This was the last one.

Well... perhaps it wasn't the LAST one, but after this, Frawn was done for the day. He announced this to his companion, and Kinus only nodded. He too, had had more than enough.

"You hear that old man?" Frawn called to the man bringing up the rear. The 'old man' wasn't really all that old, but Frawn wasn't good with names and 'old man' was about all the strain his mind could stand at the moment.

"Can't say its much use goin' on much further," Mary replied. He would have thought that a man named 'Mary'... short for 'Marillius'... would be relatively easy to remember. Apparently not. The two men preceding him down the dirt path were of sufficient size that repeatedly bothering them with details as insignificant as his name seemed rather... unwise. "And this is the last farm on this side," he added. Then added further: "Unless... uhhh... you boys want to head out to that place we saw over the hill."

"The Markum's can take care of themselves, that's what I'm thinkin,'" Frawn growled. "Besides... me and them don't' get along. I'm not goin' all the way out there just to get in a fight. I can do that back in town."

"Still..." Marillius said reluctantly. "The sheriff said to check all the houses out this way. Maybe... maybe we should. Okay?"

"He wasn't sheriff," Frawn corrected. "He was ACTING sheriff... and so all I'm gonna do is ACT like I went out the Markum farm."

"Frawn?" the old man risked a displeased town. "He DID let us out. He didn't have to do that."

Frawn... local braggart, loudmouth, and general troublemaker... nodded silently.

"Kinus? Okay?"

Kinus... Bephal's resident drunk... grunted with angry, unslurred sobriety.

Neither man was happy. In fact, both of them... especially Kinus... looked back over the past few hours and saw only a steadily rising dread that began when no came to serve them breakfast in the city jail, and reached the a sharp and sudden pinnacle when the three of them kicked in the first door and found the first blood-splattered hole where a family had once slept. That had been three hours ago. Of the eight houses they'd searched since then, five of them were empty.

"Not just a 'nobody home' kinda empty," Frawn had described to the first living family they came across. "...but a 'floor opening up and swallowin' em alive' kinda empty. You folks might wanna head on to town and gather up with everybody else. Might be safer. Then again... might not."

After that, things remained at pretty much the same level of near-panic. No one was screaming, foaming at the mouth, or ripping out their own hair... but the day was still quite young. And there were still two more houses to check.

"All right," said Frawn as the reached the end of the path. The 'path' being nothing more than a trampled dirt trail through the weeds. "One more after this one. Kinus... your turn."

Frawn and Marillius slowed down and let Kinus approach the farmhouse door alone. Kinus was carrying a large woodsman's axe, which he had 'liberated' from a toolshed at the second house they'd searched. The weapon was large, heavy and sharp. Kinus... who had an unhealthy affinity for large, heavy, sharp implements... raised the axe-

-and used the blunt end of it to tap gently on the door

Knock.

-and then again-

Knock... knock, knock.

"U-ummm...." Kinus's voice cracked nervously in his throat. He was a big man... bigger than Frawn and Marillius put together. And he was frightened nearly out of his mind. The first house they had come to... the first one with the giant hole in the floor and the bloody splatters on the wall... had been HIS house. A fight with his wife, a drunken binge, and a night in jail were the only things that kept HIS blood off of that wall. His wife and daughter weren't quite so lucky.

Kinus cleared his throat and tried again.

"Uhhh, a-anybody home?" he squeaked. He looked nervously back at Frawn. "I... uhhh..." Kinus shrugged and started mumbling to himself.

"I think he's about had it," Mary whispered behind Frawn's ear. "I really do."

"No argument here. But we still gotta check this one."

Frawn approached the house.

"ANYYY-BODY ALIVE IN THERRRE!" he shouted, causing Kinus to jump and nearly drop his axe. When there was no reply from inside, Frawn cupped his hands around his mouth and inhaled... about to shout again.

"Oh, just break it down," said Marillius, interrupting him.

"Kinus?"

Kinus and Frawn arranged themselves side-by-side in front of the farmhouse, and then, at a grunted signal from Frawn, rushed the sturdy wooden door.

The latch and top hinge both came way with a CRACK. Frawn grabbed the door and swiveled it open on its one hinge. Kinus looked in, but did not enter.

"It happ'ned here, too," he said solemnly.

Frawn stopped struggling with the door and leaned in. There was just enough light inside to see. The simple house was large by 'poor farmer in Bephal' standards. It had only one room, which was both bedroom, kitchen, and whatever else it needed to be. A thick, stained curtain hung across one corner, separating one area from the remainder of the house. The curtain had been just long enough to drag the dusty wooden floor... but now it dangled over a massive black chasm that had yawned open in the center of the room. Almost half of the floor had collapsed into it... along with sleeping mats, chairs, tables, and various other signs of habitation... as well as the inhabitants themselves. What remained was just an empty shell of a house.

Marillius peeked in between Frawn and Kinus, barely managing to squeeze his face past the pair of beefy shoulders.

"Anybody here?" he said.

"One more to the list," Frawn said, glancing at Kinus.

"Who lived here?"

"Brady," Kinus answered the old man. "This here was the Brady house. I owed him a drink from last Saturday, when he bought us a round at the pub. My pa helped his pa build this house, back when I wasn't born yet..."

Kinus continued to ramble, but neither Frawn nor Marillius was particularly interested in what he was saying. Frawn knew the local history as well as Kinus did, and Marillius was just a passing thief who'd had the misfortune of being caught, arrested, released, and subsequently deputized in Bephal.

Deputy Kinus was crying again.

Marillius nudged Frawn and pointed to the curtain.

"Check that out," he said.

Frawn nodded and entered the farmhouse. Kinus glanced at him sharply, as if Frawn had suddenly decided to desecrate a friend's grave... but he said nothing as Frawn made his way over to the curtain. At one point, Frawn had to hug the wall in order to ease past the edge of the hole without falling in. When he reached the curtain he drew it back and looked.

"Anything?" said Marillius.

"Marks on the floor," Frawn answered. "Scratch marks... and a fingernail. Looks like it took the kids by surprise, except for one. Not that it mattered."

Marillius nodded.

"-bit of blood on the curtain," Frawn continued. "Not much. They was probably still alive when-"

Frawn looked at Kinus, as if suddenly remembering that he was in the room.

"...yeah." Frawn's report ended.

With Frawn no longer standing in the doorway, Marillius was able to get past the suddenly silent Kinus and creep up to the edge of the hole. The darkness seemed to hover just below his feet, beyond which he could see nothing.

Frawn went to a window and snatched the light curtain away, letting more of the gray morning light filter in through the dirty glass. Marillius knelt down and leaned over-

Kinus's meaty hand grabbed the old man's shoulder.

"-A!" Marillius yelped.

"Maybe you shouldn't be looking into those holes like that, old man," said Kinus. "Whatever it is-"

"-is dead back at the town," Marillius replied as he stood up. "But thanks anyway."

"But are we sure that was the only one?" said Frawn. He was making his way back toward the door.

"Hard to imagine more than one of something that big under a town without no one knowing about it," Marillius replied.

"These folks knew about it," said Frawn. "I'd say they found out sometime last night."

"That's not funny, Frawn," Kinus growled.

"Wasn't meant to be. Sorry."

"I hope that thing's still alive down there," said Kinus. "Still alive... so I can kill it. Over and over again if I can. That's what-"

Someone screamed.

In the hole.

Three men gasped suddenly, with Marillius adding an undignified whimper.

The scream came again. This time it was different.

The eerie acoustics of the empty farmhouse had made the scream seem like it was coming from the hole in the floor, but when the voice came a second time, it was clearer... closer... and coming from outside.

Frawn drew his weapon... actually one of the Sheriff's old swords, identical to the one Marillius carried... and went to the door. Kinus beat him there-

-and together, they nearly collided with three sprinting figures from outside. The trio hit the doorway without even slowing... as if they intended to run through farmhouse, smash through the wall opposite the door, and continue sprinting out over the hills behind the house... through the woods... and eventually end up in Montfort.

But Kinus was blocking their path... and the frowning, hulking, sober drunkard was much harder to run through than an open doorway. Or a wall. Two of the trio skidded to a halt. Frawn quickly hooked his arm around the third... a woman... an instant before she would have gone tumbling into the black pit in the center of the room.

"HELLLP!!"

-the woman screamed. She kicked and punched... not at Frawn, but at everything and everyone. Frawn just happened to be the only thing within range of her flailing fists. She bashed him relentlessly.

"HELP! HELP! IT'S GOT MEEEE!"

"HEY, EASY NOW!" Frawn spat, shoving the woman away. The other two.. a balding, middle-aged farmer and a young boy with a crossbow... began pulling and tugging at the door, trying to close it.

Marillius didn't expect to recognize either of the three newcomers... but he did. The farmer was Hayden; Marillius had met him for the first time about an hour ago. Everything had been calm and settled at the Hayden farm when Marillius and the others had been there... but apparently that had changed since they'd left. The woman and boy that were with him were not Hayden's wife and son.

"Mr. Hayden?" said Marillius.

"CLOSE THE DOOR!" the farmer shouted. "HELP US CLOSE THE DOOR! QUICK!!!"

"Why?" said Frawn.

"THEY'RE COMING!" The boy screamed... as if the simple act of screaming were enough to explain everything.

"Who's coming?" said a genuinely-confused Kinus. "What's goin' on, Hay-"

The boy was not particularly strong... and neither was Hayden. But in their desperation, they had more than enough strength-

-not to swing the door closed, but to snap the one remaining hinge and send the door crashing to the floor with a loud

BAM!

Man and boy both looked at the door as if it had personally stabbed them in the back.

"We've got to get out of here!" Hayden shouted at Frawn and the others. "Come on! Hurry!"

Hayden started for the door. He got two steps before Kinus... tired of being confused... grabbed him by the back of the neck and yanked him back in.

"I'd like to know what's goin' on, if it pleases ya..." Kinus said in soft, measured words.

"We can't lock this door!" Hayden pointed to the doorless entryway. "We've got to go! NOW!"

"They killed everybody!" the boy added. Again... as if that explained everything. "My pa and Uncle Cordell! They got 'em both! I shot one of 'em, but-"

The boy held up his crossbow.

"They kept coming! They just KEPT COMING!!! They GOT MY PA!!!"

The boy was crying now.

"Who are these people?" Mary asked Frawn.

"Jethany and Lewis Markum," said Frawn. "She's his older sister. The lot of 'em live over them hills. Guess we don't need to go lookin' for 'em now."

"Jethany...?" Marillius noticed that the woman had finally stopped screaming and had taken refuge in a corner. She lodged herself between two walls and curled up into a tight ball on the floor. Her eyes remained open and staring vacantly at nothing.

