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Gabe Martinez was suddenly awoke to the sound of gunfire. Not just any gunfire, but the heavy chatter of the .50 caliber machine gun that was hammering his skeleton as he opened his eyes. The sun was gone, replaced by the dark sky of night as screams and shouts erupted from outside. He struggled to his feet and got dressed, noticing the woman was gone from the tent. Martinez flipped on his radio and it crackled to life as hell was breaking loose.

"HOLD YOUR POSITIONS! HOLD YOUR POSITIONS DAMMIT!" one voice roared.

"THEY BUSTING THROUGH, FALL BACK! FALL BACK!" another countered.

Martinez jumped out into a flurry of activity, people were fleeing in a panic in every direction and he couldn't quite get a bead on the situation. From one end the complex came an explosion so big he could feel the heat as it lit up the camp. Helicopters were thundering away above him as he got out of the alley to the main thoroughfare and found himself neck deep in chaos. Army Jeeps roared past with grim faced soldiers cocking their AR-15's as they sped by. Martinez nearly hit the deck when the Vulcan cannon on the side of the Huey began roaring with a steady thunder, hot shells raining down as another unleashed a barrage of small missiles toward the stadium.

"BREACH! BREACH! WE LOST THE ASTRODOME-" the radio crackled punctuated by a long horrifying scream.

Martinez jumped into the fray looking for the enemy and trying to guide people to safety, even he didn't know what was happening. From his left came a commotion as crowd of people surged forward like a living wave forcing him up onto supply crates. They flooded past him like a river when he saw them amid the people. The walking dead were quickly swarming in small groups forcing Martinez to pick them off from his post. One down, two down, then another. He suddenly lost his balance as people surging began trampling each other, pushing the crate out from under him.

"WE'RE FUCKED! FALL BACK ALL UNITS! ALL UNITS! FALL BACK! SITUATION IS FUBAR! USE OF LETHAL FORCE AUTHORIZED!"

Martinez's blood ran cold as he struggled to his feet when he heard the radio, punching his way through the people to get out of the mess. He climbed up onto a set of folding tables when the crowd began erupting with gun fire from somewhere ahead of him. Then he could see, no, smell them coming. The deaders had taken down the fence and were coming in full force by the hundreds, forcing people to run for cover. The helicopters began to circle overhead with the spotlights trained on the crowd as it began firing into the people.

"FIRE AT WILL! ALL TARGETS ARE FREE!"

"NO!" Martinez roared into the radio, "There are civilians in the crowd! CIVILIANS IN THE CROWD!"

He went ignored as the Huey's began to circle back and firing missiles into the camp.

"NOOO! NOOO! DAMMIT CEASE FIRE! CEASE FIRE!" he roared into the radio as a stream of bullets ripped into the fleeing people and deaders feasting on the fallen.

The bullets came close forcing Martinez to fall back and run with the surging crowd. The stadiums were in flames as volley's of gunfire poured from every direction, the young cat stumbling through the wave of moving bodies as several tents toppled down beside them. Survivors were screaming as the deader's clawed into them knocking down tents in their wake. Martinez leveled his AR and began picking them off, but soon realized he would run out of ammo as the next wave of glass eyed walkers poured in. From his left came the heavy chatter of the .50, sending body parts flying as the heavy rounds poured through the crowd. Civilians caught in the cross fire were blasted to pieces in red fountains as a Jeep ahead unloaded without mercy at all threats. Most of the people overtook the soldiers, fighting their weapons away to fight the onslaught of the dead coming, shooting and leaving them for dead as the things began to feast on them. Martinez looked on in horror as they played tug-o'-war with one of them before pulling off his arm entirely, then splitting him open like they were gutting a fish. They quickly crowded for the best pieces as he grabbed what ammo he could off a dead soldier beside him. A grenade went off nearby, the shockwave tossing him from his feet as the air was sucked into the fireball, spinning him viciously through space amid all the flying lead.

Martinez bounced off the ground with a heavy thud, tasting blood and asphalt as he thumped off the wet pavement. His body felt like lead against the earth as the burning silhouettes continued to attack their screaming victims. He pushed himself up as the choppers began to circle back, unleashing another barrage of gunfire into the crowd. The bullets pinged and flipped past him as he dove for cover as the Vulcans rumbled away overhead. People were being cut down with no mercy, left for dead for the things to feast upon as the soldiers fled.

"All units evac, get to the choppers we are out of here!" the radio crackled, distorted from the impact.

Martinez tossed it aside as one of the things glanced under the table and roared, lunging for him. He barely had time to draw his sidearm and nail it between the eyes before crawling out of his safe hole amid the cases of rations. The shot had attracted them by the dozens and they were coming for him as he dove through tents to escape. He felt the tornado-like wind of a helicopter's blades beating the air from up ahead and he knew it meant an escape from them. He dove for the fence and climbed like hell, barely glancing the razor wire as the things hit the fence. They pressed their drooling faces against the wire as the Huey began to get up to speed. Soldiers hung out of the side began waving him on much to his surprise as a surge hit the gates and pushed them down. People tore across the parking lot in a swarm hoping for the last chopper out of hell as Martinez hurried across the tarmac. An explosion ripped through the camp as the things tore through the fence and began flooding in to meet the survivors half way. The Huey began to lift as Martinez jumped for the runner, the soldiers reaching out to grab him as they tore into the sky. Below them the collective screams of the people began to reach hellish heights as the things began tearing into the crowd. The Vulcans roared and the missile tubes hissed as their continued their bombardment of the AstroDome, which lay in ruins below them. Martinez looked longingly and almost shamefully at the soldiers as they tore north through the ruined city. They returned lamented looks themselves as the orange light from the burning oil reserves began to spread from the south like a veil of hell itself.

