And it's a relief, nearly, when the choice is taken away, and Marcus can act without the anxious whir of higher brain function. It takes no thought at all for him to flow to his feet, for that movement to bring with it his staff in hand in a readied swing and a pivot to confront the runner. In truth, he is moving before it shrieks, having flicked his notice to Derrica's face and read her expression.

Adrenaline flushes through blood which fills muscle, and the graceless but accurate swing of his staff cleaves blade into corpse skull. He stumbles a little in the momentum after, needing to tug free his weapon as the other two give awful, rattling shrieks, no longer fooled. And another, stumbling in. There must be a passage back there where they've accumulated, and now he sees why the gate was jarred so.

With that one rageful swing over, the dead thing twitching on the ground, and the others all swarming through the debris-filled store, Marcus reverses, ready to fling himself down and haul himself to

well, something closer to safety than what he is in currently.