To say that there was a buzz back at Truespear was an understatement. By the time the three of us burst from the treeline, wheezing and gasping from the pain of the stitch in our sides the population had certainly swelled, to say the least.

As far as I could tell everyone who we had released from Marx's voodoo pit had made it back in one piece and were being greeted by friends, family and even perfect strangers who were weeping at the sight of the all safe and sound. From somewhere on my left a loud thud signified that Jasmine had now de-beared and was now lying face down in the dirt. She was perfectly fine, she just needed a moment and let's be honest, who could blame her?

Lilian and her daughter were stood in the centre of the carnage, slack-jawed in amazement as their eyes fixed on us. Well, Lillian's eyes did. Her daughter had other priorities.

"JAS!" She shrieked and sprinted opened armed towards her girlfriend who had regained her composure and happily got crushed in Tulip's bear hug, both of them sobbing tears of pure joy.

With Sheria and I propping the other up we watched the two limp away to a makeshift medical bay that had been quickly constructed in an abandoned chemist, never letting go of each other for a second. It made being a puppet for a psychopath with a scalpel was seem a bit more worth it.

"You did it." Lillian tore her eyes away and fixed those piercing green lights onto us. "How did you do it?"

It took us a little while to explain what had happened, mainly because we were dragged, rather forcibly, into the medical tent by a short but terrifying nurse who reminded me of Miss Truchbull crossed with Gimli from Lord of the Rings. Oh, and she only spoke Welsh which is a wonderful language where ninety per cent of the words don't actually contain vowels.

Still, the story managed to get across just fine as Lillian went from a wee bit anxious and sweaty to slumped in a hastily fetched stool, wide-eyed and the colour of an overcooked cod.

"So basically, we may or may not have royally pissed the mini monster off enough to send the entire forces of his undead army after us," I said simply.

Lillian gulped, "why do you say that?"

"He's desperate," Sheira said a thermometer dangling from her lips. "This experiment of his is a gamble and it's one that isn't paying off."

"And he's just lost me. Public enemy numero uno and he just let us walk out the door."

"I wouldn't say that..." Sheria started to say. In all fairness, I did threaten to use his own element against him. "But I get your point. His head's on the line unless he pulls something of this scale off and he doesn't have long to prove himself."

Lillian nibbled her lip and nodded curtly. "Alright," she stood up, thigh-length coat sweeping around her and clapped her hands. The sound boomed around the walls. "Last evacuation will take place in an hour, be on that truck or stay here and defend our home. We've got a war coming to our front door."

She was halfway across the courtyard before Sheira and I, finally managing to wrestle away the nurse who was coming at me with the business end of her thermometer, caught up with her.

"Is there any way I can convince you to take the night off?" She said.

Not a chance in Hell, I thought. Instead, I said, "we know what's coming, we can help prepare the troops. If you'll allow it of course."

"You know I will." She glanced towards the packed infirmary and then to the gaping wound in the wall, "were going to need all the help we can get."

Sheira and I shared a glance. "Speaking of extra help, by any chance have you-"

"I'm afraid not," Lillian said. "We've been watching out for your friend all day and he hasn't shown up. We're just going to have to manage without him."

Was it me or was there a faint glimmer of worry in her eyes? I shoved the worries to the back of my head and beat them down with a very big mental stick, just to be sure.

Lillian sighed, "there's not much we can do about it," she said firmly. "All we have to do is prepare for what's coming tonight and well keep fighting until we can't fight no more. Understand?"

We both nodded, the situation suddenly becoming very, very real.

"Good. Now get prepared and take some rest. We've got till sunset and then all hell breaks loose."

And that is how Sheira and I found ourselves in the armoury/desecrated place of worship once again preparing for the onslaught of tonight. Of course, it was going to be a little different than the last time, specifically because we now have a giant gaping hole in the wall that's going to let all of the voodoo powered capture zombies waltz their way past our only defence.

It's going to be fabulous.

Of course, the only advantage I can really see is the fact that they're going to be siphoned in, which on the one hand will make them easier to kill off one by one, but let's be honest when has our luck ever blessed us with that sort of relief? Let's just say this could easily turn into Custer's last stand.

the second night in a row I found myself armouring up alongside my best friend and a bunch of strangers who were possibly going to die tonight. Pulled on the heavy, biker like leather armour and handed Incaendium over to the resident blacksmith to be sharpened alongside several of the axes, swords, heavy metal morningstar's and was appeared to be a set of cannonballs attached to a chain. I can only imagine how much that would hurt got smacked in the face with those beasties.

