Trawley eyed the statue with suspicion. The elements had long worn down the angel's stone features to a grainy after image, hidden behind pock marked hands. He was actually surprised the figure was still recognizable as an angel at all. The bouts of acidic rain in recent months nibbled and gnawed at most man made structures, eating away at the remnants of human civilization.

There was a thump and shuffle sound behind him, tempting him to turn, but at the string of inventive cussing, the tension in his shoulders came down a notch.

"Diaz," he said, without turning around. He kept his eyes peeled on that stone figure, would serve them right if that particular imaginary monster turned out to be true as well. Why not? The apocalypse seemed to shake everything else loose.

A growl answered him in creating as Diaz settled herself in next to him. The five foot brunette was one of those things, crawling out of the wood work when the world went to shit. He still couldn't believe the tiny woman could go from zero to furry in sixty seconds flat.

"What the hell you looking at Trawley?" Her Texan drawl made him flinch, tightening his grip on the gun.

"I don't trust it. Like one of them Doctor Who monsters," he said. He chanced a glance out of the corner of his eye, catching Diaz looking at him like he lost his damn mind.

"You know that was a fictional television show, right Trawls?" Diaz rolled her gaze in the direction of the stone angel, scrunching up her face. "I promise you, it won't come alive to suck your face off. That's Mace's job."

Trawley's shoulders slumped. He felt a bit silly, but honestly, that stature gave him the heebie jeebies. No matter what Diaz said, he felt as if the crumbling figure watched him, expectant. A  part of him longed for the days when monsters were purely fictional.

Forcing himself to turn away, he looked at his partner. "Any word from the front?"

"Be ready to rumble, Trawls. They are kicking a target our way in t-minus fifteen," said Diaz, filing her claws along her Bowie knife.

All the tension came flooding back into Trawls, perking his ears at the distant roar carried in on the breeze. A whiff of decay and burnt metal teased his tear ducts, but he'd grown accustomed to those scents.

"You sure it's a good idea luring one of them here?"

It seemed sacrilegious somehow, creating a killing field in a graveyard. Not like the dead would protest.

"Franz has a theory," was the cryptic reply.

Trawley scowled. Right of course that pale freak had a 'theory'. All he had were theories, not like he actually fought on the front line with the rest of them. Even Mace managed to drag his ass out of the ground to help take down a target or two.

"Care to enlighten your lone human what the Necromancer has planned?"

Diaz raised her thick eyebrows at him. "Necromeister, Trawls. How many times do I have to correct you?"

"Like it matters," he grumbled, shifting the grip on his gun. It was a modified piece, originally built to bring down the big game predators that once stalked the world. Without that pasty Necromeister's alterations, it wouldn't have done more than tickle their incoming target. Now, however...

The ground shook beneath their feet.

Diaz slid her knife in its holster, rolling her neck with an audible crack. "Find a perch," she said, widening her stance as her muscles rippled. Trawley had the good sense to look away before the shift took her, searching for a relatively high vantage point to take aim. Most of the mausoleums dotting the cemetery were too far gone, their integrity compromised by the rain. He'd rather not plunge through any roofs today. To his great disdain, the sturdiest looking perch happened to be the freaky angel statue, rising above the rest of the stone structures on its base. With a put upon sigh, he swung a leg up, crawling up to settle on its shoulders as the tremors intensified.

A furious roar split the air.

He remembered the first time he heard one he wet himself. Not a proud memory, one he definitely hadn't shared with his unit. They would have been merciless. Not that it mattered since most of them were now dead. The memory continued to tease him as the creature came into view. Nearly two years since he saw he first laid eyes on one and the sight still caused his flesh to prickle.

A black clawed foot slammed down, leaving deep furrows in its wake. The morning mist clung to maggot white skin, glistening in the rotted holes that mottled its flesh. Its reptilian head swung down through the fog, gray forked tongue tasting the air as it scented them. A mane of bone spikes ruffled with a muted clicking sound.

"Come and get it big boy," said Trawley, peering at the monster through his scope. Diaz stomped her feet wide, snarling a challenge at the beast. Its head snapped in their direction, emitting a hiss as it surged forward. Two years ago humans were stunned by such a sight, fleeing too late to avoid those rotting jaws snapping them up.

Trawley wrapped his legs around the angel's shoulders, holding on tight as the world rumbled around him. He had the gun up and ready, waiting for the signal.

"Gnuhhhh," came Diaz's garbled command, speaking through her fangs. He fired, just as the creature made a wild turn at the sound. The bullet clipped the side of its head, far from where he wanted it. Trawley cursed, attempting to line up another shot as the creature roared, bathing him in the hot reek of rot and sulfur. Viscous brown fluid oozed from the bullet wound. It ignored Diaz, charging straight for him.

"Shit," said Trawls, trying to untangle himself from the statue. For an instant, he wished it truly was one of those Doctor Who Monsters. He'd take a fling in the past to escape his current future. Slime slick jaws drew closer, its tongue slithering forth, reaching for him.

He was going to die, be eaten alive.

