"Time for the Final boss perhaps?" Ares wondered as he drew a card.

Aphrodite nodded. "Her parents," she remarked with serious look.

"What?" Ares squinted at her.

Aphrodite smiled at him.

“You know, sometimes I think we’re playing different games,” he told her.

Aphrodite shook her head. “It’s all the same game.”

“Hmm.” Ares laid three cards down.

Artemis leaned over to look. “Extra strength to all walkers, instant reanimation, and another TWO THOUSAND walkers! Oh that’s a lot. Do we even have that many bodies in close enough proximity?”

Ares nodded. “Counting the older dead. We’ll need to reuse some of the more recent ones though. We can do that. It’s in the rules. There’s a radius extension card somewhere in the items deck but if we do run out of bodies in the currently designated area then some of the walkers get a speed bonus. Luckily I think we have just enough, although some of them are buried quite close to the town.”

“What about using the luck card for a redraw?” Artemis asked. Even she was worried about that many zombies.

Ares thought about it for a moment and then shook his head. “Not yet.”

An unconcerned Aphrodite pulled a large red strawberry from a small black pouch and nibbled on it, her tongue tickling the delicate seeds that adorned it’s outside. With her other hand she fanned her own set of cards wide and studied their wording intently.

“Does anyone want some more popcorn?” Hades asked. Then he frowned down at his own hand. “Hold on, what’s wrong with this character?”

Down below, the door rattled again.

Casey lifted her head up off Dodge’s soft chest and looked worriedly at the door. She half expected her mother’s voice to come through at any moment, demanding that Casey unlock the door. Faith never liked the doors to be locked.

Dodge propped herself up on one elbow and stared silently in the same direction as Casey was looking. Her face was inches from Casey’s and Casey could hear her slow breaths, even-paced and relaxed.

No words travelled through the door. Then came a soft groan and the door rattled harder.

At the sound of the groan, Dodge shot off the bed and reached for her trousers. As quietly and quickly as she could, she got dressed.

The banging grew louder.

“Who’s there?” Casey asked in a soft, fearful voice.

Dodge turned to her, wide-eyed as she pulled on her shirt. She shook her head and held a finger to her lips.

The groans outside the door turned to growls and the hinges creaked.

Casey’s heart started beating faster. There was something worse than her mother outside that door.

Dodge threw her clothes at her. “Get dressed,” she whispered frantically.

A crack formed in the wood of the door.

“They can’t get in, surely?” Casey asked, as her fingers flew over buttons.

Dodge, now fully dressed and armed, inched closer to the door. She held up one hand to indicate that Casey stay back.

The door shuddered and shook. Dust rained down from the ceiling above. And then suddenly all fell silent.

Casey looked up from where she was lacing up her brown boots, and she caught sight of her own worried reflection in the mirror. Such a weak waif like thing, she thought. She was surprised at that. Was that what she thought of herself now? She frowned and was once more surprised, this time at the determined look on her reflection’s face. Was that her too? There were frown lines there now, but although she still noticed them, she was pleased to find that they no longer quite bothered her as much. How could anything bother her after the events of the last few hours? Except, whatever was outside that door. Suddenly she realised she didn’t want Dodge going first. But Casey had no weapon. She needed a weapon. She gave her reflection one last decisive look and then she tore her gaze away, and she stood up, intent on finding something she could use to protect the one she loved.

As Casey took a step toward Dodge and Dodge took one step closer toward the exit of the room, the door was suddenly thrown off it’s hinges, and into the room stumbled the dark-haired priest. Only, Jimmy wasn’t looking very much like himself now.

His eye sockets drooped with gravity, making his eyes wide, highlighting the red veins that reached for his dark irises. His eyeballs had not yet yellowed but they bulged like over-sized moons. A thin rope-sized red mark and purple bruising, all recently acquired, ran a ring around his neck. His head leaned to one side, floppy like a new-born baby, but his teeth were distinctly adult and they grinded together while his lips bared back. His hands hung loose at the wrist. His elbows were stiffly bent. He breathed with his whole body, making a slight whistling sound as the air didn’t quite flow where it normally should. Not all of the walkers breathed, for some, it simply seemed to be a habit they could not shake even in death.

The priest paused just long enough for Dodge to start lifting her pistol. Then he lunged.

Dodge fired. Dodge dodged.

Casey leapt back onto her bed, boots and all, as the priest came right towards her.