"I ran!" the boy continued, still crying. "I tried to save 'em, I really did! HONEST!! But... but dad told me to run! He TOLD me to! And then he went to get Uncle Cordell, but they got him too! They got him and they... they..."

"Easy, boy," said Kinus. "Don't talk about it if you don't want to-"

"Hell, SOMEBODY better do some damned talkin!" Frawn shouted. "Will somebody PLEASE tell me what is going on!?!"

"They were alive!" Hayden said, almost pleading. "They were alive... but they WEREN'T! Alive and dead at the same time!"

Frawn, Kinus, and Marillius exchanged looks.

"We're WASTING TIME!" Again, Hayden made for the door. Again, Kinus stopped him. "We've GOT TO GO! NOW! They'll BE HERE SOON!"

"WHO!?!" Frawn demanded.

"THE PIT!" Lewis Markum screamed.

The farmhouse was silent. All eyes turned to the boy.

"We went there, but there was nothing but holes in the ground! We went... but the PIT WAS EMPTY!!"

And that DID explain everything.

It explained far, far more than Frawn and Kinus ever wanted to know.

Frawn exhaled a soft, vulgar profanity. Then repeated it.

"Uhh..." said Marillius. "What's the Pit?"

"A reason for us to be getting back to town!" said Frawn. His voice warbled with barely-contained fear. "Come on!"

"...nightmares... nightmares... nightmares..." Jethany Markum had begun mumbling. "...all nightmares go to the pit... all nightmares go to the pit... all go to the pit..."

"Jethany! GET UP!" Lewis grabbed his older sister's arm and hauled her to her feet.

"I don't wanna go outside!" she shrieked

"We can't stay here! We can't lock that door, and even if we could, you KNOW how strong they are-"

"BOTH of ya!" Kinus put his arms around them both and shoved them violently toward the door. "OUT!"

"Come on, old man!" Frawn was already outside. Hayden was standing right beside him.

"Would someone like to explain-" Marillius began.

"Come on!" Lewis shouted back at him. "PLEASE!!"

"All right, all right!" Marillius trotted outside. Frawn and Hayden were already moving... cutting across the open field toward town. "Shouldn't we stick to the path?" said Marillius.

"NO!" Frawn shouted back. "FASTER THIS WAY! IT'S A SHORTCUT!"

Marillius sped up, passing Kinus and the Markum siblings and finally coming up behind Frawn.

"Friend," the old man said gently. "Would you please tell me what-"

Frawn whirled and snapped at him.

"You heard the girl in there! NIGHTMARES! Nightmares go to the pit! Every child knows that!"

"But, I haven't been a child in a long time, Mr. Frawn. And I'm not from here, so please-"

"Monsters," Hayden explained. "Bephal buries its monsters in a mass grave outside town. Been that way since the plague... maybe before then."

"What kind of monsters-"

"NIGHTMARES, DAMN YOU!" Frawn was shouting... using loud words to cover up his fear.

"SHHHH!" Hayden hissed suddenly. He stopped walking and started looking around. "I heard something!"

"OH NO!" Jethany squealed. "They're HERE!"

"SSSHUSH!" Hayden waved at her to be quiet.

Marillius didn't hear anything. Nobody did.

"We need to get moving!" said Frawn.

They were at the bottom of a small but steep hill. Frawn turned and started up, legs pumping in long, powerful, fear-driven strides.

"COME IF YOU'RE COMING!" he shouted back at the others. Hayden ran after him.

Stunned, confused, and a little annoyed, Marillius just stood at the bottom of the hill and watched. Kinus and the others passed him.

"Coming, old man?" Kinus asked without slowing down. He didn't wait for an answer, but as they started up, Jethany Markum turned back and waved at him.

"...goodbye..." she said vacantly. Lewis grabbed her waving hand and pulled her behind him as he walked.

"Nonsense," said Marillius. He looked behind him, scanning the hilly landscape for signs of... anything. All he saw was the Bradey farm, and the ridge of trees in the distance. There was nothing on the path leading back to the Hayden farm. Nothing was moving. Not even the wind.

...so why did he hear the grass rustling?

Marillius turned toward the sound, and found himself looking up at the others on the hillside. The grass around him was low and sparse but it got deeper further up the hill. Where Frawn was walking, it was almost hip-deep.

"IN THE GRASS!" Marillius shouted.

"Huh-?

Frawn stopped walking and turned-

Something... no, TWO somethings... two rotting, dead, and horribly (in)human somethings exploded out of the grass at the top of the hill and sprang at him.

Frawn was dead. Even as the grass around Kinus and Lewis began to move, Marillius was looking past them at Frawn and Hayden. Frawn was dead. The first creature... creature?... had taken him completely by surprise, springing at him from behind as he turned. Hayden screamed a loud, unmanly scream... quickly backing away as Frawn... the dead man... spun on one heel and brought his sword around in the hardest, fastest, most desperate slash Marillius had ever seen.

"NNYRRRRAAAA!!!" Frawn shouted his strength into the swing. The blade collided with the first creature's midsection... nearly cutting it in half. The impact sent the creature tumbling to one side...

...and sent Frawn spinning horribly off-balance. He slipped and went down-

The second creature sailed over and past him, missing its prey by inches. It landed behind Frawn and immediately twirled to attack. Frawn launched himself out of the grass just as his attackers had done an instant before. His sword went into... through... and then out of the dead thing's torso. The thing slashed at Frawn's face, but Frawn yanked himself back... pulling his sword free at the same time.

"REEEEEEEEE!" The thing shrieked, advancing on Frawn with quick, jerking steps.

Already breathless from his efforts, Frawn ducked his head and charged...

...charged PAST the creature, veering at the last moment, then coming around in a clumsy spinning slash-

SSSLUCK!

One of the creature's legs tumbled away. The monster went down, and Frawn came running down the hill as fast as his legs could carry him.

The first creature... the one with the nearly-severed torso... was right behind him.

Also behind him was Hayden, who was streaking across the hillside at right-angles to the brief combat... long grass whipping at his legs as he ran.

"THEY'RE IN THE GRASS!" Marillius warned. "STOP RUNNING-!"

Suddenly, Hayden went down. Something reached up out of the grass and grabbed the farmer's upper thigh. Blood sprayed from the leg as claws peeled the flesh from it. Screaming, Hayden fell. Several tattered shapes leapt from the grass around him and... like dolphins leaping out of the water... dove back down onto of the fallen farmer.

Whatever was happening to Hayden was hidden by the tall grass... but the screams...

...the screams...

"THEY'RE HERE!" Jethany squealed. She and her brother turned and sprinted back down the hill toward Marillius. Kinus stood frozen for a moment then, with a bestial roar, he charged up the hill toward Frawn.

"NO! NO! NO!" Frawn shouted. "GO BACK!"

"YOU BASTARDS!!" Kinus roared. For an instant it seemed like he was about to bury his axe in Frawn's forehead. It must have seemed that way to Frawn as well, because the fleeing brawler veered away at the last moment. Kinus stampeded past him... directly into the undead creature's path. Hissing, the creature changed directions to meet Kinus-

-and its head vanished in a splatter of gore and moist chunks. Kinus swung his axe a second time, splitting creature's upper torso down the center. The slightly-swollen corpse ruptured like a dropped melon, coming apart even before it hit the ground-

-but the pieces continued to flop, jerk and twitch in the grass... converging on the stunned and horrified Kinus.

"AAA!"

Kinus stepped back and brought his axe down again.... severing a flopping, decayed hand from an equally decayed wrist.

"AAAAAAAA!!!" Emboldened, Kinus swung again... and again. Bits of crushed and twitching flesh flipped into the air as the axe rose and fell in frantic arcs. "RAAAAAAAAA!"

So intent was Kinus on personally killing every flipping, oozing fragment of the creature that he didn't notice what was happening further up the hill.

Marillius noticed. He noticed the movement in the grass... like fish swimming across the hillside. He saw the first figure... a human shape putrefied beyond any trace of humanity... pop up out of the grass and begin galloping down the hillside in a cruel mockery of living motion. The first shape was followed by another. And another.

And another.

And another. And another...

And another.

"KINUSSS!" Marillius pointed to the things converging on his new friend. "KINUS LOOK!"

Kinus couldn't hear him. The man was in his own world... a world consisting of nothing but himself, his axe, and the fragments of flesh
that lay quivering at his feet.

"I got him!"

Frawn... fool of fools, who should have been dead twice already... spun on his heels and ran BACK up the hillside after Kinus.

Jethany screamed. She and Lewis had passed Marillius mere seconds ago, but the old man hadn't turned to see where they were going. The fact that the girl was screaming was of no particular consequence...

...but the boy was screaming too.

Marillius looked.

The line of trees on the horizon was alive... ALIVE... with human figures lurching toward the farmhouse.

And MORE of them... over a dozen...were lumbering, walking, and dragging themselves along the dirt path leading from the Hayden farm. The sight had frozen Lewis and Jethany in their places, where they stood screaming and pointing like the children they were.

"BACK TO THE HOUSE!" Marillius ordered. He gave a last glance over his shoulder... Frawn and the creatures were converging on the oblivious Kinus. It was anybody's guess who would reach him first.

Marillius ran for the house, slowing only to grab Jethany's arm. He half-dragged her the first few steps, but after that both she and Lewis fell in behind him.

"THEY'RE GOING TO GET US!" said Lewis. At least the boy had stopped screaming, but Marillius didn't care much for what the lad was saying. "THEY'RE COMING!"

"SHUT UP AND RUN FASTER!!!"

"GET OUT OF THE WAY OLD MAN!!!" That was Frawn, shouting from somewhere behind them. "UNLESS YOU WANNA GET RUN THE @#$%$ OVER!!!"

Frawn and Kinus were barreling down the hill, with fully two-dozen of the animated corpses in pursuit. The monsters were gaining. Those that weren't intact enough to run, simply fell down and ROLLED after them.

"GET INSIDE!" Frawn shouted. "GO! GO!"

With Jethany and Lewis in tow, Marillius ran through the doorway and twisted out of the way just in time to avoid being run over by Frawn.

"DOOR!" Lewis screamed. Frawn grabbed the sturdy wooden door and lifted it. Lewis helped him drag it back into place-

-but where was Kinus!?

"RRREEEEEEEEE!!!!!" The thing that threw itself at the open doorway was midnight-black from rot and mold. The stench of putrefied flesh preceded the shriveled thing's charge-

ssSHLUCK!

Kinus's axe caught the creature in the chest. The zombie's own momentum forced its spongy flesh onto the blade until the creature simply came apart. Both halves tumbled past the startled Kinus and landed on the farmhouse floor with a wet splatter.

