Under the Fallen Arch [IC]

[Red Beret]

Sarah Schultz

"I don't know. We didn't get any outside inlet about other communities. The guard and the Green Arch might know more. You worried about your family or friends? I'm hopeful that everyone of mine made it out...but I don't know. I just...I hope the infection didn't spread too far."

"Yeah," Sarah agreed. She hadn't had any binoculars to hand over, unfortunately, and now she felt like kicking herself. Of course, it wasn't her fault that she hadn't been prepared for the outbreak--it had happened quite suddenly, but she could've thought to put more in her bug-out bag. What was done was done, though, and at least Colin had a scope on his crossbow. Despite the soldier's misgivings, she felt that Colin wasn't crazy enough to get all of them killed. He certainly seemed to have good intentions, and he was sticking his neck out to make sure they could see the infected coming.

It troubled her that Daniels didn't have any more information than she did, and this was making her second-guess her decision to head for the Arch. Of course, they didn't really have any other place to go, did they? There was... well, they could always turn around and head for the outskirts of the city, hope that the outbreak hadn't drawn any infected in from the west. She almost expressed this sentiment, but she decided not to. As long as the message was still playing, then it had to be safe under the Arch...


Paul "Paulie" Buscetta

"The other option is to go past the Casino and oil refinery to the rail bridge. That's pure rail, no passengers. Elevated to the trainyards next to highway 64. Then its.....Ugh. 10 or so minute hike back to arch on the ro...wait! Don't need roads, there's a rail line that goes right in front of the arch. Jump on that, and we can avoid pretty much any cannibals..."

"You know, that could work," Paulie said, "In fact-"

"Huge mob of stinkers behind you!"

Paulie and Kiva both looked up to see a man toward the other end of the bridge, waving a hatchet. Paulie looked around and saw what he was talking about... behind them, a large group of zeds had gathered, and Paulie knew one thing: the crazies on the bridge looked thin and sparse compared to the shitstorm that was heading their way. Paulie looked to Kiva and motioned toward the other side of the bridge, "If the cars slow us down, they'll at least slow these fuckers down, too."

With that, he vaulted over the divider and ran, not sure if Kiva was behind him, and frankly not caring. She could call him what she liked when this was over and done, but he wasn't about to get caught up in the middle of all these creepy fucks--he'd seen what they'd done to the agents escorting him out of Chicago.

So he ran, scrabbling on top of cars and trying to be nimble, but most importantly trying to stay out of reach of the crazies on the choked side of the bridge. Some of them could run, but a lot more of them were slow-moving or trapped in cars. Slow-moving or not, one almost crushed his arm as it grabbed him through a car window. He shot it in the face, though, and it released its grip almost immediately. He looked behind him and saw that Kiva was still there, and that the horde on the open side of the bridge was catching up to them. The runners, though, were being held up by the ones who couldn't--or wouldn't, Paulie didn't know which it was--run, giving them time. Paulie reached the man at the end of the bridge and, winded from the sudden exercise, motioned for Kiva to hurry her ass up.

"Damn..." he wheezed, but as he looked up, he saw it on the other side of the river. Most of the mirrored windows of the HoteLumiere were still intact, and it looked goddamn safe compared to the wide-open bridge. It wasn't far from the Arch, either. They could recuperate, form a plan, and try to get there, or away from there, or whatever the fuck they were going to do. Paulie didn't care about that at the moment, he just wanted to be somewhere where these crazy assholes couldn't get to them for awhile.

[JarlWolf]

Rodney had been hacking away at approaching zombies, waiting for the two to run up to him. When they finally did Rodney nodded and yelled, "lets roll!"

Rod knew that idle chatter was redundant, and he sped up. He gave enough decency to wait for the bastards and secure their exit, if they die now it's their own damned fault.
He ran a bit, climbing up and over the cars behind him, running up them. He was panting, and there was a few zombies coming down from the street ahead of them as well, with the hordes at their back.
"If the cars slow us down, they'll at least slow these fuckers down, too."
"That's the idea, we got to get off this fucking street and off these rotting fucks attention." He kept climbing, hatchet in hand, as he swung from underhand and smashed a zombies jawline clean off with the blade of his axe, blood spraying the car windshield.

