Our progress slowed to a crawl as we engaged the numerous hostiles that came at us blindly and without weapons. With our numbers, we were in no real danger. Each squad had to conserve its ammunition, however. Andy’s .45 ammunition was almost out, while the rest of us were using 9 mm and there was still a fair amount left on the carts. This meant that Andy never had to fire a single shot the entire time.

I opted to use my sword as much as possible, with the others in the group covering me. If there was a single target coming at us, I would step forward with my sword and cut down the mana-corrupted human. Every time I had to kill one, I felt a pang of disappointment and loss. We couldn’t capture one, not while we were in an exposed position on the road.

The feeling never lasted long, as it was overshadowed by exhilaration as new power entered my system, even if I had to take a moment to cleanse the incoming energy. I was getting faster at it, and I came to realize just how little energy each of these individuals was passing along to me. I felt stagnant, even as the power from them surged through my sword — which took its portion of power just as before — then passing into me. I felt like I was fighting against some kind of limit, like a flood backed up behind a dam with water flowing into the spillway, wasted and not adding to my own power.

It took our force a frustrating twenty minutes of butchery to reach Stripes, a moderately sized convenience store. The door was locked, but that did not matter, since my sword treated the deadbolt like tissue paper. After the long minutes of grueling focus and shooting, the others stumbled into the convenience store, sinking to their knees to catch their breath before reloading magazines or looking for food.

Apparently, this convenience store hadn’t received the proper alcohol permits yet because there was no beer in the drinks section, which was very disappointing. However, We found a lot of bottled water, basic medical supplies like cough medicine and Tylenol, and even some low-quality toilet paper in the janitor’s closet. But the most important things we collected were snacks. Lots of snacks. Convenience store food would not have worked long-term to keep us healthy, but unhealthy was better than starving. I grabbed three ziplock bags of teriyaki-style beef jerky, while almost everyone argued about which of the other flavors was the best. I saw Chavez and Karl grabbing an exorbitant number of jalapeño-flavored ones. Everyone else snagged the more classic flavors, though Chavez preferred the term “bland”.

From a more practical standpoint, the most useful find was the heavy-duty industrial cart that was chained to a metal post behind the store. The bright red would be tough to hide, but it was built for durability and could probably carry a ton of weight. After I cut our new set of wheels free, we loaded it down with Arrowhead water bottles still in their brown plastic packages.

“Time to move,” Commander Hogan said. For the past several minutes, while we ransacked the convenience store, stuffing as much into our pockets and backpacks as possible, he had been reviewing the maps by the cashier’s counter. “It’s about a mile-and-a-half of walking if I’m judging correctly. We’ll follow Madison, then take a right on 6th and follow that to the Army Reserve station.” No one had any objections, so we formed up outside, stepping carefully around the few bodies that lay in the way.

I noted the casualness with which I was now regarding death. I had put bullets in more bodies in the last two days than all my years of experience in the military and on some of the most dangerous missions available to military personnel. I couldn’t help but wonder if this was the kind of world I lived in now, where fighting for my life would be a daily occurrence. I finally realized just how dark of a world the place had become. God, I missed my family.

“The beacons are lit!” Chavez mock-shouted when he saw the bright cart for the first time. His exclamation broke me out of my black mood and even brought a smile to my face.

The three groups were milling in the front of the convenience store, keeping a lookout, but clearly more relaxed, because nothing had attacked us since reaching the convenience store.

“Seriously, though,” Chavez continued. “Couldn’t you find anything that wouldn’t be visible from another mountaintop?”

“You gotta finish the quote, man,” Mason protested.

“Gondor calls for aid!” Chavez shouted enthusiastically.

“And Brownsville will answer!” Mason said with equal enthusiasm.

“Yeah, it really doesn’t have the same ring to it,” Chavez shrugged.

“Peter Jackson did it better,” one of the other border patrol agents piped up.

Chavez shrugged. “That’s Tolkien, actually. He wrote the books.”

“It’s not a direct Tolkien line, though,” I cut in. “In the books, Theoden has no hesitation about whether to help Gondor. There’s no ‘where was Gondor’ speech.” Everyone looked at me, the way anyone else did when I talked about a topic I was passionate about. It was the look that said “nerd alert!”

