Someone was screaming.

Something was burning.

A gunshot cracked.

Marcus' eyes snapped open and he sat up so fast and hard that he hit his head on the bunk bed above him. He cried out as pain shot through his skull and he fell back onto the pillow, but Maya had gotten in last, so she was closer to the edge of the bed. She rolled out of it and was on her feet in a second, a pistol in her hand. Marcus, much slower, joined her, reaching down and almost instinctively grabbing and shrugging into his backpack. He scanned the area as he pulled out his pistol, looking for some kind of threat.

The church was burning.

For a second, he simply sat there and stared. He just couldn't believe it. He felt dumbstruck and dislocated, as if he was watching a movie of a fire or like he was a disembodied presence. One corner of lot was entirely engulfed in flames and Marcus realized that that's where they had been storing their gasoline. The front of the church was also alight and catching fast.

"Marcus!" Maya screamed, shoving him. "Get moving! Come on!"

She shot off past him and he began to follow her but he heard the others stumbling into awareness behind him. Jacob suddenly appeared beside him.

"LILY!" he screamed and set off towards the front.

Marcus reached out and grabbed him. "The back! Go through the back, the front is burning!" he yelled.

Jacob fought him for a second, then his words took hold and some semblance of logic came over him. Together, the three of them followed Maya around the back. Just as they arrived Maya was yanking the back door open. A pair of figures stumbled into her. Marcus identified them quickly: Lily and Karen.

"Anson is in the main room!" Lily screamed, coughing.

"Jacob, Ed, get whatever you can from the kitchen!" Maya screamed. "Lily, Karen, go down to the basement and get the medical supplies! Marcus, come on, we've got to get Anson!"

She shot forward, into the church. The others followed her in. Immediately Marcus felt the heat and was lost in a sea of smoke. He started coughing and followed Maya through the kitchen and into the main room, only to stop short. The entire room was filled with smoke and half of it was on fire. Marcus could just barely see a dark figure on the floor, engulfed in flames. Anson. He felt sick. This was happening too fast.

"Get back!" Maya screamed. "Get back, it's too late!"

Marcus stumbled back into the kitchen. Already the flames were chasing them, the whole church going up. The pair of them managed to shove some cans of food and bottles of water into their packs before being forced back outside, where they spied a group gathering.

"Where's Anson!?" Karen cried.

"Karen...I'm so sorry..." Marcus said, then trailed off, unable to speak the next words.

"He's dead," Maya said. "The fire got to him."

Karen moaned sickly and fell to her knees, covering her face, sobbing. Marcus felt some measure of control returning as his dislocation truly set in, letting him think clearly. He did a quick headcount. Danica had emerged from the basement, a backpack in hand, looking wide-eyed and dazed. He realized that someone was missing.

"Where's Sam?!" he asked.

"I...uh...she was on watchtower duty!" Maya replied. "Jesus, come on, we can't go back in there, we have to get out of here."

They hurried around the burning church and barely made it in between the gazebo, the tent and the side of the church. Both side structures had caught alight as well. How could it all be burning so fast? Marcus spied a dark figuring lying on the ground next to the watchtower. In the distance, he thought he could hear an engine revving. He hurried over to the figure lying on the ground and dropped to his knees. It was Sam, she was bleeding from her chest. She moaned weakly as he shifted her. It looked like she'd been...shot.

"Marcus?" she asked weakly.

"Fucking hell, Sam...Danica!" he cried. "I need help!"

The others joined him. Ed moved forward and opened the gate. Maya, Danica and Jacob helped Marcus begin to clear Sam from the yard. Something inside the church suddenly exploded, throwing them all to the ground. Marcus lurched to his feet, feeling as if he might be on fire himself but as the initial heat wave from the blast fell away, he realized he was okay. Maybe he might have some blisters, but he was otherwise undamaged.

Jacob hadn't faired so well, unfortunately. He saw the man had something sticking out of his back, a piece of wood. Working fast, he and the others helped get the two wounded out into the gravel parking lot. Danica, looking harrowed but focused, shrugged out of her pack and set to work. Marcus straightened up and looked back at the church. The whole thing was aflame, lighting up the area for miles no doubt.

He had just begun to feel like he'd gotten through the worst of it when he heard a familiar groan from somewhere nearby. He spun around. Several dark forms were approaching the gravel lot from the left...and ahead...and from the right. There had to be dozens of them.

