Captain Dahmer rushed back into the slaughter barn and slid the door shut, he was panting and visibly shaken. Bundy had paused from getting Frank into one of the pens to curiously and cautiously look around after the sound of the explosion.

"What the fuck?" Bundy yelled at Dahmer.

"Don't know. Something exploded and everyone's shooting at each other."

"B.4's are known to be aggressive," Frank said.

"Shut it," Bundy spat.

The humans in the facility were becoming agitated. Shuffling around in their pens, their dilated, drugged eyes wandering. A few wild bullets splintered wood on the side of the barn, allowing finger-thin shafts of smoky light from the floods to crisscross the interior.

Dahmer ducked and scrambled forward toward Bundy. "Fuck this! Shut it down," He said. "Shut it all down."

"Seriously?" Bundy asked, looking skeptical.

"It's not worth losing everything! Shut it down! We'll rebuild."

"We can take these guys. It's just a couple of fucking kids and some hillbilly chompers—"

"We don't know that. It could be a coordinated attack. We need to get that bikini bitch and get out! This is too important! Shut it the fuck down!" The tendons in Dahmer's neck looked like they might snap.

Bundy shook his head but got on his walkie and said, "Code black! Code fucking black! Game over. Collect the asset then evacuate to the hangar!"

As the soldiers inside the barn got their orders they started to move. The first course of action was making sure the humans didn't revolt. Bundy pushed Frank aside, Dahmer grabbing his cuffed wrists.

"Don't run," he said.

Meanwhile, Bundy and the other soldiers in the barn trained their weapons on the pens and opened fire.

The people jiggled and danced, shoulder to shoulder appearing like a mosh-pit at one of the metal shows Frank used to attend.

Blood spray and screams filled the air as heads were torn apart, bodies shredded, and beating hearts stopped. The bodies slumped over one another lazily, the timing of it all looking choreographed—as though the slow languorous movements were deliberately designed to juxtapose the frenzied energy in the room.

Before long, all the living were among the dead.

A few who'd unintentionally avoided head shots stirred and began to get back up, but they were quickly dispatched with a final slug to the brain.

Frank stood in horror; his knees buckled at the weight of what he'd just witnessed.

In his mind, he'd pictured himself as the hero, freeing all these hapless souls from their prison, leading them triumphantly out of the base with a bloody fist raised over his head in victory. Onward they'd go, to start civilization anew.

Well. Not now.

"Jesus," Frank said.

"Protocol," Dahmer said succinctly as he scanned the room, looking a bit scared. "Bundy!"

Bundy rushed over from one of the pens, keeping low as the sound of gunfire continued outside.

"Get the men mobilized and over by the back door. We've got to neutralize whatever the fuck it is that's causing all of this."

"No shit, Ben," Bundy railed. "What the fuck do you think we're doing?"

Dahmer looked at the ground, then held his empty hands out before him. He looked at his dry, cracked palms. His knuckles popped as he curled his fingers into white fists and put them up to his temples. "Jesus fuck! Is it that girl? Those fucking back-woods zombies? We're supposed to be the professionals here. How does something like this even happen?"

"Well, in our defense," Bundy said, "we've done pretty well thus far." He motioned to the piles of dead humans.

"How does that matter now, Bundy?" Dahmer shouted. Something was snapping inside his brain. "We're under attack here and I'm losing my grip. I can't do this. I never wanted this. I wasn't supposed to be in charge. Fuck. What? Just because I was the guy with the biggest RV you guys all thought I was your leader. I was in the National Guard for fuck sake! I never saw combat! Goddamn. I organized a hunting club, I was a fucking soccer dad, I managed a furniture store. I'm not built for this."

Bundy slapped Dahmer hard. "Come on Ben, get it together."

Dahmer did not get it together. "Did you hear that fucking explosion? That was... massive. Someone's trying to take us out and from what I saw outside... I think they're going to succeed."

"God, you are some kinda pussy, Ben," Bundy said, shaking his head with profound disappointment. "This is not good. Not good at all."

"What? You wanna take ov-" But Dahmer's words were cut short when Bundy shoved his gun into Dahmer's open mouth and pulled the trigger. The shot—just a foot from Franks head—set his ears ringing. Dahmer fell back, his head hitting the hard floor, sounding like someone dropped a bowling ball.

"Protocol," Bundy said. "Jeez. That fucking guy. Okay. Looks like I'm in charge now."

Torrents of blood were streaming across the concrete barn floor toward the drain at the center. Fresh blood, gushing from the ruined heads of all the captive humans. Bundy pulled off a glove and pushed his palm into the flow. He brought it up to his face and sucked his fingers.

"Goddamn," Frank said, repulsed.

Bundy looked up, meeting Frank's eyes, seeing him as though for the first time. "Shit. I almost forgot about you," he said, raising the gun level with Frank's nose. "So long, Breather," he said.

Frank closed his eyes and gritted his teeth waiting for the bullet that would put an end to all this nonsense. He heard the shot... but felt nothing. He opened his eyes in time to see Bundy with a section of the top of his head missing, collapse in a heap.

Frank's eyes darted around the room and saw Emily, machine gun in hand, snaking through the tables and fallen bodies.

She slid across the floor to where Frank was sitting. She was splattered in blood and gore, her knees bleeding profusely, her eyes full of fire. She scooted next to Frank as more gunfire rang out in the barn. Flecks of debris pelted their faces as Emily overturned one of the metal tables and pulled Frank behind it, using a short blade she produced from nowhere to cut the plastic cuffs.