He kept running, and he noticed the hotel up ahead. When he turned his head back however, he saw the man having his arm grabbed by an infected, nearly dragging him into the car. A hasty bullet shot to it's head made it slump into the car, the man narrowly escaping being savaged.
"This way! We can't stay on this damned bridge follow me into the hotel!"

Rodney hoped the hotel wouldn't be swarmed with even more zombies within. It looked pretty secure from the outside, and it was there best chance to lose these fucks and find a spot to sit, think, and plan.

He busted inside the doors, and there wasn't any zombies surprisingly walking the halls. There were a few blood stains on the floor however, and this concerned him. The other two were following up right behind him.
"Stick together and stick close, there could be more of the cockroaches within here as well..."

[Goldmarble]

Her head turned to look behind her at the words the man bellowed out, dreds scraping against her backpack as her eyes bulged, "Mother fucker..." She launched herself over the trunk of the car, sliding to her feet on the bridge side of it and started running for the divider. She shifted the rifle to her left hand and planter her right on the concrete to vault over it as fast as she could, even so, she stumbled slightly under the encumbrance of her gear. Her pace slowed for a minute as she pulled the mask down to cover her face, and then ran again in earnest. Some sliver of her mind wishing she had just stayed on the goddamn rails...

She ran between traffic and the center divider, regaining ground she lost to Paul before she saw a congested lump of the cannibals ahead of her. She have out a hissing breath of rage and started jumping on the cars themselves as Paul had done. Each foot fall denting in the steel as her legs carried her across the mass of vehicles that weren't as abandoned as she had hoped. Suddenly her right foot was caught violently in the grip of something, lurching her forwards to slam down hard on the trunk of a car, he arms holding the rifle out ahead of her, broke her fall partially as she felt something resist and snap in whatever it was that held her ankle. Giving out a grunt of anger, fear, and effort, she twisted around and curled over herself to see what had caught her. A hand was latched around the pant leg and cuff of her welding boots, the arm was twisted and grotesquely bend in three places with shards of while jabbing through the palid skin of death. Yet the fingers continued to tighten on her ankle. Three strikes with the buttstock of the rifle and enough of the fingers seemed to break to free herself of the grip of death, letting her slide back to the ground, and start running, next to the center divider again.

She looked ahead to see Paul looking back at her and pumped her right hand towards the building, gesturing for him to go, as she was catching up quickly having the endurance and energy of someone less than half his age to rely upon. Yet she could feel her right knee beginning to act up, she forced herself to ignore it, driving the pain down under the cloaking veil of urgency and fear. She had to catch up. She could not be caught. She checked over her shoulder twice, the first time seeing nothing the walkers pushing a car out of their way by mass and strength, and the second seeing a handful of them breaking into a balls out sprint. Fear clawed at her throat as she focused ahead and re-doubled her effort. Finally catching up to the two as they came to the doors, and through, her lungs heaving like bellows, yet not totally winded, she gasped out "Runners comming."

[howler01]

Running towards Colin, Mason was looking out for infected and he wnated to close the gap to lessen the chance that any infected would attack and kill one of the group and isolate them from the two others. He reached the young man quite quickly and placed his hand on his shoulder, signaling that danger was close and he wanted to make sure that he was careful. Placing his rifle sling over his neck, so that weapon hung loosely around his chest. He reached fro Colin's crossbow and made a give it to me gesture. He wanted not for the bolts, but for the scope. He waited and looked around from their right to their left. He waited for the crossbow patiently, but yet, at the same time he was a little impatient, worried that the sounds he was too used to hearing would be growing closer and closer. Through the day was a little, the sun provided enough light for Daniels to se out a ways into the roadway ahead, where it appeared they were closer to the city then he'd originally estimated. As such it seemed, though he couldn't tell 100%, that a sort of welcoming committee of zombies was walking and shuffling their way slowly up the freeway, probably off one of their scents.