"Zombies! Lots of them!" he cried, getting his pistol out.

He only had the ammo he had on him. Not good.

"Pick your shots carefully!" Maya called. "Danica, keep working, we'll protect you!"

Marcus, Maya, Ed, Lily and Karen all formed a protective circle around the wounded. Marcus forced himself to focus. He needed to, or they'd all die. He took aim at the first zombie making its way towards him, took a deep breath and opened fire. Its head snapped back and a spray of gore escaped it. It collapsed to the ground. He shifted his aim and fired once more, tearing away a good portion of the next thing's skull.

Around him, he could hear the others firing with what little ammo they had left. Marcus was careful, and he'd become a good shot over the past few weeks. There had been plenty of reasons to practice. He landed every single shot he had in his pistol and put down every zombie he hit. And still they kept coming. Marcus let his gun drop and pulled out his melee weapon: a crowbar. It wasn't the same one he'd found back on Mount Tanner, that one had gotten too beat up. He'd found a replacement a few days ago.

As he rushed forward, he heard the other gunfire fall silent. The survivors fell to their more reliable weapons. Marcus tried to be precise and careful with his movement. All it would take was one misstep and suddenly the zombies would close in. He started off by bringing his crowbar around in a tight arc, slamming its end into the lead zombie, a woman in a cop uniform, her mouth open, dry blood caked all around it, eyes glowing a malignant, ominous yellow. She fell and he brought the crowbar down hard on the next one.

As that zombie collapsed from a caved-in skull, Marcus kept swinging, adrenaline pumping through him. His muscles began to get sore and he was starting to get covering in old blood and bits of skull and brain.

Suddenly, there were no more zombies.

Marcus took a deep breath and let it out. That's when he heard a roar cut through the air, followed by a rapid breathing that seemed to be getting louder. In the flickering firelight, he spied one of the freak type of zombies, what he had started thinking of as a feral, racing up the incline to the left of the church, coming right towards him.

He hardly had time to scream a warning and duck as it leaped through the air, intending to leap onto him. He heard Ed shout in surprise and pain. Scrambling to his feet, he saw the thing had landed on him. Marcus sprinted forward in a raw panic and threw himself onto the beast, forcefully dislodging it from where it had Ed pinned to the ground. It kicked him with an insane strength and he cried out as he flew through the air and slammed into the side of one of the vehicles. As he slumped to the ground and struggled to regain his feet, he heard several gunshots. By the time he was up and getting his breath back, he saw that Maya had shot the monstrosity in the head. Several times. Marcus took a look around. They seemed to be alone at last.

"Is everyone okay?" he asked, limping forward.

Everything ached.

"I don't think Sam's going to make it," Danica said, sounding very distant. She was sitting over Sam, her hands bloody, medical tools and supplies around her. Marcus came to stand over the two of them, staring down in slow horror.

Sam reached up. "Marcus..." she whispered. She looked deathly pale.

He crouched down. "Sam...don't try to talk, you need...to rest," he said softly, unable to stop glancing down at her bloody chest.

"I saw it, Marcus," she whispered. "I saw-" she hacked up a gob of blood, spat it onto the ground. "-saw it all. I saw who did it. Who shot me and threw the Molotov cocktail."

Marcus felt a cold stone settle into his gut. "Who, Sam?" he asked.

She reached up and took his hand. "It was Job Wilkerson."

Suddenly, she exhaled, one, long breath. And didn't inhale. Her hand fell away from his. Just like that, she was gone.

Sam was dead.

Marcus stared at her for a long moment. Danica had stopped working. Slowly, she turned to Jacob, who was still lying on the ground, a piece of debris sticking out of his back. She pulled it out, causing him to scream hoarsely in pain, cleaned the wound and the bandaged it. Marcus knew it had to be true, but he felt frozen, unable to move or say or do anything. Abruptly, Danica stood up. He heard her sigh. It sounded like a tired, resigned sigh.

He glanced up.

"I'm sorry," she said, not looking at them.

"Danica, what-" Karen began.

Danica pulled out her pistol, put it in her mouth and squeezed the trigger.

"DANICA!" Karen shrieked. She bolted forward and caught Danica's body as it fell. "Danica no! No please god why?!"

