[WP] A lone cowboy runs down an abandoned traintrack, with a horde of zombies giving chase. He sees a small town up ahead.

...

"Take my lucky hat, he tells me. It's really lucky: nothing bad ever happens when I'm wearing it, he says." Joe huffed the words on puffs of tired lungs, chest heaving as he continued along the train-tracks that were inexplicably portioned in and out of the muddy turf.

"Graaaaaa..." Behind him the chorus of moaning calls ushered out from the trees and swamps. "Grroooooooo..." By Joe's best count there were at least fifty of them now. More than the eight loaded buckshot could possibly take out, even if they lined up for him.

"Don't take the backpack for this one, he tells me. I'll just slow you down- the hat should be enough, he says." Joe increased his pace, ducking under a quickly stumbling ghoul that happened to be coming from the left-front beside the tracks. "This is bullshit. This is bullshit. This is bullshit."

Joe kept running, boots throwing mud up and behind him as he pressed forward towards the barely visible town. In theory, that was his rendezvous with the Jeep.

"Rob, I'm going to kill you." Joe promised aloud to no one in particular as he stumbled over another rail, barely catching his balance as it dived back under the muddy terrain, reemerging somewhere off in the distance of the trail. "If I live through this, I swear to god, it'll be the first thing I do."

The promise was a false one. Joe would never kill Rob intentionally, and certainly not out of temper or cold blood- but he felt he had every right to vent his frustrations as he continued down the path, zombies crawling out with lonesome howls and reaching hands. Even if it wasn't truly Rob's fault that Joe was in this exact mess, it was Rob's fault that Joe was here at all.

"A railroad here means people. People from our world, not this one. Fantasy worlds wouldn't have American steel lines or abandoned shipping carts on them." His breath was coming out in sputters now, but the words spurred Joe onward. "Looking for survivors isn't that far-fetched."

Just because the words spurred him on, didn't make Joe feel like any less of an idiot. He'd been told this was a bad idea, by Rob of all people.

Rob.

The maniac who brought them here with a trunk full of Jerky, Nutella, and ten loafs of wonderbread.

"Jeep won't fit down that path, we should head around. That old man said that this road leads to the same place." Rob had said, voicing reason in the strangest turn of events Joe had ever witnessed.

Maybe it was just that: Rob voicing reason. Like an "opposite day" effect, Joe couldn't help but assume that Rob was actually voicing stupidity, and decided to push for the opposite direction.

"Holy shit! Alright, I'll meet you on the other side good buddy. Now you're getting in the spirit of things!"

That encouragement, in retrospect, should have been all the red flags Joe could ever need or want NOT to go through with something.

"Oh shit!" Joe jumped over the rising and filthy form of a ghoul, hands and head turning from a deep mud-puddle just as Joe reached it. Tucking his knees to his chest he leapt as far as he could, landing heavy but still in standing motion on the otherside. "Oh shit. Oh shit." His heart was now beating far too fast, on top of a frame that had easily passed the two mile mark while carrying a jacket, jeans, heavy boots, and a Mossberg.

It wasn't something Joe would recommend to anyone, even if they had been active in cross-country during their high-school and college years.

The town was getting closer, and if Joe looked closely through the darkness of the setting sun, he could make out what were probably headlights. Rob was waiting for him then, probably sitting in a lawn-chair on top of the jeep, snacking on a nutella and jerky sandwich as if it was the most ordinary thing in the world to do. Joe could picture this clearly.

"That fucking bastard." Anger fueled Joe's momentum. "I can't believe I'm doing this right now. Zombies, alternate reality, knights and medieval shit everywhere-"

Then, as luck would have it- the mysterious railroad's presence vanished, track of steel and spoke abruptly ending with swamp and lacking turf- sending Joe plunging into knee deep muck.

"AH F-" Was all Joe managed to get out before he went headfirst into the cold dark water, sludge and murk soaking deep into every crevice of his being as he fought to get himself upright.