A furry shape latched itself on the side of the monster's face. Diaz dug in her claws, slashing at its eyes. The attack took the creature off balance, causing its legs to tangle over each other. It crashed head first to the ground, shattering gravestones. Trawley didn't have time for a breath before its tail whipped around and smashed the base of the statue. The angel tipped backward, pinning him to the mushy ground in a cage of stone wings.

Heart pounding, he struggled to turn, the sound of battle and destruction surrounding him. He heard Diaz give a stilted shriek, the creature's roar of triumph.

"No, no, no," he muttered, straining against the stone. He refused to think of outliving Diaz. He was the puny human, the light weight to her heavy. "Come on!" The stone shifted an inch, allowing him to shimmy out beneath it in the mud. He rolled, going cold at the sight of Diaz dangling limp from the monster's jaws. Human again, one arm hanging by a few ribbons of flesh. She was one snap away from becoming a meal. Trawley rolled up to his knees directly beneath the creature, so close he could put a fist through its rotting skin. The position was prime. He took a few perilous seconds to aim, praying the Necromeister's tweaks served him true.

The creature jerked at the shot, but he was too close for it to dodge. The bullet tore through its lower jaw, momentum and proximity allowing it to continue straight up through the brain pan. The beast wobbled, muscles slackening as its body registered the fatal damage.

Trawley was already moving, catching Diaz as she fell. He clasped her against his chest, slipping and sliding in the mud as he struggled to put enough distance between them and the falling carcass. He felt the whoosh of air skimming his backside. The impact sent him tumbling to the mud. He turned, gritting his teeth as he took the impact on his back. Diaz lay unconscious on his chest, but he could feel her heart beat thundering at him. The muscles of her mangled arm were already beginning to knit together. Trawley let his head fall back with a sigh, mindless of the muck and blood soaking into his hair and clothes. A relieved laugh left his mouth, rife with disbelief he survived to fight another day.

He eyed the dead creature, close enough to nudge with his foot. Already its body was dissolving, melting away as decay swept through it, running off in brown ooze that pooled on the ground.

Two years.

Two years since the comets appeared in the night sky. They weren't supposed to hit Earth. Their trajectory would have carried them harmlessly through space, miles and miles from Earth's atmosphere, except they swerved. Astronomers around the globe were baffled. People were filled with panic. The words 'extinction event' were bantered around. They prepared for impact, for the end. So when the comets slowed, and descended through the atmosphere with intent and purpose, no one knew what to think. A change in fortune? Extraterrestrial life? An act of god? Some thing had saved Earth from impact. No one knew why.

No one knew how much worse it was going to get.

One of the comets set down in Trawley's own sleepy suburban town. A whooping population of fifteen thousand, miles from the nearest city. Nearly the whole population gathered round in awe as the rock set down in Macalister's Field, crushing the water tower. They all gathered round, curious, scared, wondering. Trawley skirted the edges of the crowd, wary. He stared with the rest of them as the comet cracked open, crumbling, leaking that brown sludge. When the first creature slid out, covered in ooze like a newborn babe, they crowded in closer, awe overwhelming their instincts.

Not Trawley. He retched when the smell hit him. How could the others not? He'd crab crawled back wards from the crowd, one of the first to scrabble away as the creature started to writhe and wriggle. How could they not realize? How could they not recognize that rotting order? He'd tried to yell, his voice raspy and paralyzed in his throat as it stood. It was a dinosaur gone wrong, spiked and slick, chunks of its hide missing. It stared over the gathered crowd with dead eyes, a guttural hiss seeping from its throat. Still they didn't run, didn't scream, enthralled right up to the first snap of jaws sprayed them with blood.

Then they ran, but too late, far too late. Trawley scrabbled up, and kept going, not stopping until he left the dying far behind.

It caught up to him eventually. Caught up to everyone. There were thousands and thousands of those creatures roaming the world. Only took a handful to decimate a whole city. Two years of fighting whittled down the population to pockets of resistance.

Trawley gave the liquefying flesh a kick, wiping his boot in the mud as he tapped his head set.

"Target down Franz. I could use a med unit. Diaz took heavy damage," he said, easing up on his shoulders. She was breathing evenly, her accelerated healing burning a fever that made her clothes steam.

His head set crackled and fizzed in his ear. "You killed it in the graveyard?" Franz's excited voice lisped in his ear.

Trawley rolled his eyes, gathering Diaz in a bridal hold as he got his feet under him. "Yes, Franz, as per orders." Creepy little goon.

"Excellent, excellent. Any sign of revival yet?"

Trawley froze, staring at the dead creature. It continued its accelerated rot, brown sludge saturating the earth. He breathed a sigh of relief at no apparent reversal of its condition. The monster was well and truly dead. What the hell was that insane Necromeister going on about?

"Uh, no sign of the creature stirring?" For a second it felt like the ground trembled beneath his boots. Another monster? Trawley backed up to the broken base of the angel statue, completely unequipped to take down another one. The crackle of his headset caused him to jump.

"Not the monster, imbecile, the dead, are the dead stirring yet?"

A chill slid through him, as realization stole over him. He stared, horrified, as the first muck covered fist punched up through the ground.