We stared at her as she fought. She moved with the fluidic grace of a dancer, but with an underlying menace suggesting that her moves were not used for dancing. Every swing of her mace was a vicious attack, leaving her assailants, quite literally, in pieces. Without turning around, she whipped her club back and crushed the skull of a skeleton trying to attack her from behind. Then, swinging the weapon powerfully, she shattered the rib cages of two skeletons in front of her. All this she did with one motion.

"What the hell is going on?" asked Jen, the first to speak since this whole thing began.

"You ask as if we know," I responded. "You've been here just as long as we have," I said curtly.

"Hey, Colin, ease up. There's a lot going on right now." Matt always could keep a clear head, no matter the situation. But I was not willing to listen to reason; my nightmares were now reality.

"Bite me," I said.

The silence once again settled over us like a blanket, and we continued watching the fight. Once again, I couldn't get over how amazingly beautiful she was. A thousand thoughts were running through my head, and I tried to get a handle on one or two of them.

"Hey, we need to do something, here," I finally said.

Matt looked at me like I'd suddenly sprouted an extra arm. "Are you crazy?" he asked. "The second we step out of here, they're going to see us, and come after us. Better to let that woman take care of them."

"I may be crazy," I said, "but you're blind. Look at this!" Pointing to the fighting, I emphasized how outnumbered she was. "If we don't do something, she'll be killed."

Now, it was Jen's turn to look surprised. "Wait. You're telling us to fight, not run? Even if that wasn't more stupid than it is crazy, I'm not leaving this building for one second until they're all gone."

It was useless to argue with them. They didn't understand what would happen if the woman died. But I did. If she lost, the skeletons would search until they found us. I couldn't let either of those things happen. And if I was to die, at least I would die with a weapon in my hand.

Looking down at my feet, I noticed a foot-and-a-half length of steel pipe. Picking it up, I said to my friends "I have a date. Don't wait up," I said smiling. Despite their pleas, I opened the glass door, and left.

As soon as it shut behind me, I heard it lock. Snorting, I finally realized the futility of hiding behind glass, regardless of whether or not the door was locked. Hearing a noise from inside the store, I looked back, and saw Matt and Jen staring at me. They didn't say anything, but the looks on their faces said more than enough. Good luck. Winking at them, I shouldered the pipe, and turned towards the parking lot.

No one fighting had noticed me; they were too focused. Good, I thought. Now, they won't immediately know where to find Matt or Jen if I die.

I slowly walked towards the group, drawing no attention to myself. Then, as I watched the fight, the undead gained the upper hand. One of them lying on the ground reaching out and grabbed the woman's left ankle. Startled, she looked down, and pulled her foot away. But not before the skeleton had dug its sharp fingertips into her flesh, and tore out a chunk.

Crying in pain -- the first noise I'd heard her make -- she fell to her left knee. The remaining dozen or so undead fell upon her, and I began running. No longer caring if they knew I was there or not, I screamed, and jumped into the fray.

For a moment, the mass of bone stopped moving. But as soon as they realized I was a new threat, they responded accordingly. I knew I only had a few moments, and with a strength and speed borne of desperation, I lashed out with my weapon, and crushed the necks of the two closest creatures. The remainder surrounded me, and paused. At that point, I knew I was going to die. They moved in.

Screaming again, I swung at the closest skeleton, the first to move. He -- it -- easily stepped out of the way, and jabbed with a small dagger I had not seen. I spun away, but not before the blade slashed my side. Instinctively, I attacked again without seeing where my hand was going, and the pipe found its target in the back of the skull of the skeleton that had cut my side, crushing it. My assailant fell apart, and dropped to the ground. The rest paused, again. Then another moved in. I feigned an attack, and this one stepped to the side, too. However, I stepped right along with it. When it jabbed with its dagger, I flicked by pipe down, shattering the tiny bones in its hand. With a powerful upward strike, I knocked its head from the rest of its body. This one, also, fell apart.

Once again, they stopped. It was maddening.

"Come on! What're y'all waiting for!? I ain't goin' anywhere!" Why didn't they just all attack at once, and finish me off? What was going on?

Mentally, I snapped my fingers. I realized that they were assessing me. They didn't know how fast I was, how strong I was, how effective my weapon was. They were planning their moves around how I handled each individual attacker.

