Kevin's quick pace accelerated until he was almost running. The people in the street were giving him curious looks, but they didn't stop him.

Because of her age, Isabella couldn't move as fast as Kevin and fell behind. George stayed a few paces ahead of her, trying to keep nearby while maintaining a line of sight on Kevin.

"Lower the ramp," Kevin ordered a crane operator. "We're leaving."

"No can do," the man denied. "Only the Governor authorizes who comes and goes. You need to speak with him."

Kevin turned away in frustration. Before heading back to the wall where he'd last seen Clark, he imparted hurried instructions to his companions. "Stay here. I should be back in no time."

George nodded, and Isabella leaned against the wall, trying to catch her breath.

Kevin didn't bother trying to remain inconspicuous, breaking into a full sprint. He unintentionally bumped into a few people along the way, offering a quick apology without slowing pace.

He knew he was wasting valuable minutes crossing back and forth through town when he should already be outside, putting as much distance as possible between himself and the incoming horde of zombies. Fortunately, he met the Governor when he was returning to his office in the middle of Walton.

"Governor!" Kevin shouted, not wanting to miss his opportunity to speak with the man.

Clark paused in front of the government building and turned in Kevin's direction. "Yes?"

"We need your authorization to leave Walton," Kevin explained between gasps for breath.

"I'm afraid I can't allow it at this time," Clark replied. "A rapid departure at this time could cause a panic."

"You don't seem to understand," Kevin argued. "When the undead reach the wall, they'll spread out, looking for a weak point."

"And, they won't find one," Clark stated firmly.

"My point is, they'll surround the city," Kevin continued. "Any chance to escape must be now!"

"You might not need to leave," Clark suggested. "Our guards seem to be handling the situation better than I could have expected."

Kevin felt his mouth go suddenly dry. "How are they handling it?"

"The bowmen are killing the enemy with great efficiency," Clark answered. "We have a substantial supply of arrows, and we're even making more."

"You need to get them to stop, right now!" Kevin insisted. "They mustn't kill any more of them."

"I don't see your objection," Clark said in puzzlement.

"Every time one is killed, it drops in place," Kevin clarified, impatient with having to take time to explain. He realized Clark had no experience fighting the undead, so the conclusion may not have been as obvious to him as it was to Kevin. "You're fighting an army of thousands, perhaps millions. How many will pile up against the wall before they become a bridge for those behind them to crawl over? The more your guards kill, the more certain the wall will be breached."

Clark became deathly pale and bolted toward the wall section where the undead were approaching. Kevin ran beside him. The Governor tried shouting to his men from the secondary wall, but because of the distance and the violent confrontation with the undead, they were unable to hear him. Stepping onto one of the mobile ramps, Clark had it swung over to the outer wall.

"Stop firing!" Clark screamed to his men. "Hold your fire!"

"We can't!" one of the soldiers protested, firing off an arrow at a zombie just below the upper edge of the wall. "They're getting too close!"

Bodies of the fallen zombies had been accumulating just as Kevin had predicted, and a sufficient number had created a pathway for the undead to claw their way up the wall. Every enemy felled, only added to it.

Kevin watched in horror as he knew Walton was doomed. The heavily fortified walls would remain intact, but the city would still fall.

"Withdraw to the second wall!" Clark ordered.

The bowmen abandoned their positions and ran down the wall to where the crane operators had positioned the ramps for their exit. Several men were not fast enough and were snagged by the clutching hands of the undead crawling over the wall. Men screamed in terror as the living corpses sank their teeth into any flesh they could reach.

A guard tried to use his arrows to kill the zombies swarming his squad mate, but his diverted attention kept him from seeing the undead under the edge of the wall where he stood. No less than three zombies reared up and wrapped the rotting flesh of their arms around him, dragging him off the wall and down the ramp of corpses. When he slid to a stop the undead closed in from all sides and began to feed on him. Those unable to reach the meal continued up the ramp of bodies to find more.

"The city is lost; we must evacuate," Kevin told Clark over the screams of dying men, taking a firm hand on his arm.

"We still have the inner wall," Clark said as if their secondary line of defense might hold better than the first. He was the image of a drowning man, flailing his arms in an attempt to lay hold of anything capable of keeping him from going under. "If we don't kill them at the second wall, we could hold."

"There's no limit to how many could surround the city on the outside," Kevin pointed out. "But, there is a limited amount of space between the inner and outer walls. Once the space has been filled like a can of sardines, the zombies will simply walk across the top of them. It is time to go!"

Clark waved to the crane operator and had the ramp he shared with Kevin moved back to the inner wall where they disembarked.

"Gather the guns from the armory," Kevin instructed the soldier in charge of the guard forces. "Use single shots only. We don't have unlimited ammunition."

"Yessir," the man said, firing off a quick salute before speeding away to carry out his orders.