"IT'S STILL ALIVE!" Marillius warned. The black thing's arms reached for Frawn's legs-

"YA!" Kinus brought his axe down, severing one arm. Frawn crushed the other hand beneath his boot.

"BEHIND YOU!" said Frawn barked. Kinus spun. He was standing in the doorway, and the next creature was charging straight for him.

"BASTARDS!" Kinus howled in murderous rage. His axe cleaved the monster's skull down the center. The rotting head popped like a swollen blister-

-but two sets of shriveled fingertips slashed down Kinus's left arm, peeling away cloth and flesh in long, red grooves.

"AAAAAAAAAAA!!" Kinus screamed. He drew back to swing again, but the headless creature lunged at him, dragging its claws down his chest. Kinus's eyes widened in bloody horror as strips of his own flesh fell away before the creature's fingers.

By now a mob of the creatures had converged. A shriveled hand reached for Kinus's face... but Kinus stumbled back into the farmhouse, and the creature came away with only a bloody ear and a slice of cheek...

...and a piece of Kinus's throat.

"AAAHHG!!"

Frawn shouldered Kinus away from the doorway and then shoved the door back into place-

WHAM!

Immediately, the monsters began throwing themselves at it from the other side. The door jerked back against Frawn's broad shoulders-

WHAM!

-but he forced it back. Again, the door jerked-

WHAM!
WHAM!
WHAM!

"WE NEED NAILS!" Frawn ordered. "I CAN'T HOLD IT LIKE THIS!"

Lewis darted off in search of nails while Jethany reclaimed her position in the corner.

WHAM!

The last impact was not of the monsters against the door... but Kinus hitting the floor just behind Frawn. Marillius was beside him in an instant. Rich, living blood was spurting from arm, face, neck, and chest... splattering the old man's clothes as he tried to apply pressure to the wounds.

"...help me!" Kinus babbled. His eyes met Marillius's only for a moment... then they began to skip desperately around the room as if searching for the miracle that was needed to save him.

"HE NEEDS HELP!" said Marillius.

"-AND I NEED NAILS!" was Frawn's reply.

WHAM!
WHAM!

"JETHANY!" Marillius's shout drew the young woman's attention. "COME! HELP ME! Help me stop the bleeding!!"

Jethany looked at him...

...and shook her head. If saving Kinus's life meant leaving the safety of her corner... then the man was doomed.

"JETHANY!" Marillius demanded. The woman turned her eyes and began to cry. Kinus's blood had now formed a stream that emptied into the dark chasm in the farmhouse floor at an ever-increasing rate. "HELP ME! LEWIS-"

"NAILS!"

Lewis had found a few rusty wood-nails. He thrust them at Frawn...

"What you expect me to do with THOSE!?" Frawn growled-

WHAM!
WHAM!
WHAM!

"-Get that axe and hammer 'em in, DAMMIT!"

Lewis picked up Kinus's gore-strewn axe and used the blunt end to drive the nails through the wooden door, nailing it to the frame.

"...help me!" Kinus cried. "I'm... I'm dying!"

"HOLD ON!"

"...I can't..." Tears filled Kinus's eyes. "...please... I don't wanna die..."

KA-WHAM!

A sudden impact pushed the door away from the frame... the few nails that Lewis had driven flew from their holes.

"UNNNNRRRRGH!!!" Frawn grunted as he tried to push the door back again. Rotting, shriveled arms punched through the narrow opening and began grabbing and slashing at everything which reach.

"AA!" Lewis jumped back-

-and dropped his handful of nails. Half of them rolled across the floor and vanished into the pit.

"DAMMIT BOY!" Frawn spat. A dark, bony hand caught his arm and began to dig into his flesh. "AARRRRRRGH!"

"I GOT IT!" Lewis swung the axe-

"NO!" Frawn and Marillius both shouted. The sharp, heavy axe missed Frawn's wrist by an inch. But it severed the monster's grasping appendage cleanly. The axe came around again... and again, clearing the way for Frawn to push the door against the frame-

WHAM!

"NAILS, DAMMIT!"

"EEEEEEE!"

Jethany.

Three severed appendages... a wrist, a forearm, and an entire arm... all tipped with grasping hands... were all dragging themselves toward Jethany. The girl kicked at the closest creature, but it latched onto her foot and began to drive its sharp fingers into her flesh. Lewis rushed to his sister's rescue, leaving Frawn on his own.

"HEY!"

WHAM!

"...please... I don't wanna..." Kinus begged. His eyes had returned to Marillius, but the old man didn't want to look into them. "...pleeeease..."

"Shhh..." Marillius said softly, despite the complete and utter carnage taking place around them. "Shhhh, hush now..."

"...they got me... urk... got me good..."

"I know. But don't you cry now-"

WHAM!

"BOY?! WHERE'S THEM NAILS!!"

"...but... but everything's gettin... dark..."

"Don't you wanna see 'em again?" said Marillius. He gently brushed the hair away from Kinus's face. "Your family? Don't you wanna see 'em? Tell 'em how much you missed 'em? Hmm?"

"Y...yeah..."

"Then you stop crying, you hear? You stop it right now."

"...oh..." Kinus gulped. "...okay..."

Kinus sighed peacefully... and it was his last. Marillius closed the man's wide eyes and mumbled a bit of a prayer he'd heard once.

"He's gone," Marillius announced-

WHAM!

"NEED SOME HELP OVER HERE!"

The monsters had managed to push the edge of the door away from the frame, and were once again reaching through the opening with rotting clawed fingers. They couldn't reach Frawn... yet... but they were putting their efforts into destroying what they COULD reach-

-the door frame. Frawn frantically pushed the door back into place, but by now several dozen of the creatures were throwing themselves against the door with such force that Marillius could hear their bones snapping from the repeated impacts.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEeeee!" A dozen throats screeched in a dozen different wailing and ravenous tones.

"GET OFF YOUR ASS AND HELP, OLD MAN!" Frawn shouted as bits... and then chunks... and then long, thick strips of wood vanished from the besieged doorway at an ever-increasing rate.

"What-"

"NAILS! NAILS! Get the nails!"

WHAM!
WHAM!
WHAM!

"-FORGET the nails!! HELP ME PUSH THIS DOOR CLOSED!"

Marillius threw himself against the door... but his small body did almost nothing to push it closed.

"BOY!" Marillius shouted as he pushed against the trembling wood.

Lewis had joined his sister in a corner of the house, where they clung desperately to each other. Jethany was screaming loudly and incoherently... the woman had clearly lost her mind. Lewis had not... but his efforts to comfort her and keep her safe had somehow taken precedence over helping to secure the house.

"BOYY!" Frawn and Marillius both shouted.

Lewis's head jerked around.

"-huh?"

WHAM!

"THE NAILS!"

"-OH!" Lewis started to get up.

WHAM!

"NO DON'T LEAVE ME!" Jethany squealed and grabbed her brother's hand as he rose. She pulled him back toward her...

...and Lewis didn't resist. He looked pleadingly at Marillius-

"I tried to help daddy!" Lewis cried. "I TRIED! HONEST! But they... they... THEY AIN'T GONNA GET MY SISTER, TOO!!"

"Then HELP US-"

WHAM!
WHAM!
WHAM!

The latest series of impacts nearly threw Marillius away from the door. He simply wasn't strong enough to help. Frawn was struggling to keep the creatures from storming into the house.

WHAM!

"UNGHG!" Frawn grunted. "Nails ain't gonna do no good no way! They're tearing through the damned DOOR!"

Frawn was right. The sturdy door was splintering even as he tried to hold it upright. The creatures were ripping it apart from the outside.

"We're gonna have to RUN for it!" Frawn shouted over the increasing roar of cracking wood and howling, hungry corpses.

"HOW!?!" said Marillius.

"I Don't Know! YOU'RE THE SMART ONE! GET US OUT OF HERE!"

"I-"

Marillius saw something. Something he'd seen along but had paid no attention to until now.

"THE HOLE! THE HOLE IN THE FLOOR!"

"ARE YOU MAD!? I'M NOT GOING IN THERE!"

"WE'RE NOT... BUT THEY ARE! OPEN THE DOOR!"

"WHAT!?" Lewis screamed from the corner. "YOU CAN'T LET THOSE THINGS IN HERE!"

"THEY'LL BE ALL OVER US!! THERE MUST BE HUNDREDS OF THOSE THINGS-"

"HUNDREDS OR MILLIONS... IT DOESN'T MAKE A DIFFERENCE! THEY STILL HAVE TO COME THROUGH THE DOOR ONE AT A TIME!!!"

Frawn smiled... and almost laughed. The old man was right... it was so damned simple!

"GET READY!"

Marillius drew his sword... a weapon he had never used before... and stepped back from the door.

"GO!" Frawn spun away from the door. His weapon slid free of its scabbard just as the door flew away from the wall... coming apart even before it hit the floor.

"REEEEE!"

Outside was a solid wall of squealing, reeking, man-shaped things.

Empty sockets and pus-filled orbs gleamed at Marillius. Sharp white teeth and shriveled black gums smacked hungrily...

...and then the entire wall surged forward as dozens of the rotting undead tried to squeeze through the doorway at the same time. Several horrible seconds passed before the first of them burst into the farmhouse-

Frawn's sword sliced across the creature's ankles, severing one foot and sending the rotting thing stumbling across the floor-

-straight into the hole that had swallowed the house's previous occupants.

The creature screeched loudly as it vanished into the dark pit... but it was a sound that Marillius had no time to appreciate. The creatures had began streaming into the house, and Frawn's sword wasn't fast enough to keep up...

"HELP ME OUT HERE!"

Marillius stabbed at the next creature as it appeared in the doorway. The creature looked down at the sword protruding from its kidney... then slashed at Marillius's face. The old man ducked and back-peddaled, allowing the creature free entry to the house-

-until Frawn removed its head with a quick slash, then sent it into the pit with a well-placed boot to the rear end.

"DON'T STAB!" Frawn shouted. "CHOP! CUT OFF THE LEGS!"

"R-right.. RIGHT!"

Marillius came forward and tried again. His sharp steel met a pair of rotting kneecaps... and the steel won out. A legless creature dropped down onto its stumps and tried to wiggle further into the house. But the creature still had arms-

-which it used to latch onto the old man's left thigh.

"AAAAAAGGH!" Marillius screamed as flesh blood blossomed from the finger-sized holes in his flesh. He raised his sword-

KA-CHUCK!

-the creature's head exploded from the impact of Kinus's axe. Lewis yanked the weapon out and swung again-

KA-SPLUCTH!

-splitting the creature's torso down the middle.

"BEHIND YOU!" Lewis warned!

