Sgt. Thompson and Spc. Helem were already starting to get bored. It had been ten minutes since the other part of the squad had moved through the door to search the floor.

They both had heard the brief scuffle on the other side of it but had not moved to help as no such radio transmission came.

Thompson had pondered the idea of radioing in a status call to check on them but thought better of it as he knew one of the other soldiers would have transmitted them a warning if someone had been hurt or they had encountered a dangerous amount of the Rot.

He looked up the stairs at the next half landing, watching for any movement and listening for any sound. The smell of the body was still strong in the stairwell but it bothered him less as the minutes dragged by and his senses became more accustomed to it.

Helem was also watching down the stairs five feet away, providing the same watchful eye for any danger from below. He smiled inward to himself as he thought about his brief exchange with Justin when the squad had split. They had known each other for as long as he could remember. They had survived the horror of their home town together and both volunteered for this dangerous duty, shortly after reaching the safe zones west of the Mississippi River. He knew their reasons for doing so. They were trying to make up for all the people back in Philadelphia that they had failed to save.

Images flashed thorough his mind a mile a minute. The first Rot they saw. The first screams they heard, together with the first gunshots.

They had both went for cover behind the pretzel stand after hearing the bullets whizzing nearby, the attendant dropping behind it as well, next to them. "What the hell?" He remembered the guy saying.

Before either he or Justin could respond a man in blue suddenly dropped on the guy, tackling him into the side of the stand. Just as Justin began to yell at the newcomer and moved over to pull him off, Helem saw this man in blue open his mouth and bite down hard on the back of the attendant's neck. The injured man screamed in pain, as the attacker lifted his head with his bloody prize in his teeth and began to chew, then began to violently thrash around trying to get his tormentor off his back.

Justin then had grabbed the man in blue by the back of his shirt collar and threw him backwards. Justin and Helem watched as the assailant landed hard on his back, blood splattered all over the front of his shirt and……SILVER BADGE!

"Holy Shit! It's a cop!" Justin had yelled.

Helem has looked at the cop bewildered as the realization sunk in. "What the fuck is going on here?" He asked frantically. He focused in on the uniform and saw five blackened bullet holes on the cop's torso and a large piece of his right arm missing, blood covering the rest of it below the wound.

"He is all fucked up," Helem had started when his breath caught in his throat and the mangled cop began to rise and moan softly staring at him with grayish bloodshot eyes. "Justin, let's move…NOW!"

Justin had hesitated and had looked like he was getting ready to go on the offensive, when Helem then noticed a whine followed immediately with a loud report ending with a wet slap as the cop's head emptied out the back with a wet slap. He immediately dropped back down and didn't move.

They both looked behind them and saw another cop just beyond the pretzel stand aiming his pistol in their direction. The cop's eyes had then refocused on them and he yelled across the distance, "RUN! Get a fucking weapon and get your asses somewhere safe NOW!"

Things had gotten worse from then on. Philly was a tough city and had not fallen as easily as some. Had more people been aware of what was truly happening, the city might not have fallen at all.

Just as Helem began to reflect on the rest of that first fateful day, he was snapped out of it by a low hiss from Thompson. "Helem, get your head back into the game," the Sergeant spat.

Helem gave him an apologetic nod and moved off of the wall he was leaning on at the top of the stairs. He was then halted as the shotgun on his back's strap caught on the railway and he was pulled back against the wall, the shotgun gun giving off a small but echoing metallic clink as it collided with the wall. "Shit," he hissed though bared teeth.

Thompson's head shook, "Douche Bag," he commented and they both froze listening for any noise responding to their own little mishap.

After about ten seconds, some of the longest in his life, Helem let out a relieved breath that he had been holding. Thompson looked visibly more relaxed as well and turned back to his stairwell. Then they both heard it, a small sorrowful moan in the bowels of the stairwell. It was then followed by a few more.

"Shit," looks like we are about to get some company," Thompson whispered loud enough for only the two of them to hear. "Keep quiet, maybe if we don't make any more noise they will lose interest before they see us. "

After a few more seconds, the moans began to get louder. "Okay, no such luck. Get ready, and I'll call it in," Thompson stated. Just as he was about to radio Thurman, they both heard the door on the next floor down open and bang against the wall.

Both Helem and Thompson moved to the top stair and ready their weapons down the staircase. They both saw the brownish grey fingers wrap around the corner of the wall first then, the thing pulled itself around the corner and climbed onto the first step. Its sunken eyes then landed on Thompson and it stared at him releasing a small moan. It looked like it used to be a woman. She had been dressed in a dark dress that was now graying with grime from her rotting body. Helem could see dark circular wounds all over the bare legs, but could not detect any further pre death injuries in his quick scan of the Rot.

Thompson shivered as it continued to stare at him with its cold dead hungry eyes and aimed his pistol at its head. As the Rot reached the third step, Thompson fired and his pistol released a small Thhhhpppnnn, as the sound suppressor did its job. The round entered the female Rot's right eye, and pierced through taking with it the grey and blackened brain matter out the back of the head. The Rot dropped to the stairs and slid down to the bottom, still laying face first on the first step.

