Cherish Applebottoms wanted one thing: a building she could seal, defend, and call her own. She had spent three days scouting the swamp for it, crowbar in hand, backpack heavy with canned food. Now she couldn't stop running long enough to knock on a single door. The dog would not quit. It had caught her scent an hour ago and never lost it. She glanced back and hated what she saw. Tentacles grew from its rotting spine and lashed the air like whips. Its ribs showed through torn hide. It ran faster than any living dog should, and it ran straight at her. She cut through mud between rotted trees. Her boots sank. Every place she wanted to hide, the dog would follow. It would drag her scent right to the door and trap her inside. Ahead she saw a weathered two-story house. Broken windows, a sagging porch, a rusted car in the weeds. Spiderwebs covered it like nets. It was exactly the kind of place she needed. And leading a monster to it would ruin it. Cherish stopped and turned. She raised the crowbar. If she couldn't outrun the thing, she would end it here, before it learned where she slept. The dog lunged. A tentacle wrapped her ankle and yanked. She fell hard in the mud and swung. The crowbar cracked into its skull. The dog only snarled and climbed onto her chest. Its jaws snapped inches from her throat. She jammed the crowbar sideways into its mouth and pushed. Her arms shook. She was losing. A gunshot split the swamp. The dog's head burst apart. Its body dropped, twitching, tentacles curling in the mud. Cherish shoved the weight off and gasped. A man stepped from behind the rusted car. He wore a plaid shirt under a stuffed tactical vest, fingerless gloves, a beard streaked with sweat. He kept his pistol up and aimed at the twitching corpse, not at her, but not fully away either. "Should've dropped it a mile back," he said. "You led it right to my house." Cherish climbed to her feet, crowbar ready. "Your house." "Marcus Flint." He didn't lower the gun. "Me and my family were doing fine quiet. Then you came screaming through the trees with that thing on your tail." He nodded at the porch. Behind a cracked window, a small face watched, then ducked away. Cherish looked at the house she had wanted for herself. Now someone already lived in it, armed, with people to protect. He had just saved her life. He did not look glad about it. "That shot carried," Marcus said. He glanced toward the treeline, where other things would have heard it. "Every dead thing in this swamp knows where we are now. Both of us." He finally lowered the pistol. "So you'd better come inside. Fast."

Cherish followed Marcus through the front door. He slammed it and dropped a plank across two brackets. Behind a cracked window, his sick sister (who looked terrible) yelled, "Marcus, who is she?" Marcus was the man who had shot the dog off her chest an hour ago. He had not once put down his pistol, and he did not now. "Doors first," Marcus said. "Then we count what's coming." Cherish swung her backpack to the floor and grabbed her crowbar. The back door hung loose in its frame. She wedged the flat end under a fallen shelf and dragged it against the door. Her arms burned. The wood was rotted soft, and the nails pulled free before she could set them. A sound came from the swamp. Not one thing. Many. Wet feet slapping mud, moving fast. Marcus's sister began to panic!! Cherish looked through a broken pane. One figure stumbled from the trees. Crawling like a wounded animal. Its skin hung in strips with tendrils sprouting from its ear and back. Then it stood up straight, and its back split open. Arms unfolded from the wound, three, four of them. Tendrils slid loose and tested the air. Where one thing had walked, more shapes rose behind it in the dark. "That's not a dog," Marcus said. His voice cracked. "That's Fred from a couple miles away. We used to go gator hunting." The lead creature reached the porch. Cherish had no time to nail anything. She braced her boot on the shelf and held the door with her whole weight. A tendril punched through the rotted wood beside her face, as if it was reaching for a kiss!! "Shoot it!" she yelled. Marcus fired. The shot tore through the door and the creature both. It shrieked and fell back. But the gunshot rolled out across the swamp, and the wet feet answered, louder now, coming from every side at a frantic pace! Cherish understood. Every shot brought ten more. They could not hold this door and they could not fight the whole horde in the open. "Stop shooting," she said. "Upstairs. Now." Marcus stared at her. Then he grabbed his sickly sister and shoved them towards the stairs. Cherish jammed a metal baseball bat Marcus's sister had dropped through the front door's handle and the wall bracket, locking it half a second before the mutants hit it. The whole frame shook. With hands reaching as if they had finally found a way to satisfy a dying thirst. They ran to the top to the master bedroom as the front door was breached and the zombies began to give chase and search the house for their victims. Cherish is almost caught by a zombie who broke through the living room in the confusion. But is shot by Marcus as soon as it reached for Cherish's face with its mouth chomping to get her. Once in the bedroom Marcus held his sister against him and looked at her. As she began to cough and shake uncontrollably, "Anna, Anna," Marcus yells!! "We have to leave now," Cherish said. She was breathing hard. The house she had wanted for herself was full of monsters now, and the only safe room had a person about to turn, with no way out. She pressed her palm to the bedroom floor and felt the horde move beneath it. As several banged on the master bedroom door trying to get in!! She would have to escape through the window with Marcus and find a place to fortify and survive. Marcus couldn’t believe he was losing the only family member he had left, his younger sister. As she began to turn and scream and reach for him, Cherish yelled at Marcus to get a hold of himself and come to his senses or he would be zombie fertilizer. Marcus shed a tear. As soon as the bedroom door broke open with zombies reaching for them both, they jumped out the window, shutting it behind them, and used the roof to get down safely and run for safety. With Anna not only turning but being surrounded by 7 zombies swarming around her! And Anna’s screams for Marcus are heard as they run!