...with a pair of rotting arms still hanging from his thigh, Marillius spun. He didn't MEAN to attack, but he was holding his sword while he turned and managed to accidentally disembowel the creature coming at him from the right.

The bloody, entrail-dragging creature lurched at Marillius... but fell away in two pieces as both Frawn and Lewis attacked it from opposite sides.

"PUSH THE PIECES IN THE HOLE!" Frawn shouted as he and Kinus took position on opposite sides of the doorway. Sword and axe made quick work of the next few intruders while Marillius used his sword to sweep the wiggling... and still dangerous... fragments across the floor and into the pit.

They had 'killed' six... maybe eight... with Jethany shrieking like a banshee the entire time-

-but then everything went to hell.

First came the sound.

Digging. Climbing.

From below.

Either the bits and pieces of undead flesh they had banished to the pit were somehow managing to climb back out-

-or something ELSE was down there. Moving. Getting closer.

Then, as Marillius drew a breath to warn to the others... he saw it.

The sky. The trail. The grass.

If the door were still crowded with zombies, then he shouldn't have been able to see ANY of those things. But he could-

Then the second sound... a quick series consisting of an even higher-pitched scream from Jethany, the 'crack' of an impact...

...and the heartbreaking CRASH of-

"THE WINDOWS!" Marillius shouted. "THEY'RE COMING THROUGH THE WINDOWS!"

All three of the farmhouse's windows shattered as the zombies that had deserted the guarded doorway began to attack the house's other openings. With the glass gone, the shriveled corpses started squeezing through the windows... and some even pulled at the window frames, attempting to widen the openings.

KRACK!
KRA-ACK!

Wood around one window started to splinter. Shrunken, putrefied hands pulled at another window until the entire section of wall began to come away.

"THEY'RE TEARING THE HOUSE APART!"

Ka-thump
Ka-thump-thump

Two corpses squeezed into the third window and hit the floor in a tangle of arms, legs, and strips of rotting flesh. It took only a second for the creatures to untangle themselves and take off after the nearest source of fresh meat.

"JETHANY!"

Once again, Lewis deserted his post.

KRASH!

The a five-foot section of wall tore free of the house and was carried away by the festering SEA of monsters that had assembled outside. The stench of death rolled into the house... and death's foot soldiers followed in a monstrous surge. Lewis was closest to them, and only the wild, desperate swinging of his axe kept him from being immediately overrun. Marillius charged to his rescue, dropping two of the creatures before something grabbed his shoulder and tried to pull his arm out of its socket.

"RRRAAAAAA-"

SPLUTCH!

Frawn chopped his way past Marillius and tried to carve a path to Lewis.

Sword and axe came around in increasingly frantic slashes as he tried to force the tide of monsters back through the opening they had made in the wall. He MIGHT have succeeded...

...if Jethany hadn't screamed.

The sound went through the small house like a bolt from a crossbow. There were zombies in the house OTHER than the ones that Lewis and Frawn fought...and those zombies had found Jethany.

Marillius turned just in time to see the creatures grab the terrified girl and try to pull her in opposite directions.

"JETH-!" Lewis began.

There was a sound. Marillius turned away so that he wouldn't have to see... but Lewis did not.

Now it was the boy's incoherent screaming that filled the farmhouse. He stopped fighting and stood frozen beside Frawn... axe hanging loose and motionless at his side... eyes fixed on the hideous feeding frenzy taking place where his sister had once stood.

Frawn didn't see any of it. The man... who would have made an excellent swordsman were he not a hardheaded brute... was too busy being overrun. With no one to protect his flank, Frawn was soon surrounded.

"RUN!" Frawn shouted over the howls of the undead. "GET THE BOY AND RUN!!"

Marillius planted his boot in the center of one creature's lower back... sending it tumbling into the pit-

-and opening a brief hole through which...if he was quick... he might make it to the door without being torn apart.

"BOY!" the old man shouted.

Lewis wasn't where he'd been standing a second ago. Marillius feared the worst... until he heard the boy's scream of rage as he attacked the pair of creatures that had torn his sister apart.

"SHE'S GONE!" Marillius shouted after him. "WE'VE GOT TO GET OUT OF HERE!"

"YOU KILLED HER!" The axe sank into the first creature's chest... a wound that would have been instantly fatal were the creature not already dead. Before the boy could retrieve the weapon to strike again, foul shapes swarmed over him from behind... grasping and tearing at him with insane and murderous hunger.

"YAAAAAAAA!!" Lewis pushed... shoved... kicked... and ultimately succumbed to the carnage that was literally reaching out to claim him. His cry of rage became a shriek of horror and pain as the zombies covered him.

"GO, OLD MAN! ...ungh... GO!"

Several rotting shapes flew back from the crowd surrounding Frawn. Marillius caught only a glimpse of metal before the mob closed in around him again. This time, Frawn really WAS doomed...

...but he fought as if he didn't know it.

"DIE!" He grunted, swinging his blade back and forth and back again. "You're NOT gonna GET ME, YA HEAR!!"

Most of the creatures had circled around to the larger opening in the wall, where Frawn was fighting was what was surely his last brawl. A few of the slower, more rotted hulks were lumbering through the wide open front door... but beyond them, the way was clear.

Marillius gripped his sword... and waded into the battle, slashing at anything that moved.

"GOOOOOOO!!!!" Frawn's burly voice was now a shriek. "GOOO!"

"YOU'RE COMING WITH ME!"

"NO, I'M NOT!"

"BUT-"

"WARN THE TOWN!!" Frawn ordered... then added with false optimism: "IN CASE A FEW OF 'EM GET PAST ME! TELL 'EM... TELL 'EM TO GET READY!!"

"FRAWN-"

"DAMN YOU, OLD MAN! GOO! NNRRRRAAAA-"

There was another glint of metal, and one of the creatures howled... not in pain, but in frustration. The sword came down and around, and a vaguely head-shaped object rolled across the floor and dropped into the pit.

...where the sounds of motion and digging were steadily rising.

The floor began to shake.

"DAMN YOU!" Frawn roared. "YOU'RE NOT GONNA GET ME, YA HEAR! YOU BASTARDS... UNGH!... CAN'T TAKE ME! GO, MARILLIUS! GO NOWWWW!!"

Marillius backed away from the fight. Zombies on the fringe of the mob turned to follow him. Marillius chopped the legs out from under the closest creature, then ran for the door. Behind him, Frawn's bellows of war rose to a frenzy.

"NOT GONNA TAKE ME! GONNA HAVE TO BE STRONGER THAN THAT-- ARRRRRRRRRRGH-- GET AWAY FROM ME, YOU FREAK! YOU CAN'T HAVE ME! I'M NOT GONNA LET YA! YOU CAN'T-"

With three swings of his sword, Marillius was past the pair of creatures between him and the door. He darted from the farmhouse and tore across the grass, heading for the hills. But he wasn't alone.

There were shadows on the horizon. And movement in the grass. Humanoid figures marched lazily along the trail toward him, and man-shaped shadows lumbered in the shadows just past the trees.

They were everywhere.

And they were all headed toward town.

...except, of course, for the ones that were coming for HIM.

Marillius was old, but he wasn't slow. The old man's legs took him up and over the hill before the unseen shapes in the grass even knew he was coming. They exploded from hiding as he passed, and Marillius felt a set of claws rip across his shoulder... but he didn't stop. The sword... useless to him even if he were years younger... tumbled from his fingers. The absence of its weight allowed him that much more speed.

"HELLLLPPP!" he screamed once. Only once. After that, keeping the air in his lungs and his flesh attached to his body took all the effort he could spare. His heart thumped painfully in his chest, and he knew that it would probably stop altogether if he ran all the way to town at his current speed.

But dammit, it would just have to stop. As long as he could get within shouting distance... close enough to warn Bephal.

Or, failing that, if he could just could get away from that cursed farmhouse... out of earshot... away from Frawn's horrified screams that even now echoed in his ears.
---

"I thought I told you to stay in the house?"

"WHAT house?" said Francesca. "You've damn near torn the whole thing to pieces. Besides..."

"It's safer if we stay together," Floyd D'Arcy finished his daughter's thought. "Right?"

"Don't know how MUCH safer," said Thane. "Without my ring... well... you saw how much good I was back there even WITH the damned thing."

"Then why are we out here looking for it?" said Francesca. She looked around nervously, scanning the wide, untended yard while Casey clung to her leg.

"Because its better than nothing," Thane replied.

"But what if that thing is out here?"

"Then we go back inside. See? Simple. Now help me look..."

The rectangular yard behind the house was a field of dirt and rock dotted with wide patches knee-high grass. Thane swept his bandaged foot through the weeds and squinted at the rocks and insects that stared up at him. Bugs and stones... but no magic ring.

"I found footprints," Floyd announced. "Right here. Look fresh... maybe. I was never much of a-"

"I saw those earlier."

"You know...." Floyd gave the patch of grass beside him a half-hearted kick. "I don't quite get why we're out here in the grass looking for your ring... when you already know where it is."

"He could have dropped it," Thane said. He prodded a loose stone with his toe. No ring there, either.

"Well, I suppose he could have. But if I was making out a list of things that COULD HAVE happened... that wouldn't be very high on the list."

"I know."

"Well...?"

"Well what?"

"If you want your ring, maybe you should go and get it!"

"I am. After I make sure it isn't laying around here in the grass."

"But you know it isn't-"

"Oh father, can't you see the man is frightened? Leave him alone."

Thane whirled to face Francesca.

"I'm not afraid of anything!" he snapped.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of... I've been scared out of my mind for the past twelve hours, and I'm certainly not ashamed of it-"

"I'm not ashamed, either! It's just... just that..."

"Yes," Francesca smiled. It wasn't a sarcastic smile... it was actually quite motherly. "Of course."

"I find this thing out there, and what do I do then, eh? I can't FIGHT it... I can't do anything but get myself killed! I don't mind dying, but I at least want to die fighting a MAN and not some..."

"Filkus wasn't a man even when he was a man," said Floyd. "If you know what I mean."

"I can help you find the bad man."

Casey was gazing at Thane with wide, eager... and yet still sleepy eyes.

"Sometimes they whisper things," the boy continued. "And if I ask real nice, sometimes they answer stuff. If I ask where your ring is-"

"That won't help me, unless those spirits of yours are gonna go in and get it, too."

"I don't think they want to do that."

"Me neither. I'll just wait 'til my friends get back, then we'll go hunting."

Casey shuddered and stepped behind his mother.

"...and just so you know," Thane told him. "That N'Doki fella is NOT one of my friends. He's just along for the ride."

Casey nodded. Then smiled at him.

"But that still leaves Filkus with your ring," said Floyd. "Who knows what he's off doing with it now."