The headphones crackled to life on his ears as the thrum of the engine rattled his bones from a trance-like sleep. He looked out the open door to see the Texas sun rising over his mother state with it's sprawling beauty marred by war being fought below him. Lines of men were moving through the country side, volunteers who were knocking back beers and popping off shots as remnants of the National Guard trained themselves on isolated pockets of the things that were attacking below.

"Where are we? Brownsville?" Martinez said looking around at the open farm fields below filled with volunteer militia's.

"Probably," one said looking dubiously at the mess below, "those rednecks down there are probably enjoying the whole thing."

"Where are you all headed?" Martinez asked cautiously.

"North." the gunner said, "Oklahoma maybe."

"Most likely," his buddy said.

"More than likely. If we have the fuel mostly like Kansas."

"Kansas?" Martinez said looking lost, "The hell is in Kansas?"

"Dorothy and her sisters," the copilot chimed in, coaxing a laugh from the crew.

"Flowering states, son," the gunner said, "Little to no population." "That's right," his buddy, the golden lab said, "zero population. Plus all the farmer's daughters you can ask for."

"Amen," the copilot chuckled.

"Lots of flat land too," the gunner, a ferret, said, "We'll see them coming for miles."

"Relax cat," the lab said grinning, "everything is cool. We were planning to ditch anyway, those things just gave us a push."

Martinez felt a pang of anger, but decided to not pursue it as the world below them continued to quietly crumb away.

"Yo Trevor," the ferret called on the radio, "we got enough supplies in this bird for one more."

There was a bit of silence.

"Well, we'll make it work. He's one of us now."

There was a chill to the words that Martinez couldn't shake, like the ominous cloud of something sinister settling over him as he dared to close his eyes. A strong south wind brought with it the smell of rain that roused him from his sleep as the bird rocked violently in the gust. The soldiers pulled the doors shut as it began to pelt the hull with machine gun force as Martinez looked down to see packed highways below. They were close to a city by the cluster of houses getting closer and closer together.

Thunder rumbled overhead as the clouds raced in with fierce speed blanketing the clear skies with a veil of darkness in one shot. The sunlight died as it was replaced with the steady strobes and ear-piercing cracks of thunder as the pilots struggled against the shifting wind. Their chatter wasn't pleasant at all as the storm began to threaten them with heavy drops and falls.

"Hang tight back there, it's going to get bumpy folks!"

The bird took another dive, threatening to ground them as the engine struggled with the forces coming out of the dark.

"Shit man at this rate, we might as well crash." the lab roared locking himself into the seat.

Martinez did his best to hang on as the crate beside him began to slide, the others trying to hold onto it as the wind began to howl through the blades of chopper. It was an unholy sound that likes of which he wished wouldn't haunt his dreams as the storm cranked up. The body of the chopper began to rumble and groan with each wrenching bump, as if the very craft itself were protesting it's treatment by the wind.

"OH SHIT!" the pilot roared. "Hang on!"

Martinez saw the men's faces go blank and dared to look over their shoulder to see the horror. At first all he saw as pure darkness, the blackest night he could possibly imagine seeing in his life. The pilot's face was semi illuminated by the dozens of multicolored LED readouts was expressing horror beyond words. It was in the flare of lightning that Martinez suddenly felt his heart in his bowels. He thought he was looking at a grey column of smoke, maybe a gigantic fire, but it was when he saw sheet metal orbiting the column that it hit home what it was: a tornado! Lightning jabbed the sky again, illuminating a second smaller tornado orbiting the main funnel which was a vast wide wedge shape. It's skinnier counterpart was now caught in a violent dance around it's parent storm, whipping around the maelstrom as blue-white light of a power substation erupted near their base, casting strange shadows upon them. The pilot made a hard left, pulling back into the rain as the men struggled to hang on.

There was a clatter of metal from behind as the wind grew violent, the windshield cracked followed by a thump on the rotors. Embedded in the glass was a large ball of ice that could only be hail and then Martinez realized they were flying into the core of the storm, hoping to escape the monster tornado behind them.

"NO! TURN AROUND!" Martinez roared. "Bullshit!" the pilot shouted as another stone pinged off the rotor and sent the bird nearly into a tail spin.

"TURN AROUND! YOU'LL KILL US!" he shouted as rifle trained on him.

"STAND DOWN!" the lab bellowed.

Martinez looked at him in the flare of lightning and felt his blood running cold in veins. It was in that moment he saw the door pull away and the smaller of the tornadoes just beyond the edge of the dark. Martinez clung to the chair for life as cars whipped past his feet as the wind pulled on him.

"WE'RE CAUGHT!" the pilot shouted on the radio.

Martinez only caught a brief glimpse of the main tornado on the other side of the chopper as the other door was sucked away into the gloom beyond. Strobes of lightning filled the air as their screams were drowned out over the roar of the twin tornadoes as they fell between them. The air was suddenly filled with a million things, battering Martinez as he struggled to hang onto the chair in the strange darkness around him. The soldiers were screaming in their chairs were suddenly ripped out of the bird together, gun and all as the engine sputtered and whined above them. The pilot was screaming something but he couldn't hear as the headphones tore away from his head. Something big struck the chopper and in the next flare of lightning Martinez watched as the tail of the bird sailed away. Next the main blade began to stutter and came through the roof just inches from the flailing cat as the smaller tornado toyed with chopper. There was a loud crash and bright flash of lightning again as he saw a gasoline tanker tumbling from the larger toward them.

The trucks lights were still on, illuminating it like a crazy comet rocketing toward them with deadly speed as Martinez let a scream of terror, the sound ripped from his lips by the wind. There was an impact as the nose came away, then they were speeding up as they fell from space toward the ground below.