"Groooooooaaaaaaan." A call ushered to his left. "Graaaaaaaaaaw." Another to his right, panic filling him as he pushed himself through the sludge-filled waters towards the distant view of headlights. "Grrrrrrraaaaaaaaw..."

"ROB!" Joe shouted, "ROB HELP!"

It was no use though, and Joe knew it well. Rob had a habit of eating meals while listening to music, sometimes even with headphones- regardless of the circumstances. Once in his youth, he had been forced to wait outside Rob's house for 30 minutes, ringing the doorbell and waving through the glass to his obvious figure, watching as Rob chewed slower than a Camel with heat-stroke.

"ROB!" Joe took a shot as a face and hands reached up out of the waters in front of him, chain-mail and battered helm shattering under a blast of 00 buck. "ROB!" Wincing as his ears began to ring with the early onset of tinnitus, Joe continued his efforts. "HELP!"

More and more ghouls were approaching. Methodical and clumsy steps pushing through the swamp towards Joe from all directions as he pushed his way through. Only a few hundred more feet to go, but there were way too many. He would run out of ammo, even moving quickly.

BANG, BANG, BANG! The gunshots rang out as the casings flew with heavy racking pumps, Ghouls bursting one or two at a time beneath the onslaught. But for every Ghoul that went down, two more seemed to appear. BANG, BANG!

"HELP ME ROB!" Joe screamed as he fired his last few shots, turning the gun around to club the next to approach him with mixed success. His prized firearm had been reduced to a bludgeoning tool. "HELP ME YOU BASTARD- HELP!" A set of hands latched onto him, and then another as Joe tried to struggle forward. More and more were closing in, even as he fought them off.

It was all over, he realized. He was going to die.

The hands pulled him beneath the water- Joe's weapon smashing blindly against anything he could reach, gaping skulls and heads caving in beneath a thick stock's repeated impacts, but making little difference as water came up over his eyes. Murk and mud almost instantly blinding him from the sight of anything but darkness.

This was it, Joe accepted. The bitter-end. A pointless and pitiful death, far from home.

"God damn you Rob." He blubbered out into the swamp, as hands pulled him towards the muddy floor. "I should have stayed home."

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

Though he could see nothing in detail, Joe could make out the visible flare of bright orange flames on the water's surface.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

Another bright flash ripped across his vision, followed by another still, and another after that, as firm hands plunged into the water from above grabbed his shoulders any prying him out of the muck.

"Rob?" Joe gasped, eyes blinking through the filth and dirt as they continued to drag him further, splashing through the swamp with great force. "Holy shit, Rob is that you?"

"No." The reply came bluntly, as Joe was dropped on dry land, flare of brutal heat whipping past his face as a ghoul burst into flame and cinders before his eyes- disappearing under a terrible violence. "I am not the one you call Rob, but I will take you to him."

Joe stared in wonder, as his savior lowered a thick hood from his dark robe, hands lifting to illuminate the darkness of nightfall around them with two balls of orange flame.

"Who are you?" Joe asked, coughing up a mouthful of swamp with disbelief. "How are-"

"Now is not the time, Foreign Warrior known as Joe. Ready yourself, for combat approaches." The man's hands shot forward in an open palmed punch, flames bursting out to rile hood and cloak as two more approaching ghouls fell as hissing fragments of bone and ashes. "The remnants of the Western horde still hold with numbers here."

They were still in the swamp, Joe realized as he rose to his feet. As he unsteadily managed to pull the few shells he'd had in his pocket, loading them with a cringe as the water leaked from his weapon, he could see where they had arrived even in the darkness of evening. Only a small portion of dry ground held together in a small island the greater expanse of soaked and rotted ground. This was still very much in a dangerous location.

As he shook the liquid from his ears, In the distance Joe could hear the ringing of a small-caliber and what might very well have been maniacal laughter, before turning back towards his mysterious savior.

"You have many questions." The man reached down, plucking free the ever-infamous hat, to set it carefully upon Joe's soaked head with a wry smile as he continued. "But for now you need know only this: My name is Eron, and I am your ally."

Then, ushered in by the rallied cries of angry ghouls: The true battle began.