Bunny promised herself she would kill that bastard, one way or the other, before she got herself moving again. There was no time left, and at the rate things were going, there wasn't going to be anyone left to save.
Lightning struck a tree nearby, making it explode, sending wooden shrapnel everywhere. Bunny ducked and covered, the ground under her feet quickly becoming treacherous with mud. Everywhere she looked people ran in a panic, slipping, falling, running over each other. Desperate and afraid, they trampled one another seeking escape from the horror outside, and the monsters landing in their midst. Their brief illusion of civility and society was being shattered.
Pulling herself up, she got moving, heading for the motor pool, hoping to salvage something at least from this. Just as she saw the metal building, a fireball descended from the sky and exploded, throwing her back. She hit the ground and slid, shaking her head, ears ringing.
It was all happening too fast. The arrival of these new monsters, the cooperation of the dead, even Pete’s ability to manipulate the walking corpses. He’d laid his plans carefully, while they had waited for the time to be right, and he’d caught them off-guard. In minutes, they’d gone from the uneasy peace they’d known, to a worse nightmare than any they’d experienced thus far.
For a moment Bunny laid there, rain washing down on her as she struggled with it. She had to get up, get moving. She had to save as many as she could, but the enormity of it paralyzed her. How could they possibly survive in a world where such things were possible?
Then, she realized, she knew the answer. She knew what she had to do. Put her head up, put one foot in front of the other, and never stop.
Staggering up, she watched the tents and people burn. She glanced around and saw a fourth giant to the west, gripping a flaming ball in its hand. As she stared, it hurtled it into the camp, sending it rolling through the mess tent, igniting everything in its path. The smell alone told her Pete had found some tar.
She turned again, only to come face-to-face with a deadly fast Gaunt. Jerking backwards as it reached for her, she raised her gun, feeling its fingers slip along her flesh, down her throat and over her chest as she fired point-blank, scattering its brain.
The thing jerked backwards, its finger catching in the buttons of her shirt and the front of her bra, snapping them before it fell to the ground. Looking down at her chest, Bunny checked for scratches, and was relieved when there were none. She had been that close, though, she knew, and felt the icy fingers of the dead on her.
Pandemonium swelled all around her as the dead attacked, biting and clawing at everyone in sight. Bunny waded through the insanity, looking for a way around to the motor pool, shooting all the dead she could. It wasn't enough, or even close. People were dying and there was no escape.
"Bunny!" She heard Caroline's scream and pivoted towards it then felt her breath catch.
Three of the new kind of Gaunts had Caroline and her other friends from the club pinned, their backs to the flaming remnants of the mess tent. Bunny raised her gun and silently asked that she not be forced to watch any of them die.
The rain was cold, like slivers of ice showering down from the heavens. The gun in Bunny's hand trembled as she shivered, not just from the cold, but from the fear she felt and struggled to keep pushed down. When she pulled the trigger, it was with the hope that her aim was good enough, despite everything, to save her friends.
The first Gaunt went down, pitching forward into the mud as the bullet ended his unnatural life. The other two turned, hissing, on Bunny as she swung her hand and pulled the trigger, the sidearm bucking slightly, to end the second.
The third didn't wait for her to shoot it, instead racing forward, snarling. Bunny raised her arm as it jumped, and felt its fingers close around her flesh. Staggering backward from the dead thing's strength, Bunny felt herself topple, and let it happen, falling back into the mud.
The Gaunt leaned in to bite her, mouth gaping as it reached for her shoulder. Bunny swung her gun hand up, planting the weapon in its jaws and watching as it instinctively bit down, just inches from her face. She smiled at it and pulled the trigger, feeling it jerk and then turn into dead weight on top of her.
She kicked it off and rolled to her feet as Caroline ran over to help her. Behind her, Randy, Bruno, Rebecca and the girls huddled in the rain, watching for more of the dead. All around them, the screams of the dying filled the air, punctuated by the claps of thunder and flashes of lightning.
"I told you to head for the landing field," Bunny told Caroline.
"We got cut off," the other woman explained. "We were trying to circle around when they caught us."
"Where's your gun?"
Caroline looked back towards the residential tents. "In there."
"Fuck," Bunny muttered. "Let’s go get it. I’ve a feeling we’re going to need it.”
Leading the way, Bunny watched as the dead jumped anyone and everyone they saw while she and her friends raced through the camp. Soldiers tried to contain the situation, but there were already too many of them, the giants outside filling the Park with them at an astonishing rate.
Reaching the tents, she waved Caroline forward. Bruno slid past her,
