"You know what I want to do," Sarah said. "But I'm asking you first."

Joelle fiddled with the leftover shotgun shells in her hand.

"We should stay and help these people defend their home. I don't think I could sleep at night knowing we did nothing."

"OK, it's settled then."

They launched out from the hallway and stormed past the entrance. The Watchers outside hadn't reached the building yet and didn't seem to spot them. When they reached the stairs Sarah paused.

"You go ahead, I'll catch up," she said.

Tears welled in Joelle's eyes, "They'll kill you. We need to get on the roof."

"If they get inside that roof won't make a fucking difference. Go without me. Tell them to aim for the men and ignore the zombies. We need those rotting sons of bitches."

Joelle handed her the shotgun and the spare shells.

"Take these, you'll need them."

Sarah nodded her thanks and headed toward the entrance.

"Give em' hell," Joelle called after her, and then faced the grueling chore of climbing two flights of stairs with a broken ankle.

"What the fuck?" Alex said as he watched the armored vehicles crash through the cover of the fence and disappear in a swarm of walking dead. He was much too late. The Watchers hadn't bothered waiting for dawn to launch their attack. They plunged headlong into the melee, heedless and stupid beyond belief. Moments after the suicide mission of the RV ramming into the fence, the Watchers had crowded into their vehicles and headed for the school. Alex witnessed a fat man lagging behind. He waddled up to a Firebird and into the driver's seat, stuffing a candy bar into his mouth. Fortunately, Alex had already moved his motorcycle closer, so he was ready to go. He waited for the other cars to leave before setting his scope on the glutton. Once they were far out of reach he aimed for his head and was about to squeeze the trigger when a zombie stumbled out of the bushes and latched onto the fat man. It had been female once, but now resembled a haggard witch with missing clumps of hair and hanging gray breasts.

The zombie took a bite out of the man's face, tearing away a jiggling glob of fat from his cheek. He screamed and tried to start the Firebird but the zombie pulled him out and went for his neck. The attack was over within seconds as she clamped her teeth down on his Adam's apple and tore it out.

Alex looked around. The zombie had come from nowhere, without warning. It was a good bet that more of them were here or on their way in his direction. He sighted the zombie's head in the scope and pulled the trigger, sending rotting flesh and bone splattering to the forest floor.

"Poor dumb bastard," he said to himself.

He pushed his motorcycle to the kill site. The fat man was still bleeding from the gaping holes in his neck and cheek. Alex pressed the rifle barrel to his forehead and blew the man's brains out.

Hungry moans came from the forest. The underbrush parted suddenly, and a horde of zombies shambled straight for him.

Alex slung his sniping rifle around his back and kick-started his Harley. The motorcycle roared, spitting fumes from the twin tailpipes. He twisted the throttle and took off down the dirt path. Within a minute he spotted the Watchers barreling through more of the dead, and saw that they had arranged their vehicles in a straight line for maximum protection from the school's inhabitants. They were relatively safe from gunfire but the zombies were another matter. Once the fence was down, the walking dead easily made their way inside the compound. At first the Watchers ignored them, as they were preoccupied with shooting at the people stationed on the rooftop. But as the zombies drew closer the Watchers were forced to move forward or be eaten alive. Most of the men charged toward the school, taking a bullet, and limped closer to the main entrance. But someone started shooting from inside and was cutting them down before they could enter. The other men who weren't so foolish stayed behind and turned their attention to the zombies. Had there not been so many of the flesh eaters they might have made it, but as the men began firing into the crowd the zombies quickly overpowered them, tearing the men limb from limb and stuffing themselves on the warm entrails. The few that managed to get inside their cars backed out and headed for the forest, and straight for Alex.

He had shut off the engine by the time they decided to call a retreat and watched them through the rifle scope. He sighted the first vehicle, a reinforced Honda Civic, and aimed for the driver. His bullet rang true and smashed through the windshield and into the man behind the steering wheel. The car swerved and flipped over.

Three other vehicles continued toward his general direction.

Alex blew out the tires on two of them, causing one to come to a halt while the other wobbled and crashed into the woods.

The last vehicle broke away from the group and headed for the main road. He saw an angry man staring back at him through the scope. His face looked like it was chiseled from marble, and he wore a black suit. Alex didn't have a good bead on him so he abandoned the man and focused on picking off the remaining few. The first one was a heavy man wearing camouflage.

Alex shot him in the chest and lined up another bullet as a second man crawled from the flipped car. Four bullets and four dead men later, the survivors decided to stay put and not try to escape. He used the spare time to reload his rifle behind the motorcycle. A moment later, gunfire ripped into the hill, missing him completely by about ten feet. He had to end this shoot out and quickly.

