The former dominion of King Edward, Vermont, The Time of Xir

Hell had come to earth.

The gates of the once proud kingdom lie shattered, splinters littering the ground as the defenders desperately fight back with whatever's left. Segments of the paling had been torn down, by weight of the Infected's numbers alone. Herd come pouring through every available gap in the defenses and the townsfolk rush forward to shore up the beleaguered line, knowing full well that this is a fight for all their lives. Gunfire and coofing echoes throughout the settlement as the two armies clash furiously.

Carol frantically rushes down the settlement's drag, pulling Tabitha behind her, allowing themselves to be swept up in the current of humanity heading towards what is left of the wall. Just ahead of them, a group of women begin dragging out a pitiful pack of men who had been hiding in one of the buildings. Throwing the men out into the street, one of the women begins beating them with the flat of a machete, driving them forward in the direction of the Herd. From the distance an enraged roar of a bear can be heard, almost smothering every other sound with its intensity. Both the Herd and the settlement's defenders stop dead in their tracks, momentarily stunned by the ferocity behind the roar. But both sides recover quickly and go back to tearing away at each other.

"We're in luck." Carol pants as both she and Tabitha dash towards the doctor's office, "Looks like women have been given the job of rallying anyone here that can fight. No one will stop us from breaking in."

"Other than Bambi." Tabitha groans, her eyes locked on to the hunter as he pushes his way through the crowd, "That deer head is still sweeping back and forth though. I don't think we've been spotted yet."

"More good news." Carol cheers as she uses the rifle to shoot out a window of the doctor's office, "God hasn't abandoned us after all."

Carol nimbly vaults into the clinic before helping the injured Tabitha pass through the shattered window, noting with alarm the cold sweat soaking her friend through.

"After everything that has happened, I don't think God gives a shit about any of us." Tabitha opines, wheezing in pain from the effort.

"Don't say that." Carol gently reprimands as she marches towards a nearby medicine cabinet, "God has provided, hasn't he?"

Tabitha slumps against the wall, grimacing as she responds, "If this is considered providing, God is pretty lousy at being, uh, himself."

"I can't make sense of the medicine here." Carol mutters in exasperation, "Will any of this stuff help?"

"It'll have to do." Tabitha bites out as she stumbles towards the cabinet, looking over Carol's shoulder, "Can't operate on the wound with the Herd on the warpath outside. Need to stop the bleeding here first, then find a safe spot to do the rest."

"So bandages then?" Carol suggests as she rifles through the cabinet's contents.

"No." Tabitha begins giving orders, the familiar setting calming her nerves considerably, "There's a bottle of reddish powder to your left. Mandarin labeling on the bottle. Pass it over here."

"This one?" Carol fishes out the bottle Tabitha referred to, her eyes trying to work out the meaning of the moon runes.

"Yeah. Pass that over here." Tabitha sighs with relief, "The so-called King managed to get some of the good stuff at least. Small blessings I suppose?"

"What's that stuff do anyway?" Carol asks curiously.

"Our doctors worked out how to make a real life healing potion some years back." Tabitha grunts as she unscrews the bottle, "It was a gel and you were meant to pour it into a wound. Give it a few minutes and the wound would seal up. The medicine was issued to soldiers and the like. Didn't take long for China to make their own off brand copy once the stuff got out in the wild."

"Off brand medication doesn't sound very safe." Carol objects as Tabitha lies down on a nearby table, not bothering about getting blood everywhere, "And that's not even a gel."

"No, its not safe in the slightest." Tabitha agrees as she steadies herself, "The Chinese could not get the formula right. Or maybe they deliberately changed it, I don't know. But the Chinese version became much more popular, even among the military. They began ordering the stuff from China in secret and ditching the real deal medicine that was being officially supplied."

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"But why?" Carol asks, now completely confused.

"The off brand copy had one advantage." Tabitha says before gritting her teeth and dumping the powder straight into the sucking wound in her gut, "It works immediately."

As the powder makes contact with the wound, there's a hissing noise and smoke begins to bellow out of the crater. Tabitha shrieks in pain and she would have fallen from the table if Carol had not been able to catch her in time. An acrid stench fills Carol's nose as she sees dull sparks rise from the mass of powder just applied by Tabitha. The powder begins to harden and scab over the wound, sealing it and stopping the blood loss completely.

"Was the wound set on fire?" Carol questions disbelievingly.

"Something like that." Tabitha manages to hiss from between her teeth, "Its part of the chemical reaction the off brand uses. Painful, but can't be helped."

"So, what next?" Carol says, nervously looking out of the broken window, alert for any trouble.

"Stay on guard." Tabitha directs as she picks herself up from the table, "I'll start packing the surgical instruments needed to remove the bullet and properly handle the wound."

"Right." Carol confirms before turning back to the broken window and occasionally glancing at the clinic's main door, rifle at the ready. In the background, she hears Tabitha rummaging about somewhere deeper withing the building. From the broken window Carol sees a man riding a horse, charging full tilt in the direction of the wall while enthusiastically blasting away with a revolver. Hardly a minute later and the horse is fleeing back in the direction it came from, its rider nowhere to be seen. As Carol swallows hard at the scene, a clattering noise rises from somewhere behind her.

"Tabitha?" Carol whirls around, yelling into the darkness.

"Sorry." Tabitha's muffled, tired voice replies, "Dropped something just now. Must be weak from the blood loss."

"Try to hurry." Carol's voice wavers slightly as she barely manages to keep panic at bay, "I think the Herd is getting closer."

"Almost done." Tabitha weakly answers.

"HEY!" an angry shout from the broken window demands Carol's attention, "ARE YOU LOOTING THIS PLACE?"

Carol turns back to the broken window and sees the woman armed with the machete standing outside glaring at her. But more concerning is the pistol in the woman's free hand, aimed squarely at Carol's chest.

"Listen, my friend's hurt ..." Carol begins to explain but the woman cuts her off.

"Just get out here and join the fight! We need everyone to hold the Herd back!"

"But ..." Carol stutters at this unexpected confrontation.

"No buts!" the woman demands, "Now move or I'll be moving you!"

The woman gestures threateningly with the pistol, but she suddenly snaps backward, her head exploding in a cloud of gore accompanied by the explosive crack of a rifle. As the woman falls to the ground headless, Carol catches a glimpse of a man wearing a mask made out of deer heads sidling back into cover behind a wall. A loose circle of feral Infected begin to form around the doctor's office.

"Damn it." Carol curses as she fires a short burst from the rifle. She had never had any interest in guns and had hardly trained before. Sound and fury was all she could bring to bear against the Herd. But that sound and fury was enough to draw a hooting cry from Bambi, causing the feral Infected to fall back to a safer distance.

"A coward huh?" Carol comments to herself, swallowing hard, "Not that I have any right to complain."

Bambi might have been held at bay by her display of defiance, but Carol knew that she and Tabitha were still in a really bad position. The moment they tried to make a run for it, they would be an easy target for Bambi's rifle. Carol bites her lip in consternation as her baby starts crying again, annoyed by the barking of the gun.

A crash interrupts Carol's musings as a molotov cocktail is sent flying through the window at the opposite end of the room. As the projectile shatters and begins spreading flame across the floor, Carol spots Bambi running past the window, heading to the rear of the clinic.

"No! Fire!" Tabitha cries out in accompaniment with the breaking of glass.

With little time to lose, Carol runs towards where her friend's voice is coming from, as the flames begin to devour the clinic ...