"Probably doesn't even know he has it. And if he does, he'll kill himself before he gets any useful magic out of it. It's trapped. Thing's got maybe a dozen good spells mixed in with about a thousand ways to get yourself killed. I hope he IS out there trying to use it..."

---

"...now THAT wasn't very fun."

Filkus wiggled his jaw back and forth until the flesh started to knit back together. When enough ooze, gore, and slime had grown around the jutting bone, he took his hand away-

-and the jaw promptly fell to the ground at his feet.

"Nnnngk..."

Filkus picked up the jaw and rammed it violently into place. This time it held. The rest of his head was fitting itself together quite nicely.

"...not fun at all!" he mewled. He looked at the jeweled ring resting in his freshly burnt hand. "YOU are a very naughty ringy!!"

Filkus started to caress the stone again... but decided not to. His fingers had barely grown back from the FIRST time he touched the gleaming jewel. And then there was the time that he actually dared to put the ring ON...

...Filkus shuddered, dislodging a few bits of slime and sending the surrounding cloud of flies into an agitated frenzy.

"Nooo, I think I'll save you for later." Filkus shoved his hand into his bulging abdomen and tucked the ring back where he'd found it... lodged firmly between the remains of his stomach and his gall bladder. "And you can STAY there until you decide to behave! I'LL be out making new friends, but YOU can't play because you've been naughty! Hmph..."

After being chased out of the D'Arcy house, Filkus had found a nice fenced-in spot at the rear of an abandoned bakery to hide. When no angry mobs or mean-old-mages-in-little-boy's-bodies had come to torment him, he decided that maybe... just maybe... it was time to go out and have some more fun.

Quietly, Filkus eased out from his hiding place. The old wooden boards groaned as he squeezed through. The alley beyond was neither narrow nor dark, but it was empty.

That was bad.

Filkus didn't like to play by himself.. (playing WITH himself was another matter entirely)...

...but then he couldn't very well wander around the streets in his current condition. His INSIDES were hanging out in the open for everyone to see! The children would laugh at him... at least until he showed them how much FUN it was to have hanging, droopy insides. But to do that, he had to first FIND some children, and then manage to get CLOSE to them...

"Ohhh, what a dill-emma." Filkus frowned...

...but the rotting, foul, and utterly sinister frown became an equally inhuman smile as the sound of CHILDREN reached his one intact ear!

And not just ONE children... Three of them! There were some adults, too, but they didn't matter.

"Ohh, JOY!" Filkus squealed. He trotted.... skipped, actually... to the front of the alley, but stopped just short of the street. With a spongy, unpleasant 'squish,' he pressed his back against the wall where he couldn't be seen unless someone came in looking for him. There, he waited. And listened...


---


"...door to door, rounding up everybody that's still alive. One of my better ideas, if you ask me!"

"That's what I don't like about it... nobody asked ME! I don't like wandering around out-!"

"Well what ELSE are we going to do? You want to lock yourself in the house and get sucked down through the floor like those other people? If that's what you want, then you have my blessing. But I'm taking MY children where they'll be safe!"

"Halfway across town!?"

"Look! The street is FULL of people! We're perfectly safe, and the girls will be much better off at the Masserton's."

"I still don't like it!. Something strange is going on in this town, and the last thing we need to do is go out wandering around-"

"We aren't wandering!" Grigory Roff huffed.

"And look at the children... they're terrified!"

Grigory looked at his three daughters. Terrified, they were not. But Tabitha, Teretha, and Treana were clearly not happy with the current state of affairs. Their new traveling coats... fresh from the commercial markets of Montfort... were already smudged and dirty. Such coats were intended for the kind of travel that involved enclosed carriages... not long walks down dirt roads. Their normally pristine hair was piled atop their heads like a trio of bird's nests... there had been no time to groom it properly before their father had descended upon their rooms and unceremoniously ushered them out the front door. Tabitha... the oldest... had wrapped a multi-colored silk cloth around her head, which actually drew MORE attention to her miserable state than it would have otherwise attracted.

"I want candy!" Treana, the youngest at 5 years old, demanded with all the authority of a grown woman.

"We haven't eaten brunch yet!" Teretha moaned. "Will Cora still fix us brunch when we get back!?"

Cora... their cook... was dead. The search party found her house cracked open like a giant wooden egg.

"Yes," Anna said with false gentleness. "Of course she will. Doesn't she always?"

"But I heard the man at the door say-"

"He was mistaken," said Anna. "And YOU shouldn't be listening in to grown folks affairs. Now hush and let mommy and daddy finish fighting."

"There's nothing to fight about. We're going to the Masserton's."

"But they're...." Anna lowered her voice and glanced back at the children before continuing. "...they're P-O-O-R."

"They've got a sturdy house with brick walls and a rock foundation," Grig replied. "It'll stand up better than ours if anything comes calling. All the children will be safe there while the rest of us go and find out what the hell is happening in this town."

"I don't want to play with any poor children, mommy!" Tabitha announced without an ounce of shame. "You can't make me!"

"No, of course not," said Anna. "No one expects you to play with them, dear."

"They smell funny!" Treana added.

"Why doesn't OUR house have a rock foundation!" Tabitha demanded. "So we can stay at home!"

"Because your MOTHER wanted a basement!" Grig retorted. "Bloody wine cellar... the house is a deathtrap now, thanks to you!"

"ME!? If I'd known we were going to be attacked by monsters I would have told you to build a bloody CASTLE! And I wanted to move out of this town YEARS ago! I'll bet they don't have monsters running around sucking people under floors in MONTFORT!"

"No," Roff muttered. "because in Montfort the monsters walk around in the open." Then he stopped walking and pointed. "This is it."

Melwin and Edda Masserton lived in squat, single-floor structure that was at one time the largest house in Bephal. That had been several decades ago... back when the town of Bephal was still alive and growing. Now... like the town itself... the house was an old and crumbling eyesore. Any claims to greatness that it once held were dwarfed by larger, richer houses that had sprung up in the intervening years. Most of THOSE houses were gone now... but the Masserton 'estate' was still there... clinging to existence by the sheer poverty of its current owners... a family of squatters who were too destitute to move anywhere else. They had no choice but to keep the place intact, lest they find themselves living in the street. Edda Masserton was a likeable old gossip who cleaned other people's houses for money. Melwin was a thief and gambler who had found religion... though he never did specify which one... and had taken up raising chickens for a living. They had no children, but they had plenty of chickens.

Lots and lots of chickens. The smell alone was... interesting.

Normally, people went out of their way to avoid the house and its unusual odor, but now the 'estate' was a hive of human activity. Shouting men, crying women, and screaming children had descended upon the house in droves, sending the free-range chickens scurrying out into the street and sending the caged birds into frenzies of loud clucking and flapping. There had to be at least fifty people gathered outside the front door, with more hovering around the fringes of the property in and effort to find an elusive gasp of fresh air.

"...ugh!" Anna put her fingers to her nose and pinched her nostrils shut. Her three daughters did the same. The smell hadn't even reached them yet.

Grig ignored them and walked boldly toward the house... wading through the stench like a soldier storming a beach-front battlefield.

"HO!" he shouted. A few people turned to look. Most of them smiled when they recognized him... but most of the smiles vanished when they saw his wife and daughters trailing behind.

"MAYOR ROFF!" someone shouted.

Roff was not the mayor. The real mayor was missing, but Roff had lost the last election by a narrow margin, and that was close enough for most people. Besides, he owned more of the town than any single person had since the days of Jerimiah Trisk.

"ROFF'S HERE!" came another shout.

The crowd surged and deformed like a microscopic amoeba reaching out from the Masserton's front door to engulf Grig.

"Do we know anything yet?" someone asked. Grig didn't hear it because, at the time, he was asking the exact same question.

"Those men we sent to the farms haven't come back yet," said Borris Roost. Roost was 'acting sheriff' in the same way that Roff was now 'acting mayor.' "The others are still rounding folks up."

"How many we got here?"

"'Bout twenty families, sir. More than this place will hold, I'm sure. Everyone's just standing around waiting for-"

"We need to clear this place out," said Grig. "We've got able-bodied adults not being put to good use. Send out some more search parties... men AND women... if they can walk, then they can search. Leave enough folks here to guard the children and send everybody else out in the streets, including me. We need to knock on EVERY door and search EVERY house."

"I understand, sir-"

"And don't start with the 'sir'. If they'd ELECTED me, THEN I'd be a 'sir'. Now I'm just a 'mister'."

"Yes s- Yeah, okay."

"And we'll need a meeting place. Someplace other than here. Is the town hall still in one piece?"

"As far as I know."

"Wooden floor, right?"

"Yeah...?"

"It'll do for now..." Grig sighed. "Now I've got something you don't want to hear."

"What's that?"

"Somebody... SOME-body.... is going to have to go down in one of those holes and look around."

The portion of the crowd that was within earshot gasped and erupted in murmurs. Grig ignored them.

"I'll be the first to volunteer," said Roff. "but I'm not going in alone."

"I-"

"And we need at least ONE cool head up here on the surface, so you can't join me. Sorry. Once we've gathered everybody that we can, we'll draw straws. Women and children will be exempt, of course."

"Aye, I'll spread the word. Anything else?"

"The last group that came by my house mentioned some rumors..."

"Plenty of them goin' around."

"Yes, but these are concerning some strangers? Hear anything about that?"

"Yeah. Group of strangers out by the D'Arcy place. Dangerous-lookin' folk is what I hear. But of course those are just rumors."

"D'Arcy..." Roff frowned and scratched his chin.

"He's old blood," said Roost... meaning that the D'Arcy family had lived in Bephal since before there WAS a Bephal, as opposed to more recent arrivals like the Roffs.

"Means he probably didn't vote for me. Ah, well... gather the three biggest men in this crowd and tell them they're coming with me. Mr. D'Arcy's about to have more visitors. Then start clearing people the hell out of here!"

"Yes, sir!"

Happy to have someone ELSE giving orders, Roost started to hurry off. Roff grabbed his shoulder.

"-my wife will be staying here with the little ones," said Roff. "Send her out in a crowd and she's likely to cause an armed revolt."

"I certainly understand that, sir... I mean Mr. Roff."

With the final order given and acknowledged, Roost began shouting instructions into the crowd. Roff sought out his family while the crowd re-arranged itself. He found them huddled together near the tattered wire fence that marked the perimeter of the property. The four of them all had the demeanor and expression of a child trying to turn himself invisible by holding his breath.

"THERE you are!" Anna snapped. "You just ran off and left us!"

"And unfortunately, I'm about to do it again. You stay here, I'm going to take a few men and pay a visit to Mr. D'Arcy."

"That old man with the crazy daughter!!?"

"He's scary!" Treana blurted. "And he smells funny, too!"

