Darkness was definitely coming now. Obviously he'd been wrong about the sunset. How could he forget something so mundane? Marcus found these thoughts and more racing through his head as he sat in the passenger's seat of a beat up old pickup and stared at a ruined bridge. The only way out of this godforsaken nightmare. The only way off of Mount Tanner. Maya was sitting quietly next to him, Ed still in the backseat, as silent as ever.

"You okay back there, Ed?" Marcus asked quietly.

"Yeah," Ed murmured. "I'm doing just fine, pal."

"Obviously, we'll have to climb down," Maya said suddenly, killing the engine and stepping out of the truck.

Marcus began to get out as well, realizing that she was right, but then he noticed something: she'd left the keys in the ignition. "You aren't going to take these?" he asked.

"No. Won't do us any good. Might do someone else some good," Maya replied.

Marcus sighed. "Well, you gotta take them out of the ignition. Leaving them in there will run the battery dead," he said, pulling them out and putting them on the dashboard.

"Oh...yeah, I guess you're right," she murmured, her self-possession briefly misplaced. She seemed to straighten up a bit, pulled out her pistol. "Come on."

Marcus turned and helped Ed out of the back of the truck. He checked the makeshift compress he'd made over the wound and frowned at how much blood was there. What could be done? They had to get to the church, get Ed into a bed of some sort. All this moving around couldn't be good. Marcus glanced towards the bridge and saw that Maya was already ahead of them, moving over to the right side of the bridge. Worrying that she'd leave them behind, he set off, looking back over his shoulder to make sure his friend was keeping up with him.

Ed still seemed to have decent mobility, but he was quiet and seemed a little distant. Blood loss and shock, probably. This was no place for a man in his condition, but again, what choice did they have? By the time the pair caught up with Maya, she had discovered something.

"Look," she said, crouching, pointing. "A ladder. We can climb down, cross the creek and climb back up. Shouldn't take more than ten minutes."

She went first. Marcus watched her narrow face disappear from view, then went down after her. As soon as he was a little ways down, Ed joined them. The trio made their way down the old, rusty ladder that had been lashed onto the side of a cliff face with bolts and determination. Marcus wondered how old it was, what the chances of it falling were, when was the last time it had been serviced...not exactly great thoughts at the moment.

He heard a small sound from below and glanced down. Maya had stepped off the ladder, and she was staring at something, not moving...Marcus followed her gaze and, for a second, was frozen in place with sheer terror. Then Ed stepped on his hand.

"Ow!" he whispered harshly.

"Why'd you stop?!" Ed replied.

"Shut up!" Marcus snapped. "Ed, look, down the creek..."

Ed stopped moving, shut up and saw. Further down the creek, maybe fifty feet away, were a cluster of zombies, about a dozen or so. They were walking away, grouped together, moaning and groaning in a gentle chorus. Marcus finished climbing down as quickly and quietly as he could, and came to stand next to Maya.

"Why are they grouped together like that?" she whispered.

"Herd mentality? Echoes of their former lives?" Marcus murmured in reply. "Either way, what does it matter? Let's go in the opposite direction."

Maya shook her head and pointed. "No, look."

Another ladder had been lashed to the nearest rock face on the opposite side. Unfortunately, the nearest flat rock face was about thirty feet away...in the direction of the zombies. Ed finished with the ladder and was brought up to speed on the situation by way of Marcus pointing. It took Ed a minute to figure it out in the dying light, but he let out a low groan of frustration and fear.

"Come on," Maya whispered. "We'll do this quietly. We'll head down the bank on our side, then cross when we get to the ladder. Got it?"

Both men responded affirmatively. They made their way quickly and quietly down the riverbank, trying to compromise between keeping a distance from the zombie collection and moving quickly. Within a minute, they were parallel with the ladder. Maya threw a quick, worried glance at the zombies, then began crossing. Marcus and Ed moved after her. The water was cold but only ankle-deep. They'd made it halfway across when Ed suddenly slipped.

"Shit!" he shouted, collapsing into the water, splashing around.

"Dammit, you moron!" Maya shouted.

A general roar went up from the zombies as they became aware of the others' presence.

"I'm sorry!" Ed cried as Marcus pulled him up. "I was bitten by a goddamned zombie!"

"Run!" Marcus screamed.

The zombies were coming for them now, roaring and screaming, splashing through the water. Maya hit the ladder first and scrambled up it faster than Marcus thought possible. He shoved Ed up after him and as soon as there was room, he began climbing up, too. He glanced back down at the zombies. The closest ones were within ten feet.

"Hurry!" Marcus called.

Looking back up, he saw that Maya was already gone and Ed was disappearing over the top. Good, they were almost there. Besides, what did he have to worry about? Zombies didn't know how to climb or-clang! Marcus cried out as reverberations shook up through the ladder. He looked back down and cried out again.

The first zombie had reached the ladder...

And it was climbing up it!

"Help!" he called.

Maya reappeared over the edge, staring down at him, then past him. "Hold still!" she called. He froze as she pulled out her pistol and pointed it right at him.

"Wait!"

She pulled the trigger. There was a brilliant flash and a powerful explosion of sound that rendered him nearly deaf for the moment. Then she was shouting, "move your ass!" at him and he was doing just that. He moved as quickly as caution would allow, terrified of losing his grip and falling off into a pile of zombies that would rip him to shreds while, simultaneously, eating him. Somehow, he managed to make it up over the top.

"Come on!" Maya snapped, helping him to his feet and shoving him forward. They were in a field in between the road to the left, leading away from the bridge, and a sparse forest to the right. There were zombies in the forest. Ed grunted as, presumably, Maya shoved him, too. Marcus didn't know for sure because he was too busy running.

There was a car on the road.

