The stench is unbelievable. It's as though you've stumbled upon a sea of death during high tide. It's as suffocating as drowning, except water would be much easier to fight through. Blind by fear and adrenaline, you swing your mace. It makes contact before you expect it to; indicating they're much too close. Startled off your feet, you push yourself up with your hand and stagger backward. Just as you realize you're hesitating too long, an arrow flies by your ear with a swift whistle, meeting its mark in the eye of an undead.

"Get back!" Lawrence says.

You rush over beside him as he shoots arrow after arrow, meeting target after target.

"Lawrence!" Quinn says from the other tunnel.

"Yea?"

"Retreat! We'll rendezvous at the drop point!"

At this point, there are so many undead, you're pretty sure the sewers had become a popular escape route from the city. That is, until someone bitten thought the route would save them, too. One undead could spread the infection pretty fast in a place like this. Now they're practically crawling over each other to get to the pair of you.

"You got it, sir," Lawrence says.

The pile of dead undead in front has grown so large, that it seems to be barricading the others. No longer able to just step over them, they're forced to stand in place and growl, but it won't last long. Lawrence snatches a fistful of your sleeve and scrambles backward.

Together, the pair of you splash through the shallow water, keeping up an even pace. Echoes of the undead follow you down every twist and turn of the sewer. Right, left, left, right. Dead rats are strewn along the flooring. Some of them are badly mangled, but others are almost gone. All have tale-tell signs of being torn with something not quite razor sharp. Something closer to human incisors - only the creatures that snacked on these rodents weren't human.

A misplaced brick or rock catches your foot at just the right angle, you're knocked off balance. You cry out. The floor of the sewer rushes toward you as you plunge. You barely have time to keep your face from bashing onto the sewer floor. Your knee was not so lucky. Judging by the way it's stinging , you know it's been scraped pretty bad. Thinking fast, you pull out one of your knives and cut away the grime-soaked jeans over your knee.

"Pour this over it, fast," Lawrence says, holding something over your shoulder.

It's a bottle of vodka. Figures, you think. He probably has a couple stashed on him. You take it and tilt it so the liquid splashes over your bloody knee. It is the equivalent of holding a torch to your knee. Eyes watering, you fight back a scream. Why does it hurt so bad? Pain radiates from the area, and for the fear of seeming weak, you turn the pain into anger. Anger at yourself for being clumsy at such a time, angry at the stupid rock. . .

You reach down to throw the wretched thing, only to be horrified when you discover you're not holding a rock at all. It's actually a shoe, with a severed foot inside. You gasp and drop it fast.

Lawrence sighs and takes the vodka bottle you've been gripping in your other hand. "Enough of the drama. Time to complete our mission," he says, offering you his gloved hand.

His fingers, the only part of his hand not covered in leather, wrap around your hand as he pulls you up. You stumble when he lets go right away, as if touching you burns him as much as your knee burns right now.

Well, it's no loss, you think. You're not particularly thrilled to be stuck with this grumpy guy instead of Quinn anyway.

"Come on," he says.

He begins to climb the steel bars that make up the sewer ladder. Groans and snarls are echoing down the sewer. It could just be your imagination, but you could swear that they're growing closer. As soon as Lawrence's boot rises above your head, you grab onto the cold bars and follow him up. Up.

At last, you're crawling out of the wretched sewer. Seeing pavement and breathing the air is like seeing and tasting water on a desert after walking fifteen miles. The scraping of the sewer lid being dragged closed cuts the silence like a knife. But you lay there, enjoying the sun on your grimy face.

Lawrence breaks your temporary bliss by cursing loudly.

"What?" you ask, dreading the answer, but knowing you need to hear it.

He's running back from the corner of a brick building. "He's not here. He should be here."

"Maybe he just got carried away...you know...killing them," you sigh.

"Naw. No, he said to retreat. Why would he. . . ." he began, then seemed to shift his train of thought. "We wasted time when you tripped...he should have had time!" He grumbles.

He disappears from the corner. Not keen on being alone, you push off the hard ground and scramble to catch up. Everything looks abandoned. Stores and offices seem to have a lonely look to them. Cars are forgotten in the strangest places: on sidewalks, through a shop window. By the time you get to the spot in the street where Lawrence is, he's already lifting the cover off of the manhole with a crowbar. The noise that wafts up when it opens causes him to let it fall back down pretty fast.

"They're everywhere," you say, still as horrified as you were seeing them for the first time.

"You don't say, s'not like that was obvious or anything," Lawrence snaps. You let it slide, because he seems pretty shook up.

"Maybe he took another way."

"No way he remembers the routes. I studied that map. This is where he was headed; this is where he should be." He winces as though experiencing physical pain. After taking a few deep breaths, he raises the heavy lid again.

The undead are below, bumping into each other, jumping and slashing their dirty claws toward the hole where Lawrence looks down. "Quinn!" he calls. A few beats go by without a sound aside from the snarls of the living dead. "Lieutenant Quinn!" Still nothing.

The lid slams with a vibrating clap. Lawrence looks dangerous. His eyes have darkened and his face is scrunched like he's trying hard to keep his face from exploding. Finally, he gives in and releases some of the pressure with a howl of sorts. Not really a cry or a yell, but something in between. When it finally ends, he jumps up and puts his fist through the window of a nearby Ford. Glass shatters and flies; most of it lands inward, but some sprays outside as well. You're ready to bet a few pieces are stuck in his fist.

Almost as suddenly as it released, he seems to lock the fury away again. He turns to you seriously. "Let's go! We can't stay here."

Join Lawrence continued - SKIP TO CHAPTER 37