It was going to be a tough fight, and I knew that but even so, it was surprising to see Jasmine and Tulip walk into the building, both patched up not a scratch on them and looking ready to make sure the dead, well, stay dead. And turn Marx into a pincushion for good measure.

"Hey you two," I waved them over as I pulled on a pair of fingerless hide gloves. "I wasn't expecting to see you so soon."

Tulip practically laughed in my face. "If you think I'm gonna sit here and let other people have all the fun you've got another thing coming to you, city boy. And besides," she said with a shrug, "if I ever get my hands on that little bastard Marx he's gonna regret the day he was born. You get me?"

I was about to mention the fact that Marx was only eight years old and that would technically be counted as murder but, you know, girlfriend torture and all that.

I also didn't mention the fact that I still had Marx's voodoo doll. In fact, I haven't told anyone. Why should I? I know, I know, it could prove to be our only advantage against the little demon, but something didn't sit right with willingly torturing him. He's a monster. I know that I've seen it with my own eyes. But even though he's a psychopath but he's still a child. A child that isn't even out of primary yet.

I couldn't do it. His doll was insurance, nothing more, and while I fully admit that I may be forced to break his knees, it would only as a last resort. Tulip wouldn't wait for that, she'd snap his neck faster than anyone could yell stop so I hadn't told anyone besides Sheira and Jasmine, the latter of whom had vowed to never speak a word of what I had in my coat pocket.

"We need all hands on deck," Sheira said. "Suit up and take an espresso. It's going to be one long slog tonight."

Nightfall seemed to roll around all too quickly. It was like someone had flipped a switch, like they just thought, well I'm tired, time for lights out. If you hadn't known any better you would have said that the sun had been ripped out of the sky, or you'd just received a cricket bat to the head and been knocked out cold. And I can confirm that stuff hurts.

Tonight we were vertigo free as, you know, half the wall was gone and literally no one fancied being back up on what was essentially a Jenga tower. Well, those who were left at least. From the original two hundred, we were down to closer to fifty brave souls, the rest were either injured or had scarpered with their families.

Sheira and I stood in the throng of the crowd. She had a long javelin in each hand and a frosty, but determined expression on her face. I, on the other hand, had my sword and a shield to stab people from behind and a "Bracer of Flame", which let's be honest sounds like something from D&D but it apparently meant I could keep going for longer.

Excellent.

With the last slivers of light being swallowed by the horizon, Lillian stepped up onto a makeshift platform (A.K.A the pile of debris that no one had bothered to move) and rallied the troops.

"Ladies and gentlemen, warriors and fighters. We are here tonight to defend our home. To protect our families, our birthright and our ancestors. One of Molly's monsters has taken the memories of our dead from us. Desecrated their graves in the cruellest way possible and now its time to say no more!"

There was a cheer from the crowd that nearly blew my eardrums out.

"We will take back what's ours, rebuild our sanctuary and ensure that our children can feel safe here once more. And I assure you all," there was a look of a woman possessed. Her face was pale, her eyes bright and raging and there was a fury like no other. It was enough to make a man weepy. "That the beast that did this to us, to our history, will feel the agony that has never been seen in our world in all of humankind!"

Weepy, and scared. Very scared. Neither of us joined in with the raucous cheers, and I pushed the voodoo doll even deeper into my pocket. They had the right to do this, to feel angry and in need of revenge. But maybe I'm not that kind of person. Maybe I'm too soft.

But I'm not going to change that.

Then came the wait. Five minutes felt like an eternity as the adrenaline and nerves seemed to leap from person to person until everyone had a slight nervous twitch about them. One poor soul would occasionally shoot out a foot and accidentally kick the person in front. Another shot off a lightning bolt so her neighbour jumped a foot in the air. Birds hovered and swooped, predators prowled and herbivores stood watch, their bright eyes fixed on the horizon.

Crack.

The sound of a snapping twig that I was eighty per cent sure hadn't come from any of us rattled the night air which was a dead and lifeless as our adversaries. The twitching stopped instantly and a flare of energy, earth, air, fire, water and everything in between replaced it. We'd become the terracotta army.

The snap was followed by another and then another and then, like a great flood bursting the banks of a river came the army of the dead. There seemed to be too many to be allowed. What seemed to be millions of shambling corpses, more than there had been last night, to say the least, stumbled into view, their smell of decay acting like a punch to the face.

Mud clumped to their feet, moss fell from their skeletal frames like fuzzy capes, albeit not in a cute way, more like something had gone off in a fridge and was getting mouldy. Sliced chicken does this spectacularly. It's a second over the expiration date and suddenly it enters the realm of Doctor Suess.