He could not count the sheer number of them, not without something that could zoom in, like Colin's scope, which he finally received, not without a dubious look from the boy though, and Daniels peered through it and adjusted the sight so that he could see a little better out of it. Mason made a quiet count of the enemies ahead of them...there appeared to be about ten or so. That was just the first line of open arms...and open mouths. We'll never make it though that. Not with this group. We need heavier weapons. I'd...I'd have to use all of my ammo, though the grenades might come in handy, but that's what? one..two groups max? what about the noise though and the collateral damage? Damnit! his expression grew grim once more and her muttered,"definitely FUBAR".

He shook his head and turned to face Colin, and Sarah, who had hopefully caught up by this point. he whispered,"I count ten ahead of us, and that's just the front line. Who knows how many more there are behind them? Looks like we really had have two options; fight them off...or run around them...but I'm sure where we'd go. There looks to be a sort of strip mall gas station area off to the left and a building to the right, but it's got barbed wire fencing around it. Now, I'm not above hopping the fence,...but...I doubt there's much of anything inside. It is a shelter, but maybe we just make a stand and push through them? See what, if anything, we can find at the gas station? What do you two think?" The decision, the final one anyway, rested with him, or so he thought. But, he'd at least hear what they both had to say.

A thought struck Daniels then, and he turned around and used the scope one last time to peer at the gas station. After looking for a few moments more, he began to chuckle quietly. He turned back around and whispered,"Not that anyone cares, but we got a Am/PM up there with Shell gas. Too Much Good Stuff never looked so good, right?" He chuckled some more and tried hard to control his little moment of humor, something he hoped they would share. Hey, if you couldn't laugh a little, even at the end of the world, then you weren't human.

[Red Beret]

Sarah Schultz

The sergeant quickened his pace to catch up with their young friend, and Sarah sensed that this wouldn't end well. Good intentions or no, Colin was still a bit crazy, and she didn't know whether Daniels intended to take the crossbow from him before asking for it. She sped up, herself, to stay caught up with him, and to hold Colin off if the soldier offended.

Daniels had already got his hands on Colin's crossbow by the time she caught up with them. Colin looked irritated, but that was about it. That was good--well, it wasn't good, but it was better than a trench spike sticking out of the soldier's back. Daniels scanned the area ahead of them, then shook his head.

"I count ten ahead of us, and that's just the front line. Who knows how many more there are behind them? Looks like we really had have two options; fight them off...or run around them...but I'm sure where we'd go. There looks to be a sort of strip mall gas station area off to the left and a building to the right, but it's got barbed wire fencing around it. Now, I'm not above hopping the fence,...but...I doubt there's much of anything inside. It is a shelter, but maybe we just make a stand and push through them? See what, if anything, we can find at the gas station? What do you two think?

"Not that anyone cares, but we got a Am/PM up there with Shell gas. Too Much Good Stuff never looked so good, right?"

Sarah didn't get the joke, nor did she think that it was quite the time to be cracking them. She let the soldier chuckle to himself for a moment before speaking.

"Going inside's a bad move," Sarah said, "We may have to leave the Interstate, but that doesn't mean we need to get ourselves surrounded. If all else fails, I've got my map."

She looked around. The north end seemed to be industrial, large buildings with open parking lots and company vehicles and equipment, nestled between the Interstate and the rails. To the south she could see houses, suburban area that was probably rife with the infected. She allowed herself a silent curse, but she thought that she might prefer the wide-open parking lots to the close and cluttered streets of suburbia.

"I think we should head north," she said, looking to Daniels--the soldier, after all, was a soldier, "We can get on the other side of the tracks and follow them in. At least we'll be able to see them coming then."


