We rode at a slow trot in a tight wedge, trying to carve a path through the ghouls. The gore slick fiends closed in all around us, attracted by our gunfire. Illumination rockets arced skyward from behind a grove of trees. The battlefield was lit, briefly, by each rocket’s streak and burst. Gun smoke and flames from Gettysburg created a sooty fog over the area. Grisly misshapen shadows of the fiends were in every direction. The flares bathed the world in a hellish crimson glow.

Horses stumbled and fell under the crowds of grabbing fiends. Their riders screaming alongside the terrified horses were consumed by the dead. It was a fury of bloody chaos, and I was sure we’d be dead in a few seconds. There were too many.

“This way!” a man yelled while waving a tattered battle flag. “There’s help here!”

We turned our mounts and fought through the fiends. More riders fell. My weapons were empty, my saber was swinging in my tired arms, my horse was frothing at the mouth, and I saw a battle line in the haze.