"Treana...," Grig smiled. "If everyone around you seems to stink, then maybe its not THEM at all..."

"Huh?" the little girl looked confused. In that moment, she was almost cute. Almost. "I don't understand."

"The children should be in the house," said Grig.

"I'M not going in there!" Anna protested. "There are... there are ANIMALS in there!"

"Yes, and a nice stone floor for them to run around on. If you're going to stand out here in the grass then you may as well have stayed at the house. Get inside and TRY not to upset anyone TOO badly. Dear."

"How long are you going to be gone?"

"Not long. We'll meet at the hall once we've searched everything. I'll send someone for you."

"You'd better! And don't take forever to do it!"

"DON'T LEAVE US, DADDY!"

Grig pretended not to hear the nagging protests of his daughters as he turned toward the sound of approaching footsteps. It was Sheriff Roost... with three large but sheepish-looking young men in tow.

"These men say they'll help you out. Don't have much in the way of weapons, though. We busted into the sheriff's armory this morning, but there wasn't much in it."

"Hopefully we won't need any," said Roff. "Come along, gentlemen."

"GRIGORY ROFF!" Anna shouted as they walked away. "Aren't you going to kiss us goodbye!?"

"No time..." Grig waved at Anna. "...I'll kiss you twice when I get back," Then muttered under his breath. "...shrieking harpies..."

---

The Masserton's 'mansion' consisted of only three rooms. The original structure had had many more, but the years had not been kind. The walls beyond the kitchen, main living area, and one of the bedrooms were all in various states of collapse. The remaining bedroom was now an indoor chicken-coop, crammed with cages and noisy, flapping birds. The living area was now a bedroom, and the kitchen was... amazingly... still a kitchen. Each room was generously large, but bare stone walls a stone floor did not make for the most comfortable accommodations. It was almost noon, but the early morning chill still clung to the house like a shroud, gently sipping at the warm bodies huddled therein.

Outside, despite the dissipation of the crowd, the chickens were still in a state of frantic dismay. Only four people remained now... four watchful old men, each stationed at one of the four corners of the property. Inside, two women watched over the twenty five children that had been entrusted to their care. More children (and, hopefully women too) would be arriving soon, as the rest of the town was alerted and those who were too afraid to leave were finally coaxed from their hiding places.

Anna and her brood were huddled in a far corner, with a clear view through one of the front windows. (There were no curtains at the Masserton estate... and the shutters had rotted away long ago.) Melwin Masserton waved at her from outside. The old man smiled, and in return, Anna gave him a half-hearted flip of her hand that could possibly have been an obscene gesture.

"Why does that man keep staring at us, mommy?" asked Tabitha.

"Because he's simple-minded and he's never seen such beautiful women before," Anna snapped... aware but unconcerned that Mrs. Masserton was sitting just eight feet away, trying to teach the children a song.

Before she'd become a literal old maid, Edda had been an... adult entertainer... who's musical gyrations had captivated audiences in towns that Anna Roff had never even heard of. She'd given up her gyrations years ago, but the songs... even the few that were suitable for children... could still captivate, despite occasional raspy cough or dropped note. The children seemed to be enjoying it... so much so that Edda felt it better to continue rather than pause just to slap Anna Roff and her mewling brats into unconsciousness.

"Mommy, how long are we going to have to stay here?" Treana asked.

"Longer than you want to, so stop asking."

"Can I go outside and play?"

"Play with what? The chickens?"

"But chickens are funny!"

"No they're not. And you're not going anywhere."

"But-"

"Where'd the creepy old man go?"

Tabitha pointed out the window. Melwin wasn't there.

"He was staring at us again, then he walked away."

"Good riddance," said Anna.

"Probably went to feed the chickens," said Edda. She was talking to Anna without actually LOOKING at her.... which is what most people did. "It's past feeding time, you know."

"No, I wouldn't know." Anna's voice seemed to snatch Edda's words out of the air and tear them to pieces.

"You'll excuse me..." Edda said. The motherly singer stood up, unfolding her crossed legs with only a few snaps and pops from the ancient bones. "...Melwin's feeding the birds, so I suppose I'd better scrape up some food for us. Off to the kitchen-"

"Awwwwwwwww!" the crowd of children sang their disappointment.

"But I'll be back, and then I'll teach you another song... one your parents REALLY won't like!"

"YAAAAAAY!"

Edda shuffled off to the kitchen with only a single backward glance at Anna.

"Think you can watch the wee ones while I cook?"

"As long as they behave," Anna eyed the assembly of children. One by one, the amused smiles disappeared from their faces.

"You see to it, then," said Edda. The old woman went through the doorless entryway into the kitchen Pots and pans began to rattle... and then a door opened.

"MELWIN!" Edda shouted outside. "FETCH ME SOME WOOD! THE FIRE IN THE KITCHEN'S GOIN OUT!"

There was no reply.

"MELWIN, YA DEAF BAST-uhhh... MELWIN, BRING ME SOME WOOD!"

"EEEEEKK!" One of the children yelped.

"What!? WHAT!?"

"A man walked past the window!" The little girl pointed to the window opposite Anna.... where there was absolutely nothing of any interest to see.

"Probably Mr. Masserton-"

"Nooo... he was all yucky!"

"Then we KNOW it was Mr. Masserton now, don't we?" Anna chuckled. Several of the older children laughed...

"...see, I knew I had a way with children," she whispered to her daughters, who had resumed their 'turning themselves invisible by holding their breath' expressions.

"Oh THERE you are," Edda Masserton said from the kitchen. "Stop hiding back there and bring me my wood. And where is everybody els- HEY YOU'RE-"

A series of sounds emanated from the kitchen:

-crack-
-snapp-
-crackle-

and finally:

-plop-

The last was very loud and sounded very... wet.

"What the hell kind of cooking is THAT?" Anna said aloud. Again, some of the children laughed.

When there no further sounds... mysterious or otherwise... Anna decided to get up and see what was happening.

By 'see what was happening' she meant 'shouting very loudly while not exerting the effort it would take to actually GO INTO the kitchen."

"MRS. MASSERTON?" Anna was possessed of a very loud, very shrill voice that ranked in the to 10 most unpleasant sounds ever heard by human ears. Her children covered their ears as she continued. "IS EVERYTHING ALL RIGHT IN THEEERE?"

"Just Fine And Dandy-Andy!"

Mrs. Masserton leaned out into the kitchen doorway and beamed a gentle smile at the children.

".........oh...."

Edda Masserton's voice had changed drastically in the intervening seconds since they'd last heard it.

So had her face, which still retained the look of sheer horror it had held when her head had been ripped from her neck. The old woman's skull had now found a NEW home... perched atop the decaying hand that was... somehow... working the old woman's dead face from the inside like a puppet.

"HELLO BOYS AND GIRLS!" An effeminate, yet clearly male voice said from the kitchen. Edda Masserton's dead lips smacked open and closed in time with the syllables.

The room froze.

Anna Roff tried to gulp... but her throat had squeezed so tight that all she managed was a line of un-ladylike drool from the corner of her lips.

"M..m...m..."

"You'll NEVER guess who I found outside!" 'Edda' continued... lips still dancing back and forth to a voice that was coming from somewhere else in the kitchen. "My DEAR friend Mr. Filkus! He wants to PLAY with you! And HERE he IS!"

Edda's head jiggled as the arm holding it moved... and the miserable, putrefied figure attacked to that arm stepped out into the open, revealing itself to twenty-six pairs of terrified eyes.

Filkus paused in the living room's only doorway, and raised the severed head so that it bobbled up and down next to his own. Rotting intestines slowly oozed out of his sliced gut and spilled out onto the floor at his feet... where they continued to move on their own power. One of them slithered back into the kitchen and snagged a chicken that had been nesting in a corner. It wrapped around the bird and began to thrash it back and forth, bashing the poor animal against the floor.

Filkus, who seemed to have no idea what the wayward length of intestine was doing behind his back, smiled.

So did Edda Masserton.

Anna Roff... and 14 of the 25 children now under her sole care... wet themselves in unison.

"Now," said Filkus, his voice rising in child-like anticipation. "WHooo wants to play with FILLLLKUSSSSSSS!"

"RUN CHILDREN!" Anna screamed.

Having done her part to save the others, Anna turned and sprinted for the window. Treana and Tabitha had the same idea... but were quite a bit faster than their mother. Since they couldn't ALL fit through the window at the same time, Anna had no choice but to trip Treana and shove Tabitha aside, allowing herself a clear shot at the room's only escape route. As she did this, several of the smaller children darted past her. She grabbed one little girl by the hair and yanked her back.

"GET OUT OF MY WAY!" Anna shrieked. She grabbed the windowsill and began to haul herself up, out, and away from the rising sounds of screaming children.

Behind her, play-time had begun.

---

"I don't know you, do I?"

"You'd better hope not. People I know tend to get hurt."

Thane's muscular arms rested folded across his chest, and his bare feet sank into the grass of D'Arcy's lawn. The man facing him... an obvious politician who had identified himself as Mr. Roff... was taller than Thane, yet Thane still managed to look DOWN at him in a sufficiently threatening manner.

It took a lot of practice to be able to do that, and it was good to see that the effect still worked.

Roff stepped back and clasped his hands behind his back. Thane knew the man was secretly signaling to the three big bruisers he'd brought with him. The men looked at each other. One shrugged. They all stepped forward.

"Ummm... i-i-is this REALLY necessary?" said Floyd. "I'm sure he didn't mean that the way he said it. Mr. Thane is actually a very nice man."

"Look, Floyd," said Roff. "I didn't come here for trouble... but I came here READY for trouble, if you get what I mean."

"Oh, I get it," Thane said, menacingly. He felt... and saw... the other three men sizing him up. They would see that he was unarmed, and would immediately assume that the three of them... four, if Roff helped... could take him in a fight. The thought almost made Thane smile... which would have ruined the whole 'menacing stare' effect he had going. "The problem is, you aren't getting ME. You aren't getting me OR the D'Arcy's off this property."

"Speak for yourself!" said Francesca. "If they've got a safe place, then I WANT to go! What with those things running around-"

"We're staying," said Thane.

"Am I to understand that... you're keeping the D'Arcy's hostage here?" said Roff. "Against their will?"

"No, no, no!" said Floyd. "Nothing like that! He's here to help protect us!"

"So are we." Roff replied. "Now we've got several issues here we need to address. One, is getting the D'Arcy's to a safe place. Even if they don't want to go."

"Sounds to me like YOU'RE the one taking hostages," said Thane.

"Second, is you, Mr. Thane. You clearly don't belong here... and I'm inclined to think you may have something to do with what's happening. Now, if you've got friends, I suggest you tell me where they are so we can go and round them up."

