The silhouette that was the gargoyle tucked its wings and dove towards us. Several of us opened fire on the gargoyle, but for all the damage those bullets did, everyone might as well have been firing BB guns. Plus I think we were just making the thing mad.

"EVERYBODY DOWN!" Creed yelled, and we all dove for cover not a split-second before the gargoyle slammed into the SUV that Dimitiri had used for a perch. Ever see what a sledgehammer does to a soda can? Well that gargoyle being a stone behemoth, did exactly that to the SUV.

I scrambled to my feet, not even registering that I had gotten my Mustangs trunk open, but the next thing I knew, I was fishing though the trunk looking for a weapon with enough kick to bring down that gargoyle.

"Fire in the hole!" I yelled, leveling a 6-cylinder grenade launcher at the gargoyle that was attempting to extract itself from the wreckage of the SUV it had slammed into. The first shell sent the SUV and the gargoyle spinning down the street. The second and third, as well as the fourth made sure that gargoyle did not get up. Hell there was nothing left of either the SUV or the gargoyle by the time I'd fired the fourth 40mm shell.

"Dude, talk about overkill!" I think that was Matt. I was too occupied laughing like an evil maniac at the large fireball that was the mangled wreckage of the SUV and the gargoyle I'd blasted to hell.

"Keep the change ya filthy animal." I cackled madly. Hey you would laugh like that too if you had just blasted a gargoyle away like that.

"You keep firepower like that in your trunk James?" Dad asked. I could tell he was amused at the sight even over my Joker-like laughter.

"You don't?" I asked, as I realized that I was following in Iron Hand's footsteps. If Milo has published Chad's memoirs, then you'll understand.

"What the hell was that?" Pat said over the com line.

"Just a little gargoyle barbeque Pat." Creed replied. "We're short one SUV though."

"Shit did you say gargoyle-GET THE FUCK OFF ME!" Everybody winced, when Pat screamed into his com, and winced again when a rather long burst of gunfire sounded over the line. "Great that means we have a high-powered vampire on top of all the zombies, and whoever raised these fugly sons of bitches to deal with."

"So what's the play here boss?" Creed asked.

"There's a cemetery to the east. Check that place out while we deal with the shamblers here."

"What about the ETA on the incoming team?" Isabelle asked.

"They're inbound in five minutes." Pat said over the line, but nothing ever takes five minutes. Something that everyone on our small little squad my dad and Mr. Reese included made a not of voicing.

"Boss for those of us who are bad with directions, where is that cemetery in question?" I asked, speaking into my own com.

"Down the road you just came, first crossroad you come to. Take a right, and it's a few miles up the road." Pat replied over the line.

"Thanks boss." I said, tossing the launcher back into my trunk. Yes the safety was on, I'm not stupid enough to blow up my own car by doing something incredibly stupid like that. I slammed the trunk shut, got back into the driver's seat, and Matt and I were rolling down the road we had just come down. I think I was doing about 110 or 120 when we came to that intersection. Now you can drift with Mustangs, it's just really difficult. Must have been why Matt was grabbing the Oh Shit handle on the passenger side of my car when I drifted around that intersection.

"You're gonna get pulled over driving like that!" He yelled.

"Given the situation, no cop would dare pull me over." I replied, aware of the red and blue lights flashing in my rearview group mirror. Either that officer had gotten a call from dispatch telling whoever was in that car do check out a disturbance in the local cemetery, or they was pissed off that they'd been cut off at an all way stop intersection by a red 1968 Mustang gong 100 plus.

"You're not gonna pull over are you?" Matt asked looking over his shoulder at the patrol car that was getting smaller as I pulled away from it.

"Nope." I replied, still smirking like an idiot from blasting that gargoyle to hell.

"How fast can this beauty go?" Matt asked, matching my manic smirk. The patrol car's flashing lights became smaller and smaller, when I put my foot to the floor.

"Holy SHIT!" I slammed on my brakes when a wall of zombies appeared in my Mustang's headlights. The tires screeched, as I turned the wheel to the left. I thanked every deity in existence that my beloved car did not roll when I did that. My car came to a stop about 20 feet from the horde, with the passenger side door facing the wall of undead flesh.

"I'm kinda regretting that we took off like a bat outta hell." Matt said, as he quickly undid his seatbelt, and grabbed his shortened FAL. I mirrored him, grabbing my Uzi, and the both of us threw open the doors to my Mustang.

