Camila was close to panic, her heart was beating hard and adrenaline flushed her system and a small voice in her head asked; can you do it?

  As she left the side of the blind woman, she answered that voice by looking back.

  She focused on the blind woman, the survivor. An old lady who needed protection and felt the anger come. It was easier now, ignoring her doubt and focusing on someone who needed help. Let the others worry about how the zombies ambushed them.

  She could worry about Mark and David, Billy and all the others who were somewhere above later. For now anger at an unfair world carried her forward.

  Psyched herself up she called out. “Close fighters on ME!”

  The last word came out almost as a scream. Ragged volleys of gunfire rang out, then Carl’s voice.

  “Follow Charlies Fire! Make a hole!”

  Then there was a whump and a roar as Charlie unleashed his big fireball for the first time today. The strike was devastating, incinerating, immolating and just plain breaking momentum.

  Damn, Camila thought – the boy had grown stronger again. They had a chance. Even as she prepared to rush forward with her close combat team more shots rolled out.

  As soon as Carl called a ceasefire they would go, she could see the doors beyond, still cluttered with undead. Those would be her job.

  She glanced around to see that Charlie was charging another fireball. Carl was beside him unleashing a devastating hail of bullets from his AR-15. The blind survivor had made her way over to stand behind them, her hands raised high in the air.

  Then to Camila’s complete shock the woman brought her hands down in a savage slam, the double handed blow smashing into the back of Charlie’s head causing him to collapse forward.

  Even as she tried to process what was happening the woman opened her mouth and spoke. An alien word broke over the group. Somehow, she understood it, to the very core of her being.

  “DARKNESS!”

  It was like the sun went out. Camila’s sight dimmed, she could barely see. From the cries of terror around her she wasn’t the only one.

  Then the shout came again, and again.

  “DARKNESS!”

  “DARKNESS!”

  By the third utterance Camila was completely blind, the sounds of panic firing started to echo all around her. There was chaos, shouts and horrible wet thumping noises. She spun, almost immediately losing her bearings.

  Seconds later the screaming started.

  "Sniper!" she screamed. "Take out the blind woman! She's causing this!"

  She hoped someone could see and act against the woman. If she hadn’t been looking in Carl's and Charlie’s direction she would never have known what was going on.

  More shots rang out and more cries. The blindness was awful and she felt something whip past her. A bullit?

  Half of their line collapsed as Camila desperately activated Boost. Even as her body surged into overdrive, she realized to her shock that her eyes seemed to do the same. She could see again.

  Well, it was more like what you could see on a moonlit night, with fog. She looked around in horror.

  Their line was a shambles and the zombies were among them. Men and women stumbling blind, unable to fight, barely able to defend themselves.

  The zombies surged forward, someone fired. They had been clipped by a zombie and spun around. Their shotgun blast blew a chunk out of their attacker and carried on into their disoriented partner stumbling behind the undead.

  "Get the blind ones back!" Camila screamed even as she desperately searched for Carl, Charlie and the blind woman in the chaos.

  There weren't enough people, especially when too few could see. They'd lost too many fighters too fast with too much chaos. The zombies were pressing them back towards the escalator and more were streaming down to finish the job.

  People were dying. Screaming. Falling.

  Camila saw a young man she didn't know get dragged down by zombies. Saw his throat torn out, his body crushed.

  Screaming she threw herself into combat. Pushing towards where she thought the woman was. Zombies died to her crowbar. A voice she recognized rose out of the chaos.

  "We can't hold!" Sarah shouted, there was a flare of ice magic to her left. Then another. The zombies kept coming. Coordinated. Directed. Piling in on her position even as her power cut them down. There was no third burst of magic.

  Then she saw the bitch. Charlie was down, unmoving and Carl was struggling to regain his footing. With their half-step evolutions, they were the best chance the group had. It was clear Carl was blind, whirling his AR-15 raised, shouting.

  Then the survivors broke. All semblance of coordination fled as it was everyone for themselves.

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  People scattered, running, blindly. In any direction where zombies weren’t. Many falling and even crawling clearly still blind.

  Some fleeing deeper into the terminal, the more aware trying to reach the customs hall, others just away. Some fled toward the outside, hoping to get past the zombies in the chaos. That went poorly.

  Camila triggered Charge and blitzed toward the blind woman as she focused on Carl.

  Why wasn’t the woman using her magic? Then it hit her as she approached – Carl was listening. He would shoot at her the instant he had a clear direction to attack.

  She struck. The woman seemed to hear her coming and reacted in time, throwing herself away from the attack. A killing smash became a glancing blow. So, she twisted and kept right on going. Boost burning in her veins.

  The woman crabbed backwards and zombies all around her disengaged and rushed towards her. Even surprised by the coordination Camila whirled and struck; once, twice, thrice. The nearest zombies fell. No match for her. Surging forward she moved to strike and the woman only saved her head by throwing her crossed arms up to block the crowbar.

  There was a satisfying wet snap from her forearms.

  Then she heard the woman cackling with laughter.

  “Too late! You lose!”

  With a blur of motion something smashed into Camila from the side sweeping her off her feet and carrying her to ground. Pain exploded from her shoulder as something gave with a wet pop, then a large cold hand wrapped around her face before slamming her head into the hard floor.