"And I suggest you..." Thane filled in the rest with a vividly detailed description of a physically impossible sex act. Francesca D'Arcy gasped and clapped her hands over young Casey's ears. "...THAT'S what I suggest. And as for you rounding up my friends..."

Thane paused, then leaned in close to Roff's face:

"HA!" he barked loudly. "You couldn't even TRY!"

"I see," Roff took another step back. "Gentlemen, would you care to subdue Mr. Thane, here..."

"I wouldn't do that if I was you!" Floyd interjected.

"Listen to the old man, fellas," Thane growled.

The three goons... over-fed farmboys... spread out around Roff, forming a semi-circle.

"And heeere we go..." Thane said, smiling. The dragon-shaped tattoo reaching up his back and over his left shoulder began to throb. Visibly.

Over-Fed Farmboy #1 shouted and charged. Thane assumed it was a distraction to draw his attention while the others crept up from the sides... but no, the fool was ACTUALLY attacking. Thane grabbed one of the man's beefy arms and folded it behind his equally beefy back. He paused long enough to deliver a back-fist strike to the face of Goon #2, and then thrust Goon #1 out of his way. He had just enough time... actually, more than enough... to duck under the wild clumsy punch from Goon #3 and drive his fists into the man's armpit, ribcage, and kidney with a rapid three-punch combination. As the third farmboy's right side went numb, Thane's ridge-hand strike to the mouth sent three of the man's teeth cascading down his shocked, gasping throat.

"MMFGH!" the goon grunted. Thane twisted and jerked his arm back, driving his elbow into the second goon's gut... not hard enough to rupture his stomach, but enough to make him THINK it was ruptured-

"AAAAAGGH!"
-thump-

"STOP IT!" Francesca yelled at them.

Thane wasn't in the mood to stop.

Round two of the ridiculously one-sided combat began with Thane blocking a punch from one man while hooking his bandaged foot around the ankle of another. One pull of his foot sent the men stumbling into each other-

-CRACK!-
"Hey, GET OFF ME!"

Thane shook his head and invited his opponents to try another attack. Both men charged simultaneously.

"I said STOP!" Francesca protested.

Thane darted to one side, then stopped suddenly. Both men attempted to swarm him with clumsy punches and jabs. Thane swatted their fists out of the air and dropped one of them with a ridge-hand strike to the face. It could have very easily been a fatal blow to the throat, but Thane didn't think these men were actually dangerous. Besides, a broken jaw was usually enough to stop even a dangerous man.

The third goon managed to grab Thane's upper arm and was apparently trying to twist his arm off. Thane quickly... and gently... grabbed the man's fingers. A nerve pinch freed his arm, and some downward pressure on the man's wrist made him squeal with a series of very pig-like sounds.

Holding the man by only one hand, Thane forced him to his knees... and made him cry.

Unfortunately, the man with the broken jaw wasn't quite convinced of the fight's hopelessness. He charged Thane from behind.

Even if it weren't for the telltale sounds of the man's boots swishing through the grass, old man Floyd was kind enough to shout a warning.

"BEHIND YOU!"

Thane released his captive's hand and delivered a spinning ridge-hand strike... which his attacker was kind enough to run STRAIGHT into.

-CRACK!-
"URK!"
Whump!

Thane was trying not to shatter the man's windpipe with the attack, but its hard to account for them man's own momentum. He watched the man squirm around on the ground a few seconds just to be sure.

"ACK! ACK! ACK!"

"Yeah, yeah, you'll be fine." Thane returned his attention to the man with the sprained wrist... who was stealthily crawling away on his hands and knees. Thane walked up to him and grabbed him by the hair.

"What more?"

"N-no sir."

"Then how 'bout you just lay there like a good boy."

"O-Okay."

"Okay what?"

"O-okay sir."

The man dropped flat to the ground and lay there like an obedient pet.

End of Fight.

"I told you to STOP!" Francesca shouted in her increasingly annoying squeal. "All that violence wasn't necessary!"

"You call THAT violence?" said Thane. "I-"

"Mr. Thane-" Floyd started to say. But he was interrupted by a scream from the street in front of the house.

"HELLLLLPPPP!"

"Huh-?" Thane turned toward the sound...

...and right into Roff's fist.

WHACK!

Stunned, Thane stumbled back and rubbed the bruise on his face.

"What the... you HIT me!?"

Roff had his hands up and fists clenched. The mayor's weight bounced back and forth from one foot to the next as he circled around.

"All that fancy fighting is well and good," said Roff. "But I was a bit of a scrapper in my day, too! Now are you gonna come quietly or am I gonna have to wallop you again?"

"What?" Thane said incredulously. "WHAT!?"

"Roff, QUIT before he kicks your head off!" said Floyd.

"I mean it-" Roff began.

"HELLLLP! SOMEBODY, PLEASE HELLP!"

The cry came again, closer this time... but still coming from the street out front.

Casey gasped. Not at the cry for help... but at something else. Something only HE heard.

"They're Coming!" he said.

"Who?" said Francesca.

"We have to go! We have to GO NOWWW!"

Casey tried to pull away from his mother, but she held onto him with the near-superhuman strength that only a mother possesses.

"Casey What-"

"PLEASE!"

"Oh for heaven's sake..." Floyd walked around the side of the house to the front. Francesca and Casey followed.

Thane and Roff just stared at each other.

"We can still do this if you want," said Thane. "I'm game if you are."

Grigory Roff glanced at his men... only one of which was in any condition to back him up. And HE was too intimidated to move.

"I didn't think so." Thane walked away. There was a narrow, nearly-overgrown path between the house and the wooden fence surrounding it on three sides. Thane followed Floyd and the others through the dirt, shrubs, and weeds until the fence suddenly ended... at which point he was standing at the front corner of D'Arcy's house. Floyd and Francesca were out in the street, conversing with a trio of gentlemen that looked only slightly more dangerous than the ones Thane had just fought... but that was only because they were armed with swords. One of them had his weapon drawn, and it looked as if it had been used recently. The thick substance oozing down the length of the blade wasn't blood, however.

"GO-GO-GO-GO!" said one of the men. Actually he said 'Go' only once, but was stuttering so badly that he was generating his own echo. He was pointing down the street, toward the center of town.

A small crowd of people were approaching from that direction, and the neighbors were beginning to step out of their houses... all drawn by the frantic cries for help.

"NO!" the man with the drawn weapon shouted at them. "RUN! GO BACK!"

The third man... the one who had been screaming for help... was looking continuously back in the direction they had just come. He was shaking. Badly.

"H-h-help US!" he grabbed Floyd's shirt in his fists and looked like was about to throttle the old man.

"HEY! HEY!" Floyd protested.

"Anybody in that house!?" The swordsman pointed to D'Arcy's home.

"No-"

"Then GO! RUN!"

"Mommy, we have to GO!" Casey whined. Francesca had a tight grip on his shoulder.

"LL-L-L-LISTEN TO THE K-KID, LADY!" said the stuttering man.

Thane arrived, and calmly removed the man's hands from Floyd's shirt.

"What's going on here?" he said, scowling.

"Yes, that's what I'd like to know," Roff added. "Erin? Deuce? Sam? What's this about?"

"Old man!" said Deuce... the one with the sword. "Th-there was this old man!"

"The one from the lock-up that we sent with Kinus and whatsisname!" added Sam, the nervous man who still... STILL... could not take his eyes off the road behind them. "We found h-him! H-he was hurt bad!"

"He was takin' crazy talk about monsters and such," Deuce continued. "We-we didn't believe him, but then... then THEY was EVERYWHERE! We ran, but-"

"They're BACK THERE!" Sam pointed down the street. Two intersections down, the street ended at a large blacksmith's shop that had been closed for about a year. The windows were boarded up, and the door nailed shut.

"I'll check it out..." said Thane. "Stay h-"

"NO!" Sam grabbed Thane's arm. "They'll EAT you!"

"ooookaayyy..."

"mommyyyyyYYY!!"

"Shhh, Casey!"

Floyd looked at Casey, then at Deuce, and then at the blacksmith's shop.

"...Mr. Thane," he said. "...I'm inclined to agree with my grandson on this one. Perhaps we should seek safety..."

"Back in the house then-"

"They'll TEAR it apart!" said Sam. "They're destroying EVERYTHING!"

"Who?" said Thane. "Who's destroying ev-"

CRASH!

The door of the deserted blacksmith's shop did not open... or fall... it FLEW out of its frame as if propelled by a cannon. It landed three yards away... leaving a dark and gaping opening where it had once guarded the empty shop from intruders.

In that opening, stood...

Arnold Oswald Kuroff.... a traveling merchant who's habit for cheating customers was all but forgotten when he took up the more serious vice of slipping into men's homes and dismembering the occupants with a meat cleaver. It had been thirty-seven years since anyone had seen Arnold Kuroff... But the old monster had made his illustrious return, apparently undeterred by the fact that he'd been judged, executed, and buried for his crimes over three decades ago.

With the gurgling intensity of a man that wished to speak, but could not, Arnold aimed the two remaining fingers of his left hand at the assembly of living flesh standing in the street before him. Arnold's head rolled back and twisted to one side, as if about to whisper a secret to someone standing behind him. But instead of a whisper, the withered lips let loose with a high-pitched shriek-

"RRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!"

Sam... born Samual David Kuroff... whimpered and trembled like a small, sick kitten. Grandfather looked hungry. And Sam knew that Grandfather had not come back alone. Having seen enough, Same decided to excuse himself...

"G'Bye!" he muttered just before turning and sprinting away.

Erin the stutterer drew his sword. Weaponless, Thane assumed a fighter's stance between Erin and Deuce, forming a human wall before Roff and the D'Arcy's.

"Go," Deuce said slowly, speaking to Thane. "Just... run..."

"No need for all that," said Thane. "It's just a zombie-"

"-EEEEEERRRRRRRRR"

The cry came not from Arnold, but from all around him. Rotting shapes lumbered up from the dark interior of the shop. Twisted forms dragged themselves up the alleyways on either side of the building. A few shriveled shapes even appeared on TOP of the building, dragging themselves across the roof and dropping down to the street. What had been only one zombie had now become thirteen... then twenty...

...THEN the windows and doors of the adjacent buildings began to explode outward as more undead fiends responded to the call. The walking dead spewed from the streets and alleys in a reeking mob... thirty-five... forty... still growing.... that bore down on Thane and the others with speeds varying from a slow lurch to a frighteningly swift sprint faster than any man's.

"Oh hell..." said Thane.

"THE SAFE-HOUSE!" Roff shouted. "Get to the Masserton place! It's got stone walls!"

"GO!" Thane shouted back over his shoulder.