Anna's screams faded behind them. Cherish and Marcus ran until the swamp swallowed the sound. Marcus stopped by a black pool and bent over his knees. He did not cry. He pulled his pistol and pointed it at Cherish's chest. "I should shoot you right now," Marcus said. His hand was steady. "It's your fault. I should never have helped you." Cherish did not raise the crowbar. She looked at the barrel, then at his face. She took a long breath and let it go. "That's usually why I'm always alone," she said. Marcus stared at her. His jaw worked. The gun stayed level for one more second. Then his arm dropped. He shoved the pistol back in his belt and turned away. "Don't shoot again," Cherish said. "You saw what it brings." "I know what it brings," Marcus said. He wiped his face with the back of his hand and started walking. They pushed deeper into the swamp. Mud sucked at their boots. Cherish kept the crowbar low and ready. Somewhere behind them, wet feet still searched the dark. The pair moved slow and quiet, saying nothing. Cherish saw the buildings first. A farmhouse and a barn leaned together past a dead field. The roofs sagged. Boards had fallen from the walls, and someone had nailed rough patches over the holes long ago. She stopped and studied it. "Two ways in," she said, pointing. "Front porch. Barn door. We can watch both." "You always this calm?" Marcus asked. "No," she said. "Come on." They crossed the field. Cherish went up the porch steps first. She pushed the front door with her boot and led with the crowbar. The front room was empty. Dust and broken glass. She checked each corner while Marcus watched the yard. Something moved in the barn. Cherish froze. Through the gap between buildings, she saw a shape rise from the straw. It had too many arms. Tentacles hung from its shoulders and gripped the air on their own. Strips of skin dangled from its face. One eye glowed orange in the dark. Marcus's hand went to his gun. Cherish grabbed his wrist and squeezed. "No," she whispered. "One shot brings a hundred." The thing turned its head toward them. It did not charge. It watched. "What are you," Marcus whispered angrily. "Moans n growls," the thing said. Cherish held her breath. The creature looked at the crowbar in her hand, and charged at them! It gave chase. Marcus and Cherish ran around the house from the kitchen to the living room and back again, trying to avoid getting bitten or grabbed. Marcus flipped the dining room table. The zombie fell over it, but the tentacles grabbed his leg. As Marcus stabbed at it with his hunting knife and it crawled close to him, Cherish burst in from the kitchen and smashed its head with the crowbar. After several hits, its head burst open in a messy splatter. Cherish smiled and said, "It's like pumpkin smashing." Marcus, with terror and shock still on his face, looked at her and said, "Thanks." Cherish and Marcus fortified the farmhouse, using furniture to block certain entrances. "We hold here tonight," she said. "I'll watch the porch and we can take shifts." Marcus said, "I'll check the barn just in case." Marcus took a second to mourn his sister but noticed he wasn't alone. He had found two survivors: a woman named Lisa and a man named Derek. They were both hiding from the zombie that was in the house. Marcus introduced them to Cherish, and Trevor said they should double-check that they are not bitten or infected before they begin turning on each other again. Marcus nodded and agreed. Derek and Lisa had no problem showing that they were not infected, and the group found a room to rest as Derek and Marcus took the first shift and the ladies rested.

If not for the smell surely, Her Nightmares, Woke Cherish before the noise DID! The zombies head she had smashed earlier, and body they placed near the barn is rotting. The smell crawled through the farmhouse walls, as if it were a candlestick’s aroma! She sat up on the floor and heard the sound she feared. Wet feet in the grass. Low growls circling the porch. The rot was calling them in! She grabbed her crowbar and stood up, fully awake! Marcus met her in the hall, pistol drawn! Lisa followed, calm, one hand on the holster at her leg. Derek shoved past all of them toward the front door. His green jacket hung off his shoulders. His scruffy black hair stuck up. He looked ready to swing at the whole world. Derek had looked like he’s been through hell since Marcus found him in the barn with Lisa. "Let 'em come," Derek said. "I'll take every one." As he picked up his machete. Vengeance in his eyes! "Derek, no." Cherish blocked him with the crowbar. "Now is not the time to play Rambo. Not without a gun. Especially Wanna be Hero! And even then that wouldn’t fix the situation , as much as you think.” We let them eat that carcass, And we hope they migrate away. "You're not in charge of me," Derek snapped. You think they’ll leave? They’ll consume us too! Things begin to get Tense, As Marcus adds in “Kid I Don’t Think you’re Fit for this”! Derek gets aggravated and try’s to insert dominance. But Cherish shuts it down before Marcus Loses his mind. They try to formulate a plan to sneak into the barn and use the pick up truck left in the barn by the previous owners as a getaway. As they sneak through the back of the house to the barn. Trying to avoid the other zombies. Two leap at the group and Cherish instantly Bashes on with her crowbar and says “ It’s Just Like Wack-o/mole” With a smile on her face. Lisa instantly stabs the other reaching for her! As Derek And Marcus Look Amazed!! As they enter the barn(gloomy spooky sound plays) They all freeze. Droplets like rain seem to fall but there is no rain it’s a woman stepping into the view of the group, with the barn light flickering!! Her white shirt hung in rags Blood soaked! Two extra mouths moving out her cheeks, moaning like children crying. She stared with white blind eyes and smiled with Wide Creepy smile from one mouth. Derek did what Cherish knew he would. He charged. "Derek!" she shouted! He didn't listen. He swung his machete at the infected woman's head. She caught his arm! The cheek mouths snapped shut on his wrist and chewed up to his face! Derek screamed.(Blood sprayed in too many directions to count!) He beat at her, but she held on and fed. Fed until he looked like a walking corpse. Lisa ran for him. Marcus grabbed her arm hard. Before she could get close. "He's gone," Marcus said flat. "You Can’t Save Him, We’ll Lose You TOO!!" Lisa stopped. Derek's screams turned to gurgles. The Screams had drawn a whole pack, and now fresh blood had more zombies gathering off the smell. "Try to Start the Truck," Cherish said. "Move." The truck took a couple of try’s before it started. As Marcus drove the truck out the barn before being swarmed! Cherish looked back once as Lisa cried in the back. The infected woman crouched over what was left of Derek. The rest of the pack swarmed the farmhouse, seeking flesh as the woman Screeched excitement! The stronghold was lost. Four become Three as swift as day turns to night. Cherish gripped the crowbar and looked at Lisa and told Marcus “We Will Make It!!