"Your survival instincts are shit," she yelled over the sounds of discharging weapons. She reached around the table like a flash, grabbing Bundy's rifle. She handed it to Frank. "Fuckin' take this and be ready. We're shooting our way out of here," she said, expertly replacing her spent clip with a new one she'd had wedged in the hem of her filthy shorts.

"God, I am so wet right now," she said, letting her internal monologue slip out. She was born for battle—had fought and lost every day of her life—and now, she had found her place in the world, with her finger poised over the trigger of a high-powered weapon.

She'd found a fight she could win.

Frank imagined Emily could be the one to get the world back on its feet.

"Where's Tristen?" Frank asked breathlessly.

"I got him out. I didn't want to split up, but he pissed himself and froze. Literally pissed himself. He's hiding—should be fine. I hope. He's cute and all but kinda worthless." She popped up over the table and let loose a few rounds then ducked back next to Frank. "After they brought you out, I knew something was fucked up. They're all fucking zombies, you know that?"

"Yeah. Dahmer told me."

"Your buddy? See? I fucking told you we couldn't trust these ass-bags."

"How'd you find out?" Frank asked Emily, her eyes darting around the edge of the table her face hardened and tight. She fired a few more shots.

"When I stabbed one in the heart, he barely flinched."

"What?"

"That's how I knew they weren't real military—not the stabbing part—but I had a knife in my boot the whole time and they never even checked. After they took you outside, and I was at the table in the back, that shitbag you were talking to, Sargent Gacy, came over and started asking me all kinds of shit that didn't make sense. Like if I was a virgin or if I'd ever had a blood disease or some shit. Then the guy gives me the fuck me eyes after he asked if I was shaved down there so I pulled out my knife and shoved it into his chest. Used everything I had you know. Like I seriously jammed that fucker in there right between the ribs up to the hilt. He just looked down at it. Then looked back at me all pissed off and fucking smacked me off the chair."

"Jesus."

"Right? Then he goes to put me back with Tristen and that's when everything started fucking exploding all over the place. One soldier stayed with us while Gacy and the others rushed out of the tent. Gacy just pulled out my knife and left it on the table. So, when the guy that stayed with us was distracted, I grabbed my knife and just went off on his skull. Just kept stabbing and stabbing until his face looked like a kicked in pumpkin."

"You are fucking scary, you know that?"

"Yeah. I do." Emily said, cracking a wicked smile. "So, I got Tristen out and sent him in the opposite direction the soldiers were going. It was all I could think to do. I just needed to find Roy." She looked over at Frank. "And you, I guess."

"Always the afterthought."

Bullets hit the stainless-steel table with a high-pitched ring throwing white sparks. A second later, what sounded like an airhorn blew outside the barn walls.

"Go, go, go!" they heard a soldier shout from somewhere in the cavernous structure. The gunfire had ceased and the sound of boots splashing through the blood filled the air.

Emily peaked around the side of the table. "They're leaving," she said, confusion dripping from her lips. "Out a back door. In a hurry."

"Was that an alarm?" Frank asked.

Not a second later, a cacophonous roar of splitting wood and snapped hinges bombarded Frank and Emily like an oncoming train. A transportation truck had careened headlong through the barndoors, heading directly for them.

"Down!" Emily screamed and reflexively slapped a hand on Frank's forehead and pushed, slamming the back of his head hard on the concrete floor. Colorful lights burst in his eyes as he vaguely registered seeing headlights and the underside of the truck zip over his face.

The sound was huge, like a living thing, enveloping the two, joined by a flurry of sharp, broken wood and random debris. Frank felt several cuts open on his arms and cheeks as the truck's chassis completed its journey toward the opposite wall just a handful of inches from Frank and Emily's noses.

The tires screeched and shuddered as the monstrous beast of a machine came to a grinding halt—a mass of crushed debris settling over the front bumper and grill.

Frank and Emily looked at each other, huffing and panting like they'd just had marathon sex. Frank shuddered. Emily's eyes were huge and watery. New cuts on her face were turning from pale pink to dark red as the blood began to trickle.

"Fuck!" she said beathing heavily. "Sorry 'bout your head."

"Used to it," Frank grumbled.

Emily rolled over onto her stomach and pulled the stock of her gun to her shoulder, aiming the barrel at the back of the smoking truck just as the driver side door swung open with an earsplitting creak.

"Fucking Jane!" Emily exclaimed, lowering the gun and cracking a sideways grin.

"Makes sense," Frank groaned as he attempted to sit up, the barn was spinning.

Jane rushed to the back of the truck, holding her own rifle at the ready. Her eyes fell on the piles of dead humans, clumped together in their pens then drifted down to the blood on the floor, soaking her bare feet. Her face scrunched up for an instant then she looked up and screamed, "Frank!"

"Present," he said, coughing and raising a hand.

Jane lowered her gun and started to run to where Frank was still struggling to sit upright—his arms and legs didn't seem to want to cooperate with the instructions his brain was giving.

She slipped in the blood-slick but managed to keep her feet and stutter stepped her way over, finally launching herself at him. Her arms wrapped around his neck and she buried her face in the crook below his chin. Franks arms, though slow to respond, returned the sentiment and wrapped themselves tightly around Jane's thin waist.

"Nice to see you too," Emily said, sneering.

Jane looked over, released her grip on Frank and hugged Emily warmly. "Fuck you, Emily," she said through a widening smile.

Frank touched the back of his head delicately. It was very wet. He could feel the warm rivulets of blood streaming down his spine. He felt extremely cold, and his vision tunneled into a single dot of light. He sloppily turned his head to the two girls, still embracing.

"Jane," he began. She looked over, her smile disintegrating into a horrified look of concern as she stared at his face—what little color she had under her pale skin, vanished. "Where are your pants?" he asked a second before his world went black.