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Author’s Note: I just can’t write anything without making it prolific, or attempting to make it prolific. I need a lot of help here and any suggestions are more than welcome.

I took my shots carefully, knowing somewhere inside myself that this was the end. Faces were blurred, often obscured by the thousands of bloated, putrid hands groping at the chain link barrier just before the main gate. It was a fairly new addition to the defenses, one that I doubted would hold for much longer. Skin peeled and clung to the rusted metal like cheese run through a grater as the mindless mob pushed forward. You could hear the agonizing groans of the fence being wrenched from the ground over the din of screams and gunfire. The nauseating stench of decay was as thick and certain as anything else in the windless August heat.

The rifle cracked as another bullet ripped through the air and grazed the cheek of a fat, asexual creature shambling against the fence. Patches of flesh had turned black-green, swollen and were covered in sores and wounds that would never heal. The blood had long ago pooled in its ankles and I lowered my sights for another shot. Thunder cracked once more from the barrel of my rifle as the bloated black meat exploded in an oily shower. The monster jerked to one side and toppled to the ground, crushed by the writhing horde still forcing itself forward.

"We’ve got to get out of here!" someone shouted from over my shoulder.

"And go where?!" was the shouted reply.

More voices joined the din as the gunfire gradually diminished.

"I’m out of ammo!"

"Someone save the children!"

"They’re coming through!"

Footsteps, loud and fast began to echo behind me. We were retreating… again. I reloaded and got off another shot before the outer fence collapsed and the fetid horde lumbered over the rusted metal chain link. I’d be on my own soon, struggling against an unyielding enemy and my own natural instinct to flee. I’d been running for two years now and I was just too tired to keep on.

Besides, they still had one more barrier to break through, a combination of concrete and wrought iron much stronger than the aluminum they had torn through. It would hold, maybe for minutes; maybe days. Either way it was still worth fighting for. The smell was worse as they shambled closer and the last night’s stew lurched up from my stomach and into my throat. I choked it down and kept shooting. Everyone else had made a run for the "compound", the assortment of trailers and RV’s circling the self storage units that we all called home.

I was completely alone on the burning asphalt.

I heard something off in the distance, another shot fired into the rancid mob. It had to be an echo, I thought, or maybe the last delicate thread of my sanity snapping in half. More shots, louder and more frequent as I reloaded. They were coming from outside the fence.

There was a sudden change in movement as the mob wheeled right in pursuit of their prey. I almost felt bad for the poor bastard as the shambling horde closed in around him. But the feeling was short lived. It was easier to make the kill when you didn’t have to stare at those lifeless, milky eyes. I started tracking a tall one with wispy fingers of blonde hair gripping at the back of his head. I was about to take my shot when the explosion disintegrated the monster and knocked me backwards on my ass. A blackish rain swirled in the air as a second and then a third explosion tore a hole in their lines.

In the ghastly mist I saw him, a spectral creature even among the dead. He was wearing a swat style ballistic vest and an old riot helmet with a grinning skull painted over the visor. He had a shovel and a billy club sticking up from the top of the ruck sack over his shoulders and a sawed off shotgun in his hands. He reached into a pouch on his hip and pulled out something that might have been a stick of dynamite. He lit it on a cigarette he was smoking under his helmet visor and threw it at an arch over the largest remaining cluster and ducked. There was another fantastic explosion that further decimated their ranks.

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