The truck roared down a dirt road for miles. Behind them, the swamp darkness was like an eclipse with screeches fading. Marcus kept both hands on the wheel and did not slow until the mutants fell out of hearing and sight! Cherish kept her eyes on the rearview mirror and took a sigh, while gripping her crowbar. Lisa held Derek's machete across her knees. She had not let go of it since the barn. As Derek’s fate played in her head! Then the trees broke open, and through the mist a battered two-story house leaned in the field ahead. With a shack in the back. A couple of broken windows but the doors looked intact and fortifiable. Cherish made Marcus stop. He cut the engine off. They stepped out with Lisa holding an intense glare of rage in her eyes! They walked the porch. Two doors. One for the kitchen in the back and one in the front, the house had a good view with not too many blind spots around the home. "This could work," she said. "If it's empty." A low growl answered from inside. It wasn't empty. She pressed her ear to the door Marcus counted his rounds in his pistol’s magazine and whispered, I’ve got 7 rounds left. Cherish whispered "We can't shoot," she told them. "Gunfire brings the whole swamp back. We clear it quiet. Room by room. The gun is last resort!!" Lisa nodded and gripped the machete. Marcus holstered the pistol but kept his knife loose. Cherish and Lisa went in together through the kitchen, quietly opening the door and doing a sweep of the house. Lisa cut down the first zombie that reached out from under the kitchen table, a mutated woman that reminded her of the one from the barn! Another came at them as soon as the sound of her machete rang out, but Cherish instantly hit it with a swing of her crowbar, first to its left leg to slow and knock it down, then bashed it until it went still. Marcus tried the front door but it would not budge open, as if it was being blocked, so he slipped through an open window in the office room. A zombie lunged from the hall as he left the office, a boy with one eye gone and long teeth snapping. "Fresh meat," it hissed. He struggled with it for a few seconds from the surprise, but quickly pinned it with his knife to the wall! Marcus quickly fended another off that ran towards him from the dining room! As another almost caught Marcus, Cherish quickly stepped in. Cherish swung. The crowbar cracked its skull sideways and it dropped. "Wack-a-mole," she smiled. Marcus smirked. Upstairs was worse. One ran downstairs as they approached, leaping but being struck by Lisa until it stopped moving. As soon as they reached upstairs one ran out and attacked. A mangled woman came from the child’s bedroom and another from the far right bedroom! Cherish and Marcus took the first one down, and Lisa, like a swift ninja in the night, swung her knife into its head then chopped it clean off like a samurai with the machete. Marcus and Cherish stared at each other, impressed! As Cherish attempted to clear the master bedroom, from its bathroom a thing with too many arms unfolded from the dark, limbs dragging on the tile, flesh hanging loose. It grabbed Cherish by the ankle and yanked. She hit the floor hard. Her crowbar skidded under the bed. The limbs wrapped her leg and pulled her toward its teeth. As it groaned for flesh "Marcus!" She tried to shout but couldn’t. Marcus came running in due to the thud he heard as Cherish fell to the ground. He didn't waste a round. He drove his boot into its skull, once, twice, until the grip loosened. But it lunged toward Marcus now. Cherish reached for her crowbar under the bed and finished it herself. Five quick blows. It stopped moving. But its body twitched. She lay there breathing. Marcus reached down and pulled her up. "You," she said. "Don’t get so sentimental on me." He held her eyes a second. "You got me and I got your back." It was the closest to trusting each other he'd offered since Anna. She took it. The house went silent. Cherish stood in the wrecked front room, chest heaving, and looked at the two doors and the wide field beyond the broken glass. No gunshots. No swarm coming. "This is it," she said. "We hold here." After clearing and fortifying the home Cherish realized Lisa was missing “Lisa,” she called Lisa did not answer. She stood at a shattered window, staring past the field at a low shack half-sunk in weeds. Her hand still gripped the machete. "Lisa?" Cherish said. "Something's in there," Lisa said quietly. She wiped Derek's blade clean. "And it did not look like what we are used to." And she walked out the door alone, toward the shack, before Cherish could stop her. Marcus ran out after Lisa toward the shack only to find corpses that had been torn apart. But still they were safe. FOR NOW!

