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FORD RUSHED TO THE WINDOW and stuck his head out, ear cocked toward the east gate, but then he frowned and turned back “God… it’s co from the center of town”

Urrea crowded in next to him “By the hospital, I think Please, no…”

Gutsy snatched her crowbar from a desktop and dashed for the door, Sombra at her heels Everyone followed Gutsy yelled over her shoulder as she ran

“Someone watch her”

“I got it,” said Chong, and he wheeled around back to the classroom

The rest ran

As they exited the school, the sounds of the screah the hot afternoon air Suns

“I don’t understand,” gasped Spider “How can there be this big a fight in town?”

No one had an answer, and they all ran harder

As they rounded a corner, they saw a terrible fight in progress—not at the hospital but across the square by the livery stables, which had been used to store the many enemy dead until they could be taken out by the cartload and burned

Just ahead, a gang of ravagers poured out of the stable, each of theeha with terrible efficiency People were down, clutching broken arms or shattered faces Blood froh on the walls A couple of residents were firing handguns as they backed away, but they were almost immediately overrun There were more attackers than there were bullets

“Ravagers!” Gutsy cried

“I thought they’d checked theasped Nix “All the dead ones were silenced, weren’t they?”

Lilah reached the littering arc that cleaved through a ravager’s wrist He shrieked and dropped his ax, then Lilah crashed into hi a short, devastating blow to the killer’s tehterhouse

Gutsy and Benny split right and left and Nix caun in both hands as she fired careful, spaced shots The ravagers were not quite los er human, and it was very difficult to kill the down, human, inhuman, or in-between

Sam Imura moved past Gutsy with his sniper rifle in his hands The weapon was a precision instrureat distances, but Sam proved that it worked close-up He shot, pivoted, shot, pivoted, shot Each tier went doith a black dot on forehead or temple

Then Captain Ledger reached the fight and he drew his katana so fast that the weapon was nothing more than a whisper of silver He and Sam peeled off and ran toward the hospital on the far side of the square, carving a path of destruction Gutsy stared at theer, Sam, and the California kids were all warriors She and her friends were not There were no sahters in New Alamo Just ordinary people

Watching them did not h For Gutsy, it had the opposite effect She sa experienced fighters worked There was a clear science to it, a practicality, and she was all about that

Gutsy hefted her crowbar and felt coldness run through her veins Soe She and her friends had learned the terrib

le art of killing on the wall, and that meant they were not helpless

A ravager rushed out of the stable and swung an ax at her, but Gutsy ducked low and s hi hier down A third attacker swung a shovel at her, but Gutsy twisted away, and the blade er in the throat, but the bloas badly aiered aithout falling

“Move!” yelled a voice, and Gutsy evaded again as Alethea’s baseball bat—Rainbow Ser on the point of the chin The round

Then Gutsy pushed Alethea out of the way of a ravager with a pitchfork, parried the weapon with her crowbar, kicked him in the knee, and then smashed the killer’s skull He fell, broken and still

Spider used his bo to drop another ravager, and for a fewas more of the monsters came out of nowhere The whole world seemed to be defined by pain and blood and violence The defenders, shocked and terrified though they were, fought like wildcats

There was a brief ers on that side of the street went down, though pockets of battle raged all around them

“This is i up “The crews couldn’t have missed this many of them…”