"Well, all right, then. Y'all want to find out how I fight? Watch this!" With all my strength behind it, I threw my pipe at a skeleton to my left, completely demolishing its ribs and spine. I dove through the hole in the circle its falling bones had made, rolling when I hit the ground. As I rolled, I picked up the pipe from where it had landed, and jumped back to my feet, spinning to meet the oncoming foe.

The first attack I parried with a circular motion. Then the second. The third. The fourth, I continued the circle after the block, and turned the defensive motion into a bizarre attack. I slammed the pipe, point first, into the side of the skeleton's head, and it fell to the ground. Unfortunately, it quickly rose to its feet and turned to face me again, this time joined by two of its companions. I froze.

A shape spun in from my left and shattered the legs of the advancing trio. Without taking time to analyze what had happened, I took the advantage that had been given to me, and swung three times in quick succession. This time, nothing got back up.

I glanced at the rest of the skeletons. Five left. Hearing footsteps behind me, I spun around, expecting to see a dagger thrust at my face. Instead, I was faced with the woman. I didn't realize until I saw her alive, but up until that point, I thought that she was dead.

"Oh," I said. I realized what it was that had given me the opportunity to get rid of the three skeletons. Crouching to the ground, I picked up the mace that was lying at my feet. Similar to my attack to escape the circle, she had thrown her weapon to assist me.

I handed the mace back to her, and then turned to face the last five skeletons. They still hadn't moved. Somewhere, inside of whatever they had that passed for a mind, they realized that they might be outmatched.

The woman stepped to my side, and stopped. For several moments, the seven of us stood, not moving, just staring. When the silence became unbearable, I decided to speak.

"Just so y'all know, tonight you will die. If y'all fight, y'all die. Y'all run, y'all die. Y'all give up...y'all die." Then, at the oddest moment, I realized that the Southern accent, which I had tried so hard for so many years to mask, was showing again. I sighed.

"They cannot understand you," said the woman to my left with a strange accent. I looked at her, and for the first time, was able to actually study her face. She had flawless pale skin, high cheekbones, a petite, pointed nose, green eyes and red hair. At least, that's what she would have looked like, had she not been covered in blood. Two cuts on her forehead, dirty scrapes on her cheek and nose, and blood gathered from who knew how many other wounds patterned her face.

I also studied the rest of her figure. I had been given a short reprieve from battle, and I was making the most of it. If, by chance, I was still going to die, then I was going to die with one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen in my mind.

She stood at just one inch less than me in height, making her six feet. She was fit, and I assumed that the leather hid quite a large amount of muscle. However, something was wrong. I could see that the leather and fur was cut in many places, and the mace in her right hand was trembling. Or, rather, her arm was trembling from holding the weight of the mace. She didn't have much strength left, but I wasn't about to suggest to a woman that could easily kill me to take a seat. Instead, I knew that we had to finish this together, and quickly.

"What do you say we do this fast? Shoulder to shoulder?"

She considered me for a moment, and then smiled. The smile was enough to completely rejuvenate me. "Shoulder to shoulder," she responded, and I recognized her accent. She's Scottish? I thought. Shrugging, I recognized that we were fighting skeletons, so why couldn't she be Scottish?

We ran at the much smaller group, and with very few motions, broke them to pieces. It seemed almost anticlimactic when compared to the rest of the fight.

Standing amidst all the fallen bones, I dropped my pipe. The thoughts which had been suppressed for reasons of necessity so I could focus on the fight suddenly came rushing back. What was going on here? What were these things? Who was this woman?

I heard a rustling sound from somewhere behind me, and saw the woman on the ground, looking through one of the piles of bones. But something about it didn't fit. It seemed that she was really exerting herself. No, that wasn't it; she was struggling.

With clarity of thought, I ran towards her and the still moving skeleton she was fighting. As I reached them, I threw her off of it, and tried to crush its skull with my foot. Swiftly, it grabbed my ankle before I could do any damage, and swept my other foot out from under me with its two broken legs. It rolled on top of me, picked up a dagger from the ground, and stabbed towards my throat. Reflexively, I brought my left arm up, and the blade went straight through my forearm. The pain shot through my arm and shoulder, and I screamed. I didn't think it could hurt any worse, but then the skeleton pulled the knife out, and I realized that, in fact, it could hurt worse. Much worse. My arm fell useless to my chest, and through the pain, I saw the skeleton reach back again.