“I never read the books, but the movies were awesome,” Mason broke the momentary silence. “The elves in the second movie — badass.”

“I finally figured it out,” I said, looking at the kid. “You are what’s wrong with the world.”

“Purist,” Mason muttered, and looked like he would say more, but was cut off by a loud voice.

“Form up!” Commander Hogan shouted. “And cut the chatter. We’re effectively in enemy territory.”

We did as ordered, splitting back into our groups, though there was a slight reshuffle so two people could push the cart. Our merry band of border patrol agents and two black ops soldiers moved on from our first stop.

We headed northwest on Madison St. The city followed a consistent grid pattern, but the streets didn’t orient from north to south. They tilted at an angle from northwest to southwest, preventing a neat straight line in the actual direction we wanted.

We stopped at a uniform store shortly after, and Hogen sent a few people running inside to grab anything that looked useful and in good shape. The group came out with military uniforms from disparate branches, some of which did not look even close to regulation, but civilians shopping there would have no way of knowing that. They also brought several police uniforms. We put all the clothing on the cart, though some bundles attempted to escape by spilling over the side.

Unlike last time, our pace was now uninterrupted as we continued down the road. It allowed me to really observe the differences in the small city around me. Oddly enough, the evidence of violence was sparse. There was the occasional dead body in the street, half with their chests open, the other half simply lay still. This far from the main roads, the buildings were mainly composed of apartment buildings, ground floor windows occasionally broken, spreading glass on the ground. In a populous city like this, which is a hotbed for tourism in the fall and winter, the smell distinctly lacked the smell of gasoline. Even at night, there would usually be the lingering scent, but truly no technology seemed to be working. The sound was most eerie. There should be the sound of talking or movement… something. But instead, it felt like the city was holding its breath, waiting for the next catastrophe.

Because I was drawn into the silence, it was all the more jarring when that silence was shattered like breaking a pane of glass. Though I’d heard it before many times, the sound of screaming still made my blood run cold.

"Someone's in trouble!" I called back to the group Hogan was leading.

"Pick up the pace," he said. "But we take no unnecessary risks."

With that agreement, I moved us into a light jog, my head on a swivel for where the sound was coming from. Less than a block later, I could tell the screaming was coming from a cathedral.

The building itself was set back from the sidewalk at least thirty feet, the yard surrounded by a low sandstone wall topped with a wrought-iron fence. These token barriers hadn't worked to keep the wights off the front step of the cathedral. The church looked as old as the city and was built sturdily enough to outlast an apocalypse, I thought with a dry chuckle, until I saw the large stained-glass windows. Or gaps that used to be filled with glass. Ornate wooden benches had been turned on their ends and thrust against the windows from the inside, the patterned pews now pressed into service to defend the congregation inside.

I saw men and women beating back the rabid attackers with candlesticks, trying to hold at bay the twenty or so wights forcing their way into the church. They climbed over each other to scrabble at the windows, often as not pulling each other down in their haste to break in, and it was this lack of coordination that was the only reason they had not already succeeded.

My rifle came up, and a moment later blood blossomed in the back of one of the bodies forcing itself into the window. The effect was immediate. The heads snapped around and looked back at our group, and every pair of eyes fixed on me.

"Oh shit," I said right before they charged me.

We opened fire on them, each wight taking half a dozen rounds in its center of mass. Even after falling to the ground, some continued to move, limbs twitching as they crawled toward us like four-limbed spiders in the final death-throws. I stood over them and callously put a round into the head of each until it stopped moving.

I led the way up to the church. The front door sat closed and unmoving, but I could still hear screaming from inside. Without waiting for orders, I kicked at the double doors. Whatever they'd done to secure them held against the impact of my boot, but I quickly drew the sword from my back and dismantled the ancient wood, kicking away more chairs and pews that were braced against the entrance. It felt like I was hacking through the underbrush of the Amazon jungle seven years ago as I carved through the wooden furniture. Finally, I cleared our way into the sanctuary of the building.