Cherish ran out after them. The shack stood low in the weeds, its walls thick with old spider silk. Inside, torn bodies lay everywhere. Some were zombies, chewed to the bone. Some had been people. Lisa stood frozen over the mess, machete up. Marcus crowded in behind her. The smell shoved Cherish back a step. "We shouldn't be in here," she said. Nobody moved. A woman burst from the dark corner, screaming, knife swinging. The blade missed Lisa's throat by an inch. Lisa jerked back and raised the machete. "Stop!" Marcus shouted. He grabbed the woman's wrist and twisted the knife loose. She kept screaming, blonde hair wild, a gray cardigan hanging off one shoulder over a white nightgown. Her blue eyes were huge with fear. Four zombies dragged themselves out of the shadows. Their legs were shattered, so they crawled fast on their hands. Lisa swung and split the first skull. Cherish came in from the side, surprise on her face gone hard. Her crowbar cracked the second one's head flat. Marcus shoved the woman behind him and stomped the third into the floorboards. The fourth grabbed Lisa's boot. Cherish drove the crowbar down twice until it stopped. Silence. The woman sagged against the wall, shaking. "Claire," she said. "My name is Claire." She had woken to something wrong in her house, grabbed the kitchen knife, and run. She had been surviving alone since. Cherish stepped between Claire and the door. Her crowbar stayed level. "You're bleeding," Cherish said. A dark stain soaked Claire's sleeve. "Scratch? Or a bite?" If it was a bite, letting Claire near the house meant the whole group turned. "Glass," Claire said. Short. Clipped. She did not explain more. "Show me," Cherish said. "Now. Or you don't come near our shelter." Marcus kept his knife ready. Lisa watched, machete low but not down. Claire's jaw tightened. She pushed the cardigan off and shoved up the sleeve. A long cut ran down her forearm. Clean edges. No teeth marks. No ring of punctures. Cherish leaned close and checked both sides. "Glass," she agreed. She let out the breath she'd been holding. "Okay. You're with us." "We can't stay in here," Lisa said. She was right. The shack was a grave. They backed out into the weeds. As they cleared the door, a severed hand dragged itself over the threshold behind them. Ragged flesh, white bone showing, fingers clawing the dirt. It had come loose from one of the crawlers. It kept moving toward them. Cherish turned and smashed it still with her heel. "We seal the house tonight," she said. "Both doors. Every window on the ground floor." They walked back across the field, four now instead of three. Claire kept pace, silent, the knife back in her fist. Cherish looked at her and thought of what she always thought. One of them would not make it. Now there was one more to lose.

Morning came gray through the two-story house. Cherish had not slept. She had tried all night to cover both doors with four tired people, The group needed more food , Claire knew where to get it. During breakfast Claire said. “There's a bar in town," as she showed them a map of Doom Creek “it should have Supplies. I'll hold the house. You take the truck ." Cherish hated splitting up. But a locked house with one guard beat a blind spot with none. Cherish cautiously looked at Claire and said “You sure? This place is gonna be even more unsafe with more people gone. Claire gave a warm smiled, Breath I got this, I survived the first ambush here, I’ll fortify so by the time you Guys are back this place will be a little more safer. Just Be Careful Out There! Marcus nodded grabbed the keys and the group drove off into the eerie swamp. Cherish was told to take a nap in the backseat and Lisa sat shotgun. Marcus drove the swamp road slow. Mud sucked at the tires. A zombie staggered into the ruts, and he didn't swerve. The truck crushed it flat. The bar sat low and rotting, moss on every board, the sign faded to DOOMED CREEK. Marcus stopped the truck near the back dumpster where a zombie lunged out as soon as they got out the car n creeped toward the bar. Marcus silenced it with his knife Lisa went in first with her machete. Cherish followed with the crowbar. The smell hit them first it smelled of beer and the dead Bodies on the floor! Behind the bar, Inside, five dead things turned toward the door. One wore a bartender's vest, its mouth a torn hole of yellow teeth. A female zombie in a stained apron shambled from behind the counter, a severed hand tucked in her pocket. Cherish cracked the bartender's skull flat. Lisa split another. A third lunged at a woman crouched by the pool table, brown hair over a torn blouse. Lisa swung and dropped it. The woman gasped her thanks. "Victoria," she said, shaking. "I work at the clinic. I just came here to breathe." Lisa is surprised attacked by a zombie Lisa stumbled, and a zombie pinned her. "Lisa!" Cherish screamed! A woman in a checkered shirt tied at the waist stepped from behind the bar and She drove the bottle through the zombie's eye without flinching. She hauled Lisa up. "Move your feet, girl." Her name was Liz. She'd tended this bar three years More rose from the booths." she said. "I'm Liz. I work, well worked at this bar. Before the dead came for free fills" Cherish liked her at once. Four zombies pressed in. Lisa split one skull. A thin survivor named Victoria shoved another back with a stool. Lisa grabbed Victoria's arm and swung her clear, and together they stomped the thing flat. Marcus took two out on the pool table and Cherish finished off the janitor From a storage room came pounding and a man's voice frantically saying “Are They Gone”. “Franko says” "That there is Franko he locked himself in," Liz said flat. "Left me out front. He can rot." Then another door swung wide. A heavy, gray-bearded man stepped out, pistol raised. Hank. His arm was wrapped tight below the elbow. "This is My bar," he said. "My stock. You walk back out that door." Hank and Marcus aimed there guns at each other “Easy Now” Marcus said “Lower your gun” Hank instantly shot at Marcus but missed. Cherish's stomach dropped. Gunfire drew them. Outside, four zombies were already dragging across the lot, drawn by the gun. One wore webbing wrapped tight to its crawling body, spiders dripping from its skin. They swarmed the door. moans rose and feet splashed through mud. The horde had heard. Franko finally threw the storage door open, arms full of cans. He bolted for the exit. A zombie body twitching and covered with webbing, crashed through the back bathroom door and took him down in the hallway and tore into him. He screamed once. The cans scattered. They all ran for the back door The webbed thing reached for Lisa, with her shriveled hands.Lisa stumbled. Cherish caught zombie's arm and smashed it down with the crowbar. Lisa drove her blade into its head. Cherish cracked the webbed thing's head when it rose again. Marcus hauled Cherish back as more bodies filled the lot "Truck's cut off," Marcus shouted. Hank didn't wait. He pushed Victoria out the back door to us as bait and bolted on foot and vanished into the weeds he did not slow down Liz pulled Victoria back into the bar and shoved a knife in her hand “Protect Yourself” Liz Screamed As Lisa and Marcus took down two zombies approaching Victoria and Liz They get back inside and close the back door, they use stools and loosen tables to block of the broken windows and slow the zombies from coming through the front door Cherish stood in the ruined bar with Marcus, Lisa, Liz, and Victoria. Shapes banged against the windows. And scratched at the walls! Moaning screeching HUNGRY!!! She looked at two new faces she now had to keep alive, and one more wrecked plan behind her.

