City of Heretics by Heath Lowrance

One had a long wicked-looking knife, and the other a machete that was already stained with blood. They were using them on the Sheriff’s deputies. Three of them were already dead, sprawled out along the side of the road like dolls that had been ripped apart by mad dogs.
    Crowe looked just in time to see the rear door of the transport van pop open and the last of the deputies come rushing out, screaming and firing a shotgun. The businessman with the machete was right on top of him. With a face as placid as a spring day, he sliced off half the cop’s hand, and the shotgun went spinning away with most of his fingers. The other businessman—his partner, Crowe assumed—flicked his blade and instantly the lower half of the cop’s face was gone in a wash of blood.
    Crowe saw movement inside the transport van. Peter Murke.
    Chester had reloaded and was firing around the corner of the semi. “Crowe!” he screamed. “Mother of fuck, Crowe, help me!”
    Crowe kicked open the door facing away from the road and tumbled out of the Hummer. Instantly, some of the shooting focused on him. Bullets pounded into the vehicle and the trees above his head, showering him with wood chips. He fired blind over the hood of the Hummer, hoping to get lucky. No one screamed out any death throes.
    The rear of the transport vehicle was visible from where he crouched. The downside: they could see him as well as he could see them. The two businessmen were looking at him curiously, and between them the rough-looking fish-faced Murke was stepping down out of the van.
    Crowe raised his gun and fired three times before he had a good bead and his closest shot ricocheted off the bumper of the van. Murke and the machete businessman flinched, but the one with the long knife only smiled and very casually flipped his blade at him.
    It thunked into a tree, less than two inches from Crowe’s head.
    “Fuck!” Crowe scrambled out of the guy’s line of sight, fumbling in his pocket for one of the speed re-loaders.
    From the other side of the Hummer, bullets pounded into metal, and Chester was still screaming for help. Crowe reloaded his revolver as quickly as he could, but he knew he’d never be able to do it before the freaks had moved in on him.
    A sudden intense pain in his left shoulder made him nearly drop the gun, and he looked to see a throwing knife sticking out of him. He gazed up in mild shock at the businessman. He’d crept up while Crowe was preoccupied, and was now smiling down at him from less than six feet away. Already, he had another knife in his hand and was getting ready to throw it.
    Crowe lurched to his feet and bullets whined around him. The knife-wielding businessman threw his blade, and it caught Crowe in the right shoulder blade as he was turning to get away.
    He stumbled forward, right into the other businessman, the one with the machete.
    He pushed Crowe back with one hand, swung his machete at him with the other. Crowe felt the blade slice across his face and everything went like a kaleidoscope, different colors, spinning crazily.
    Crowe was in the middle of the road, about to fall, firing at something he couldn’t see. He could hear bullets pounding the blacktop, and then he could hear his own revolver clicking empty. In his peripheral vision, he saw Chester, laying face-up but not moving.
    A bullet in Crowe’s right arm then, like a hot lance, and he fell, fell far, far down, to the icy blacktop.
    And there had been no time, no time at all, to even wonder, except in the vaguest way, who these people were or what the hell was going on. It all happened too fast. Seven killers, a semi-truck, four dead Sheriff’s Deputies.
    And three hapless crooks, down before they knew what hit them. 
    After that, the sound of another car arriving, and of Murke and the freaks escaping.
     
    His new overcoat wasn’t doing such a good job keeping out the chill from the blacktop. He sprawled face-down, tasting the copper tang of blood, but didn’t