Then came the living. The Husks (As they shall now be known), empty and dead and yet more alive than their compatriots. There were three more alongside the familiar faces, two women around my age and an older man, all clad in the same blank expression and thick, black leather armour. Two Sheira recognised as Louise and Isabelle, while the man, Desmond, was only recognisable from his picture on page six of The Daily Telegraph.

But Marx's face was the clearest. When his slender frame and wild white hair stepped forward from the crowd the tension could have been cut with an axe. Weapons were drawn, animals snarled and hissed and screeched and a spectrum of power burst to life. I couldn't see his face, but the hairs on the back of my neck stood to attention all the same.

You could have heard a pin drop.

Then, without a word, a war started.

With some blast of necrotic energy in Marx's grip, the horde didn't just shamble forward, they ran at us with frankly alarming speed. You wouldn't imagine the dead to put on quite a turn of speed but there you have it, sprinting zombies.

The charging party was met by a solid wall of iron and energy. Anyone that could produce a shield had been forcibly shoved to the front, with no small amount of protest, and now they were doing their job while the ranged attackers on high were lighting the crowd up like Christmas trees. It didn't take long for the first wave to be disintegrated but there was plenty more where that came from.

Every now and again a few pushed through the defensive wall but they didn't last long either. They were either hacked to bloody pieces, disembowelled/partially eaten by whatever creature happened to be nearest or blown to smithereens. I had already bisected one and burned the flesh of another while Sheira had created a lifesize death-flavoured ice lolly.

But if I'm being honest, they weren't the problem.

The Husks, ruthless and with no memory of who they were before, showed no mercy and attacked like savage beasts rather than human beings. I watched as Isabelle held a man aloft and pulled the blood from his veins while he howled in agony. I saw Louise slash a woman in half with a single gust of wind, while Anthony tried to drown someone, storms swirling above his head.

It wasn't long before the line of shields began to take a much more offensive position and started hacking and slashing. The crowd was in complete and utter chaos and proved that movies were wrong once again. Any flicker of a structure had been punched in the face and thrown off a cliff. It was a free for all.

But so far Marx was nowhere to be found. I reckoned it had been about two hours when Sheira finally yelled, "where is he!"

A zombie forced its way through the weakening barrier and dragged its withered hands across my shoulders. The armour absorbed all of the impact and the pain so I could simply stab it in the face and with my other hand turn it into a candle. I watched it crumble before yelling back, "don't know! Maybe the little coward's scarpered?"

But I knew that wasn't the case. Marx struck me as being like a P.E teacher, only watching from the sidelines and refusing to get his hands dirty and when things did get nasty it was only for an emergency. Through the clouds of blood and flying heads, it was impossible to see the treeline but I knew he was there. He had to be. I'd saw that flash so he had to be controlling the dead from...somewhere.

The thought of where the little rat could be hiding just crossed my mind as an explosion threw me off my feet. I didn't see where it came from but it was definitely on my left. A few seconds of weightlessness was rudely interrupted by the rapidly encroaching ground and stars dancing in front of my eyes and the taste of copper-coated my tongue.

I moaned and called out for Sheira but didn't hear anything. My ears were ringing, my heartbeat pounding in my throat as I pushed myself to my feet unsteadily. Flame's enormous snout placed itself under my hand and pushed me upwards.

The scene was complete carnage. Dust filled the air like thick smoke, bits of zombie lay scattered as well as lumps of congealed blood and fragments of yellowish bone. A few people were face down and not moving but none of they had bright white hair, thank god. Some sort of bomb had gone off, but where?

And then I saw it and my stomach sank further than the Mariana trench.

You know how we figured out that the zombies were in a marsh because they were in a peat bog? Well, it turns out that shit's combustible. And if you know the right guy, such as a certain Husk with a little bit of his own firepower, that can be a very dangerous combination.

TLDR, they've made bombs and we're screwed.

The gap in the wall was now a lot bigger than it had been before and in the complete and utter chaos that allowed around two hundred dead things to come marching in and start grabbing people. I swore loudly, hearing still not quite recovered and sprinted towards the breach, lion in hot pursuit.

I pushed the heat up to my skin and let rip, a searing hot jet of flame instantly immolating about ten dead ones and sweeping an arc of flame with Incaendium, taking out a further fifteen. Flame tore a head off one of the wrigglers and then pounced, folding another like a concertina or that poor sod from Final Destination 2.

Those that were still alive srang up and sprinted to the gap trying and somewhat failing to hold the tide, which now had some noticeably bigger additions. Marx had been busy. With their bodies swollen and bulging in a way that was seemingly impossible for the human body to achieve, some of these things were way over eight feet tall, had their fingers fused together into heavy clubs and wandered clumsily into the throng.