Paul "Paulie" Buscetta

Paulie held the door for Kiva, even pulled her inside as she reached the doorstep, then he closed the door and turned the lock. He didn't know how long it was going to hold up against the crazies. Glass doors like these, you could break them easily enough with a baseball bat, probably didn't even take that. He didn't know about these doors in particular, but he had done it before. Not that any of these fuckers had a baseball bat, but with enough of them banging on the damn thing, he couldn't see it lasting long.

"Stick together and stick close, there could be more of the cockroaches within here as well..."

Paulie said nothing--ordinarily, he wouldn't have let someone tell him what to do, but right now wasn't the time to try and establish dominance. He was severely out of his league with this one, and these two seemed to know more about these damned crazies than he did. He wasn't so irrational that he couldn't follow good sense, though he knew he was slowly losing his opportunity to take control of the situation. Ah, well, it's not like he had any goddamn respect anyway. If he'd done it for the Mariettis for so long, he could follow orders from these fucks... for now.

He and Kiva followed the new guy deeper into the hotel, and beyond the lobby they came into a central room, looked like a lounge. The ceiling was high, and walkways rose all around them, lined with doors to rooms. The lounge itself was full of potted plants, tables, and low-lying furniture, it might have been okay to hide in when some fucker was coming to shoot the place up--you could hide and then shoot back. Hiding didn't work with these things, it was like they had super-sniffers or some shit, and shooting was... well, Paulie didn't know how shooting worked. The first one he'd shot had gone down like a sack of potatoes, the other one had kept coming.

"I'm guessing we should find the stairs before they break through the fuckin' door," Paulie offered. He hadn't really been thinking about anything other than getting to safety. Hell, he didn't know jack shit about this place, "Unless you guys got a better idea."

[JarlWolf]

Rodney had just sealed the door with a chair from the lobby, and he looked around peering at the various halls and the main lobby more. He looked over to the man. Gazing at him, he appeared to have slicked back hair and a polo shirt. Overall, he looked like an Italian American.
The woman had dreaded hair with multiple tattoo's and piercings. He could also tell, looking at her calloused hands that she wasn't afraid to get dirty.

"I'm guessing we should find the stairs before they break through the fuckin' door," The man offered, "Unless you guys got a better idea."
Rodney thought for a moment, catching his breathe. Rodney looked over to the man and woman.
"Right, I know jack shit about this place's layout, but I do know there is a connecting bridge to the neighboring Casino here and I know its on the second floor, so we could use that to escape from these fuckers outside." Proceeding forward he held his hatchet at hand. "Lets see if we can find a map of the hotel's layout, they gotta have some sort of map for the guests..."
He moved up around the desk, and peering around he saw a panel. He looked at it, studying it.

"Second floor... west quadrant... Lets roll." He moved on up, gesturing the others to follow him.
They trailed up the stairs, and the hallway had flickering lights. They could hear thumping noises as they passed by the doors.
Rodney was a little uneased by this. "God damn" Rodney thought, " these people must've succumbed in their beds and hotel staff locked them in..."
He heard odd creaking coming from above, but he couldn't figure out what it was.

As they were walking, he spoke to the other two. "I have a bad feeling about these rooms, I think there is more stinkers locked in them. We'll want to move quickly if we don't want the ones up here busting through and-" as he said that, the roof above them collapsed, and 5 morbidly obese zombies fell through onto the ground. Their legs snapped on the impact and they were on the ground behind them. More zombies were walking on the upper floor, and they all started streaming down into the hallway from the hole. The thumping from the surrounding doors had increased, the zombies inside the rooms growing more ravenous.
"GOD DAMMIT! We got to get out of here!" Rodney was sweating, and the other two were bolting with him. He noticed the woman was biting her cheek in pain for some reason every time she pressed weight on her leg.

They ran down the halls, zombies trailing behind them, the thumping growing louder.