He sighted the gas tank on the flipped vehicle and punched a hole in it. As the gas leaked out, the people hiding in the car began screaming. Two men ran for the forest while another fired wildly at him.

Alex dispatched the crazed shooters with a bullet to the brain, then he aimed for the ones running away.

"Run all you want to," he grinned, "you'll only die tired."

He was about to pull the trigger when the zombie horde launched at the men. They ran right into the walking corpses, and were dragged to the ground like animals, stripped of flesh, and devoured.

Alex kept an eye on the other car. The driver was dead but nobody had made an attempt to escape or even fire back. He looked through the scope and didn't see anyone else in the car, but that didn't mean they weren't there.

He fired at the gas tank and waited for it to pool into the other one he'd shot. Once both vehicles had expelled their life in fuel, Alex shouldered his rifle and drove the motorcycle toward the wrecks. He withdrew a metal lighter from his jacket.

A gunshot rang out, and Alex felt the hot wind of a bullet scratching along the side of his head. Close.

He saw a man hiding under the car with a handgun poking from the window. Alex twisted the throttle to maximum speed and zoomed forward. The man continued to shoot, but every bullet missed and eventually Alex managed to drive around him. He flicked the lighter and dropped it into the pool of gasoline. The gas ignited instantly, sending large flames dancing toward both vehicles.

Alex drove the motorcycle as fast as he could. Searing heat burned his backside and moments later two deafening explosions ripped through the night. The two cars continued to smolder and spark as Alex headed for the school. He hoped that he wasn't too late.

Sarah hugged the wall and waited. She could see at least a dozen men heading for the entrance. They were all wearing camouflage and carrying automatic weapons. She trained the Uzi on the nearest ones and waited until they raced through the broken glass door. The men were scared and not thinking straight. Hundreds of zombies clawed at their heels while gunfire came at them from the rooftops, and now, they would meet Sarah.

She expelled every bullet in the Uzi, not aiming for any body part in particular, but bringing down five men. Then she dropped the Uzi in favor of the shotgun. By now, the leftover men knew they had company and fired back.

Sarah ducked behind the wall and when she heard footsteps coming her way she ran into the cafeteria. Once there, she flipped over a couple of tables but didn't hide behind them, instead, she knelt low and waited for the men in the dark.

Heavy footsteps crashed down the hallway and into the cafeteria. Just as she suspected, the men saw the upturned tables and opened fire. The tables were ripped apart, splinters of particle board and wood rained onto the floor. They stopped after emptying most of their clips then advanced.

Sarah caught the first two men by surprise. The shotgun's shells plowed through them, turning their insides into Swiss cheese. But as she pumped the shotgun and aimed for the last man, he got the upper hand. The bullets sang off the wall beside her, and as he continued to shoot, one found her.

Blinding pain shot up her left arm. She dropped the shotgun and cried out as blood leaked from the wound. Her body sank to the floor.

The man approached her slowly, aiming at her head.

Sarah braced herself for the sudden death to come. But to her surprise, he didn't shoot.

"Get up you bitch," he said.

She obeyed, gripping her arm and trying to hold in the blood.

"Now get in front of me or I'll smear your brains across these walls."

Sarah did as he told her. She got ahead of him and held her arm like it was a wounded animal. The man kept the automatic's barrel pressed into her back and led her to the entrance.

Countless zombies were crawling toward the entrance. Most were shot down from above but the handful that made it inside were enough to make Sarah's body shake. As they shuffled through the school's doors the air took on the smell of decay, of the grave, and she grew cold.

The man shoved her toward the zombie horde.

"It's feeding time," he chuckled, then, his laughter became gurgled. His eyes widened, and a small hole appeared in his chest and flooded red. He crumpled to the floor.

"What the hell?" Sarah barely spoke the words when a zombie's head exploded in front of her, then another, and another, until all of them were rotting sacks of flesh on the floor.

She saw a man in the distance wearing all black and aiming a long barreled sniper's rifle in her direction. Her arm went numb and an icy chill spread throughout her body. Then she collapsed and the world dimmed and faded into darkness.

Chapter 8.

When Joelle reached the top of the stairs, she found that she was looking directly into the barrel of a gun. The long haired teenage boy holding the rifle had trained a bead on her head and didn't ask questions.

"Don't shoot! I'm here to help. Mindy sent me."

At the mention of Mindy's name the boy lowered his gun. He stared at her as she limped by, then continued to hold his position guarding the stairwell.

Joelle found herself in a vacant hallway. As she made her way toward another staircase which she hoped led to the roof, she passed a few classrooms with their lights on. Inside one room children were sitting at their desks, paying close attention to older children speaking. There were no adults present anywhere, only kids. Sudden hatred spread from her chest across her shoulders then down to her clenched fists. The Watchers were trying to slaughter a ragtag group of kids just for supplies. She couldn't let them succeed. She would die before they did.