I saw Tulip and Jasmine in the corner of my eye taking on one of those things. A volley of thorns sprayed out from Tulip's fingertips while Jasmine slipped into her bear form and tore off one arm while narrowly missing a swing from the other. And yet it barely stumbled and the flailing stump caught Tulip in the stomach, tossing her aside like a ragdoll.

Sheira where are you?

Something grabbed me on the back of my coat. I yelped and only just managed to twist out of the grip of the dead-eyed Anthony. "Really?" was all I managed to say before his fist morphed into a giant hammer of pure water and aimed for my face.

I slammed the shield against it, shockwaves rippling down my arm and shoved back with all my might. He stumbled but didn't fall so I tried stabbing him. Incaendium sliced through the fabric and drew blood but he didn't seem to feel the dirty great hole and lunged forwards.

The raindrops formed a whip that lashed around my ankles and pulled my feet out from beneath me. I rolled aside and bashed him with my shield and then followed that up with a fireball. Everything hit but it didn't seem to do much good. I couldn't tell if it was the general Husk-iness or the fact that he was a Water but nothing seemed to hurt all that much and let's be honest it should have hurt a lot.

With Incaendium literally screaming orders into my head keeping him at bay wasn't proving to be too hard. He struck, I blocked. He pushed me down, I got up. He went on the defence, I went on the offence, but there was one, teeny, weeny little problem.

He wasn't getting tired.

I swear to god, I've been at this four twenty minutes and he hadn't even broken a sweat while I was craving the sweet release of death. Finally, that worked to his advantage, surprise, surprise. I swung too wide, I knew that instantly but I couldn't fix it. He, moving faster than I thought was physically possible, dashed under my arm, grabbed me by the throat, pulled me up off the ground and reintroduced me with it, head first.

Ears still ringing and a crack emanating from somewhere he repeated this action three more times, the air leaving my lungs like it was being dragged out by a vacuum with each spine crunching slam. And then it just had to go and get worse. A lot worse.

Anthony's head turned, fingers still gripping my throat, and looked up towards a small figure approaching. Perhaps no one had seen him in the chaos or maybe that talisman of a decaying cat foot made him invisible. Whatever it was how he'd done it didn't really matter at that moment.

Cold red eyes gazed down at me, a murderous sparkle lighting them up like beacons. "We meet again," Marx's was basically purring by this point. "And if you don't mind, I'd like my property back."

Hands patted along my coat and jeans. I tried to twist so he wouldn't be able to pull the dolls from my front pocket but his needle-like fingers didn't have any problems with frisking me. I watched helplessly as he regarded the two little figures and grinned this horrible, jack-o-lantern smile. "Thank you. Now, I believe we have business elsewhere, we wouldn't want to keep the boss waiting– AARGH!

One moment the spear wasn't there, the next it was protruding casually about half a foot out of Marx's chest. He howled like a wounded dog as the weapon slid out of the gaping hole, blood spraying everywhere. It was a magnificent sight although it seemed that she'd missed. Perhaps she didn't want to kill him or maybe she was aiming for an adult heart but one way or another Sheira was now the obvious target. That's very good for me and not so good for her.

"I can see why Leo wants you dead now," he snarled clutching at the wound, "you always get in the way."

"That's what I do," Sheira replied, blood dripped from the end of her spear.

"So it would seem." Marx narrowed his eyes at her and then glanced back to me who I would like to point out is still being pinned to the floor.

And then I wasn't. Anthony released his grip and stepped back to be swallowed by the crowd so just the three humans stood there in the mass of the dead in a sort of Mexican standoff with Marx in the middle, glaring at us.

"To hell with you both," he snarled.

Too late I realised what he was holding. I yelled out a warning to Sheira just as he pressed the big black button on the remote which then let off an explosion in a ring of black smoke. I was catapulted backwards, again, and collided with the now slightly sticky earth with a crunch, again.

Moaning in pain I sat up on my elbows to see two things. Number one, the conniving little weasel was nowhere to be seen, number two Sheira was pushing herself to her feet and dashing over to me and, wait that makes three, I realised what Marx had done.

He may as well have shot up a massive sign that said 'All you can eat buffet'. Every zombie on the island was now walking towards us, decaying blood and tissue fluid dribbling from their lips, hands outstretched into mangled claws.

"Okay, that's not good. That's really not good," I said as Sheira ran up to me and stood back to back with me. "What do you reckon our chances are?"

