The air buzzed with the sound of tension—the high whine of adrenaline, the low growl of the horde, the crackling breath of the forest fire still burning in the distance. The thick smell of ash and rot clung to every surface, staining the world in a haze of death and firelight.
From the top of Woodbury's walls, the defenders watched as the Runner horde surged through the treeline like a storm.
Murphy stood at the tallest lookout post, his blue eyes glowing under the harsh light of mounted floodlamps. His jaw was set tight, expression unreadable, but behind that hard shell, his thoughts moved at lightning speed. He wasn't thinking like a survivor. He was thinking like a commander.
"Positions!" he barked, his voice slicing through the haze of fear that gripped the town. "Anyone who can hold a gun, hold it now. Aim for the heads. Conserve ammo. No panic."
Andrea crouched behind a sandbag barricade, her cheek pressed against the rifle stock. Sweat beaded at her temples, but her fingers didn't tremble. Her eyes were cold steel behind the scope. Beside her, Amy was paler than anyone else on the wall, but she gripped her rifle with white-knuckled resolve, lips pressed together in a thin, focused line.
"I won't let them through," she whispered. Her voice was almost a prayer.
Dale crouched beside them, fumbling shells into his shotgun, his breath uneven. His cap was stained with sweat, and his hands shook slightly, but his eyes never left the field. "God help us… They're coming fast."
"They're already here," Glenn muttered from the far right, rifle in hand, crouched with his back to a support beam. His eyes flicked to the treeline where the Runners emerged in waves—sprinting, snarling, coordinated.
T-Dog stood at the center with a mounted machine gun, the barrel gleaming in the floodlight. His arms were tense, jaw locked, teeth grinding.
"Come on, you sons of bitches…" he growled.
The first Runner burst into the clearing—its face contorted in rage, limbs moving like a predator's. It darted side to side, zigzagging between cover. Behind it came more—dozens, then hundreds, the sound of their feet pounding dirt like a wave of hooves.
"FIRE!" Murphy shouted.
The first shot cracked from Andrea's rifle, splitting the Runner's skull with a clean burst of crimson. Then the whole wall lit up—gunfire roaring like thunder, muzzles flashing in strobe bursts of orange and yellow.
T-Dog's machine gun ripped through the initial ranks, spraying the frontlines with bullets. Dozens dropped in the first volley—but dozens more replaced them. Woodbury's defenders—men and women who had once been ordinary civilians—now fired from every inch of the wall. A barber with a shotgun. A librarian reloading a revolver. An old teacher cursing as he swung a machete from a guard tower.
"They're throwing stuff!" Amy shouted, ducking as a crowbar slammed into the sandbags above her head.
A rain of projectiles arced through the air—rocks, broken bottles, bricks, even a shattered bicycle tire hurled like a frisbee. One Woodbury teenager took a brick to the head and collapsed, unconscious, dragged back from the wall by two others.
"Climbers!" Glenn yelled. "They're stacking up on their dead!"
The Runners weren't just sprinting—they were climbing. Clambering over the bodies of fallen brethren, using trash and crates to scramble higher. A few clawed over each other like ants, fingers digging into mortar, nails tearing at the metal rails.
Andrea lined up another shot and dropped one that had nearly crested the wall. Beside her, Dale blasted another back with a shotgun burst that sent it tumbling into the horde below.
On the far left, Daryl stood with a scoped bolt-action rifle. His expression was grim, focused. He fired once—then again. Two clean kills. But for every Runner he dropped, three more took its place.
Murphy scanned the field, watching them advance like a tidal wave of muscle and teeth. He gritted his teeth.
"They're not just trying to break in," he said through clenched teeth. "They're testing us. Looking for weak points."
And then the bullets started flying back.
From behind the horde, hidden just past the front lines, the Governor and Morales took cover behind an overturned cart. The Governor's eye narrowed as he lined up a shot, then fired. A Woodbury woman on the far tower crumpled to the floor, blood streaking down her vest. Screams echoed from below.
Morales fired next, aiming at the mounted lights, trying to blind the defenders.
"They're picking us off!" Andrea shouted.
Murphy grabbed the radio from his belt and barked into it. "Get floodlights on their flank! I want all eyes on that treeline!"
Explosions of gunfire lit up the darkness again as T-Dog rotated the machine gun, sweeping across the horde with a vengeance. The barrel smoked, the metal screaming under the strain.
One Runner launched a shovel like a spear. It struck a man near Dale in the shoulder, sending him toppling from the wall.
"They're trying to breach the east gate!" Amy shouted, pointing to the far corner where Runners were climbing on top of each other like a siege tower.
The wall shuddered beneath Glenn's boots as another wave of gunfire erupted all around him. His hands moved on instinct now—reload, aim, fire. The Runners below didn't break. They didn't tire. They didn't even flinch at the mounting pile of their own dead. If anything, they moved faster, more determined with every shriek and gunshot.
Glenn's eyes darted across the battlefield, sweat pouring into his eyes, making the world blur. He blinked it away, adjusting his position behind a metal plate bolted to the wooden guardrail. The barrel of his rifle was hot, the acrid scent of gunpowder thick in the air.
Then he saw it.
A cluster of Runners near the east corner—ten or twelve of them—weren't just swarming mindlessly. They were... stacking.
"What the hell...?" he whispered, leaning forward.
Below him, the creatures worked in manic coordination. Several threw themselves down on top of a heap of corpses already forming at the base of the wall. Others scrambled up, clawing their way over arms, torsos, and legs—forming a living, snarling ramp of flesh. Their hands slapped at the wooden barricade, fingertips brushing the ledge.
One was nearly up.
"Shit!" Glenn growled. "They're climbing each other!"
He swung his rifle around, the scope locking onto the Runner nearest the top—a gaunt, long-limbed man with skin like stretched parchment and wild, bloodshot eyes. The creature was almost level with the wall, reaching for a handhold.
Glenn didn't hesitate.
He squeezed the trigger.
The round struck the Runner square in the temple, and its body jerked violently before collapsing backward.
But Glenn wasn't done.
With a grunt, he dropped his rifle onto its sling and grabbed a loose sandbag near the edge. He shoved it off the wall with both hands. The heavy sack dropped like a boulder, slamming into the unstable tower of corpses.
It was enough.
The pile wobbled—then collapsed in on itself like a broken wave. Arms tangled. Bodies tumbled. The screeching Runners fell back to the ground in a heap of snapping limbs and furious shrieks.
Glenn let out a breath, heart pounding. His hands shook from the adrenaline, but he forced himself to keep moving. He turned and shouted over the wall:
"They're trying to pile up again! Watch for formations! Stop them before they reach the top!"
T-Dog, a few yards away, nodded and redirected his fire toward another gathering cluster. "Damn! They're adapting faster than we can kill 'em!"
Amy, a few feet down the wall, flinched at the sight of the toppled pile reforming, but her jaw set with stubborn fire. "We'll keep knocking them down!"
Glenn picked his rifle back up, chambered a fresh round, and re-aimed at the base of the wall.
The Governor fired again, grazing a Woodbury man's leg. Morales laughed—laughed—as he ducked down and hissed to one of the nearby Runners. It snarled and obeyed, darting off to circle toward the west wall.
Murphy's eyes caught it. "They're splitting off! Trying to draw us thin!"
"Don't break the line!" Rick shouted. He moved along the wall, reloading his revolver, eyes wild with firelight. "We hold, damn it!"
"Reinforcements on the left!" T-Dog yelled.
More townsfolk rushed up from behind, guns in hand, blood-smeared but determined. The line steadied.
Another volley of gunfire answered the Runner horde. Another layer of the undead collapsed—but still they came.