The African man nodded at Captain Ishida, "yes, safe, very safe." He paused, looking at the emerging tide of shamblers as they picked themselves up after falling over the lower level's wall. "We can hold them here, if you can get um, heli... hover plane?"

The SUV rocked and rattled as dead hands and bodies threw themselves against it. It wouldn't last long.

"Hey," the African said suddenly. "Wasn't there more of you?" Then he suddenly noticed the absence of the little girl he'd seen, and grimaced. "Ah... well come, come, let's go to top. We can make more block if need be, not all cars got keys, but most will move if we push."

The SUV started to turn on its back wheels as the press of the dead forced the front of the vehicle to move - like some kind of big clunky gate.

Meanwhile, no one had noticed that Garret Mercer had fallen unconscious on the carpark's ground level - finally succumbing to the blood loss. In the chaos of everything, the group had lost another.

Amy woke up, remembering little of what happened on the previous incident but her neighbors, Linda and Allen, were gone. Perhaps they've made it out and decided to leave Amy for good but assumptions told her that they were already consumed by the dead. Maybe they were since the rubble was inescapable but mulling over it proved to be difficult as Amy struggled to get herself on her feet. Her body felt heavy, bruised as it may be as she started to feel the pain lodging to her lower back. Then she crawled, almost as helpless as she looked while doing it, only to have her eyes meet a number of shamblers shuffling their way towards her. Their shrill, grisly cries brought a shivering fear down to her insights. It squirmed, forcing Amy to slip a scream. She held it however but that didn't gave her progress on bringing herself to her feet. Instead, she laid there, weak and helpless. There wasn't an ounce of strength left to run away. Amy couldn't help but gaze at the dead as they made their way towards her.

Was it the end? Could there be no chance of reuniting with her family? Amy didn't wish it to be so but in her current state it could most likely happen. She rolled her body to her left without aiming for a direction, perhaps the main point was to drive herself away from the fast-approaching shamblers. Once she did, she continued crawling, dragging herself while her front body leaned against the cemented ground. The pain kept on building up but that didn't stop Amy from going forward. She crawled and crawled until she saw an opportunity awaiting from a distance.

A tall building - most likely a carpark - was a few meters away from Amy. It wasn't actually a source of relief until she saw soldiers running towards the entrance. They seemed to be soldiers as what Amy believed since the uniform they wore were vaguely familiar. They might have been ordered by the government to do certain tasks on barricading areas that were congested by the dead but hardly anyone could distinguish what others were doing considering the outbreak had caused people to resort with desperate actions. Who knows? those soldiers may possibly have the same intentions as some people back from the airport. Amy didn't want to go back with some individuals who gave nothing but threats in order to attain supplies.

However, Amy wasn't going to bet on that possibility. The dead were almost inches away from her and time was a matter of survival or death. She pushed herself upward, using whatever strength that remained from her weary state. It was painful on the first attempt, both of her feet felt the soreness rising. It was as if they were being constricted by an unknown object. She did another try, bringing herself up as her arms served as pillars to haul her weight up. Eventually it went well despite having her lower back suffer from immediate pain once she stood up. Then she hobbled towards the building, specifically heading towards the entrance. Running wasn't quite possible as it seemed and it would only risk Amy to falter down again. That wasn't what she wanted but at least her movements were faster than the shamblers. She continued with her feeble escape attempt until she was a few feet away from the car park's entrance.

Unfortunately, the guarantee of an escape was far from being at her hands. Soon after she arrived, Amy have met with another group of shamblers swarming the ground floor of the entrance. She nearly lost hope but then realized it wasn't yet the end. She needed to figure something out quickly but to her surprise, the dead weren't pausing their attention to her. There were fresh corpses lying on the ground floor and they happened to be busy consuming them one by one. It was a perfect chance. Perhaps she'd consider on thanking those people for dying but wishing for something like that was out of her morals. Both of her feet were gaining strength back but still far from being better. Amy took the chance and ran up to the spiral ramps. She recalled the soldiers heading for the upper floors and so she followed them in a hope to escape this hell.