"No use crying over it now." I said, as the two of us opened up on the slowly advancing wall of undead flesh. I was firing in semi-auto, because I'd run out of ammo way too fast if I just unloaded my Uzi's magazine into the horde, despite the small armory I had in the trunk.

"I can't even see the cemetery, can you?" Matt asked as his suppressed FAL chirped.

"No, but there might be some good news with that." I replied, catching a zombie in the knee, then popping it in the head when it's leg gave out. I repeated the process several more times, as I continued speaking. "With all these zombies, who or whatever raised them is more than likely in that cemetery."

"Alright then," Matt began as he reloaded his FAL, and went back to work on the horde, "but what about the potential vampire threat? Sure we got lucky when you blasted away that gargoyle, but what happens when that vamp really makes its presence known?"

"One problem at a time." I replied, firing the last round in my Uzi magazine. I hit the release, and fished in my tac-vest for a fresh magazine as the empty mag clattered to the asphalt.

"Oh speaking of problems, Sheriff Rosco just showed up." I rolled my eyes, but Matt was right. The patrol car that we'd cut off a short while ago came to a screeching halt in the middle of the road a few feet behind us. The good news was that it better illuminated the zombie horde, the bad news was that chances were high that cop was going to aim his service issue Glock at the two of us instead of the horde of undead flesh illuminated by his patrol car's headlights.

Remember I hate being right sometimes. This particular time was one of those. I think the officer in that car had some serious tunnel vision. I don't think he even registered the zombies in the road. Nope, the driver's side door of that patrol car opened, and it turned out she started screaming for us to get on the ground.

"Aiming that weapon the wrong way." Matt said in a nonchalant tone, as he reloaded his FAL once again.

"You fire that weapon, and I will drop you!" She growled, as her left index finger touched the trigger of her sidearm. I thought it was interesting that she was left-handed, but that was by no means the most pressing issue right now.

"You better check your aim officer." Matt replied cheekily. "If you fire that thing, you're gonna miss me by a foot number one. Number two, why don't you take a quick look at what we're shooting at."

The officer's eyes widened almost like a deer in the headlights, and her service Glock lowered as her arms went slack. "Oh my God…"

"Now she gets it." I said rolling my eyes, as I reloaded my Uzi I wondered where Creed and everyone else was. They couldn't be too far behind, I mean hell those SUVs can go about 140 so they should get here relatively soon.

"Jimmi, I think we're gonna have to pull back." Matt said, as he once again reloaded his FAL. I'd dropped about 18 shamblers, and I think Matt's kill count was somewhere in the 20's. 30 plus zombies down, but they were still shuffling towards us. The zombies had closed the distance to about 10 feet away from my Mustang, and the thing with zombies is you do not under any circumstances want to get surrounded and swarmed. You're fucked if you do, because you're either food or a soon to be member of the walking dead.

"They are not touching my car!" I growled in response. I still had two shells in the launcher, but at that range the explosion would do some serious damage to my car, and that was by no means acceptable in any way. My dad was right, I really did treat my car like my first born.

"Hey sweetheart, you wanna fire that weapon of yours?" Matt asked, turning his attention to the cop, but she was curled up and cowering inside her squad car. Not everyone can handle situations like this.

It was right about then that two large SUVs pulled up on either side of the shell-shocked officer's car. I breathed a sigh of relief when the team that Creed had taken up to the Adirondacks plus my dad and Dimitri piled out weapons ready.

"You know, you remind me of myself when I first joined up." Thom said, fishing out a fresh magazine for his heavily customised Sig Elite. He had unloaded the sidearm into the hoard when he moved up to take a position by my car's trunk.

"How's that?" I asked, transitioning to my Saiga. I had the magazine loaded with deer slugs, for that extra kick you know? Thing is, I had forgotten that I had loaded the explosive deer slugs Milo had made into my Saiga (that's a whole other story which I'll get into later), at least that was until I watched a line of zombie head explode. Wanna know the extent of the damage Milo's custom slugs caused? Picture a watermelon that had 10 M80's placed inside it, and someone blew those little buggers up. Dangerous yes, but it was awesome (and admittedly a little disgusting) watching zombie skulls blasted into a billion tiny pieces by Milo's custom slugs.

"First off, that was awesome!" Thom half yelled/half laughed as another row of zombie heads were vaporised by my Saiga. "Secondly, and more to my point, is you guys are eager to please, and always ready for a fight."

"So does that mean something's changed between now and when you started?" Matt asked as yet another magazine from his FAL clattered to the ground, and he searched for another one.