All at once, Marcus felt a cold, sharp clarity descend on him. He stood up, all emotions kicked completely from him. Save for one.

Fury.

He snatched up his pistol.

"Maya," he said sharply. She was staring at Karen. "Maya!" She snapped her head around. "Get everyone down to the Tartan Mart. Grab whatever supplies we brought with us."

"Why, where are you going?" she asked.

But Marcus had already turned and was racing off. He sprinted across the lot, hopped the log fence that had been built around it and ran into the forest, towards the tree where Maya had carved their initials into not that long ago. Once he was on a certain mound of disturbed dirt, he dropped to his knees and started digging with his bare hands. By the time he'd found what he was looking for, he heard footsteps that barely registered.

He looked over.

"I sent them off," Maya said. "I'm going with you."

He didn't want to argue with her. Instead, he said, "Help me with this."

Together, they pulled the tarp out of the ground and opened it up. Maya grabbed the launcher and slung it over her shoulder. Without a word, the pair of them hurried back to the gravel parking lot. Marcus just caught sight of taillights as he hurried over to the red jeep. Everyone else had piled into Jacob's truck.

"How was Jacob?" Marcus asked as he started up the car, slammed into reverse, backed up, repositioned the car, threw it into drive and peeled out of the parking lot.

"He'll be fine," Maya replied.

Neither said anything as they drove through the dead city, hitting the occasional zombie. They left city limits and hit the winding dirt road. The only time Maya said something was to point out a good place for them to park without being seen. Marcus parked and killed the engine. They both got out and began making their way quickly through the dark woodlands, hurrying towards a good position by the farmhouse.

Eventually, they settled into position just behind the Wilkerson's decaying barn. Maya passed Marcus a pair of high-powered binoculars. He didn't ask where she'd found them, instead, while she started prepping the launcher, he put the binoculars to his eyes and scanned the house. There were several sources of light and he could see people moving around inside. Slowly, he began identifying and counting them off. The Wilkerson brothers were definitely there, and he counted three more of their cronies.

It looked like they were celebrating, drinking and smoking and laughing.

"I count five," he said quietly.

"That's all of them," Maya said. She held out her hand. "Here, give me the binoculars." He passed them to her and she stared hard at the farmhouse. After a moment, she nodded to herself. "Yeah, I memorized their fucking faces while we were there. That's all of them, as far as I know. Good. We'll get them all," she growled.

Maya set down the binoculars and picked up the launcher. Marcus waited, watching, staring hard at the house.

A second passed.

Two seconds passed.

Maya fired.

The rocket shrieked from its dark, metal nest and hardly a second passed between its launch and its final destination. The farmhouse literally exploded, going up in a brilliant fireball that shot a great orange and red plume of flame into the skies. Marcus covered his eyes and felt the heat wash over him. Maya dropped the launcher and picked back up the binoculars. The pair of them continued crouching there in the darkness for several seconds.

"You've got to be shitting me," she said, suddenly standing.

"What?" Marcus replied, standing as well and following as she took off.

"One of them survived," she replied, incredulous.

The hurried up the hill, guns in hand, freshly reloaded. Part of Marcus knew that they had to get the hell out of there, the sound would draw more zombies, just like last time. But part of him didn't really care anymore.

They found the survivor on the ground, his body smoking and partially blackened, his clothes melted to him. He was alive, but only just, hanging by a thread. All of his hair had been burned away, but Marcus still recognized him.

Job Wilkerson.

He was crawling feebly away from the farmhouse, moaning sickly in pain. Marcus walked up to him and kicked him over onto his back.

Job cried out.

Marcus leaned down. "Tell me, Job, does Aeschylus have anything to say about this particular situation?" he asked, sneering, feeling mean and nasty and several degrees below zero.

"Kill me," Job moaned.

"You reap what you sow," Maya replied. "I say we leave him. If he's lucky, he'll die of shock before the zombies start eating him alive."

Marcus stared hard at Job, considering the matter. Finally, he sighed. He found that he didn't really have much 'serial killer' in him. He didn't like to see people suffer, even people who deserved it. So he raised his pistol and fired once.

"Come on," he said, suddenly very tired, on the verge of total exhaustion. "We have to get back to the others and..." He wasn't sure what to do after that.

"Figure out what to do next," Maya replied.

Together, they walked away from the inferno, back into the darkness.