  As her vision darkened the last thing she saw was the scattered remains of their raid forces fleeing towards the baggage reclaim area.

  They were prey.

  And the hunt had just begun.

  David was running.

  The attack and the inability to contact the others had him in a full-blown panic. The zombies had already reached the terminal, so he cursed as he ran, then gave up because it cost breath. If they had gone inside, they would have at least seen this coming. If they hadn’t traded off their radios for more trucks they might have had the comms to react.

  If, If, If…

  Now he ran and as he did, he heard the echo of gunshots from the terminal. Moments later he heard the roar of engines as the group with the trucks got ready to retreat. Bessie was already past them, and Billy was falling behind unable to keep up with David’s desperate pace.

  Absently he wondered if the man had Stamina or not…

  Dismissing distraction David planned. Given his enormously boosted combat power he could afford to plunge in. Hopefully he could open a path for the others, and they could pull back, find a bottle neck and cull this wave of zombies. This could still be controlled.

  His lungs were burning by the time he passed the trucks and sporadic bursts of gunfire told him that there was still time. Then he was past the overturned cars and hitting the drop off plaza.

  A few zombies had pursued support team members outside, one of those people was firing sporadically to try and keep them back. Then Bessie hit the zombies hard bowling one over and grabbing a second by the leg toppling it before bursting forward snarling and barking to draw the attention of the other two. The people fell back faster getting ready to run. It was the work of a second to spit out a word and like an octopus emerging from its hole to wrap the tentacles of his will around the Nath.

  “HALT”

  With a wrench the threat was gone and he reached the people just before they broke and ran. “Where is everyone!”

  “We have to run, there are so many of them! Get to the trucks.” The woman was panicked, reminding him that the support group were the ones who had problems with violence…

  David grabbed her shoulders and shook to get her attention. “Where ARE THEY! I CAN HELP.”

  He was shouting by the end but the woman was shocked out of her panic long enough to blurt out.

  “They went into immigration…” Then she burst into hysterical tears and started struggling to get out of his grip.

  Snarling David yelled at her. “Get back to the trucks, get ready to go but DON’T leave without us!”

  Then he ran towards the terminal, hoping he could get in and see what was going on.

  The ragged roar of massed gunfire from below reached his ears and cursing he accelerated. Moments later it was followed by a wave of something that rang in his spiritual hearing, a word, a meaning, darkness...

  By the time he reached the doors he saw that the zombies were divided into two groups. The first was clustered around the escalators down to the curbside pickup area all focused downwards. The second was spreading out and moving deeper into the departures area, shouts and sporadic gunfire told him that there was still resistance in that direction.

  David made a split-second decision. It sounded like the others were stuck at the bottom of the escalator and if he could reach them, they would be able to retreat.

  Even as he watched the zombies started streaming down clearly part of a coordinated assault. That was wrong, everything crystallized and he knew. They were relying on something new, something that controlled them, directed them.

  Then he saw them. Two figures crouched low and moving differently were hiding at the back. Even as he watched one of them moved off, low and crouched and followed the zombies moving deeper into the terminal.

  They didn’t look different to the others, at least until they moved. It wasn’t normal human movement, they dropped lower, tipped their shoulders forward and never straightened their legs. What really stood out was that their movements were fluid, not the jerky shuffle of the zombies as the struggled.

  It struck him, they were moving in a smooth compromise between the weird four-legged gaint of the early zombies and the upright movement of a human. The next stage in zombie evolution perhaps.

  He immediately labelled them controllers, especially when he tuned in with his spiritual hearing.

  The one that remained at the top of the stairs was ‘speaking’ clearly and the other Nath were repeating it’s words.

  Advance, down, now, go, go, attack now.

  The chorus of lesser Nath responses

  Go, go, go

  He had to take that zombie out. There was another below, he was sure. If they could kill them, they had a chance.

  David went for an ambush. Rather than using Halt immediately he slipped inside and, even as he heard panicked cries, ragged shots and screams with what sounded like Camila shouting from below. He pulled out the pistol Carl had insisted he wear. Then shaking his head he cocked it and dashed towards the crouched figure.

  He wasn’t confident in his aim and he figured that the closer he got the better. That way he would catch zombies with Halt when he used it and a simple execution with the pistol would take out this new enemy.

  Everything went smoothly. David closed in and just as the creature started to turn he struck with his spell.

  “HALT!”

  The power flooded out of him and the creature froze up. So did the Zombies around it. He then Calmly raised the pistol taking aim at its head.

  There was a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye and instinctively he whirled, eyes widening as his spiritual hearing picked up a burst of sound, a fibrous snapping, something he had never heard before.

  The other figure was airborne moving incredibly fast and moving as though it had been launched from a catapult.

  He had just long enough to think not controller, fast zombie. Then it hit him bowling him backwards with cold hard flesh propelled by something.

  He twisted trying to bring the gun to bear even as they fell. The creature was faster twisting its body and exploiting their trajectory to slap his gun out of his hands. They crashed to the ground and the air left his lungs in a whoosh.

  Before he could react the creature was on his chest where it reared back and even as he raised his arms to defend himself it slammed him with a backhand blow to the face as he tried to sit up. It was strong and with all its weight and leverage his head as well as their still unspent momentum his head arced backwards to smash into the hard concrete floor with a sickening crunch.

  Everything went black after that.