"Oh, I don't know. Two people against an army of the undead who I think are now going with a kill order. I say we've got a one in ten here." A blast of cold welled up from behind me.

I gripped my sword tightly and flared up the fire in my open hand. "Well, it was nice knowing you, Miss Winterton."

"Likewise, Mr Hayden."

I watched the torrent walking towards me. How many? Five hundred? A thousand? I'd seen Shaun of the Dead, I know how this ends and it isn't PG-rated but its definitely going to be interesting to see.

One of the dead ones shambled up, arms outstretched in a deadly hug before I severed its head from its shoulders. The paper-thin skull rolled away as two more shuffled forwards to take its place. I gritted my teeth, raised my hand, ready to at least barbeque a few of the suckers on the way out, when another explosion rocked the very ground I was stood on.

I turned to try and find the source, eyes scanning for anything. Black clumps of...something drifted from the sky. Was that ash or smoke? A flake fell into my open palm so I rubbed it to leave a residue of the deepest black.

"Shadow?" I heard Sheira whisper.

Yeah, it definitely looked like it.

"Shadow?"

Wait.

I turned so fast I gave myself whiplash. A tall figure was stood on the mound of rubble. Drak hair, dark clothes, dark energy pulsing around his fingers and every eye watching him. A circle of frankly obliterated corpses laid out in a ring of death before him.

You could have knocked me down a disembodied head, the little bastard actually went and did it.

Shadow looked up and smirked at the sight of our flabbergasted expressions. "Duck."

"What?" I said.

Sheira got the point and dragged me down to my knees as Shadow crossed his arms over his chest, blackness pulsing and raging from deep within his torso, and then he let a bomb go off. I needed this dude to teach me some things because he basically nuked about fifty zombies in one go to the point they could only be scrapped off the grass with a butter knife.

The sight of such a powerful elemental seemed to renew hope in everyone. We were all exhausted and yet it was like experiencing a second wind, we had hope. We had a chance. Beasts rallied their spirits and before long we were carving through the dead like it was just a typical Tuesday.

Shadow was like a machine. Every wave of his hand sent a riptide of darkness careering towards fifty zombies and killed (Re-killed?) them with apparent ease. Sharp spikes erupted from the ground, the shadow's swallowed groups into the ground, and black fire ripped through anyone it touched.

Crash had become a tank. Once he set off running all you could do was set things right with your maker, throw your will to whoever could find it and pray he killed you quickly. Within five minutes at least three bodies had been skewered on the end of his horn and he was showing no signs of slowing down.

It was magnificent.

Within an hour I reckon the number of dead things had halved and for once it looked like we were winning. Marx was nowhere to be found, scarpered, the Husks were slowly backing off the battle and as far as I was aware no one else on our side had bit the dust. All because grumpy-face had finally decided to show up.

I'd been making my way towards him, either to thank him or punch him for taking so long (I'd decide when I got there), when I saw the strangest thing I'd ever laid eyes upon. I would like to point out that its damn near impossible to weird me out anymore, so this was either very odd or very, very bad.

With every wave of his, hand Shadow expelled the force of your average neutron star and, let's say this for the good of all our sanities, you'd expect a being of such power to be able to keep that sheer force on a very short leash. But in a rather terrifying twist of fate, that didn't seem to be the case.

Recoil. That was the word I'd use. Every blast sent shockwaves running back into their owner with, judging by his expression, a great deal of pain. I watched as one blast exploded outwards, scattering chunks of decaying flesh in every direction possible, and Shadow dropped to his knees.

I finished bisecting my current target and sprinted to his side. He was coated in blood, tissue and sweat. His face was the same colour as raw batter and his unusually dull red eyes were sunken into his head. I reached out to place a hand on his shoulder.

"Don't...don't touch me," he said shakily.

What?What was up with him? Did he contract scabies or something? Then I had the misfortune of looking down. His own shadow was curled around legs, black tendrils gripping like vines as they crawled up his back and up to his neck.

I fell back in horror and stared. Is that what they meant by Dark's losing themselves to their own power? Sheria used a word for it, Taken. Whatever that meant we could really do without it.

Shadow gritted his teeth and dug his fingers into the blood-soaked earth around him, muttering under his breath the whole time. The tendrils crawled up to his neck, curled around his ears and then like they were being forcibly dragged, slide down his back and into the lifeless form of the dark shape that they'd come from.

I exhaled the breath I didn't know I'd been holding. "You ready to go?" I asked.

He pushed himself to his feet. If he was tired he didn't show it. The oh, so familiar murderous smile slowly spread across his lips. "Let's kill some zombies."