wrapped her strong muscled arms around his little body and hugged him tightly. She pressed her face to his and never wanted to put him down again.

"I'm sorry Mommy", Alex said over and over, but Anna didn't hear him through her tears and prayers of thanks. Finally his voice broke through her joy. "What's wrong, baby?"

She looked at Cindy and Mary, but they couldn't meet her gaze. "He saved us all, Mrs. Bernhardt", Cindy said.

"He was really brave. The bravest…", Mary said as tears began to stream down her face.

Anna pulled her cheek away from her son's to look him in the eye. "What are they talking about?"

Alex shifted in his mother's arms and pulled up his sleeve. Anna saw the blood immediately, but she prayed that it was from a cut or a scrape, but when she saw the bite mark her entire world collapsed on itself. She fell to her knees and wailed like her very soul was being ripped out.

Mike ran up to see Anna like he'd never seen her before. He was about to ask what the problem was, but he saw the mark on the boy's arm and he knew. A hundred emotions ran through him in the space of a heart's beat. He walked behind her and took his wife by the shoulders. "We have to leave the house", he told her gently.

"Just let me die here", she muttered. He lifted his wife to her feet and led her towards the back door when a crash came from the front of the house.

"I think that shotgun just gave way!", Robinson yelled and pushed for the group to move more quickly. They came to the back door and saw a few people who had come back into the house now pushing and shoving to get out now that the zombies were coming back in. The men with guns turned to hold off the creatures long enough to get out, but Mike kept one eye out for the creatures and one eye on his wife. In the back of his mind he feared that she'd run towards the creatures and throw her life away in grief, but that didn't happen. Instead she looked at the people pushing and fighting to get out of the house and got angry, very angry. So many people had risked their lives to keep them safe and in the moment they hadn't even tried to protect the children. Because of them her son was going to suffer a fate that made all joy leave Anna's mind.

"We need to get out of here!", Curtis yelled.

Anna's dark eyes narrowed to shadowy slits, her brow furrowed, and her teeth ground into each other. She was still holding her son in one arm as she approached the rear of the logjam at the back door. She set him down so he wouldn't get hurt, but he wasn't worry about himself. Alex had rarely seen his mother like this, and he feared for the people in her way. A man in the back of the line was trying to toss another man out of the way when Anna grabbed him by his britches and lifted the man off his feet completely. He tried to turn to see who was holding him like a mother held her cub, but he didn't get around all the way. Anna grunted and tossed him to the right. He lost his balance and fell on the floor. She pushed the next guy aside with a two handed shove that sent him sprawling to his ass. A woman wisely stepped aside and let Anna get next to the door. Three people were trying to get out of the three foot wide door at the same time and they were stuck. Anna took a step back, planted her left leg and raised her right. She put her shoe on a man's behind and an orgy of muscle played along the entire length of her legs as she straightened her right leg.

Cindy was standing ten feet back, but she'd seen the power in her teacher's legs first hand. Anna had caved in a door, doorframe, and part of a wall of a house with those two sexy legs. She'd practically split an oak tree in half like it'd been hit by a bolt of lightning with those legs, and now she forced three people through a doorway designed for only one to fit. They moaned end every one of them felt a rib break as the doorframe wouldn't expand. Their bodies had to constrict and none of them were strong enough to force Anna backwards against her will. The three men exploded from the doorway feeling weaker and injured. Anna scooped up her son and stood by the door as people now filed out rather orderly. She waited with her son in her arms as Robinson exited the house. When it was empty of the living, she reached in and pulled the back door closed.

Outside the Glen the General and his assembled army was calmly preparing to enter the tunnel. The earthmover and cleared one half of the rubble. It had taken the EOD guys a moment to disarm the rest of the explosives, but everything was moving on schedule. They were going into the Glen hot and heavy, prepared for everything, or so they thought.

"Are you ready to cut everything?"

"Yes, sir. On your signal."

"Do it", the general ordered without hesitation. Every light in hidden Glen dimmed then went dark. A blanket of shadows covered the valley, dampening the sounds of the screaming survivors as they lost use of their eyes. The creatures moved closer, not needing to see their prey.

Bruce laughed in a closet when the single light bulb swaying from the ceiling went dark. He could see through the cracks of the door that the other lights had gone out as well, but the creatures were still outside his door, dozens and dozens of them. His hands shook. His nerve fractures. "Am I ready", he asked, know that this was the end and that he'd been successful. "Am I ready?", he asked again and tried to stop his hands from shaking, but he couldn't. "It's the end and I've done what needed to be done. I am ready", he announced to the darkness and used the walls to stand up in the tight space. He felt along the wall until his hand found the doorknob. He turned it and pushed the door open against the crush of zombies. With the door open they surged in towards him. Bruce cackled in the darkness as he shrank against the back wall waiting in the darkness for death and deliverance to come. He found bravery in the thought that he wouldn't see it coming. His eyes were wide open, but he wouldn't see the first bite. He wouldn't see the hungry fangs preparing to sink their teeth into him, but as the moment ticked away and as he felt the undead closing in on him, the light bulb clicked, flickered and came back on. Bruce screamed as the mouth opened wider than a mouth should, and screamed louder still when the first chunk of his flesh was pulled loose. The next bite went all the way down to his bones…

... the ending coming very soon...

The Mound Builders
The Mound Builders Continued
The Mound Builders Conclusion part 1

My Bookshelf

comments encouraged: dem2@hotmail.com