The front door would not hold much longer; zombies pressed against it, groaning, feet splashing in the mud outside. They banged at the blocked windows and clawed at the walls. Cherish pressed her back to a loosened table and counted exits. Cherish knew the back was no better. She grabbed Liz by the arm. "This place had deliveries. Beer kegs, food. There has to be another way out!!" Liz wiped blood from her head and pointed at the storage room. Franko had locked himself in. "Cellar. Old delivery chute runs under the lot. Comes up somewhere out back. I never walked it." Cherish gripped her crowbar. One blind way out beat being overrun by the dead. The front door bowed inward. Hands tore at the boards. Cherish backed everyone toward the storage room. Marcus shut the storage room door and barred it with an empty shelf. Toward the back left corner Liz pointed at a trapdoor. "Padlocked. Nobody's opened it in years." Nobody knew where it let out. Cherish decided they would find out the hard way. She wedged the crowbar under the padlock and threw her weight down. The lock snapped. The trapdoor fell open on a dark square, and a cold stink of mold and rotten air rose up the stairs. "Liz, lights," Cherish said. She clicked on a flashlight and dropped into the dark first. Liz swept her flashlight across a gloomy cellar with a haunting atmosphere. "Everyone down," she said. Marcus took the rear with his knife. Lisa went first. Victoria froze at the top step, shaking. Cherish shoved her forward. "Move your feet, there’s no time left!" A zombie hidden in a cabinet lunged at Marcus as the group headed down the cellar. Marcus quickly stabbed it in the eye and dragged the trapdoor shut above them. The basement held stacked kegs and a withered corpse slumped against the far wall. The flashlight caught its collapsed face and the ribs showing through torn skin. Then it stood. It lurched toward Lisa. Liz came in fast from the side and stabbed it in the skull. It dropped and did not rise. "Welp, I guess gin is good for more than drinking, huh," Liz said with a smile at Lisa. Liz pulled a metal bat free from another corpse's hands. It twitched once, but Liz immediately kicked its skull in. She weighed the bat and grinned grimly. "Better than a bottle." The hatch stood at the far wall, chained. A slanted metal slit climbed toward gray daylight. She could hear mud and reeds above. "This is it." Cherish broke the chain and shoved it open. Gray light and wet weeds. The horde still clawed at the front. Cherish sighed. But the truck sat boxed in by the dead, far across the lot. Marcus crouched beside her. Cherish turned to Marcus. "I can draw them. Take the truck, lure them off." He told Cherish, "Meet me at Doom Medical." Victoria went pale. (The secretary from the clinic had come here the night the bar turned into a horror house, and felt remorse for not helping enough back at the bar.) "I'm not brave," Victoria said. She clutched the knife. "I won't let him go alone out there, I promise. I’ll do more this time." Victoria said with a serious yet dedicated expression on her face. Marcus and Victoria broke from the group and slipped up the cellar steps, crossed the dark lot, and ran low toward the truck. Marcus smashed a bottle on the hood. The horde turned toward the noise. Victoria had trouble starting the engine at first, but on the third crank, just as a zombie approached the driver-side window reaching for her, Marcus stabbed it and got in the truck. The truck roared down the road. Feet could be heard splashing through the mud, giving chase after the truck. Cherish led Lisa and Liz out the hatch into eerie daylight. They ran low along the swamp road while the dead chased the taillights the wrong way. They ran for it, crowbar and bat and blade. A soaked zombie rose from the muck, skeletal hand reaching. Cherish cracked its arm, then its head. Lisa split another. Then the diner rose out of the fog, with a faded sign reading DOOM CREEK DINER, moss hanging off the eaves. Shapes moved in the big front windows, and moss hung from every board. "Inside," Cherish said. "Now." But dead things already waited among the parked cars. The dead stood in the lot, swamp water dripping from their clothes. Clustered around the front, at least five of them could be seen through the foggy swamp. The group crossed to the diner's back door using stealth. Something crawled from the standing water near the step, a woman's body spitting a thin stream that hissed on the mud. Cherish broke its spine with the crowbar before it could spit again. They slid inside, where more dead waited. Inside stank of old grease and was a mess. They shut the doors, and Cherish could see between the booths. Then a plate shattered behind the counter. A small shape rose, apron stained, half its face burned. Where one eye should be, a second mouth gaped and clicked. The zombie waitress tilted her head toward them. She crouched low, ready to leap, and the diner was no shelter at all. An old waitress in a bloody apron, four fingers gone, lunged at Lisa with her jaw stretched wide. Lisa stabbed up under the chin and the thing dropped. Another waitress in a bloody torn outfit snapped around, with a wet mouth gaping open inside one eye socket. She shrieked and leapt. Her target was Liz. Cherish lunged and caught the waitress mid-air with the crowbar across the jaw. They crashed to the tile. The eye-mouth snapped at Cherish's wrist. Liz drove the bat down twice until the thing went limp, saving Cherish. An old waitress in a bloody uniform screeched like a boiling kettle and lunged at Lisa, three fingers grabbing. She shuffled fast and snapped her teeth at Lisa's throat; Cherish cracked the elderly thing's jaw. "Behind!" Liz shouted. A chef in a stained apron lunged, butcher knife raised, and drove it toward Cherish. His teeth snapped an inch from her nose. She jammed the crowbar across his mouth and held. Before Lisa and Liz could try to help Cherish, dead things rose from booths and behind the counter. Another hidden waitress leapt straight at Lisa, a second mouth wet inside her eye socket. Lisa went down under her. Liz swung the bat and knocked the thing off. A cook in a diner uniform, one-armed and feral, lurched at Liz and snapped at her arm. Liz jammed the bat crosswise into the gaping mouth and shoved her back. They fought shoulder to shoulder, booth to booth, blade and bat, until the floor went still. Liz broke the cook's jaw, then its skull. Lisa finished another leaping waitress with her machete. Blood slicked the tile. Cherish had been chased by the chef to the back kitchen, where she used a slicer to split the chef's head in two. Now they take a quick break before they head out to rendezvous with Marcus at Doom Medical.

