The soldiers were almost on them as Butch pulled the kid's handgun from its holster. Val helped herself to a nice survival knife that looked as if it had never been used and tossed the machete from the kid's belt toward Alex.

Alex caught the huge knife in time to let out a startled grunt and bury, it deep into the reaching arm of one of the infected soldiers. In a moment of mad chaos, it seemed the soldiers were all around them, bloody clutching hands and huge, crazy eyes, clumps of dirt and leaves sticking to the clotting gore and ground into gaping wounds. The soldier with the machete hung up in the thick muscle of his arm was blond and ruddy, bearded with gore. His helmet and gas mask had been knocked off and both hung skewed and tangled down his back. The straps looked like they should have been choking him, they were digging so deeply into his muscular neck, but he didn't seem to notice. She wrenched the machete free from the soldier's arm and kicked him back, heart screaming in her chest.

Val and Butch stood close by, nearly back-to-back, each brandishing their newfound weapon. The young kid was off to one side, looking like panic was about to mow him down like a speeding train. Alex crouched back against the trunk of a tree, watching in horror as violence exploded all around her in lurid nightmare flashes.

One of the soldiers was lurching toward the young kid and a kind of terrified recognition cut through the panic in the kid's face."Ronnie?" he said, brows knitted. "Ronnie, it's me, Devo. Don't you know me, Ronnie?"

Apparently, Ronnie did not know him, because he lunged at the kid with lips skinned back from broken teeth, Snarling like a rabid animal. The kid let out a string of terrified curses and pushed the soldier to one side with the muzzle of his rifle. As the soldier staggered and fell, he reached out and clutched at his arm. Shattered, exposed finger bones tore the kid's uniform sleeve and raked long gashes in the flesh of the kid's forearm. He yelped and tumbled away.

Alex jumped, startled at the sharp rapport of a gunshot. She turned to see Butch firing the kid's side arm point-blank into one of the advancing soldiers' gore-crusted chest. A tall, slim soldier, with one arm severed at the elbow, did not flinch. No reaction. Butch fired a second shot into the head and the one armed soldier staggered a little, seeming more disoriented than hurt by the bullet, but only for a scant second. Then, he refocused on Butch and leapt at him.

"Fck," Butch shouted, and kicked the one-armed soldier in the chest, knocking him back and away.

Val was slashing away with the knife, cutting throats and slicing open bellies and thighs, but all to no avail. The soldiers were no more affected by their wounds than the white-suited men or the two contestants from the night before. Not only that, but the thick, suffocating heat seemed to have no effect on them either. It was wearing Val, Butch, Devo and Alex down fast.

"We're fucked!" Val called.

"Ronnie," the kid was saying. "Fck, I'm sorry, man."

He placed his muddy boot on Ronnie's chest, holding him down as he raised the rifle and put a bullet in his buddy's forehead. The soldier continued to flail and growl, clutching at the leg of the kid's fatigues.

Alex was starting to feel shell-shocked, overwhelmed and sluggish, her thoughts disjointed and nonsensical. The heat was exhausting, and she was drenched in sweat and dizzy, spangles fluttering in the corners of her vision. She tried to count the attackers. Were there four? Five? She was having trouble telling them apart. Another soldier lunged at her, this one masked and unrecognizable. She brought the machete down, slashing at the curve of his helmetless, shaved head. One of the mask straps severed and the gas mask fell to one side, exposing a single huge eye as fat and red as a peeled plum. He kept coming. She kicked his legs out from under him and leapt back and away, crashing awkwardly into a tree and knocking the wind out of herself. Her heart was slamming against her ribs and she felt close to passing out. This was hopeless. They were going to die.

Then she saw Butch to her left, rolling over and over in the dirt with a crazed and slavering soldier. The soldier was snapping at Butch like a rabid dog as Butch torqued the guy's arm back until Alex saw it snap against the bend of the elbow. The bone cracked and shattered, a shard pierced up from beneath the skin. The soldier seemed totally unaffected by pain, the broken bone or anything Butch was able to hit him with, and he continued to strain hungrily toward Butch's terrified face. Alex realized that all of Butch's training and fighting skills were completely useless against this onslaught of infected and enraged attackers. She could see that he was tiring. He was on top of the soldier, pressing down on the other man's shoulders and neck, but the gnashing teeth were getting closer and closer to Butch's face. Butch was losing and with that realization, something snapped inside Alex, shattering her paralysis.

   Friday the 13th: The Jason Strain, chapter 17