"Nope, not a damn thing. I'm always ready for a fight." Thom replied, and the guy wasn't kidding. The youngest brother in the Morrison family was strapped. His primary was the highly customised EBR Matt had positively drooled over. His backup was like most of us on Pat's team a shotgun, which was a 6 cylinder Stryker pump-action. Thom's sidearm was holstered across his chest, and that was the custom Sig 220 Elite I mentioned earlier. He had 2 bladed weapons, his primary like Kai and myself being a katana, his backup was a little more exotic and unexpected, that being a World War I Jambiya dagger.

"So when do I get to test out your REPR?" Thom asked, canting his EBR to the side. I hadn't noticed that he'd placed a reflex sight on the side of his high powered scope. Facing down a horde of zombies, you tend to miss a few things.

"You'll need to get in line." I replied, after disintegrating another row of zombie heads. Maybe I should have led with the Saiga. Oh well, no use in complaining about it now. "Matt asked first, so he gets the first crack when I decide I'm ready to share."

"James you have to share with your friends." Dad said, covering me so I could reload my Saiga. Dad might be a trained marine, but he thought he was up against still living targets in that he thought body shots would drop zombies. Maybe I should have given him some pointers, but once again, no use in complaining about it now.

"I don't wanna." I replied, as I stood up to fire my shotgun. I decided to go with another magazine of explosive rounds, as they had worked so well before. "And dad, body shots are a no-go with zombies. You gotta aim for the head if you want to drop them."

"Your dad's been here how long, and you haven't told him anything about how to deal with the supernatural?" Matt asked, transitioning to his Benelli after the magazines on his FAL ran dry.

"A little more focused on what's in front of us Matt." I replied. We were pushing the zombies back slowly, but I kept wondering when that other team was going to get here.

"Guys, not to be a downer, but is anybody else wondering when that new team is expected to… Hang on? Do you hear something?" I said, as the sound of what sounded like helicopter rotors reached my ears.

"Sounds like a heli, think it's the cavalry?" Matt asked.

"It better be." I replied, fishing another magazine out of my vest. "I'm running low on ammo here."

"You have a whole arsenal in that trunk of yours." Matt said, as the sound of the helicoptors rotors got closer. "And you're telling me that you're running low on ammo?"

"Yeah, that's what I'm telling you-wait was that either of you?" A zombie among the slowly advancing horde went stiff as a board and dropped to the asphalt.

Matt, dad and Thom both shook their heads, right before another zombie dropped from another unknown gunman. The question was, was it someone from our team, someone from that helicoptor, or someone else covering our asses? More zombies dropped, and the two of us shared a look at one another, with the both of us jerking our heads in the direction of the horde at the same time. Low on ammo or not, we still had a job to do. Transitioning back to my primary weapon, I raised my Uzi, flicked the firing mode to fire on semi-auto, took careful aim, and started popping targets in the head.

Bad news, the undead horde while being pushed back was still a little too close for comfort, and I had two magazines left for my Uzi. Upside, that helicoptor was right above us. Chancing a glance up, the helicoptor seemed to be a Huey gunship hovering 30 feet above us. Ropes dropped down from either side of the gunship, and we became joined by 2, 4, 6 others dressed in heavy tactical gear not unlike Rennie, and they were armed armed with suppressed M4s and UMPs.

"Patrick Martin?" A male voice with a distinct rather deep British accent asked over the sound of the rotors. The speaker stepped forward, his face covered by some sort of tac-mask.

I shook my head. "James Woods. I'm one of the three new recruits to Pat's team. Our boss is a few miles that way." I gestured to somewhere behind the newcomer's right. "He sent us here to deal with a potential, and rather obvious problem."

"Just you lot for now then?" The man asked.

"For now, but there's another team on the way." I replied, as 5 of the 6 new comers opened fire in bursts on the horde. "And should be here any second. But in all honesty, we seriously owe you for saving our asses."

"Well, I'm Nigel Bliss. Van Hellsing Institute, and former Sergeant of Her Majesty's SAS." Nigel held his hand out, and I shook it, unsurprised by the man's strong grip. "Now what's the situation here?"

"There's only one place these zombies could have come from, and that's the local cemetery." Creed explained stepping up and Shaking Bliss' hand, while I popped my trunk, and switched out to my Galil. I had enough weapons and ammo in there to start a small war and win it. "Terry Creed, and Chances are high that who or whatever it was that raised these things is still in there. But as you can clearly see, it's going to be one hell of a fight in order to get there, even with your added firepower. Unless of course that heli of yours is armed."

"Jax, need you to clear a path" Bliss spoke into his com.

