"That was my favorite gun!" I bellowed as I kept inching nearer to the hatch. I now had a wight on the ladder below, rapidly gaining, and two more scaling the wall to pounce on me. The hatch was still ten feet away.

"You should have taken my offer," the vampire roared.

He jumped impossibly high and landed on the ladder directly below me. The metal shook under the impact. Hot water droplets flew off and struck me in the face. Three wights and a vampire in striking distance in the next few seconds. I just kept climbing because that was my only option. I was pretty much screwed.

Then the hatch opened, directly above my head. It was my savior.

It was Grant Jefferson.

"Grant! Help me!" I screamed, clawing my way toward him.

His eyes grew wide as he saw the undead creatures swarming upwards. He started to hold out his hand to me, and then he apparently decided that he did not have time before the creatures would be on him as well. I could see the fear register on his face as he did the math. They were too close. Grant stood in his polished black body armor, bristling with useful weaponry, and said two words: "Sorry, Pitt." He looked right at me as he slammed the hatch.

"Arrgghhhh!" I shouted unintelligibly. Darné laughed below. I stuck one of my legs through the ladder to lock myself into position as well as possible. I reached across my body and drew my pistol with my left hand, sighted on the closest wight spider-crawling upward, and shot it in the head four times before it slipped from the wall and fell thirty-five feet onto its back with a bone-jarring crunch. The other wall crawler leapt, and I just barely had time to align the front sight on the monster before impact, firing a silver slug through the monster's brain. The wight's momentum carried it forward where it struck one of my legs. It fell away screaming in rage. Darné easily avoided the falling undead, but the blind wight underneath was not so lucky. The two monsters collided and fell the rest of the way to the hard metal floor. This time they did not rise. My now-numb leg buckled, and I only barely held on.

Now it was just me and Darné. He flew up the ladder. I fired the remaining ten rounds as fast as I could pull the trigger. I hit him repeatedly but with almost no effect. I dropped the pistol, and he swatted it out of the air. I watched hopelessly as it flew into multiple pieces. I grasped wildly for my knife, but it was too late. He was beside me on the ladder.