Corporal Alana Hashbarger squeezed the trigger again, seconds later emptying the clip. She dropped the empty to the floor, stretching a fumbling hand to her right for another, which she slammed home, flicking her sweat-and-rain-damp, strawberry-blonde hair out of her eyes with a swipe of her hand. She also wiped away the rivulets of cool rainwater running down her face. Despite the horror of the moment, she had to admit that the wind and rain felt good; it cut the heat and humidity, at least a little.

As she stood firing her rifle, her body running on automatic, she allowed her thoughts to drift a little.

Her MOS was actually clerical but in these times, such help was somewhat less than in demand. The old political football about women in combat went out the door when the world was being turned upside down by the appearance of hordes of reanimated, cannibalistic corpses. Everyone and anyone who had qualified with a weapon was issued at least one standard issue M-16 and a .9mm sidearm and sent into the field.

She had come to this rescue station, in actuality a Middle School, in Wheeling, West Virginia with what was left of her Army National Guard unit from Evansville, Indiana. There was a lot of scrambling going on right now; things were rapidly falling apart.

They had been cobbled together from the remains of several other units and placed under the command of Colonel Mark Tucker, a regular-Army lifer charged with holding onto whatever semblance of order could be held. On the way here, they had absorbed other military personnel, including three Marines: Deaver, Fox and Webster.

Tucker had been given command of the tattered remains of units that had been decimated by confrontations with the undead hordes, and the demoralized leftovers of units that had splintered in the face of the impending loss of order, resulting in an epidemic of desertions. Tucker had taken these dregs and pulled them together into a disciplined, cohesive unit. He had managed, all within a couple weeks or so, to restore morale and unity among at least these troops, and was loved and admired for it.

Alana saw with sadness the sight of the colonel weaving his staggering, unsteady way amid the rotting mass of mobile dead. Colonel Tucker, now dead himself and his flesh torn open and partially devoured, was gnawing on the bloody, recently liberated lower arm of some hapless denizen of their violated rescue station. His face was smeared with rain-streaked gore, and as she watched, her stomach flipping with nausea, she sighted him in. His image trebled through the site as her eyes flooded with tears, which she blinked away with a sniff.

She was good, but she was no sharpshooter; the shot went slightly off, hitting him the neck. Torn flesh spattered the undead creatures around him; his head bobbed to the left, and he staggered from the impact, but, unconcerned, continued to eat. Seconds later, one of the snipers on the roof finished what she'd started, freeing the colonel to rest in peace.

She drew back wearily from the window and slumped to the floor. Her back against the wall, she sullenly began shoving live rounds into the empty clips that littered the floor around her. She was so tired. Gunfire filled the halls of the school building, as the remnants of the unit fought to keep the zombie masses at bay. The downstairs was filled with them now, she knew. And they knew they were up here; if they.........!

She inhaled sharply, eyes widening and, leaping to her feet, took off across the wide room, the school's library.