[Kaylin]

Spoiler

Kaylin Forsythe - The Edge of Hampton Avenue at Jack's Bar

On the edge of the corner near Hampton Ave, a rather small group of zombies are scratching at the broken glass trying to crawl in. Above them a neon light blinked on and off saying Jack's Bar. Inside the shattered windows was seven stragglers clawing and moaning at the back door of the bar. The area looked ransacked with a few corpses around the floor and glass bottles some broken some not laying all over the bar. It looked like there was an attempt to light some of the dead up from how some have been standing in what looks like old stained spilled alcohol.

Above the bar a room was lit up rather dimly only having some light seeping from the cracks and a faint sound of music could be heard. The music was quickly cranked up to a rather high volume and the windows were broken by what looked to be a baseball bat. If anyone around saw this, a girl in a white silk dress top was moving around above with a backpack on her back and was dousing the place with alcohol. Kaylin made sure to fix her skirt before putting on sneakers instead of her heels which she had tied to the bottom of the bag. She rushed towards the stair entrance opening it and heading down to the bar before banging against the stairway and breaking the window near the stairs, "COME ON COME ON IN HERE!" She quickly unlatched the locked door and pushed it open with the bat before booking it back up making lots of noise. Her long blond hair got grasped by a hand reaching in from the window as she screamed feeling herself yanked back for a moment. Her breathing sped up as she pulled full force and slammed the bat sideways hitting the arm and snapping it against the wall getting a quick escape rushing to the top of the bar. She quickly got to the roof exit and slammed the door shut locking it waiting to hear the sounds.

Once Kaylin could hear the moans and banging she would quickly head over lowering the fire escape latter and lower herself down moving rather silent. She paused seeing a corpse of a recently dead zombie in the alley clearly the one that was on the roof decided to try and climb down. She took a deep breath as she stepped gently over it and walked around past the window where a few more began to crawl in. Kaylin took out a match as she struck it against the brick wall before tossing it inside and ducking. She would cover her ears as the flames could be heard starting to spread from all the poured ale up the stairs and to her old apartment. Kaylin's breathing slowed down as she closed her eyes tight for a few moments tearing up as she shook her head and opened them just in time to see a few more of those things being attracted to the flame and the noise she made. She covered her mouth not moving as they slowly walked by the alley towards the door. Kaylin took a deep breath as she made a sprint around the building and down the street.

[Apocrypha]

Can't you hear me knockin', on your window...

Tooling down I-44 in the St. Louis Correctional Facility's Warden's silver '95 Ford Taurus - complete with a moon-roof and third party GPS - John C. Burke drummed his fingertips across the steering wheel, his right hand tapping the stick while his gaze drifted towards Berra Park on the left. There were no youngsters racing about the park, covered in dirt; there were no worrisome parents, exercising their eagle eyes on their young wards - there wasn't anybody. Anywhere. A brown-out had forced open the magnetically locked cell doors in the SLF's detention wards, and Burke - alongside a couple hundred other Level IV prisoners - made a break for it. He retrieved his clothes (a black peacoat, grey sweater, and jeans) and even recovered a Remington pump-action and a Springfield handgun from the armory before hotwiring the warden's wheels and riding off into the sunset. Burke didn't know what was going on, or where the entire population of St. Louis had fucked off to overnight, but he did know something was terribly wrong.

Can't you hear me knockin', on your doo-oor...

Luckily enough, the warden had some musical taste; Burke found a Stones cassette in the glovebox - alongside the young doctor's favorite vice; a pack of Marlboros. Averting his eyes from the abandoned, car-strewn freeway briefly, he hauled a cigarette out of the pack with his teeth and balanced it between his lips, flicking open the warden's 1st Cav-emblazoned lighter and setting the tip of the cancer stick aflame. Tossing the lighter into the passenger seat, Burke inhaled, sheer bliss engraved into his features, eyes closed... a moment passed, and he exhaled slowly, opening his eyes --

-- only to have them focus upon the very young girl shambling aimlessly towards his car.