"Hey, tell your pilot not to damage my car." I said, as the Huey rose into the air to begin its gun run.

"Mind the car Jax. Yank down here doesn't want her hurt." Bliss said. I guessed the British hunters weren't on the same line as the rest of our team, because I couldn't hear what the pilot said, or if they had said anything.

I swore vehemently as a white-hot searing pain burned right by my collarbone on my left side. Good news was that it was just a stray shell that had slipped into my armor, but did it ever hurt like hell. "Oh son of a bitch that hurt!"

"Yeah, I know how bad that feels." Dad said over the sound of the Huey's guns. "I have the burn to prove that."

"Yeah, and it hurts like a son of a bitch." Creed said, rubbing his left hand close to the same spot on his collarbone where the shell had burned me. Guess it wasn't just me and dad then.

The Huey was about halfway down the street, when something barreled towards it. Jax must have seen it, as the Huey moved to avoid the creature. However Jax wasn't quick enough to fully avoid the gargoyle, as with a horrible grinding noise of stone on metal, the gargoyle had ripped off the Huey's left side door. Our weapons snapped up, and tracked the gargoyle as it turned to make another pass at the Huey, despite all of us knowing that we'd never kill that thing without a heavy explosive. I still had two shells left in my launcher, but that gargoyle was too far out of range. We needed a rocket launcher.

"Jax, get out of there!" Bliss yelled into his com, a split-second before the Huey exploded as a second gargoyle smashed into and through the Huey, splitting it in half. All of us watched in horror, as the bisected helicopter fell to the ground. The two halves impacted hard in a field to our left and rolled end over ends before the flaming wreckage came to a stop.

"JAX!" A British hunter screamed, right before they made to run towards the wreckage of the Huey. It took Rocky, Creed, and Bliss to pull him back.

"Wilkes, we can't do anything for her!" Bliss growled, as he restrained the panicked hunter, who continued to attempt to break free, and run towards the Huey's wreckage. The elated feeling I had from destroying the first gargoyle was now gone, to be replaced by horror at the sight of that gargoyle smashing into Jax's Huey. I felt the same way the other hunter, Wilkes felt. I wanted to make a break for the wreckage. I wanted to do something, anything to help Jax even if there was the slightest chance that she had survived that crash. "Hostiles are too close! We won't make it in time!"

"We can't just leave her!" Wilkes shouted in response, as both the horde and the two large gargoyles turned their attention to the Huey. I felt my stomach drop. If Jax was alive, she would get ripped to shreds. Wilkes was right, we couldn't leave Jax to that fate.

Apparently someone else shared the same sentiment, as right when the gargoyles landed a few yards away from the Huey's wreckage, two rockets disintegrated the stone behemoths. We all ducked when the rockets blasted the gargoyles into tiny bits.

"What the fuck was that!?" Several of us said at the same time. Our question as rewarded when a large souped up truck pulled up in the field to our left several yards away. There were two people standing in the flatbed, each of them holding a still smoking SMAW launcher. I recognised that truck, and one of the two men standing in the flatbed. I felt Matt nudge my arm. He obviously recognised the truck and its owner as well.

"You know, we probably should have seen that coming." Matt said, but there was no time to ponder that. With the gargoyles being eliminated, we had enough man and firepower to handle the zombies and recover Jax. God willing she was still alive.

I stowed my Uzi in the trunk of my car, and grabbed my Galil -as well as spare ammo-, as I felt like the rifle I'd purchased from Intimidator's wasn't getting enough attention. I bought this beauty specifically for hunting and killing the supernatural. Sure I had an Iron Hand special in the form of my Uzi, and my special ordered REPR, but like my old AR-15 being the first rifle I'd ever owned, my Galil was my first monster hunting rifle, and I'd be damned if it didn't see more action.

All of us made for the Huey's wreckage, dropping the zombies that had gotten to the wreckage before us. We spread about the front half of the Huey's wreckage in a wide semi-circle, weapons facing outward towards the slowly advancing horde that had diverted their attention to the wreckage.

"Oh Christ!" I think that was Wilkes. He and Bliss as well as Isabelle had climbed onto the Huey to assess what happened. Whatever had happened to Jax didn't sound good.

"Hold on, I'm going in." Isabelle said, and then a few moments later she called out from inside the cabin of the ruined Huey: "She's alive, but we can't move her."

"Alright then, stabilize from in there. We'll have to cut her out." Bliss said.

"Gonna be a long night." Matt said, right before the two of us froze in shock. A long drawn out howl rang out from seemingly all around us. "A real long night."