They caught their breath against the diner counter, blood drying on the tile around them. Cherish wiped her crowbar on an apron and told Lisa and Liz they'd rest a few minutes, then move for Doom Medical. As she chugged down some water, she checked the big front window for a clear path. (She breathed by the diner window) Lisa kept watch at the back, after handing out some protein bars. Liz slumped in a booth, bat across her knees. They had maybe minutes before they moved for Doom Medical. Then Cherish saw the arm wave through the fog. A woman stood across the street, half-hidden, crouched in the gap between a fused car wreck, two cars smashed together, moss dripping from the broken glass. Across the diner's lot. Dark ponytail with red streaks. Torn uniform, badge still on it. A cop. She pointed at Cherish, then at the ground beside her, where an old woman in a red dress pressed flat against the tire, shivering in fear. The cop mouthed one word. Help! Cherish did not wave back. She glared at her, scoping the figure in the distance. A wave could mean a survivor. It could also mean bait, something that drew you into the open. That scared thing by the step said help me too. She would not walk Lisa and Liz into a trap on a stranger's signal. "Help us," the woman mouthed through the glass. "Please." Liz hefted her bat. "Could be a trap. A way to bait a group out, swarm them." (She had learned that the hard way, trapped in a bar with a man who locked a door on her.) Cherish knew Liz did not trust easily, and she did not blame her. The waving woman cupped her hands. "Detective Graves. Doom Creek PD." "Stay here," she told them. "I'll—" Then the choice broke on its own! Cherish heard it then. Running feet, wet and fast! Then screaming came from the fog. Two hikers sprinted down the road toward the diner, packs bouncing. Behind one lurched a zombie in a bloody coat, and behind his buddy a runner zombie in a gray hoodie, face peeling in strips, moving fast—faster than any dead thing should. And four more zombies seeped through the mist in pursuit. The detective spun and fired her pistol twice. The crack rolled across the swamp. The runner's shoulder jerked, but it kept coming. She shot three more times and two zombies dropped. A runner slammed one of the hikers into the wrecked car in the diner's lot, and tore into his pack and throat. Then a corpse rose inside the wreck. It had been slumped behind the cracked windshield, still as the dead stay, and reached for her. She shrieked. Graves drew and fired once. The thing's head burst apart. The old woman in a red polka-dot dress burst into the lot, frantically bolting for the front of the diner instead. The second hiker reached and grabbed her arm, pulling her the wrong way, into open ground. Cherish slipped out the back and circled low along the diner's wall. Liz closed the back door behind Cherish. Lisa scoped everything out through the diner's window, low and hidden from sight, watching the activity outside. The old woman stumbled onto the muddy road. The chasing zombie caught her dress and dragged her down. Cherish swung for its skull but was a step too slow. It tore into the old woman's throat! Then Graves's eyes went wide. "Behind you." Cherish spun! Then another runner came through the cover of a car. Cherish had no time to swing fully. It slammed her into a parked car. She jammed the crowbar up as it crashed into her. They hit the mud together. Teeth snapped at her throat. Cherish got the crowbar across its neck and strained. A shot cracked across the lot. The runner's head jerked and went limp. Cherish shoved the weight off and rolled clear. Detective Graves stood over it, pistol smoking. She pulled Cherish up. "Well, this is a weird intro..." And before Graves could finish her sentence, a runner was on Graves, fingers in her hair, jaw wide, snapping at her and nearly taking off her nose. Cherish grabbed its collar and yanked it off balance. Cherish drove the crowbar through its skull, as Graves helped with her baton. They bashed again and again at its head until it was a crushed mess. They stood panting over it. (And glanced at each other with a trusting sign of relief.) Cherish sighed and said with a comedic voice, "It's just another day of Whack-A-Mole!!" (Four more runners approached, jaws snapping, one aggressively tumbling onto another zombie. Like Cherish and Graves were the finish line.) The two of them sprinted for the diner's back door! A glowing-eyed runner leapt at Cherish. She stumbled back. The cop stepped in and shoved her clear, then clubbed the runner down with the pistol butt. It stumbled back until Cherish swung toward its jaw, the zombies' jaw hanging loose from its face like a sagging drip. Then Lisa moved like a gust of wind, chopping at the runner's head and splitting the next zombie's skull clean open. (She looks at Cherish and says, "Like Whack-a-Mole, right!!" With a friendly smile on her face.) Liz opened the door and Lisa covered them with her machete. Cherish shoved Graves through first. Liz slammed the door shut behind them. The horde boiled into the lot where the civilians had fallen. Four of them now, where three had been. The gunshot had marked them. Doom Medical was no longer a walk. It was a race against whatever the noise had woken!