"Help! Anyone! Please!" Amy yelled as she continued running towards the upper levels. She finally arrived shortly after but then a barricade of SUVs stood before her, blocking the path to whatever lies ahead. It would be an easy climb to it of course but Amy wasn't in a good condition to do so. Assuming that there were people who already climbed past it, she waited until someone showed up.That was until she noticed a group of shamblers mindlessly pushing the SUVs. Once Amy's audible footsteps lured their attention, they started dragging themselves towards her.

Shit

Amy stepped backwards. Terrified, she tried not to loose herself out in panic. One wrong step would certainly cost her a ton. She craned her neck to her left side, spotting a staircase with no dead being present. It wasn't a safe bet since there could be a possibility of those things lurking in the dark. If only it was daytime, then the difficulty of the situation would have toned down. As the shamblers slowly paced their way towards Amy, she quickly took a sprint to the stairs. She felt the pain piercing through her feet as she ran but worrying about it wouldn't give any positive outcome. Every step made her hope that not one shambler would be on the upper level. Perhaps there wouldn't be any if chances were on her favor.

She ran and ran upwards where the stairs led her only to be stopped by a barricade blocking the near end of it. People could be seen on the other side and even the soldiers whom Amy saw before entering the car park.

"Hey! Help! Over here!" She started yelling, flailing her arms up in the air just to make sure their attention would get to her.

"I need someone to help me climb over this barricade." She added, feeling the strength of her voice depleting within seconds. "Please, anyone. I can barely walk. My feet and back are in severe pain."

She leaned herself against the barricade and waited for an aid to come by. But then fear came sprawling back as she heard the cries of the shamblers echoing downstairs. The ones who had followed her seemed to be very persistent.

No no no Captain Ishida's mind was a storm as he saw people dying around them, the dead trying to exact vague vengeance. But it was no time for despair, he knew. It was amazing how he could just shove all his pain into a corner of his mind and keep functioning, but then again being a doctor had given him a self-reflexive view of his own health and psychology, allowing him to do just that.

A thousand things were happening. Just a few days ago, he would never even entertain the idea of becoming the commanding officer of his squad - at least what remained of it - but then a horde of hundreds made a beeline for the caravan they were protecting, splintering his squad up and separating his shard of the squad from the Major who was in command of the whole squad. If he would have looked at himself now a few days ago, he wouldn't have believed the decisions he was capable of making. Sure, he'd headed groups of surgeons before and chaired meetings and conferences back then, but...

"Ichiro, take Sergeant Katsuo to the top floor!" The captain ordered in Japanese - Private First Class Ichiro could barely understand even simple English at all, "Sergeant, signal for an evacuation!" The young soldier, the liveliest of them all, returned to the SUV to help support Katsuo and get him to the top. With his bitten leg, he wouldn't be able to keep up with what might come anyway.

Just as he was about order the civilians to stay behind him, one of them hopped back over the SUV towards the horde of Kyonshi, talking about hearing the voices of another survivor. The Captain himself couldn't hear anything, but Sergeant Maiko confirmed the call for help. It was only a little bit later that he saw the source of the supposed voices. A stray woman who had been following them. "Wait!" The captain objected towards Malik's rash decision to rush forward, but his cries fell on death ears. "The rest of you, stay behind us!" He ordered everyone else.

The heroic man had hopped over the barricade, deftly weaving past the Kyonshi. "Maiko, defend him! Open fire! Bayonets!" The medical officer ordered rapidly in his native language. The animated dead fell around Malik as he sprinted for the woman, but most of them were Sergeant Maiko's work. The captain ran out of cartridges in his current magazine quickly, as he had neglected to replace it earlier with a fresh one. With most of the Kyonshi near the SUV dead, the two soldiers manning it decided to cross it and trail behind the foolhardy civilian, engaging the few that were left dangerously close to their makeshift wall with bayonets. In the melee, Hisashi did much better than his medic, killing several in a flurry of kicks, rifle butts and stabs.

