"I'd guess perhaps five... maybe six or seven more minutes at the most until it ends, which means that we should probably hurry up if we're going to hit the road." Karen responded, grabbing her rugged pack from the diner booth it sat in. Slinging the bag over her shoulder, she continued. "As you might've already noticed, though, we can't exactly leave through the front doors. That leaves us with the back door—if there is one—or the emergency exit. Perhaps one of us should check them out to see if the way out is clear while the rest gather what we can."

Once again, Karen bit her lip. Her own words worried the park ranger, who realized that if the emergency exit was their only way out, then they were likely already dead. Unless they were all capable runners or by some chance managed to be considerably lucky right now, there was a considerable chance that they could be trapped once the alarm went off.

I hope you're up there looking out for us, God. Karen prayed, despite being hardly the believer that her grandparents were.

Taking a moment to refocus her thoughts on reality, Karen walked over towards where Kale and Isla were and joined in on their conversation. "If we're leaving now, then we don't have time to worry over cooking things for later. We'll die of dehydration faster than starving to death, so I'd say to grab any juice or water you can find. I'd also snag any cans you can find as they're likely non-perishable, but they probably would have only the big food service cans, no?" Karen asked, looking to Kale for a reply.

Isla nodded once more, unpacking a few perishables she had grabbed and deciding to focus on canned goods instead. She peered at a few of them, muttering something to herself once in a while. Tomato sauce, onions...there had to be better stuff than this. Potatoes were always good, right? She could already hear her dad berating her lack of knowledge on food. Maybe she should have paid better attention on the food pyramid.

She didn't think Karen had the wrong idea, but after a while, her backpack seemed to be getting a little too heavy. The last thing she wanted was for a strap to break or for the bottom to just fall out from all the weight. Maybe she could compromise? She was probably over thinking it at this point, mentally berating herself as she went back to stuffing what she could inside.

As she stood up, she picked up her bag and was relieved to find it hadn't ripped or anything. "Kinda heavy, but...should be okay?" If she dropped it, she was pretty sure it would break and everything would spill, but oh well. "Think I can squeeze some water bottles...but uh, you know, I can handle it." Most likely, anyway.

What hope they had to escape without trouble was swept away in an instant.

The sound of Cassidy fiddling with one of the windows attracted one of the nearby infected—a man of middling size. Though it was unlikely that the zombie would manage to grab the paramedic, it didn't stop the bloodied man from clicking his teeth as he nipped at the air in an attempt to tear into her flesh. As much as a threat this lone zombie was, however, it would be nothing compared to what was to come next.

As Karen predicted, the broadcasts did stop not long after the group finished picking through what they could carry. The zombies that were distracted by the broadcasts began to break off from the televisions they were glued to, and would've returned to their usual moaning and groaning had it not been for the infected man trying to bite Cassidy. The undead took to Cassidy with great interest, piling up around the window she was trying to look out of, while others pressed up elsewhere, having noticed the noise and activity coming from the inside.

Before they knew it, the large, old windows of the diner shattered under the weight and incessant banging of the infected, giving way to them to come inside.

"Shit!" Karen hissed, drawing her sidearm and pointing the weapon at the crowd that was now pouring into the diner. Though she knew how to use the pistol, the concept of firing at something living, much less the undead, was something foreign to Karen. "The front door or the emergency exit! What's it going to be?" She shouted, prepared to cover their escape.