The horde boiled into the diner's lot. The group watched through the cracked window as the dead piled onto the fallen civilians. Chewing the flesh from the corpses body’s fighting over the scraps of the fallen victims.As a few more banged at the back door. She turned to the detective who had saved her life minutes ago, a cop named Graves with a torn uniform and a pistol she kept holstered now to stay quiet. Doom Medical was the rally point. The dead stood between them and it. "We can't cut straight across," Graves said. She wiped blood from her baton. "I know these streets. She pointed past the cracked window, toward a gap between buildings. "Side alley. Cuts behind the gas station. Comes out two lots from the clinic." (Cherish did not move. She knew the Lisa, and Liz had proved she’s trustworthy but she did not know the detective. A route only Graves could see was either a gift or a mouth waiting to close.) Lisa stood at the front window, machete loose in her hand. Lisa met Cherish's eyes, trusting Cherish to call it. Liz gripped her bat. "Could be she's walking us somewhere worse!" Graves heard it. She didn't soften. "I pulled you out of the mud twice. If I wanted you dead, I'd have left you once the runners approached!" She pointed at the swelling horde. (Cherish thought of the old woman's throat opening in the road. She thought of how Graves had stepped between her and the leaping runner without being asked. A trap didn't do that. She tightened her grip on the crowbar.) "How do you know it's clear?" Cherish asked. "I don't," Graves said. "I know it's shorter. That's all I've got." "Fair," Graves said. The detective already had her hand on a cracked side window. "Stay here we’re as good as dead," Graves said. Cherish studied her. "Why that way?" Cherish asked. "Fewer open lots. More cover." Graves checked her pistol. "Trust me or don't. The door won't hold." They slipped out a back window into fog, down a narrow street. Graves cut left along a fence, fast and quiet, exactly where she'd said. The route hugged walls and wrecks. Graves moved like she'd walked it a hundred times, hugging walls, cutting fast around a dead truck. No ambush came. The route was real. No open ground. Then the gas station arose out of the mist. Sagging roof, shattered pumps, vines dripping from the awning. Graves raised a fist to stop them. Two zombies shuffled between the rusted pumps, sniffing the wet air dragging their feet through green muck. A third knelt in the weeds, vines tangled through her gray hair, chewing a severed arm. (Cherish scanned the station the nodded at Lisa and Liz.) Liz swung the bat into the nearest zombie's skull. It dropped into the muddy gas station. The second turned. Lisa stepped past and split its head with the machete. Then the kneeling hag screeched and lunged, faster than her rotted legs should move. Cherish moved first. But Graves assisted by swing for the hags knees (causing a shattering echo) Cherish finished the hag off with three blunt hits. “Wack….A….Mole” Cherish said with each strike. Then a scream tore across the lot. High, wet, not human. Something crawled into the forecourt. It moved wrong, low and wrapped, spine jutting as it dragged itself forward. The scream tore across the swamp again. The group froze. It was not one of them. It came from past the gas station, swallowed by fog. Graves raised a fist. "Inside. Now." They ducked through the station's broken door and went low behind the counter. Through the shattered window, the group watched something crawl into the forecourt, dragging itself over the dead they had just dropped. It knelt by a corpse. It sniffed. Then it lifted a torn arm and began to chew, slow and wet. It grabbed a second body by the ankle, then it clicked, a dry sound, and hauled the body away into the fog, hoarding the dead like food for later. “What is it taking the bodies?" Lisa breathed. ( An expression of pure shock and horror on her face!) Cherish had never seen a zombie keep its kill. Lisa pressed flat beside her, breath held. "That's not a runner," Liz whispered. "That's something else." Nobody answered. They waited until the clicking faded. Then they grabbed water bottles, a few food items and gauze off the station shelves and stuffed them in their pack. "Move. Before it comes back." Graves said as she kept watch. Graves took them down the gas station's far side and into a side alley. The alley behind the station opened exactly where Graves promised. At its end stood a weathered building, with vines on the sign reading,DOOM MEDICAL painted on its front. The shortcut had been true. Cherish felt the knot in her chest loosen. They'd made it. "Told you," Graves said, flat. But the lot was empty. No truck. No Marcus. No Victoria. Cherish scanned the broken window and felt cold. Marcus and Victoria had split off to draw the horde. They should have beaten her here. They hadn't. The clinic windows were dark, they crossed the parking lot and shoved through the clinic door. Cherish's chest loosened. They'd made it. "They should be here," Lisa said, voice tight. (Liz scanning the area.) Marcus was supposed to meet them here. Marcus and Victoria weren't here. The rally point was empty of them. And from the dark hallway behind the front desk, something shifted. A slow, deliberate scrape of weight against the floor. They were not alone!