Four men stooped over two bodies wrestling in the middle of the floor. The men still standing tried to pull the two apart, but one on the ground was savagely gripping the other. In a flash of realization, I saw it was the man on the bottom who held onto the wight, preventing the thing from escaping, even as it savaged his chest.

"Get back," I yelled and charged the group. I dropped my rifle clattering to the marble floor, slipping as I slowed my approach toward the group, which was slow to react. I shoved them out of the way and dove onto the two on the ground.

The civilians didn't know how to stop a fight between two committed opponents. You can't just grab one by the arm and try to pull him away. You have to fully commit as well. Thankfully, I have no issues committing to fights. The rabid wight was on top, its fingers digging at the man’s chest, in which I could see a dimly shining core. I looped my arm around the neck of the thing and pressed down on its windpipe. It bucked and tried to force me off, which gave me the leverage I needed to lift it off the ground and away. The hands that had been holding onto the Wight finally released, falling limply to the ground.

The wight squirmed in my vice-like grip, trying to eel out of the headlock. I fell backward, with the body on top of me. I twisted at the last minute, and the weight of the wight's body worked against itself as I jerked the neck back up with a sickening crack. I unwrapped my arms from around the body where we lay on the floor and finally took in my surroundings.

Andy knelt over the man on the floor as a pool of blood spread out from the hole in his chest. There was a clattering of something hitting the ground before a woman rushed over and knelt beside him, crying.

"He…" someone spoke quietly. "He just held on to it." I looked up to identify the speaker. The man wore black robes, though he was missing his white collar that was a signature of his office. "He held on so that it couldn't get to the kids." At his words, I looked behind him to some children, their heads peeking out from behind the large altar. The tops of more heads poked out above it.

"Daddy!" I heard a piping voice yell, and a boy no older than four made his way down the steps from the altar.

"Come here, son," the priest said as he grabbed the boy and held him, turning his face away from the gruesome scene even while the boy started to scream. "Turn around!" he ordered the rest of the children, his calm, authoritative voice forcing them to obey.

"Andy?" I had to raise my voice so that the lieutenant would hear me. He shook his head, not looking up at me from where he still knelt on the ground.

All I could feel at that moment was anger. Anger at the mana-twisted people who were killing innocents. Anger at the man who sacrificed his life instead of getting help. And anger at myself for not being fast enough. Inadvertently, my gaze flicked to the crucifix on the wall behind the altar and the man hanging on it. I tore my eyes away and looked back down to the man still struggling to breathe. I let my gaze linger on his face, memorizing every line of it. As his breathing slowed and his eyes closed as if sleeping, Andy and I averted our gazes, letting his wife have the final moment with him. My eyes fell on the wight’s body next to me. On the shining core in the chest.

"Damn it," I cursed and rushed to the body, drawing my knife. I plunged the weapon into the wight's chest.

"What are you doing!?" the priest shrieked in outrage and disgust.

"Saving this man's life," I growled and began pulling the body over toward the father. I grabbed his closest hand, forcing the fingers together tightly, then pushed the hand into the hole I'd just made in the wight's chest. Using my vision of the core in the wight's chest, I directed the hand toward the life-saving energy. There was a commotion around me, and I thought I heard protesting but paid it no mind as I focused on saving the life of a good man. Hell, if no one else in the church was going to do it, I guess that left me. Finally, I saw the power in the core wink out, and the power coursed up the arm of the man almost faster than I could track. The man's eyes shot open, and he immediately jerked away from me, pulling his hand back with a shout.

"It's okay," I said, trying to keep my tone calm. "It's going to be okay."

He didn't move until his wife suddenly rushed back over to him and threw her arms around his neck, and began kissing him, despite all the blood. A moment later, the toddler rushed over as well, though for some reason he chose to grab onto his mother instead. On second thought, my daughter probably would have done the same thing. Kids were weird like that.

"What was that about?" I asked Andy after I'd stood and walked over to him, then I gestured at the wife.

"She wanted to stop you. I didn't let her."

“See,” I said, “I can make good decisions.”

"It's a miracle!" the priest exclaimed, breaking our discussion.

"Call it what you like, padre," I said. "But I'm pretty sure it's just magic."