Hundreds more were approaching, forming a wall of advancing death. Time was running out for the hero and the woman. "Maiko, grenade out!" The captain ordered, again in his native language. They both pulled out a grenade each and lobbed them at the feet of the crowd.

"Grenade!" Maiko shouted, in English, in the chaos. The five seconds fuse ensured that the grenades exploded only shortly after the wave of corpses had engulfed them in several layers of advancing bodies. The resultant explosion did not kill many - possibly only ten at the most due to the obscene amount of flesh - but it did maim a good number of them, and knocked even more off their feet. It had a domino effect, as a Kyonshi that was knocked off its feet would fall the one behind it and so on. The advance was stopped but slowly regaining momentum. It would buy them time.

Angie - Parking Garage, on the safe side of the SUV barricade

The grenade shook me to me senses alright. Sure, everything had just gone to shite in a handbasket, I'd lost the very last member of my old group, but I was still alive, and that's what mattered. I would grieve for the girl later. For now, there was the question of getting to safety. In all the chaos that had ensued after the car crash, I'd realised that although I was following the group, I'd lost track of Alex, my only friend in the sea of strangers and dead people. He was a soldier though, tough and gritty. I knew he'd make it, at least I hoped so. I was barely away from the SUV when the explosive went off, and it right startled me out of the trance I'd probably been in since I lost my grip on Sophia. I gripped my bat tighter and got to my feet, now in firm control of myself. Around me it was still very noisy, what with the gunfire and constant shouting, but I now realised that the soldiers helping us weren't even American. Aye, they were Asian, probably Japanese from how quick they were talking. I couldn't tell one from another anyway, my guess was as good as anything. They were busy trying to get to a survivor, apparently, that was near the tail end of the horde that was attacking us. In all the noise and shooting and everything, we'd almost passed one by. I didn't see how we'd escape from the parking garage but I sure as hell couldn't let another die on my watch.

I gripped me bat tightly in me hands, staring down at the scene where the soldiers were scrambling towards the lone survivor. It was a she, apparently, and with her was the Middle-Eastern man that was going to her rescue, along with one of the Japanese soldiers. They'd need help getting back here though, and as I saw the front edges of the horde rising to their feet from the carnage of the grenade blast, I knew what I had to do.

The SUV itself was toppled over, had been after the dead shoved it over by force of weight. The two men and lone woman were on the other side, and they'd no doubt need help. Ignoring the other soldiers, I broke into a run, getting past them as I headed straight for the fallen vehicle. One of the dead was approaching, with his friends right behind him no less, but that all changed when I introduced my bat to his face. He fell over backwards and I gave him more encouragement by kicking him straight in the chest. That made the bloody lot of them all fall down, just like dominoes. A slight improvement. Aye.

I gave another sod a bat to the face and shoved him down to finish him off with a stomp to the face. The dead man's skull crushed like wet cardboard underneath me foot. Must've been dead a long while, that fella.

No time to think about that. I needed to give these people some room.

I got on top of the SUV and went right over, landing next to the man and woman. No time to learn their names, instead I stepped forward and jabbed the front end of my bat into the gut of a particularly scrawny shambler that was getting up behind our would-be rescuer, wound up, then threw a swing that I reckoned would've hit a ball for miles. It sure knocked him back, way back into a crowd of his friends, keeping them down where they'd been downed by the grenade. With that out of the way, I turned to the two of them.

"Oy, you two done flirting or what? In case ye haven't noticed, we be surrounded by these things and these kind souls are helping us out. We need to move. Now."

Without waiting, I clambered back onto the SUV and beckoned for them to follow with a wave of my hand. Then, in a burst of an idea, I flipped my bat around and held the taped grip out to the man and woman.

"Here, grab on! You two need to be over this thing sharpish!"

Meanwhile, I stole a glance at the other Jap troops.

"Oy! Guys! Shoot this way! Cover me!"