The scrape came again from the dark hallway. Cherish raised her crowbar and stepped between it and her group. Lisa lifted her machete. "Don't," the nurse breathed. "I'm not one of them." She lowered the hammer an inch. Her eyes flicked across them, nervously looking around. "For six days I've been locked in here. You’re the first living people I've seen. Since the clinic became infested." "Who are you?" Lisa asked. "Gale. I worked here." Her voice cracked. "I watched the staff turn." Her eyes were raw from crying. "We're not hostile or infected," Cherish said. She kept the crowbar low but ready. "We're looking for two people. A man named Marcus. A woman named Victoria?" Gale shook her head. "Nobody came. It’s just been me." "We hold here tonight. We regroup, then we—" Gale gripped Cherish's arm, and her fingers shook. "You have to leave! This place isn't safe." "We just got here," Liz said. "We can't—" Gale quickly interrupted. "The whole clinic has turned. The back rooms, the cafeteria. They're full of them. I locked every door I could. The doors are failing." Cherish's stomach dropped. No Marcus. No Victoria. She had led her group to an empty trap. A crash answered from down the hall. Doors slammed. Gale's eyes darted to the hallway. "You don't understand. The staff..." Her breath came fast. "They hunt strategically. There's also something in here that isn't like the dead you know!" It took the others. As if it was on a whole different level of intelligence. It doesn’t only stalk or feed, it preserves its prey," Gale said fearfully. A wet shriek answered from the back rooms. Wood cracked behind the front desk. The break room door split. A hand punched through, gray and clawed. Then the nails gave all at once. Zombies poured out. The closed door burst open. "Doctor," Gale breathed. "Run. Run!" "Back!" Cherish shouted. She swung the crowbar into the first one as it lunged. Cherish struck its jaw. It barely slowed. It clawed at her arm and she stumbled back into the desk, but Cherish then bashed the nurse's skull, dragging her crowbar free from its limp body. Two more filled the gap. Lisa's machete flashed. Graves put her baton through a skull, then another. Pieces of bone and debris scattered everywhere. "Back room!" Graves shouted. The group fell back into a half-barricaded office. Lisa jammed a filing cabinet against the door. It held, barely, but bought seconds. Cherish counted fifteen, maybe more. Too many for a room this size! The dead slammed the barricade. Hands reached through. Liz swung her bat and crushed a wrist. Lisa's machete took a nurse zombie through the eye. Graves cracked her baton across a bloody corpse's skull. Gale drove her hammer down again and again, teeth bared. A fast one rushed the window and seized Lisa by the hair. She screamed. Graves grabbed the creature and wrenched it off. The three of them fought in a tight knot, back to back, drowning in the dead. Lisa hacked at the second nurse-thing. Liz smashed a chair across its back. The things fought like they felt nothing. The dead kept coming, climbing over their own fallen. A runner darted low and fast. It hit Gale, the nurse, and wrapped around her. She screamed, swinging the hammer wildly. Cherish lunged, crushed the runner's spine, and Graves yanked Gale free. "There's too many! We can't hold this!" Liz yelled. Blood ran down her arm. The cabinet slid back. Zombies spilled through the gap. A nurse pinned Liz to the counter. Gale brought her hammer down on its spine, while Graves was cornered by two nurses. Meanwhile, a nurse dragged Lisa down by the hair. Then a runner lunged from the side. It caught Gale's arm and yanked her down. Gale screamed, hammer skidding across the floor. Then the yellow-eyed doctor shoved past the cabinet. It came straight at Cherish. She swung and missed. It drove her against a desk. Its yellow eyes locked on her throat. Its mouth opened wide, teeth blackened with age and blood. Cherish shoved the crowbar sideways against its chest, but it pressed closer, inches from her neck. It was stronger and kept forcing her back. Its jaws snapped closer with each lunge. "Marcus!" she thought and gasped, not knowing why his name came to her mind. The front door banged open. A gunshot cracked the air and split the room, and the doctor's head jerked back. It slumped onto her, dead weight. Cherish shoved it off and looked up. Marcus stood in the clinic doorway, pistol smoking, Victoria behind him. Victoria smashed another one. "Found you," Veronica said. Cherish met Marcus's eyes. Marcus pulled her up by the arm. Cherish stood over the dead doctor, chest heaving. "You're late," she said. "Horde slowed us," he said flatly. "You're welcome." They cleared the rest of the clinic of the dead. Silence. Bodies covered the clinic floor. For one moment it felt like safety. Then, from the sealed back rooms, came a dry clicking. Slow. Deliberate. Something moving on the walls, not the floor. Gale's face went white. "That," she whispered, "is why it isn't safe."