I closed my eyes, and waited for the blow to come to my throat, or maybe my eyes. There was a crunching sound, and I felt several attacks to my face. Quivering, I waited to die.

After a few moments, I realized two things. One, the attacks didn't hurt, and two, I wasn't going to die. Gradually, I opened my eyes. To my side lay several bones and half a crushed skull. Looking up, I expected to see the woman. With great surprise and joy, I saw Matt, holding the pipe. He held out his hand, I took it, and allowed him to pull me up.

"What happened?" I asked.

"I've been watching that one since she took out its legs. It never stopped moving. When it grabbed her, I realized I needed to do something, or else someone was going to die. While I ran to you, I saw your pipe on the ground, so I picked it up." He tossed the steel pipe over his shoulder and shrugged. "I needed to do something, right?"

I smiled, and clapped him on this shoulder. "Thank you. Where's Jen?"

"I told her to go to the car, and drive home." He looked at his watch. "I'll go call her cell, and tell her to turn around." Then he left.

I nodded, and breathed a sigh of relief. It was finally over. With great pain, I pulled off my shirt, and ripped it up. The warm night air felt somehow good. August in Louisiana is not known for its clemency, and the strips served as good makeshift bandages for my arm until I could get to a hospital.

Looking for the woman, I found her sitting with her back up against a light post. "You okay?" I asked. She didn't respond. "Hey," I said, putting my hand on her shoulder.

Her head shot up, and her green eyes were full of fury. I pulled my hand away, and took a step back. For a moment, I was afraid for my life. But soon, her eyes regained their warmth I noticed before.

"Please accept my apologies," she said. "I was dreaming."

"Hey," I said, with my hands in the air. "If anyone here deserves a nap, it's you." I walked to her side, and sat down next to her. "So, who the hell are you?"

"Briana," she said.

I held out my hand to her. "Colin Pearson." She took my hand and forearm in a medieval type handshake, and I clasped hers in return.

"Well," I said. "Now that that's over with, what's been going on?"

She looked at me with bewilderment. "You truly do not know?"

Shaking my head, I told her that I was in the dark. "All I know is that my friends and I were out for the evening, and we were attacked by these...things. We were about to give up when you just appeared out of nowhere, and started kicking ass. Where did you come from?"

She looked at me, studying my appearance. Her eyes scanned me up and down, and she acted as if she didn't hear me at all. After a few moments, she spoke. "You wear odd clothes, and fight with interesting weapons. Although you speak my tongue, you speak with odd words and odd sounds. Which clan's territory am I in?"

I was even more confused than before. "Clan? What are you talking about? This is Jefferson." She stared, uncomprehending. "Louisiana," I clarified; not many people outside of the state knew about Jefferson, Louisiana, and if she was from Scotland, she probably didn't even know what Louisiana was. She didn't.

"The United States," I said, certain that she would understand. Still she stared, blankly.

"Okay," I said. "Let's try something else. Where're you from?" She didn't answer, but from her accent, I placed her from Scotland.

"What part of Scotland are you from?" She still didn't respond, but I didn't totally mind. I wouldn't know Glasgow from a glass cow, so I tried again. "What clan are you from?" It wouldn't make any difference to me, but it would get her talking.

She didn't answer, but this time, I knew it wasn't from lack of understanding. She opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it again. After a short pause, she did speak. "I have no clan. I was sent away ten years ago."

I looked up in surprise. Ten years? That would have made her about nine years old. "They deported you as a child? That's so cruel! Why would they do that?"

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously, but then she slumped, like someone too tired to fight. "Witchcraft. They thought I was responsible for the blight which had beset our fair village."

"Okay." I dreaded the next question I was going to ask her, because I knew that the answer she would give me would not make me happy.

"In what year were you born?"

She snorted. "In this place, you do have odd customs. Where I come from, it is not polite to ask an unmarried woman her age."

"I'm not asking you your age. I'm asking you what year you think it is."

Again, she hesitated. With a quizzical look, she told me "It is the year of our Lord nine-hundred ninety-one."