Help was unexpectedly quick but that didn't mean it was something to be reassured at. The miserable cries of the shamblers were getting louder and louder which only suggested that their presence were fast approaching. Amy assumed they were still downstairs and were struggling to keep up due to their sluggish movements but that was proven wrong when she glanced behind, seeing those things squirming to get a bite of her flesh. Amy took no moment to spare as she grabbed the guy's arm then placed her left knee down to his shoulders followed by the other. As she was on top of him, she went over the barricade, again feeling the pain rising to her feet as they landed to the ground. She wanted to thank the person but the only way to do it was aiding him back. Time was running short though. The dead were already a few inches away from the barricade and the guy who helped her climb was still on the other side.

Amy then outstretched her arm, reaching for the person's hand. The dead were also on her sights but she didn't mind their presence.

"H-here, g-grab my hand. Hurry." Despite feeling weak, Amy was willing to lift the person up even if it would bolster the pain on her back. She remained there and wasn't leaving anytime soon until she could bring the person back. Until she heard someone yelling from behind. Most of the uttered words were something she couldn't comprehend and as so, gave her an assumption that they were a bunch of foreigners.

"Maiko, grenade out!" At first, Amy was oblivious about it. Her attention remained focused on grabbing the guy's arm and pulling him back but then another voice followed, this time in English.

"Grenade!" Amy's eyes widened by the time it was howled. Her breaths and her attention drifted to the horde of shamblers. She failed to notice where the grenade was hurled as her mind swirled in chaos and confusion. It suddenly made her anxious, forcing her to frequently turn her head at different sides as her nervousness crept. Then as the explosion triggered, she screamed. She immediately crouched and closed her eyes, wrapping her hands around her head and covered her ears. A rain of dark reddish sludge splashed to her direction, daubing chunks to her clothes as they oozed their way in. She felt the slimy texture of the shambler's blood dripping all over and for obvious reasons, it was unpleasant but at least it was better than being consumed by those horrid things. Amy then wiped her face as her clothes weren't the only ones that were stained by a disgusting hail of liquid.

"Here, grab on! You two need to be over this thing sharpish!"

Another one spoke but Amy was uncertain if it was directed to her. She took a glance from behind to see who it was and saw a woman on top of an SUV. Odd how she noticed the vehicle after spotting a barricade of it earlier. There were other survivors and perhaps it was a good sign but leaving without the guy who helped her seemed rather ungrateful.

Amy shook her head in response to the woman then turned back to where the guy was. She could hardly see him with the smoke rising from the explosion. It was safe to say that there weren't any more of those dead things nearby but that didn't mean their numbers were reduced to zero as more and more herded their through the stairs.

"I have to wait until this guy jumps back in." Amy said.

Alex - Car Park

He had... argh... pain. The girl had... gone? Alex wasn't sure what had just transpired. The last thing he remembered, he'd been talking to Roland, the next thing, chaos. So many had fallen. He'd never seen death and carnage on a scale like this before/ It had almost been too much for him. He'd blacked out, yet where his conscious had failed him, his instincts had carried him through the danger. He'd come to being yanked inside a car park building of sorts by some foreign soldiers. It had taken him a moment to recognize the JSDF uniform. That only raised more questions than it answered. What the hell where the Japs doing here?

The disorientation of the black out had dulled his senses, but he was coming back to reality. Brutal, harsh reality. The soldiers had dragged him to a corner of the car park, away from the action. He had spotted Blondie, but had still been in a daze and unable to call out to her as he was pulled away. It didn't seem like she'd spotted him.

An explosion rocked him. A loud, resounding BOOM echoed throughout the car park, completely shattering Alex's daze. That, was a fucking stupid decision. Not only had they about deafened everyone in a 50 meter radius, they had also probably attracted the attention of walkers from miles around. Also, using a fragmentation explosion device with a kill radius of 20 meters without body armor, was an extremely fucking questionable decision. Yet despite that, it seemed to have worked well in these circumstances. Wether or not it brought the unrelenting hordes of undead upon them, was another story. Hopefully the actual building had muffled the explosion and not lured in any unwanted rotting guests.

