All characters still in the lobby, particularly Nicholas Greyson.Nicholas Grayeson's rifle rang like a dinner bell, its powerful .223 rounds tearing into the flesh of the dead, shattering their knees and sending them sprawling to the ground. The shots echoed across the streets beyond the apartment building, contesting the airwaves with weapons of similar design for dominance.
Scores of infected, stumbling around without purpose, suddenly froze. Their gore stained features looked over towards the apartment building, and though they couldn't smell the living from where they were, their rapidly evolving ear drums focused on the faint sounds of the
healthy, yelling at each other as they fought to establish some kind of order.
As one, the body of infected started to head towards the apartment building, but a dozen of them - Stage Twos - sprinted forwards in a disorganised, blood crazed charge. They shrieked, screaming bloody murder with virus-laden lungs. They came from all walks of life; some had been lawyers, some had been cops, others were soccer moms and cab drivers. In death however, all were united by a singular purpose, their past lives now a blurry foot note in their primitive, undead minds.
The sprinters ascended the steps, and launched themselves into the lobby. A spatter of gunfire knocked a few of them to the ground, but the
remaining nine eyed their prey with dull, lifeless eyes. Their dimmed vision focused on Nicholas, seeing him with a kind of tunnel vision. As one, they advanced, jumping sofas, pot plants and coffee tables to get to him.Behind them, a hundred paces away, forty of their slower, lesser developed brothers started to ascend the steps up towards the lobby.
Madison RipleyJay had been a Labrador in his living existence, a faithful beast to his loving mistress, the old crone Jodey Gillingham - the building's miserable, old cow of a woman. However, a few days previous, he had the misfortune of coming into contact with a rather aggressive homeless man, who had attempted to mug Jodey whilst she was out on her moning walk. Jay was a good dog, strong and vicious for a Labrador, and he fought back the aggressor. The vagrant had bit him though, and Jay had howled like a frenzied wolf at the time, but thanks to his bravery, he and his mistress escaped.
None of that meant anything to him, not any more. Jodey was a skeleton, clad in a crimson jelly - Jay's final farewell to her, when he turned. He'd been locked in her apartment for three days, unable to bark thanks to his dead soft tissue, but able to hiss, not unlike a snake. He could smell the healthy beyond the door, and he could almost taste their scent. However, the door posed a serious problem to a creature of Jay's limitations.
Or rather, it did, until the virus mutated, thickening his skull by an inch.
The sound of people screaming, the racket of gun fire, broke Jay into a frenzy. He threw himself at the door, as he had done several times over the past few days, but where he normally bounced back, this time the wood splintered. Again, and again, Jay repeated his desperate attempts to break free of his prison and to appease his appetite. Eventually, the door gave way, and he crashed through into the hall beyond.
Immediately he was in the midst of a surging tide of the
healthy, half of them painfully oblivious to him, the other half painfully aware. A woman shrieked as Jay jumped up, chomping at her neck and landing on the floor with a lump of her throat in his mouth. Then he turned, just as a middle-aged man with frizzy hair tried to beat him away with an old fashioned cane. Jay was most displeased, he lunged at the man's leg, and took a lump from it.
The exodus from the lobby turned into a stampede, as those who were beyond Jay's reach continued to flee upwards, whilst those who stood in front of him started backing back down the stairs. Jay eyed a particularly flamboyant
healthy, carrying an axe. She was screaming at those around her, tryign to urge them on, not realising why they were stalling. Jay galloped forwards, like a miniature horse, before leaping at his prey.
Madison Ripley just about caught a glimpse of Jay, as he sailed through air towards her at heart-stopping speed, his once black coat a motley quilt of red and white.