"Fuck," he shouted, yanking the steering wheel with enough force to dislocate it from the column as the Taurus careened wildly across four lanes of zero traffic. His brain, half-clouded and on sensory overload, registered the dull thud of his front bumper connecting with the girl, who couldn't be older than ten, sending her sprawling across the asphalt. The right side of the front bumper ground into the concrete barrier on the right side of the road and bounced the Taurus back into the road - right into a stationary SUV.

Can't you hear me knockin', down your dirty str-str-str-str-str-str-str-brrreeeeeeoooowweeoooooooo...

The cassette player sparked and sputtered and shorted out, the Stones' Great Hits going up in flames as the Taurus wedged itself into the midsection of the SUV. Glass shattered, his whole body was rocked with concussive force, and the airbag deployed directly into John Burke's face - and his world went black.

Help me, baby; ain't no stran-ger...

* * *

Whether it had been five minutes or five hours, Burke could not say - what he could tell you about, however, was the screaming heart-beat of pain jolting through his nose every other second. His mind, disoriented and muddled, managed to piece together that his nose had been broken - and that had to exit the Taurus right now. Shoving the air bag out of his way clumsily, Burke's hands fumbled for the shotgun propped beneath the passenger seat and the console, took hold of the barrel, and hauled the Remington up towards his chest. His left hand did its best to open the driver's side door, but to no avail; it was jammed. Burke steeled himself for just a moment - and slammed his shoulder into the door. Pain shot through the shoulder and the arm attached to it, but the door wrenched open with a metallic crunch.

"Every fuckin' day," the doctor muttered to himself as he pried his stiff, sore body out from under the Taurus's airbag and stumbled to his feet, rubbing his temples slowly.

"Neeueuuurgrgghuuugh!"

"Mother of Christ!" Burke shouted upon identifying the gurgling hiss behind him; it was the girl that he had struck with his car - but she was in dire need of a physician. The physical damage extolled upon her body by the car was immediately evident - a shattered left leg and hip, the foot bent entirely backwards, a half dozen lacerations upon her knee, thigh, and calf that would need stitches - but it did not end there: her stomach had been torn asunder at some point long before she had the misfortune of walking into John Burke when he happened to be traveling 75 MPH, rotten grey-and-black intestines dangling loosely from two flaps of skin; her neck had a large chunk missing from it; and her face appeared to have been chewed almost entirely off, her nose and left eye missing.

Reactionary, Burke raised the Remington and clubbed her full-on in the face with the butt of the shotgun, sending her reeling to the ground. He squared the weapon against his shoulder, taking aim - but hesitating. This was a little girl, wasn't it? Was it? What crucial information had he failed to take notice of in the last three days? His head, on a swivel, scanned the surrounding area - and settled firmly on the cluster of a half dozen men and women (in various states of decay) staggering his way.

Jesus Christ, what was he going to do?

[Goldmarble]

Heavily booted feet softly thumped on the floor as they exited the stairwell, she listened to the man who had saved their ass from the horde of the damned things that seems to have crawled out of nowhere. Her eyes drifted around to the numbers on the doors as she pushed the pain of her right knee to the back of her mind. It wasn't about to stop her yet. She kept the Carbine pointed to the ground, her finger on the side of the trigger guard, the safety being disengaged when they had walked through the hall downstairs and heard the thumping of the doors. She did not like being unprepared. Her mask was down again as well, just in case there was some thing roaming the halls that needed to have it's skull caved in.

The squeal of rusted metal and crackling of drywall trying to support in excess of two thousand pounds on tiny feet giving way was a sudden surprised as the fat tubs of flesh dropped like stones to the floor just behind them. She turned to see the carnage and as the last dredlock cleared from her peripheral vision, she saw a sight she would remember in nightmares for years to come; The left leg of the last fat ass to fall drove down through the back of one of the first, ripping through flesh and intestine like wet paper, until the leg struck the solid floor, twisting and snapping as the foot slipped on the inner surface of fat, gruesomely entangling the pair. She fought off the violent illness that wanted to betray her and make her incapable of action, casting it to the recesses of her mind where it was sure to return and haunt her in the night. She whirled as another fell through the still crumbling opening on the ceiling above, and set her legs into motion, running hard. Each sharp blow of her right leg on the ground felt like it was driving a red hot shard of ice through her knee cap as the old scar tissue grew ever more inflamed.

