After hearing that first shot, his even jogging pace became a fully fledged sprint; his backpack, while not all that heavy, other than the extra ammunition he had in it, swayed uncomfortably back and forth acting as an irritating obstacle that prevented him from hitting his top running speed.

Thankfully, the bag stayed on tight, though this small detail couldn't have been further from the forefront of his mind.

All he thought about were those people up ahead of him; the dozens of the undead creatures that now undoubtedly knew they were there; and what exactly he was going to do to help the situation.

A second shot and then a third closely followed, as he ran, trying to keep his breathing level, MP5 tucked tightly to his chest.

What was his plan here, he thought. What exactly was he going to do?

He smiled a little in realization. No plan. Just get in there, do something constructive, and stay alive.

Several more shots sounded, and from what he could tell, they were all from the same weapon. This meant one of several things. Either this group of survivors only had one gun between them, or some brave bastard was acting as a distraction, trying to get the swarm to follow him. He sincerely hoped for the latter scenario.

If this group really only had one gun, and the swarm had descended on them, they were well and truly finished. If someone was distracting the swarm and pulling it away for even a few more moments, all he had to do was show up, hit the swarm from the rear, draw their attention to him, do a prompt about face and scurry back on down the road, swarm in tow, leaving this group to get the hell out of the area unopposed.

The only good news so far, was that he hadn't heard any of the telltale screams of utter agony that victims usually issued shortly before their horrific deaths. Granted, he might currently be just too far away, and the blood and adrenaline pounding in his ears from the run certainly didn't help matters, but it seemed like a good sign.

His boots pounded on the pavement as he neared the motley collection of abandoned cars. He leapt over a decayed corpse in the middle of the road, not even bothering to change direction. It occurred to him how much he hated running in combat boots. He'd have shin splints later, for sure.

That is, if he survived until later.

He entered the first section of wrecked cars at a full run, only slowing down to make alterations to his course to move around the vehicles.

There were several more gunshots, that sounded so close to him, he was almost afraid he'd run head on into the shooter, surprise them and then get shot, which would be such a stupid way to die

So, he slowed up more, raised the MP5 and made immediate situational awareness the current sole purpose of his being.

Checking the bandage on his neck, he discovered that his run had opened the wound and blood was seeping through. It didn't seem bad, but the damage was done.

He wanted to be a distraction and the scent of blood would certainly help.

Moments later, he saw the tail end of the swarm.

He aimed at one of them, placing its head directly in his crosshairs, and he downed it with a perfect shot, blood and decomposed brain matter raining down around the fallen corpse. He then repeated this process six times, noting with satisfaction at the exploding head effect of each shot, confirming each kill.

He alternated every couple of shots with a complete three hundred and sixty degree spin to see if anything was sneaking up on him, before resuming his shooting spree.

Nothing was coming from any other direction, and it was obvious that the snowball effect was working. They were all moving as one, and any stragglers that had been sauntering around here by themselves, if there even were any, had been picked up and added to the swarm that was moving inexorably down the highway for whatever reason.

After passing few more sections of vehicles, and five kills later, the main bulk of the swarm came into view, along with the old RV, and the man who was still in a prone position lying on top of it.

There were still dozens of them, and they were still moving lazily down the highway not seeming to have noticed the man on the RV at all.

What was strange was while their movements were faster than their default, mindless nothing-in-the-area-to chase shuffle, they weren't moving at top speed.

From way more experience then he really would wanted to have in the matter, he knew this meant that while they were alerted to the presence of fresh meat, they didn't know exactly where it was, and had nothing tangible to chase after.

But, despite the fact that he had fired the MP5 eleven times since he'd entered the sea of cars, and once further down the road, they weren't coming for him.

That meant that that they must have been hell bent on finding whoever it was who was firing off random shots here.

Whoever that shooter was, they hadn't fired in a few minutes. And since the swarm wasn't dog pilled around on some poor soul anywhere that he could see, and that he still hadn't heard any screams to indicate that they had indeed caught someone, it seemed hopeful that the shooter was still alive somewhere.

Whatever the case, it was time to pull the swarm's attention entirely to him.

Checking around again to make sure there weren't any of them he had missed, he mounted the roof of the biggest vehicle he could find in the immediate area, a dark blue Chevy Avalanche, and he took a knee on its roof. He removed his backpack and set it beside him and opened the back pouch on it, which was reserved for the four extra magazines he had for the MP5. He'd likely need to reload it once or twice before he'd need to flee the area. Though this, of course, depended on how many there were. If there were more than he could handle here, he'd still probably have to reload at least once before taking off.

But at that point the swarm would be so hot for him, his mission would've been successful, and he could retreat knowing that somewhere at least some of those survivors had made it out alive.

He pulled one of the extra magazines from the backpack, and tapped it lightly, to make sure it fed correctly whenever he'd need it. He delicately placed the magazine next to him and moved around a bit to adjust his shooting position. Getting fully comfortable, he aimed the MP5, finding a nice, easy target.

Then, giving himself a few leisurely seconds between shots to take a deep breath and make sure every shot counted, he began systematically picking off the swarm, proving the Marksman Ribbon he had earned back in Basic Training had been no fluke.

They were clustered mainly around the old RV now, and after downing four of them, they began turning and schooling in his direction, following the noise of his gunfire.