She skirted around the creature, jumping off the end of the bed and heading toward where the mirror stood, not far from the door. As she passed the window a scream sounded from out in the street. She glanced out to see the streets filling with stumbling, decaying bodies and Mrs Henderson right in the middle with several creatures grabbing onto her skirts, trying to pull her down. Behind her, the butcher attempted to knock them off. But for every undead he got, more came, and soon the butcher himself was overcome. Teeth sank into his ankle, and faster than Casey had ever seen, the butcher underwent a transformation. His weapons fell to the ground, his movement slowed, parts of him sagged. With multiple uneven jerky movements and a fixed grin, he turned and faced his wife.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Mrs Henderson was still trying to fend them off. Her bulky skirts and multi-layered fabrics has thus far allowed her some extra protection but as she saw her husband turn to face her, her fighting grew less vigorous. And then he was upon her, bringing her along with him, and into a brave, new, very hungry, world.

“Arrgh!” Hades cursed. “Two characters down and no redraws.”

“You’ve still got Billy,” Aphrodite reminded him, before taking a long sip out of a straw she’d recently plunged into the centre of a pineapple.

“Billy! Even your Casey’s got more kills than Billy.” Hades sunk his his head into the palm of his hands. “And I’m already last on points.”

“Oh, cheer up,” Artemis told him, “At least there’s still a chance I might beat Ares for once.”

Ares snorted, “Not while James the Bear still lives you won’t.”

Artemis rechecked her cards. “The battle’s young.”

“Now, now...” Aphrodite started and then paused to burp. She covered her mouth with one hand. “Opps.” She giggled and then blushed. No one commented so she continued. “Remember that one game where we tried to beat each other too early and then ended up all losing? We don’t want that to happen again. We must work together.”

Dodge, caked in shadow, backed up against the wall opposite the bed and lined up another shot. Casey slipped along the adjacent wall, past the back of the free-standing mirror, and towards the exit. She bumped the back of the mirror as she moved past, causing the light in the room to shift.

The reflections grabbed the priest’s attention and he stumbled right past Dodge, allowing her what would have been an excellent shot. However the shift of the light temporarily blinded her and she missed by an inch.

The priest ran right toward the mirror.

Casey slipped out from behind and her eyes widened as she saw what was coming for her.

Dodge, not wanting to hit Casey accidentally, holstered her weapon, and moved toward the priest. She grabbed him by the back of the collar, and knowing that it was always easier to help something along in the direction it was going than it was to fight it, she put her weight behind him, and threw him right into the mirror with a loud CRASH!

The mirror shattered. Shards of glass fell to the floor.

Casey yelped and leapt further out of the way. A thousand faces looked up at her from the floor.

Dodge put a bullet in the priest’s head. He lay still, face down.

“I guess mirrors do eat people after all,” was all Casey could think to say.

Dodge gave an involuntary half laugh and then shook her head. “That was no person, not anymore.” She stared down seriously at the priest a moment longer, and then she frowned. She knelt down close to his unmoving body.

Casey watched warily, half expecting him to rise up again at any moment.

A CRASH sounded from somewhere downstairs.

Casey turned, thoughts of her parents in trouble flooded her mind. When she looked back to Dodge she found she was being handed a sleek looking silver pistol.

“For you.” Dodge thrust the gun at her. “And this.” She handed Casey a leather ammo belt.

“Where did you get those?” Casey asked as she took them. She draped the ammo belt over herself so it ran from one shoulder to the opposite hip. It fit her well.

Dodge pointed at the downed priest. “From him.”

Casey frowned. “I never saw him carrying a gun before.”

“He didn’t did he?” Dodge shrugged. “He must have changed his mind. Anyway, it’s of no use to him now.”

Somewhere up above, and a world away, Aphrodite smiled.

The two girls ventured into the rest of the building. Dodge shot a couple of undead that had made their way into the main area of the saloon. Then they headed in the direction of the kitchen where they found Faith trying to fight off one lone creature with a cast iron frying pan.

Casey shot it just as it reached chomping teeth toward her mother’s neck.

Her mother looked up with relief in her eyes. “Casey...”

“No time,” Dodge remarked as she looked out the back window. She frowned. “They’re all spread out. Why are they so spread out?”

Casey stepped up beside her. She shook her head. “They won’t be for long, and that last one was stronger. It broke the door down all by itself. Imagine, when they all get close...”

