Now gobbos are climbing up over the fence tops.

They hit the ground running. A dozen at first. Then another dozen. More. Jesus. She catches glimpses of open maws. Whipping tongues. And weapons: rusted knives and baseball bats swaddled in barbed wire. Is that a – some kind of antique? A blunderbuss?

Behind the goblins, a dark shadow rises. Like a black curtain blown loose of its rod. Floating behind, then over top the swarming gobbos.

Suddenly the scope is gone, snatched away by Mookie’s massive hand.

She’s about to protest, but he growls: “Here they come.”

Mookie’s tired. More than tired. Empty. Like he’s a scarecrow that’s been chewed out from the inside and all that’s left is the burlap sack and felt hat. As the gobbos rush – thirty, maybe forty of the gibbering, howling gray-skinned, snot-slick mutants – there comes a tiny moment of doubt, a cigarette cherry in the darkness of his heart that burns hot and burns deep, and the doubt says: You can’t do this. You can’t save this town. You can’t fight anymore. You don’t even want to. Sit down. Lie back. Give up.

But then, that ember of hot ash is extinguished by a tide of anger.

He hates gobbos. Hates them. Sees what they’ve done. What they can do. They have nothing they believe in. A crazy loon like John Atticus Oakes thinks they have beliefs and even morals, twisted as they may be. He points to their temples, to some strange religious-seeming cave carvings, to their language that he supposedly helped to decipher. Says maybe they worship the Hungry Ones, the gods of the deepest dark. Mookie doesn’t buy it. More important, he doesn’t care.

They’re awful creatures with no place in this world. Above or below.

And that drives him forward. He draws the cleaver. Nearby a pistol shot. He sees the top of one gobbo’s head peel back, greasy brains bubbling over like a shaken beer.

The gobbos return fire. Mookie sees one gobbo skid to a halt, pointing a fat-mouthed blunderbuss. There’s a ground-shaking choom, a pyrotechnic flash of light, a gout of sickly yellow smoke. One of the dead men next to Mookie, an older fellow with a big distended belly and a beard squirming with earthworms, falls back, body peppered with holes that don’t bleed.

He screams and thrashes as cankerpedes come pouring out of those holes, squealing, squirming, chewing at him–

The gobbo starts to reload, stuffing a filthy wad of writhing, struggling rags into the mouth of the old-timey gun. The rest of the gobbos are only ten feet away.

Mookie bares his teeth. Twirls his cleaver.

And meets the tide of gobbos like a human seawall.