The greyskins start pouring into the streets. One of them sets its eyes on me as I fumble to load my gun. Bullets clank to the ground as I drop them nervously. I can hear its guttural moan. Its grayish skin seems to be falling off its face, its clothes in tatters, its teeth chomping at me as though it can already taste my blood. The bullets are finally in and the greyskin is almost on top of me. I fire it once and the bullet shoots through its neck. No good. I shoot again and this time the bullet goes through the middle of its forehead and it falls to the ground only a foot in front of me. There have to be at least thirty greyskins in the street and now more have trained their eyes on me.

I look ahead to see Paxton and Mendez sprinting for the SUV. They aren’t about to take it and run, are they? I fire a round, a greyskin falls. I shoot again, another falls. But I know I don’t have thirty bullets left. Like an answer to a prayer, Gabe crashes through the door of the sheriff’s office, helping Skip walk with him. When they get near me, Gabe fires into the crowd of greyskins and Skip falls to his knees next to me.

I get a sick feeling in my stomach at the sight of Skip’s injury. No, not injury. More like death sentence. To be bitten is to be killed in a slow and painful way. He seems to be weaponless, and Gabe complains that he’s already down to the last of his bullets.

“There shouldn’t have been that many greyskins in there,” he says as he takes aim at another greyskin.

I don’t know what to think. All I do is keep firing. Firing, firing, firing until I’m completely out of bullets. I’m thankful to see that Paxton and Mendez didn’t completely abandon us, rather they take aim from the safety of the SUV in clear view of us, but then their guns are silent.

“We’re out!” comes the voice of Mendez. A few of the greyskins turn toward him as he yells.

Six are coming toward us, four are going after Paxton and Mendez. Gabe takes down two more greyskins and declares he’s out of ammo too.

“Some planning,” I say to him. “Why didn’t you pack more ammo?”

“There weren’t supposed to be this many!”

I roll my eyes at him. As the greyskins move closer, I know what I’ve got to do. I reach down for my backpack and unzip the top. My hand clasps around the silver handle of the pistol I stole from Paxton.

Nine bullets, eight greyskins. Little room for error.