The moaning increased in frequency and volume. Helem leaned over and looked down the small separation in the staircases and into the dim recesses of the stairwell. When he saw the multiple hands grasping the railings moving upward he simply said, "Shit, she has some friends and they're coming to say hello."

No sooner had Helem spoken when Thompson yelled, "Eyes front!" Helem whipped back to look down the staircase and saw three more Rot come into view. He immediately opened fire taking down two males with three shots. Thompson fired once more and brought the other one down. As the last one dropped, two more shuffled around the corner followed by two more.

One of the ones in front used to be military and was outfitted with a Kevlar Helmut.

Helem fired on this one first. The first round actually deflected of the left side of the helmet and embedded in the neck of the female Rot next to it. The female's head shook and slightly spasmed but she did not fall until a round from Thompson a split second later entered her forehead causing her to fall back down the steps into the trailing two. Helem fired again and again, the first hitting the military Rot in its left cheek and the second hitting its upper teeth knocking them back into its throat. Unfazed, it slowly moved closer.

As the back two began to recover from being tripped by the female's body, they were joined by four more. The "friends" from the bottom floors had arrived at the party. Thompson shifted aim to the military Rot and put two suppressed rounds into the side of its head thorough its ear as it stumbled on the next step and leaned on the stair's wall.

Meanwhile the growing crowd of six had now become eight and was climbing the stairs towards the two soldiers. Eight sets of eyes flashed with horrible hunger and they opened their mouths letting out terrible unearthly moans of desperation. Both Thompson and Helem took aim and began to fire together picking their targets at the closer Rot, hoping to duplicate the results from the female that had delayed her fellow Rot behind her.

Five more dropped and added to the piling of bodies at the base of the stairs but they were replaced by four more coming around the corner with moans signaling even more reinforcements coming closer. Thompson tried to radio Thurman but could not stop firing or they would soon be overrun.

"Fuck this shit," yelled Helem and he holstered his pistol and quickly pulled the shotgun out from behind him. He aimed the Spas down at the climbing Rot and let loose three rounds in quick succession. Bam, Bam, Bam. The three buck shot rounds fanned out and slammed into the heads, necks and upper torsos of the front four. The leading two had most of their head exploded while the two directly behind them caught the third round of buckshot in their faces.

One of the two, a fat festering monster lost his whole face with some of the metal shot reaching his brain and causing him to die yet again.. The other one took some metal pellets through it eyes and nose and was blinded. The blinded rot tripped over the falling bodies of the two in front of it and went sprawling down the stairs with them. The fat one dropped straight down and rolled backward knocking the rest of the Rot off the stairs like a bowling ball. "Fuck yeah, STRIKE!" Helem yelled and raised his shotgun in the air.

Thompson allowed himself a grin and followed suit bringing his own shotgun to bear. "Let's bring the pain," he replied.

"Ttthhhhhh…Thompson, report," the radio barked.

"Sergeant, we got a lot of Rot incoming but we are holding them off for now. We had no choice but to break tactical silence or we would have been overrun, over," Thompson explained into the radio.

"Damn it. Understood, do what you can, we'll speed things up on this end. You should have notified me earlier."

"Does it matter now, Sergeant? You don't have much time. You guys need to finish up soon, or I will recommend we abort. I'll notify you the second the situation gets worse or better, over," Thompson stated.

"Roger that, see that you do, Thurman out."

Bam, Bam, "Jesus, where do you think all these Fucks came crawling out from?" Helem asked.

Bam, Bam, Bam, "Who knows, maybe this stairwell leads to the parking garage and these poor bastards thought they were safe hiding down there until they got slaughtered," Thompson theorized.

Bam, Bam, "Reload," Helem yelled above the noise.

"Roger, covering," Thompson replied as he fired down at the thinning Rot attempting to climb the steps over the bodies of their comrades.

Helem quickly reloaded and covered Thompson who now needed to do the same. By the time the Sergeant was ready, the flood of Rot has ceased.

"Whew, glad there weren't many more of these fuckers. I only got about ten rounds left," Helem huffed out, digging his finger into his ringing ears. "How many do you got left?" He asked.

"I got about 20 more," Thompson replied. "I think we'll be fine if they can wrap this up and find those survivors soon. We might be able to hold another crowd of that size but I don't want to take any chances. Beside's who knows if this place has any of those Shreekers. If any of those survivors has recently bought it, we might have a bit of a problem."

Helem shuddered at the mention of the Shreekers. Those bastards were fast and deadly. Sometimes when a person was turned quickly by a killing bite, they came back just as fast as they were when they were alive and well. That could last a few hours, and a Rot running full speed at you was not only more terrifying then the stumbling pieces of shit but a running head shot is a lot harder then a slow moving target. Not to mention the horrible scream they let out of their mouths. Helem shuddered again; he hoped they wouldn't have to deal with a Shreeker in these close narrow hallways.

"Okay, we seem to be clear, I'm gonna give Thurman a SitRep."