Clark and Kevin raced toward the far side of Walton. Panic now filled the streets, and the majority of the population still thinking coherent thoughts were demanding answers of Clark. He had none to give them.

During the afternoon tour of the city the previous day, George had taken the time to speak with the population about the contents of the worn Bible he carried with him. When Clark and Kevin arrived at the wall, they discovered a sizable crowd looking to George for guidence.

The priest appeared completely at a loss and on the verge of a mental breakdown. It seemed to Kevin as if he didn't have any more answers than the Governor. Isabella stood beside him, offering a few words of guidance, and Kevin noticed how much George was drawing upon her support. Her presence and softly spoken council gave George the strength he needed to bear the weight of his responsibilities.

"Lower a ramp on both walls," Clark ordered. "I want a clear pathway all the way out of the city."

The crane operators did as they'd been told, putting a ramp in place on the outside of each wall. The scaffolding and fire escape style ladders on the inside the fortifications would let the people reach the top where they could easily traverse the ramp to the ground on the opposing side.

Once the ramps were in place, the cranes lowered their attached hooks to drag the strands of razor wire out of the way. The evacuees didn't have time to follow a maze to the other side, so the pathway was cleared for them to go straight across.

Isabella took a position on the top of the inner wall, and Kevin took the outer wall. George stood in the center between them. They acted as guides, directing the people fleeing Walton and trying to keep them organized as much as possible. Kevin was forced to fire his shotgun once when people started pushing to escape, but they settled down when it became clear they might not be allowed to leave at all if Kevin shot them.

Once outside, in the unfamiliar and unknown place the world had become, most of the civilians milled about, uncertain as to where they should be going. A few clearly weren't thinking and started running blindly away from the doomed city. Kevin tried to call them back, but they refused to heed his instructions. He doubted they'd last even a few days, but there wasn't anything he could do about it. Those still crossing the wall needed his attention the most.

"I can run faster than you," Clark told Isabella when he joined her on the wall. "Go with the others. I'll take over here."

Isabella smiled her thanks and hurried as best she could down the ramp with the remaining refugees. When the last of the civilian population stepped off the ramp, Clark waved his hand in a circular motion, and the ramp was lifted up, cutting off the interior section between the walls from the town.

"Clark?" Kevin questioned loudly when he saw the move the Governor had made. "What are you doing? Clark!"

"It's an old tradition," Clark explained as he stood alone atop the inner wall. "The captain goes down with his ship, and the Governor falls with his city."

"Your people still need you," Kevin argued.

"My actions allowed a fortified city to fall," Clark answered. "I have no experience with the outside world. They need you, not me."

"We need everyone," Kevin insisted.

"I hope you escape the fate that awaits us all," Clark said with a deep sigh. He pointed to his right. "If you're going, you had best hurry."

Kevin looked in the direction Clark had indicated and saw twelve zombies staggering in their direction. After crossing the outer wall, they'd been circling the inner one, looking for a way to access the city. They were tangled in razor wire, but it hadn't stopped them. Sparing a quick glance to the wall, Kevin saw Clark turn away and start climbing down until he was out of sight.

"We hold the line until everyone is clear," Kevin told George. The priest nodded and picked up a sword from the ground where his pack was sitting. "Where did you get that?"

"One of the guards gave it to me," George explained. He unsheathed the Japanese blade and held up the curved weapon. The gleaming metal flashed in the sun like a mirror. "Let's me show you something about superior craftsmanship."

George walked calmly toward the approaching zombies. It reached out toward him, making a low moan as its desiccated lungs sucked in a partial breath of air. With a two handed grip on the sword, George used a single pass of blade and neatly removed the zombie's head from its shoulders.

Continuing his momentum, George took a step forward and spun. The sword followed his arms and downed a second zombie. The sunlight reflecting off the blade caused lighting intense flashes as George mowed through all twelve of the leading elements of the undead horde in mere seconds.

Seeing George so swiftly cut down the undead reminded Kevin of the unease he'd felt when first meeting the priest. The man was a natural with a blade, and the weapon moved as if it were a part of him. Although it wasn't impossible for a priest to be a skilled fighter, it was unusual, and Kevin made a mental note to keep a closer eye on George.

Despite the dozen undead returned to the ground, more followed slowly in their wake, and a darting glance in the opposing direction found them approaching from both sides.

"Let's go!" Kevin shouted. He and George ran toward the wall, and George scooped up his dropped pack en route.

As they climbed up the metal ladder to the top of the outer wall and reached the ramp, Kevin paused to look around. The inner wall of Walton remained intact, but the space between the walls was quickly filling up. More zombies were slowly making their way around the exterior of the outer wall as well. It resembled an ocean wave in slow motion, gradually moving to surround a rock on the beach until it was completely enveloped.

Jogging down the ramp, Kevin and George took up position at the head of the survivors, leading them away from the dying city and into the unknown dangers of the open world.