Now back to reality, Alex saw Blondie and a soldier attempting to save someone. Although he couldn't quite make out who. He couldn't clearly remember what had happened, but he was pretty sure everyone from Blondie's original group was dead. Fuck. Gripping his pistol, he knew he couldn't stand by idly. Grabbing the nearest soldier, Alex pointed to his weapon, then to the horde, portraying his intent to help. Seemingly happy, the soldier let him pass with a grim nod.

His breath came hard and ragged as Alex sprinted towards the group, stopping about 5 meters away from them. The smell of carbon and flesh washed over him in a sickening wave. Gritting his teeth, he closed the gap between them. He saw Blondie attempting to help another woman over the car. It seemed between her and the Jap the situation was under control. However the fresh(ish...) wave of undead shambling towards the group, wasn't. His hands shook violently as he raised the glock to his eye, 'Breathe... COME ON.'. Closing his eyes, Alex shut off the world, taking a long, deep breath in, before slowly exhaling. Opening his eyes, Alex chose his target and gently squeezed the trigger. The shot went clear through the head of the first undead and ripped off the jaw of one close behind. The empty case flew out of the glock, making a small tink as it hit the floor.
Without looking out the sights he shouted to Blondie.

"Yo! You two get the girl out of here. I'll cover you!"

The hordes weren't dangerously close just yet, but the more he could drop, the better the groups chances. Fuck. When would they get respite from the undead?

If anything, the grenades had a rather lacklustre effect. It was as expected, as bodies were piling over them before they exploded. If a single Kyonshi were to outright lie on top of a grenade, the resulting blast might not even kill the unfortunate reanimated corpse much less do any damage to everything around it, as the brain needs to be destroyed.

As everyone was climbing over the SUV barricade once again, Captain Ishida and Sergeant Maiko covered them just like they wanted, though the medical officer would have done it anyway. It was his job to protect these poor people. Long before he'd been forced to join the military, he had sworn an oath, after all, to heal or at least do no harm. It was an oath of western sources, now coming back to its roots and it was paying off. He had his own beliefs of course.

After the last of the evacuees reached temporary safety over the pathetic wall, the two JSDF soldiers climbed over it themselves. "Go to the top! We calling for extraction! We will cover you!" Before ascending the concrete ramps to the top, however, Captain Ishida knew that he couldn't just leave the undead alone now. They were already beginning to regain their momentum. Many of them won't even be able to stand, but they will crawl, wriggle, struggle towards them, no matter what it took. That was the advantage of the dead. They may crawl at a snail's pace, they may trip over each other after the blast and shamble at the pace of a dying old man, but they will come.

"Maiko, trap the barricade." He ordered his medic in Japanese before turning to the rest and asking them to carry on, "we go to the top, now." After a while, he finally had time to read the nametag of the local soldier he had saved, "Ibanez, escort civilians to the top."

Sergeant Maiko acknowledged the command with a rather mischievous look and smile on her face before looking around for whatever resources she could use to kill a whole bunch of Kyonshi, and her eyes finally settled on the SUV itself. Opening the fuel hatch and cap, she stuck her remaining grenade in it. Using an elastic bandage, she managed to improvise a triggering mechanism that would push the lever and detonate the grenade. For the pin, she simply loosened it and attached a very long surgical thread to it, tying it to the railing to the side of the ramp. Once tripped, it would blow the grenade and the SUV's fuel tank. To add more potency to the trap, she'd left a jerrycan of petrol she'd found by the SUV after pouring half of the content all over the place.

The resulting explosion will destroy far more of the Kyonshi, create a wall of fire and distract them, providing more than enough cover. Which was why she promptly booked it and joined everyone else who were running up.

