Chapter One:

Sanctum

The sounds of steel toed boots on war torn earth was quiet but to the soldiers making the sounds, it was thunderous. There was no looking back, no second thought as they ran, fumbling across dead bodies of Axis and Ally alike. Something was coming, and they wanted to be far, far away.

Before them stretched a building, the windows they could see were open and gave the image of safe haven. That was at least how it looked to Staff Sergeant Dempsey; his mind blank other than this hope of asylum. The other soldiers however had a much simpler unifying idea, follow Dempsey.

"GET INSIDE!" The panicked Sergeant screamed as his men, diving through a nearby window beside what almost looked like the bars of a prison. The prison of safety he had just led his men into.

One by one the other soldiers climbed or dove into the building, some grabbing lumber off of a nearby truck, parked near the haven and abandoned with the battle. Miller was last inside, nearly landing on his face as he jumped through the window. He breathed heavily and looked out at the empty warfront, seeing nothing but fog… and a man running after them from the burning wreckage of the flight that had deposited the soldiers in this place.

"Sergeant, someone else is coming!" Miller called as he looked over to Dempsey, who had by this time caught his breath and was checking his ammunition. The Sergeant turned to face the window, now also seeing the vastly encroaching figure.

"That's… that's Chase! He must have survived somehow!" Dempsey exclaimed in surprise and optimism. This was quickly silenced by the bloodcurdling screech that came next, its source the supposed survivor of the crash and attack of a living corpse. "That's probably not a good sign is it?" Dempsey asked sarcastically as he looked at Chase, a man he had witnessed die not moments ago.

"He's acting like that thing that attacked him…" Fierro spoke quietly and for the first time since the crash, Fields had also remained silent though this was far less unusual. "It's creepy." He added.

"Ok, boys, I got a challenge for you." Dempsey started after a moment, watching the once soldier run towards the window. "Keep Chase alive and tell me what the hell is going on. First one to do that gets to bash the skull of the first Nazi Freak we meet." He turned to look at his remaining group.

Miller was of course the first to smirk and raise his hand. Prepared for the sarcastic or comically intended line Dempsey gave him a curt nod.

"We're in a run down hangar with a dead guy running toward us" Miller stated calmly. He smiled as he delivered the words.

"Can I shoot him?" Fields spoke suddenly, his words undermined by the surprise that anything was said to begin with. Dempsey looked thoughtful but eventually shook his head.

"Though if he says anything like it again we can throw him to Chase." It was with this statement that the Sergeant remembered the once dead soldier. Turning to the window they had entered from he was greeted by a strange sight. Chase, or rather what was once Chase, was attempting, and failing to climb in through the impractical entrance.

"Never was the athletic type was he" Fierro laughed with his words as he leaned against a nearby wall beside a spiral staircase. His slightly shaking hands reached into his pocket and pulled out his cigarettes. He lit one carefully.

"So now what?" Miller looked at the thing that was Chase and shivered. His eyes had sunken in and his ears bled. Though they were now lifeless his sunken eyes were glowing a dark muddled orange. His clothes had become ragged from the corpses attack and he looked a shadow of his once self.

"I don't know." Dempsey sighed and looked at the corpse and pulled his colt M1911 from his side holster. With a deep breath he lifted it, lined it up with the corpse's skull… and pulled the trigger.

Chase fell, a loud thump as he hit the ruined ground beneath his feet. Dempsey looked to his men and made a curt gesture to the rest of the building. Not wasting a second, the soldiers began to explore the building.

Five windows and a door. The long thin building had few entrances or exits, though if the door was an exit no one could tell, particularly given the ominous writing on it. It spelled help, or at least would have had the writer finished the p. Instead it read "Hell". What had happened here, who had been the writer and what had stopped him from completing his single word? That's when the men noticed something else about the door. What was written was written in blood.

Miller gave another shiver and even Fierro looked sick for a moment. Both moved away from the door, not caring to find what was behind it anymore. Fields simply sat and counted his ammo, creeping Dempsey out more than the door by far.

"War is hell men" Dempsey said flatly after walking over to the door and looking at Miller and Fierro. "Cant let a little blood get you down." A smirk crossed his face though it merely masked the growing disconcertion with the building.

"Sir yes sir" Miller. He was now standing at attention and trying to look tough, failing miserably, but trying. Quickly he moved away from the door and to the nearby staircase. At the top was a large couch someone had used as a barrier; it would take effort to move and none of the soldiers was up to the challenge.

All in all safe haven they had chosen was a bit small but would hopefully make for good housing while they hoped to be found. The four soldiers began to build a fire and sat, waiting. For a half an hour nothing happened, they noticed no new things about the building other than chalk outlines of guns along the wall, and then it began. Terrible wails began to fill the air, wafting in from outside. The air became putrid and marching sounded in the distance. The marching was to no tune and out of synch while the wails were mournful and detached.

As Dempsey looked out the window for the source he was confronted with a terrible sight. The bodies that had littered the battleground were raised like Chase and the corpse. Thousands stood and marched, aimless and mindless, but some, just a few… were looking back at Dempsey and making their way over. "Boys… how many rounds do you have left?" He called back to the other soldiers.

"Five clips average between us all, all pistol ammo." Fields stated as he looked over, immediately aware something was wrong. "Why?" He added.

Dempsey watched the first wave shambled towards him. "I think we're gonna need more than that."