She kept running, refusing to let her body try to limp, refusing to slow her pace to spare her knee. Her legs kept hammering the steel toed boots into the carpet like pistons, driving her forwards to begin catching up to Paul, but between sheer exertion that she hadn't fully recovered from of running on the bridge, and the pain she was denying through sheer will alone, she couldn't think of a remark to make, nor find the energy to bother saying it. Suddenly the hall ended, and they were sprinting through daylight as they crossed into the connection between the Lumiere and the Four Season, marked by the sign on the wall on the other end of the walkway. She saw Paulie stop, her eyes widened and she stopped as well, finding energy to ask with force, "The fuck are you doing?!" even as he reached for the metal gate, the plan seemed to sink in. Yet the few sprinters were fuck near on their heels. She swung the rifle up to her shoulder, missing the pocket and had it hit the bone of her shoulder even though she didn't realize it. She snapped off three popping shots at the first one rushing at them, only hitting with one of the three; punching through the front teeth, sending the bullet tumbling through the the base of the brain, and dropping it like a stone. She heaved a breath she held, and swung the rifle to the second, and three more shots rang out even as Pauling was closing the grate, again hitting with only once due to the rushed nature and distractions, yet it stumbled two steps and slammed bodily into the grate even as Paulie locked it home.

Lowering the rifle, she let out the second breath and began gulping air, trying to slow her heart and concentrate on something other than the fire in her knee that was beginning its familiar spread. Her finger slipped to the safety and switched it on as she focused on the need of the moment; she walked over to Paulie and gave him a slap on the back as a third sprinter ran into the metal snarling and spitting and looking really quite normal except for the grey skin tone of the recently deceased, and the eyes that betrayed its feral desire. "Good thinking." She jerked her head to the other end of the walk way, and finally let her body convince her that her right knee needed to take it easy for a minute, she began limping down the rest of the walkway, and using her left hand to lift the mask from her face while breathing heavily. Getting to the other end, she helped to drag down the second metal grate....just in case. Once the work was done for a moment, she slumped against a wall, and fumbled the drinking tube to her lips and took a swill of the lukewarm water that tasted bland...yet quenched the dry, parched tissues of her mouth and throat. "So," She began, still talking between every other breath, "Thanks stranger." Her voice was loud, louder than normal due to the temporary hearing loss of firing without hearing protection in the enclosed space of the walkway. One good thing of the M1 Carbine, was that even Paulie who was ahead of the muzzle would still be able to hear, and not be completely deafened by the report of the light rifle. She took another drink of the water from the camel back, as she slowly kept flexing her right knee, trying to prevent it from stiffening and locking itself from working for the next eight to twelve hours like it usually did when she punished it hard like this. Even the slow, gentle, and no impact flexing caused her to wince

[JarlWolf]

Rodney had raced down the hall with the group, narrowly escaping the clutches of death that the droves of zombies were going to bring closer to them in the halls.
After the cold metal gates were slammed down, he heaved a breathe and placed his hands on his upper thigh, arching a bit, catching his breathe.
He eyed around his surroundings, and it seemed they were just in the hallway entering the second floor of the Casino. The lights were still flashing below, he could see them, and from what he could tell the place was deserted.
"So," She began, still talking between every other breath, "Thanks stranger." Rodney looked up momentarily at the woman, and just nodded. He perked himself up, placing a hand on the wall. You could still hear distant moaning from beyond the metal, and some thumps on the other end. However, it seemed the horde wouldn't be getting through anytime soon.

"Not a problem mam. The name is Rodney Dubray. You can call me Rod..." He straightens his back out and looks at the other two.
" and you two are? Might as as well get to know each other. I'd offer you hurting units a beer or two but im parched myself, and dangerously sober."