Angie - On top of the SUV

I hauled the man and his possible girlfriend back on top and over the car. Aye, I think we were all safe. Just seconds before, I'd glanced behind at a familiar voice and saw Alex right there, safe and sound, gun pointed the way of the shamblers. A gunshot quickly followed and a dead nearby had its head blown to pieces, which was all the signal I needed to get moving meself. After the other guy and the lady were off the SUV, I hopped down with them and gave Alex a pat on the shoulder as I stopped there.

"Aye, thank ye. And me name's Angie, if you were wonderin', and in case we don't see each other again. Now c'mon, I think I see our backup on the way."

I said that as one of the Japanese fellas, actually a girl when she got closer, approached the SUV and waved us off. I gave Alex's shoulder a squeeze and a gentle tug.

"C'mon. She's wantin' to do something to the car. We'd better not get in 'er way, aye?"

Without waiting for him, mainly because I trusted him, I kept up behind the mystery couple. I didn't care what that soldier did, as long as it got those dead sods away from us and cleared a way to safety without doomin' us all.

Amy's mind raced with anxiety, still partly recovering from the recent explosion dealt by the grenade. Luckily the soldiers were trained how to aim it, otherwise it would've been a worst case scenario that have followed after that. Constant coughs were expelled from her lungs even after the smoke began to abate. In the midst of it all, she saw the guy that helped her going over the barricade. The sight of it alone was a relief, knowing that he was still in good shape despite being covered in smudges.

"Can you walk?"

The pain that was sapping the strength left on Amy's feet could still be felt. Even by simply wriggling it was difficult and an excruciating thing to do.

"Yes." Amy replied, her voice was nearly dull. She felt her lips dry as soon as she realized that she was thirsty. Her backpack was gone, couldn't even remember where she had left it after the previous incident she encountered. "I think I'll be a bit slow catching up but don't worry." She glanced at her feet as she began staggering a few steps towards the SUVs.

With roughly everything in the area being covered by gunfire, Amy still couldn't afford on collecting herself down. She still wondered about the incident earlier and the details about its occurrence and while at it, pain kept on draining whatever's left of her. She knew she wouldn't last long before she passes out from exhaustion but at the very least, she was away from the dead's clutches.

Her attention then shifted to the soldier's commands. She didn't know exactly what were they intending to do but the message were clear to her comprehension.

"Where will your next stop be after this? If you guys don't have a specific route, there is one I know." Amy said to the guy as she continued to walk lamely. She wasn't sure to be honest and frankly was running out of options. The only thing that ran in her mind at that moment was to reunite with her family. Her neighbors either left her or were consumed by the dead and she wasn't certain about it. Going to that place her ex-husband talked about was her last resort since there wasn't anywhere else she'd go. There was a chance that she won't be reunited but then remained believing that there was a possibility. If only there was enough detail of the location, then there would have been a certainty on leading the group. Still, Amy was far from giving up.

Alex - Car Park

"Yeah. Sure. Nice to meet you." A thin smile appeared on Alex's face as he finally learned Blondie's name.
He'd been happy to see Angie was still alive and well, not to mention he now knew her name and could henceforth no longer refer to her as "Blondie"

"Ibanez, escort civilians to the top."

Alex didn't know who this guy was, but he had an air of authority about him, so for now, he'd do as the guy said. Although it didn't seem he needed to do anything, as the civilians were already moving towards the stairs. A hand grasped his shoulder,

"C'mon. She's wantin' to do something to the car. We'd better not get in 'er way, aye?"

He turned to see Angie stride past him, heading to the stairs. "Uh...cool." Making his glock safe, he holstered it before striding to catch up with her. He'd only known Angie a short amount of time, but he knew her and could trust her. That counted for everything.

Looking back, Alex thought he saw one of the Jap women planting something in the car fuel tank. Another grenade? Goddamn, these guys sure loved their pyros. Wouldn't the resulting explosion be devastating? He just hoped that even if they survived, the flames wouldn't trap them in the car park. He thought he'd heard someone mention something about a helicopter earlier. Surely there was no way they were being rescued... But if so... Hopefully they wouldn't be devoured by flame nor foe before then.