They hadn't seen him yet or they would be moving at full speed, so that gave him some more time to be relaxed, aim smart, utilize every bullet, and down as many of them as he could.

He was thankful, not for the first time, that he was a good shot, and that he had managed to acquire a small and light but accurate weapon with perfect sights for this very task. The fact that it came with thirty round magazines was a plus, even if he only loaded them with twenty seven bullets, to ease the pressure on the magazine's internal spring. He had to make the magazines last a while, the rest of his life, so why wear the springs more than he had to?

And even though he was excellent with firearms, it was the fact that he didn't panic that truly made him of higher quality than the average Joe with a gun. When people panic, they mess up. And he had quickly come to the realization that in this new world, when people panicked, they messed up and subsequently died. Usually horribly.

The swarm was over there, two hundred feet away, and he was here on top of a car. He was fine. No reason to panic. Be alert, yes. Panic, no.

He fired twice more and quickly eliminated two others before the entire swarm had decided that something worth eating must be in the direction of the gunfire, and had all began drifting towards him. He had their full attention now. Their only purpose in life now was finding, catching and eating him.

But not only that, he had the attention of the man on the RV, too. And even at several hundred feet away, he could see with bemusement the look of utter surprise on the man, complete with gaping mouth.

He wished he could offer a verbal greeting to the man, and prayed that he would continue doing exactly what he had been doing: staying right there and staying quiet. Same thing for the rest of the survivors, wherever they were.

Though maybe he had been imagining things, and there was only this single, RV man who was even alive here. He could have sworn he had seen others, but he had been so far sway that maybe they had just been more of the undead. They hadn't moved like them though, but again, it might've been just an illusion.

What was more frustrating about this thought was if the RV man was really the only survivor after all, then this whole excursion was probably a total waste of time, energy and bullets.

Maybe the RV man was the shooter he had heard. Maybe he had seen a few of them, shot them, realized how many there truly were and took cover before they knew he was there. The man could've had a gun, though it was impossible to confirm at that distance without help from the binoculars, which were stowed away in his backpack.

But it mattered little. From the looks of things the swarm would've sailed right by the man, oblivious to his presence, and continued their pointless little adventure down the road, making his entire distract the swarm and rescue the survivors mission totally pointless in every way.

Trying to ignore those thoughts, he fired and dropped a few more of the creatures. Even if the RV man was the sole survivor and even if the mission was pointless, he was still committed to it. Might as well see it through and make sure this one guy lived to see tomorrow. That was the absolute least he could do and he was already here, anyway.

He fired again, and gave a small wave to the man, to attempt to let him know that things were okay and that he had this under control. He then did anther of his patented, situational awareness driven, three hundred sixty degree spins to make sure that none of them were coming at him from a different direction.

Satisfied that nothing was, he turned his attention back to the swarm, calmly picked off three more, and looked around the area to see if the general dynamic had changed at all.

It hadn't seemed to.

The swarm, now somewhat diminished, had moved completely past the RV and he could now see how many were left.

Over fifty of them, at least, he quickly estimated.

They were within a hundred feet of him now and the ones in front suddenly saw him, confirmed in whatever little mental capacity they had left that he tasted good, and hit top speed to hunt him down.

His senses heightened; this was the moment where things got truly dangerous. They were onto him, and they could possibly be tough if not impossible to shake.

He fired a few more times, making every bullet worthwhile. The charging handle on the MP5 locked back, signifying he was empty. He tore the magazine out of the gun, jammed it into the open pouch of the backpack, gingerly picked the fresh one off the car roof and slammed into his weapon.

Slapping the bolt back into to place and chambering a round, he snapped the MP5 back to his shoulder and calmly took four more of the frontrunners down.

To his knowledge, he hadn't missed a shot yet. This meant that he'd gotten thirty one of them, thirty of them here, and that there were still at least fifty more bearing down on him.

With the twenty four rounds left in this magazine and three more loaded with twenty-seven each, he had enough firepower to deal with all of them if he so chose.

But they were within seventy feet of him now and the only reason why they weren't closer was that they had to filter through all of the abandoned cars, slowing them down. He wouldn't have nearly enough time to shoot all of them from his current vantage point, and he wasn't going to chance it and stay on the Avalanche when they got here.

They may not have been good climbers, but when they all clustered around something, their sheer mass and general disregard to their own safety could have some weird and deadly effects.

So, he decided it was high time to bail out. He had accomplished his task, lured the swarm and had at least saved this one man. And who knew? Maybe if he could give the swarm a slip he could double back again and introduce himself properly to the extent he was able without a voice, and hope to God that the man he had just saved still had some basic decency and humanity left.

Even though he wasn't much fond of the company of people, especially not now, it was always good to affirm that one wasn't completely alone in the world.

But the swarm was getting ever closer, fast, and he needed to have a good head start on them, so he quickly killed all pointless tangents of thought, secured his backpack and slung it onto his back, and stood up doing one last survey of the area, checking his path of retreat to make sure there was nothing there to obstruct it.

He turned back and gave the RV man a final wave and wished, not for the first time, that he could actually say something.

But since he couldn't, there was nothing more to be done here.

He was just about to climb to the ground and begin another full sprint back the way he came, when something happened that made him feel like someone had instantly pumped his veins full of ice water.

It raised every hair on the back of his neck.

Someone screamed.

It sounded like a little girl.