“We need to get out of here,” Dodge agreed. Her gaze found the horse paddock, horses still waiting. The path to them was mostly clear, at least for now.

Casey turned to her mother, but before she could ask her question, an undead entered though the internal door. Casey jumped in surprise and then shot it. She stared down at it a moment and then turned back to her mother to try again. “Where’s father?”

“He’s out fighting in the street with the others.”

“We need to go,” Dodge reminded them. She grabbed Casey’s hand. “Ready?” She glanced back toward Faith. “You too. When I say run, we run, toward the horses. Okay? RUN!”

Together they sprinted from the house.

Out in the street Mitchell put a bullet in the butcher. “Sorry old friend.” Suddenly he found himself yanked off his feet and backwards, just in time to miss being hit by the incoming leap of runner.

Someone stood him upright and he glanced back to find it was James the Bear who had just saved his life.

From a few metres away, Five pistols Jack shot the runner, and two more behind it.

Knuckles rode in on a horse. “There’s more coming, from all around the town. Loads more. We’re gonna be goners boys if we can’t clean em up faster than we currently are, and I mean a LOT faster. Someone needs to get that noise contraption and lure them out.”

The fair-haired priest shook his head. “Trevor already went for it, but he’s not back yet, and that was awhile ago now.”

“Then we need to all get out of here. I just saw one of them creatures bust down the Prebble’s front door and that thing was built by Willy. It’s more study than anything else we might think to hide behind.”

“What? And let the town fall?!” replied Mitchell.

“Well, suit yourself, but I’m getting out of here.” From a farmhouse near the edge of town, Knuckles had found a scythe. He gathered up his reins, and with the scythe he galloped down the street, taking heads off as he went.

Around them, the crowd grew slowly bigger. They needed to make a choice, and soon.

Billy dashed out from an alleyway and joined them in the middle of the street.

He nearly got bit but James the Bear grabbed the thing off him and punched a hole right clean through it’s head. He grabbed three more and tore their heads clean off. One bit him in wrist but he just laughed and took a swig from his canteen. He wobbled a little but he never fell.

The other men continued their fighting too, all the while aware that the clock was ticking.

“We need another plan,” cried Mitchell.

“What about the church?” asked Billy from his position in the middle of the group. He didn’t have any weapons and knew not how to fight but he held his ground, knowing he was no better off anywhere else.

Mitchell shook his head. “That door is just wood, and older than most others here. It’d be a death trap.”

“No, I mean, what about if we blow the church up. Remember how we moved all the black powder there for centralised storage two days ago? What if we lured them all there and then lit the match?”

“You’d still have to get them all there,” replied Pete between kills. “And Trevor still hasn’t come back with that noise contraption.”

“We could use the bell, like last time but intentionally,” replied Billy.

“Who’s gonna ring it?” asked Jack. “They’d be trapped in there when the thing exploded.”

Billy opened his mouth, “I-”

The fair-haired priest cut him off. “I’ll do it.”

“What!? Exclaimed several voices.

The priest nodded, a serious look on his face. “I’ll do it. You just have to get me there, and then get yourselves away.”

The priest looked so serious and certain that no one objected.

They all looked at the gap between themselves and the church. Perhaps 50 odd hungry bodies lay between them and those wooden doors. It would be difficult but they could do it.

They fought their way down the street, inch by inch. James the Bear led the way, tearing into the undead with his bare hands and throwing them aside like paper balls. The others followed, picking the creatures off with well-aimed blasts. Even Pete was more accurate than usual today.

As they reached the church door they were pleased to find that the area toward this side of town was slightly more clear than that behind them. Escape would be possible.

Just beyond town a small group of riders was trying to fight their way back in.

Mitchell squinted and stared at one of the riders he recognised, although he could not believe it. “Faith?” he wondered aloud. His wife was seated on his own horse brandishing a borrowed gun and taking out the undead alongside Casey and Dodge.

“Now go!” urged the priest to the others as he slipped inside the church.

The men joined the three riders and not long after that, they were all further joined with the lucky few townsfolk who had also come to the realisation fast enough that they were no longer safe holed up in the town.

The group fought their way further out of town, collecting up the odd loose horse on the way.

Behind them the town was filled with the screams of the slow, mixed in with the general hum of moans, and finally they heard the sound of a bell starting to ring.