"You have to come with us!" Floyd replied. The old man grabbed Thane's wrist and pulled.

"We'll hold 'em here as long as we-"

"That's fine with ME!" said Floyd. "But your BOSS said to keep an eye on US, didn't he!? Well WE'RE leaving!"

"Yeah, but..."

Floyd was right. And with N'Doki on the payroll, being killed in action didn't necessarily EXCLUDE the possibility of being tortured for disobedience in the hereafter.

"...he's right," Thane said apologetically to Deuce and Erin.

"Don't apologize to US!" said Deuce. "WE'RE not staying here to fight these things either! Man, I am GONE!"

The two swordsmen split up and ran. Erin ran at right-angles to the street and disappeared down an alley. Deuce ran back toward the approaching crowd of about twenty curious townspeople... who were only NOW realizing that they were heading into a slaughterhouse.

The street echoed with the slamming of windows and doors as the neighbors bolted themselves in.

"GO BACK!" Deuce screamed at the crowd. "GET TO SAFETY!"

"THE MASSERTON PLACE!" Roff shouted at them. Roff was running, but not in the same direction. He was headed back toward the D'Arcy house.

"WHERE are you-" Thane started.

"Those BOYS are still back there! I gotta get 'em!"

"DAMMIT!"

Floyd, Francesca, and Casey had fallen in behind Deuce. Old man Floyd was actually CATCHING UP to him. Ahead of them, the crowd had... predictably... exploded into pure chaos. The mob split into three smaller sub-mobs, each convinced that THEY knew the fastest, quickest way to get anywhere that was NOT here.

Out of everyone... including the zombies... Yexhill Thane was the only thing not moving.

"Why does this stuff happen to MEEE!?!" he shouted at the sky. Then, he, too, was running.

Behind him, the horde of undead surged forward. Most of them followed the fleeing humans in whatever direction the various groups had fled. But some began to scrape and claw at the buildings around them... attracted by the scent of the people who were still hiding inside.


Doors and windows gave way before their clawed hands, and the monsters swarmed inside.

Then, the screaming began.

---

"You could at least indulge my curiosity," said Hemingway Shaw, "and tell me what it is I have the pleasure of dragging through the streets of Bephal."

A long, rusty chain trailed from Hemingway's fist, over his shoulder, and back to the unconscious, chained, and still somewhat frozen humanoid form hovering behind him. J'Hasp was wrapped in Gallows' cape, which Gallows had commanded to levitate three feet off the ground. The creature was more than light enough for Hemingway to pick up an carry, but since December couldn't guarantee that J'Hasp wouldn't awaken and start slitting the throats of anyone within reach, Hemingway decided that this way was best. Surprisingly, December agreed. Behind J'Hasp, Hars and Gallows were helping each other stay upright as best they could. Hars had thawed out quite well... which meant that his frostbitten extremities were now throbbing with the most excruciating pain imaginable.

December walked beside and slightly in front of Hemingway. Emerson Shaw was on point.

That meant that he was out in front, where... if anything nasty were to happen... it would likely happen to HIM first. Of course, Hars didn't actually explain it that way at the time, and so Emerson was largely ignorant of the fact that he was a walking target. His brother Hemingway could have explained it to him, but he Hemingway was preoccupied with the impossible task of trying to drag a straight answer out of his employer.

"We burn this thing," said Hemingway. "Freeze it. Cut it. Pound on it. And its still alive?"

"Nature is surprisingly resilient," was December's only reply.

"So's just about everything else in this town," Hemingway muttered. "But, honestly..."

"Mr. Shaw..." December said slowly.

"All right, all right, I'll stop with the questions. No need to threaten me."

"I was about to ask if your readings had ever introduced you to the works of Princeton Park."

"Name sounds familiar," said Hemingway. "But I can't say that I've read him. Is he a poet?"

"Hardly. He was a researcher in the more obscure mythologies of Iffrean."

"Was? So he's dead then?"

"I would hope so, yes."

"I didn't know you were a fan of mythology," said Hemingway, smiling. Just being able to READ was rare enough in this line of work. But he never dreamed he'd be discussing literature with his employer. Perhaps this job wasn't as bad as he first thought. "...I'm not. But if you recommend this Park fellow-"

"I am not a 'fan' of mythology, as you say," said December. "I am a creature of it. And so, apparently, is that which hovers behind you. Mr. Park's books have become extremely rare in recent months, but if you were to ever encounter one, you may find certain references and descriptions to be... familiar."

"I see. Rare books, eh?"

"Quite. And rarer every day."

"I don't suppose YOU would have any of those rare books..."

"A complete set.... those and many others."

"And I don't suppose you would..."

"No," said December. And that was the end of that.

"So..." Hemingway asked a few moments later. "Do you like poetry?"

"Heeeyy!" Emerson Shaw called. He was about twenty yards in front of them when he stopped and turned back, waving.

"WHAT!" Hemingway called back.

"Bunch of people up this way!" Emerson was standing atop a slight hill, and thus had a clear view of the road ahead, while his companions could see only him. "Looks like a crowd..."

"This could be trouble," said Hars. Hars looked sick... his skin was almost as pale as Gallows' normal pallor.

"I should be scouting," said Gallows. "Not that fool. Let me-"

December waved Gallows to silence. Gallows frowned... and slowly backed away from the group.

Their path from the stables had taken them through the outskirts of town, and they were only now reaching the official city limits. The buildings around them were sparse, small structures sitting on large plots of land... most of which looked deserted. Ahead, the tops of the multiple-floor buildings in Bephal peeked over the hill.

"Which way are they going?"

December's voice had not yet returned to full strength, so he dictated his question to Hemingway, who shouted it to Emerson.

"WHICH WAY ARE THEY GOING!?"

"Well... they WERE going that way-"

Emerson pointed toward the center of town... a direction that was 90-degrees off from the road on which they were standing.

"-but now some of them are headed THIS way."

December started toward Emerson and joined him on the hilltop... as did Hars and Gallows.

"Interesting," December said when he saw the four people running toward them... with a larger group of about twelve chasing after them. "The second group of individuals does not appear to have any body heat."

ssSHHLING!

Harrison Blackshear had only one sword left... and he drew it.

"Put that away, Mr. Blackshear. We will find another way around."

"But those people down there-"

"-are not our concern. Shaw... that way."

December pointed out a direction that would take them around the approaching strangers. Emerson Shaw hummed a happy tune as he trotted away... with December and the others following silently.

So silently that they were able to hear the screams when the second group of running figures caught up with the first. Hars, who had sheathed his sword on command, was on the verge of drawing it again when the screaming stopped.

"That didn't sound good," said Hemingway. He turned to December. "Did you hear that? The screaming?"

"Yes. What of it?"

"Uhh... nothing."

They continued in relative silence for a few minutes, but as the road lead them closer to the heart of Bephal, the silence became increasingly ominous... and then it slowly ceased to be silence at all.

The silence would have been better.

Better than the snapping of wood and the shattering of glass. The deep bass of something large falling to the ground... The occasional clash of a weapon. All of it accompanied by screaming.

And... rumbling beneath the other sounds, fading in and out of awareness with the rise and fall of the breeze... the guttural growl and roar of something that was not human. Or several somethings.

At first, the sounds were coming from the east... but whatever the source, it was moving rapidly into town along a road almost parallel to the one they traveled. And it was spreading. The screams became louder, and the growling sounds of carnage became more and more prevalent. The deep crashing became recognizable as the sound of buildings being ripped open and smashed apart...

Hemingway saw a figure crouching on a rooftop. It was Gallows... although how he had gotten there without his cape was somewhat of a mystery. The archer pointed behind them and made a quick hand gesture.

"Something behind us," Hemingway said. "Coming this way." December had seen the gesture for himself, as had Hars. Emerson was still a good distance in front of them... but he had stopped walking and was standing in the middle of the street, looking confused. He turned back and shook his head.

Something was in front of them.

Something that the normally talkative Emerson didn't feel comfortable shouting about to the others. The little man put his finger to his lips and shook his head once more.

Hemingway expected Gallows to have vanished from the rooftop, but the archer was still there, now pointing in a different direction and making the hand-signal for 'all clear'. Hemingway relayed the signal to his brother, and the party set off in the new direction... cutting through two alleys to emerge on a street almost identical to the one they'd left. Somewhere along the way, Gallows vanished again... but the sounds did not.

"I'm liking this less and less the further we go," said Hemingway. "What do you think is happening?"

"I have no idea," December replied evenly... without the slightest hint of concern.

"That thing could be attacking again," said Hars.

"Fortunately we do not have far to go," said December, pointing. "The D'Arcy residence is only a short distance that way. We shall retrieve Thane and-"

As if summoned by the act of pointing, three human figures appeared ahead of them, darting out of an alley behind Emerson, yet still in front of December and the others. They were running fast, and making no attempt to conceal their presence.

When they spotted December and the Night's Bloom, one of the men looked as if he were about to stop... but he thought better of it and kept running, choosing instead to shout a warning over his shoulder as he sped away:

"THEY'RE COMING! RUN!"

"I know that man..." December said suddenly. "Stop him."

Hars signaled to Emerson, who was directly in the fleeing trio's path. Emerson started running...

...and executed a perfect flying tackle on the smallest of the three.

"YAAA-!"
WHUMP

-thud-

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!" the man screamed. Not shouted... but SCREAMED int Emerson's face. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!?"

The noise attracted the attention of the other two, who stopped running and turned-"

"SAVE YOURSELVES!" the tackled man shouted with obvious authority. "GO! WARN WHOEVER YOU CAN!"

"But-"

"THEY'RE COMING!!!!"

The man's two large companions took off running. By now, December and the others had caught up with Emerson.

"Greetings, Mr. Roff," December smiled down at the captive, who as squirming under Emerson Shaw's boot.

"YOU!" Roff hissed. "YOU! YOU DID THIS!"

"Who's this guy?" said Emerson.

"Believe it or not," December smiled. "You, Mr. Shaw, have captured one of the most elusive creatures on Iffrean: an honest politician."

"Really!?!" Emerson jerked his foot off of Roff's chest, as if the man were contagious.

"An utterly unsuccessful one, but honest nonetheless."

"Damn you! What have you done to my town!"

"Your town?" said December. "Then I am to assume that the fourth recount was decided in your favor? Or was that the fifth..."

"The mayor is DEAD! Everyone is DEAD! And so are WE if we don't get out of here!" Roff scrambled to his feet. But instead of running, he simply stared at something off to his left... the alley he'd just come running out of.

"OH MY GODS!" Roff screamed.

Everyone turned to look...

"Oh, that's just great," said Emerson when he saw what was coming. "Juussst wonderful."

[To Be Continued]