It was dark and immobile, abandoned most likely. Marcus prayed that it wasn't out of gas or had a dead battery or flat tire. Behind him, there was growling, a lot of it. Maya shouted at him to go faster, and then she ran past him. She was in good shape. He picked up the speed, then glanced back at Ed, who was lagging behind.

And the zombies were getting closer.

Of course, these were the running kind. He heard a car door open and looked forward again. Maya had reached the car and was in the driver's seat. He saw her frantically searching for keys. Marcus felt the gun that was tucked into his waistband. He reached the road, stopped, turned and pulled out the pistol. Time to put that shooting practice to use.

"Get to the car, Ed!" he shouted.

"Marcus, no-"

"Now, Ed!"

Ed hesitated a second longer, then ran on to join Maya at the car. Marcus took aim and fired. The nearest zombie's head exploded in a plume of dark gore and it collapsed immediately. He shifted his aim, fired again, and missed. Cursing, he forced himself to focus and fired a third time. Then a fourth, fifth and sixth. All of those following shots were hits, and four more zombies went to the ground. Out of bullets.

The car engine kicked to life.

"Come on, Marcus!" Maya called.

Marcus turned and sprinted across the road, getting into the front passenger seat of a red, four-door station wagon. Maya already had the headlights on. Even before he could finish closing the door, she threw it into drive and took off, speeding down the road.

"Slow-slow down," Marcus said, his hands trembling from adrenaline. "We don't need to get in a wreck after all that."

"Uh, yeah," Maya replied, braking slightly, bringing their speed towards something reasonable.

"How you doing, Ed?" Marcus asked, fumbling with revolver until he got it open and emptied the spent brass into his lap. He brushed it aside, onto the seat and the floor, reached into his pocket and began reloading the gun.

"Tired...out of it," Ed replied. "Spent, man. Think I need a nap."

"Fine. You relax. We'll get you there safe," Marcus said.

"We hope," Maya muttered.

Marcus finished reloading the gun in silence, twice dropping bullets and wasting several moments recovering them. Maya navigated the lonely road that curved and twisted through the countryside, making her way towards Spencer's Mill. Marcus finished reloading the gun and set it in between his feet, unwilling to hold onto it but also unwilling to slip it back into his waistband while he was sitting. He'd need to find a holster.

As they kept driving, weaving their way around wrecked or stalled cars, passing clumps or isolated pockets of zombies, Marcus suddenly found the silence unbearable.

"Where are you from?" he asked quietly, hearing Ed's soft snores.

"Uh...Missouri. Kansas City," Maya replied, seeming distracted, like she'd been deep in thought.

"Why'd you join the Army?"

"What is this, twenty questions?" Maya snapped, her voice hard-edged again. She sighed after a minute. "Sorry, this is all just...stressful. I, uh, joined because, well...I don't know. I guess I was good at the things you needed to be good at to succeed in the army. I wasn't good at anything, like, creative. I could've made it through high school with my eyes closed. Practically did. I went on to community college but it was just more of the same...slackers and easy classes, jocks and assholes only interested in what was between my legs. I swear to god, if I hear 'treat her like shit and she'll put out easy' one more time someone's going to swallow a bullet...

"So, I dropped out, joined the army."

"That must've been crazy," Marcus murmured.

"Yeah, it was. Got shipped off to Afghanistan. Lots of shooting, lots of psychotic assholes willing to strap on a bomb and die...or willing to convince a kid to do the same. Jesus. You want to talk about true evil in the world..."

Suddenly, a zombie stumbled out in front of the car. No time to swerve, but Maya did just a little, so that the car hit the poor bastard in such a way that it wouldn't fly up over the hood and smash the windshield. Even so, blood splashed all over the glass.

"You gonna hit the wipers?" Marcus asked after a moment.

"No, that just makes it worse. I can still see."

"How do you know it makes it worse?"

Maya snorted. "I told you, I was in the Army."

Marcus fell silent. They came to a tunnel that was choked with a snarl of wrecked, burned cars. For a moment, Marcus thought they were screwed, but Maya found a way through. Now that things were quiet, he had a moment to think. What would they do once they got to the church? The more he thought about it, the more it seemed that civilization was gone.

It was every man for himself.

Part of him refused to believe this, another part argued that it was stupid not to. They finally compromised and agreed that civilization within the valley itself was probably gone, but it was entirely possible that it could be gone or totally fine beyond the valley. Either way, he supposed, it didn't matter. He had to survive, and that would (hopefully) be easier with more people. What was waiting for him in the next few days?

Marcus could come up with nothing pleasant, so he decided to stop speculating. Instead, he opted to stare out the window until they reached the church. Maya parked in the dirt lot between a truck and a jeep. Marcus glanced up and saw something interesting: a cement block wall that surrounded the church was topped by barbed wire.

"Huh, they've really set up shop here," Maya said quietly.

They killed the engine and stepped out, moving along the dirt parking lot until they came to a black iron fence. A makeshift watchtower sat within the wall, made of little more that forty gallon drums and wood. A girl and an older man stood just beyond the fence. Maya, Marcus and Ed stood and waited, listening to them argue.

"You're worse than your idiot brother! Who the hell said we can take on more people!?" the older man snapped. He was dressed in a ranger's uniform and his voice reminded Marcus of R. Lee Ermey, the insane drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket.

"You're not in charge, Alan! This is a community!" the teenage girl, Lily, Marcus realized, recognizing her voice, shouted back.

"And there wouldn't be any goddamned community without me!...whatever, do what you want," he said. He threw a dark gaze towards the three of them, sneered and then turned and stomped off.

Lily came over and opened the gate. She stared at the three of them for a moment, then smiled and stepped back.

"Welcome to the Church of the Ascension."