Charlene punched her again. Vivian, who was actually foaming at the mouth as if she'd gone rabid, tried to bite her fist. Her teeth scraped against the back of Charlene's hand, tearing away skin, but didn't sink in deep.

Vivian let out a cry that sounded more animal than human. The woman had completely, utterly lost her mind. But she still had the gun.

Summoning all of her strength, Charlene rolled over, just as Vivian fired. The bullet pounded into the floor. Charlene sat up, which hurt like hell, and grabbed Vivian's wrist. She pulled it backwards, trying to snap the bones, and when that didn't work she tried to dig what existed of her fingernails into Vivian's flesh.

Vivian twisted the gun around and squeezed off another shot. This one flew past Charlene's shoulder. Her ears were now ringing so badly that she could barely hear Vivian's primal shriek.

Charlene still held Vivian's wrist. She squeezed tighter and tighter, hoping her fingers would burst right through Vivian's skin. Finally, the gun slipped out of Vivian's fingers and landed on Charlene's leg.

She immediately grabbed the weapon. Vivian lunged for it as well. There was no time to get her finger around the trigger, take aim, and fire, so Charlene settled for flinging the gun away from them, toward the laundry room.

Vivian, perhaps taking a cue from Charlene punching the wound on her face, smacked the gash on Charlene's neck. Charlene couldn't really hear the sound her own voice made, but she assumed that it too was less than human.

Charlene tried to make another plea for them to just go their separate ways, but her mouth wasn't successfully forming words anymore. She punched at Vivian but missed completely. Vivian spat some blood into Charlene's face, then got up and staggered toward the laundry room.

Though her body felt like it was going to split apart and just start spraying blood from a dozen places, Charlene forced herself to stand up and go after her. She hadn't lost yet.

But when Vivian picked up the gun, Charlene was still ten feet away. No way to tackle her before she could shoot. Instead, Charlene began to back away, hoping she wouldn't slip on her own blood.

"Please..." she said, or thought she said, even though there was absolutely no chance of reasoning with the woman at this point.

Vivian pointed the gun at her. When she smiled—a crazed, scary smile—blood streamed from both sides of her mouth.

There was a knock at the door at the top of the stairs.

Somebody was inside the house.