Her resolve strengthened, she reached the top of the staircase to find another guard, this one a tall Native American man with long black hair much like the other, holding an M16 over his shoulder.

"Is this the way to the roof?"

The Native American towered over her. He was at least six five, and bent down to look at her. He made no reply and when she tried to move around him he blocked the way with his large frame.

"I need to get to the roof. Mindy told me they need help up there."

He lifted one eyebrow lifted at the mention of the girl's name.

Bullets pumped into the school building and people were screaming and dying, and somewhere in the near distance she could hear the moans of the dead coming for all of them.

"Please, you have to let me through," she begged.

"Joelle!" Mindy popped her head out of a door at the top of the stairs and called her name. "Let her through," she said to the Native American.

He grunted and shifted his body sideways so that Joelle could pass.

She slipped by and the Native American man twisted back to face the hallway, his face void of any emotion.

"Come on, I want you to meet someone," Mindy said.

Joelle hopped up the stairs and cursed her broken ankle along the way. Mindy held the door open for her and together they emerged onto the rooftop. Chaos was prevalent everywhere as at least twenty teenagers fired pistols, rifles, and shotguns into the crowd of Watchers and zombies below. Occasionally, a bullet would hit one of the kids and they would be dragged out of range of the gunfire.

A gray-haired man was giving everyone orders, pointing to where they should direct their fire and roaring like a lion when any one of them was hit.

"Dr. Adams!" Mindy called.

The man withdrew a grenade from the pocket of his suit jacket, pulled the pin, and tossed it over the roof. As he walked to where Joelle stood, a loud explosion tore through the crowd below and pieces of human remains flew into the air.

"This is Joelle. She's the one who escaped from the car."

Dr. Adams bore down on her. He smelled like cheap bourbon and stale cigars.

"So you're the one who brought this hell down on us? I've a mind to shoot you here and now."

"It wasn't our fault! They made us do it. We were prisoners. I came to help you. My friend is at the entrance, making sure nobody gets inside."

He looked her over.

"I trust her," Mindy piped up. "They killed a few of them already."

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend," Dr. Adams stated. "There's a case of bottles filled with oil and capped with rags. Do you think you can start a few fires?"

Joelle's lips curled upward in a menacing parody of a smile. "I'll need a lighter," she said.

He dug into his jacket pocket and handed her a plastic lighter, then raced back to his troops and ordered them to keep firing.

Mindy shoved her to where a cooler was sitting and helped her carry it closer to the edge of the roof.

"Good luck!" she said, and darted back through the door leading to the stairs.

Joelle grabbed the first Molotov cocktail, lit the rag, and threw it as far as she could. From below came more screams and someone shouting to look out. She tossed two more of the glass bottles over the side before a deafening explosion shook the roof.

A blond girl was knocked off her feet and fell to the rooftop surface. Another kid, a boy wearing a Mets cap, caught a hailstorm of bullets in his midsection and toppled over. Dr. Adams caught him before he could fall off the rooftop to the ground below, and held him as a pool of blood trickled out of his stomach. A moment later, Dr. Adams shot him in the head with a pistol.

Joelle risked a glance over the rooftop. She spotted an endless horde of rotting corpses shambling their way into the Watchers' ranks, and saw Paris shouldering a grenade launcher, ready to send another devastating explosion their way.

Quickly, she lit all of the rags on fire and picked up the cooler. Using every last ounce of strength left to her, she hurled the case of Molotov cocktails in Paris' direction and ducked before a hail of bullets brushed her hair.

A jet of flame licked the sky when the case tumbled and smashed on the pavement below. There were loud sizzles and pops as the fire spread to both the zombie horde and the surrounding men, searing living and dead flesh into a charcoal black.

"Retreat, Watchers!"

Joelle saw Paris slip inside an armored car and speed through the zombies, out of the school's downed gates, and toward the road.

The teenagers on the rooftop continued to rain hell down on the leftover men, and their battle cries were soon replaced by the hungry groans of the dead as they consumed the used flesh.

Dr. Adams came over to Joelle's side. "You did a decent job. Where did you say you came from?"

"I didn't," she replied.

Mindy barged through the rooftop doors and ran to them in a hurry.

"Sarah's been shot. She's going to bleed to death if we don't do something."

Sickness crept into Joelle's stomach as she raced through the doors and down the stairs. Mindy led her to a gathering crowd of teenagers surrounding a pale dark haired woman lying on the floor. They'd tied a tourniquet around her left arm and waited for Dr. Adams to arrive.