The groans and whimpers of the injured and dying filled St Mary’s.

The floor and pillars of the church were covered in blood. The survivors, their fighting spirit broken, followed the orders they were given. Morgan, Forge and Annabel forced those that could move to get to their knees, and lined them up in front of the altar.

There’d been thirty people in the church when Gary had entered, including the five teenagers and the four infected. Now, three of them were dead, two of them twisted and broken from Forge’s throw, and the third a headless, disgusting mess.

Jonathan had created an impromptu triage area in the north transept, having dragged the injured to one side during the fight and staying out of it himself. The man that Annabel had run through with her sword was gasping and panting on his back, blood pooling beneath him. Gary doubted he had long left.

Jonathan had stopped the teenager’s chopped arm from spurting blood by covering it with his torn shirt. The teenager was ashen-faced and in shock as his eyes went from his stump to his hand on the floor ,and back again. The woman Morgan had stabbed in the eye was sitting against a pillar, either passed out or dead.

Chantelle was moaning in pain as Jonathan tried to tend to her wrist. The teenager that Gary had infected, Mikey, was staring hopelessly at the bite in his leg. He’d thrown up onto the stone floor in front of him, some of the puke splattering across his suit. He was in too much shock to move.

Gary switched off the part of his mind that should have been horrified by everything he was seeing. Instead, he went into analytical mode, detaching himself. It wasn’t easy to do, but he had no choice.

If any of them were to survive this madness, he needed to come up with a plan.

That was five injured and three dead. One infected, which made a total of five infected, adding the priest, the couple and Joan, the doctor.

During the fight, the four infected on the pew had watched with lethargic helplessness, their breathing becoming shallower as the infection spread through their body. They sat there now, sweating and ignored.

Morgan and the others were focussed on getting the living in line.

Of the remaining seventeen, over half were nursing serious cuts and bruises. These were in the under forty age range. They got to their knees, one or two of them whimpering. None of them had any fight left in them.

Seven others, most of them over fifty, had sustained fewer injuries on account of being less inclined to join in the fight. The older crowd were trying to help the injured, or just looking at the devastation with abject terror in their eyes.

Morgan pulled them away from those too injured to move and forced them to join the others on their knees.

Fear, pain and confusion had beaten all of them down. The violence had escalated so quickly that no-one had been prepared for what had happened.

Morgan, Forge and Annabel had, for their part, sustained negligible injuries. A couple of scrapes here and there. Even the screwdriver that had stabbed Morgan in the neck seemed to have had little effect. Still, they were breathing hard. They hadn’t fully recovered from fighting the zombie horde earlier, which had left their armour in tatters and, Gary suspected, their mana points drained.

Gary noted that the wound on Morgan’s neck was still bleeding.

I mean, that should have killed him, Gary thought. According to even the basic laws of biology, a screwdriver stabbed into your neck will kill you or seriously injure you.

But the rules of reality had been changed just a few short hours ago. One of those changes was that the stronger you were, the less you were going to be affected by injuries.

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Gary took all of this in, forcing back his nausea at the death and blood all around him. He had a feeling that, as bad as this was, things were about to get much worse, and he needed a plan.

His eyes locked on Jonathan’s.

The other man glared at him, his expression clearly stating, “What the fuck?”

Gary tried to indicate that he was as shocked as the teacher was, holding up his hands, his eyes wide.

Jonathan was the last to be forced to join the group of seventeen people. They were placed in two rows, all on their knees, in front of the altar. Jonathan tried to resist, but Forge punched him in the face and dragged him to the kneeling group.

As he fell to his knees, his eyes met Gary’s again. He spat blood from his broken lip, glaring at Gary.

If there had been any trust and rapport building between them in the short time they’d known each other, the events of the last five minutes had wiped it out.

The shocking acts of the mercenaries had taken Gary aback more than anything else. They’d been treating the lives of the people in the church as if they were worthless. To Morgan, it had seemed funny as he had fought with them. Forge had acted as if he was stomping on insects, and Annabel had seemed more irritated than anything else.

Gary had known that they were self-centred. He hadn’t expected such callousness from them.

One of the older gentlemen in his late fifties tried to struggle to his feet. Annabel placed her sword on his shoulder, and he stayed where he was.

Gary gazed at the tableaux, the mercenaries standing tall and domineering above the broken and battered civilians on their knees. Even as he was trying to be analytical about what was happening, he couldn’t help but feel a chill in his bones.

Because he knew what this looked like. This was more than trying to control a crowd that had gone berserk.

This looked like an execution line up.

He wasn’t the only person who had realised this.

“Please, stop this,” a querulous voice spoke up. “You are in the lord’s house. This is a holy place...”

Father Andrews stood up. He was wobbling, his face pale and sweating, but despite the infection burning through his body, he tried to make a stand.

He hobbled towards Forge, “You will not be forgiven for your actions here, my son. There will be no mercy for you in the eyes of the...”

The priest’s head bounced between the group of kneeling survivors.

Annabel had taken it off with one clean stroke.

Screams erupted from the group as the priest’s head rolled through them and his body fell to the ground. Morgan screamed at everyone to shut up, unless they wanted to be next. Neither he nor Forge had even blinked as Annabel had beheaded the priest.

They’re gone, Gary thought, they’re completely gone. Maybe they were heroes once, maybe they fought in the war, but they’re irredeemable now.

If it hadn’t been clear to Gary before, it was now.

Gary glanced sideways at Rain. She was observing everything, but he couldn’t read what she might be thinking about the events taking place.

“Okay, right. Has everyone calmed the fuck down now?” Morgan spat. He rubbed the side of his neck where he’d been stabbed. The bleeding had ceased.

It might not have killed him, but it hurt, Gary thought.

“Or does anyone else feel like trying to be a hero here? Fucksake. We came in here to help you, and this is the thanks we get? You’re pathetic, all of you. You’re nothing but fodder for the dead. You know that?”

“Let’s finish this,” Forge rumbled. “We’re done here.”

Morgan nodded. He flicked his hand at Gary with a ‘come here’ gesture.

Gary could guess what was coming next, but he didn’t want to believe it to be true.

Just how far gone are they? He wondered.

He walked towards Morgan, betraying nothing with his facial expression. Morgan met him halfway from the group.

“What a mess, right?” Morgan said.

His tone was comradely, almost apologetic. As if he was talking to Gary as an equal. Gary already knew that Morgan had the gift of a silver tongue. He wasn’t surprised that Morgan was trying a switch to a friendly approach now.

“Yeah,” Gary said, “That was bad...”

“We’ve seen this all before,” Morgan continued, “People losing their minds. Fear and panic making them stupid. Driving them crazy. These lot won’t last five minutes out there, you know.”

Morgan was keeping his voice low, not wanting the survivors to hear what he was saying. Gary still said nothing, waiting to hear Morgan’s pitch. He knew it was coming, but he was buying time as he formulated a desperate plan.

“And to be fair,” Morgan continued, “They started it when they attacked you, didn’t they? And that’s got to be a worry, hasn’t it? I mean, if all the living are going to see you as a zombie, even though you aren’t, you know, this kind of thing is going to keep happening.”

“Stay DOWN!” Forge’s voice interrupted them.

One of the kneeling survivors had tried to get to their feet. Forge slammed a fist down on his shoulder and squeezed hard. The man screamed in agony and fell back to his knees.

“Morgan,” Forge said, “Hurry this up. I’ve already had a bellyful of this backwater reality. It stinks.”

Morgan nodded back at Forge.

“Let’s get to the point, shall we, Gary?”

He produced a knife from his stash.

“It’s time for you to level up.”