Alana nodded, but then fell silent for most of the rest of the trip up, so they could concentrate on both staying alert and keeping their lungs full of air in case they really had to start moving for some reason. As they got to the floor and moved into the hall, she turned and followed Ashley backwards down the hall so that nothing would surprise them. She did peek over the woman's shoulder as she pushed the apartment door open, though, and frowned. "Shit... I'm sorry..." she murmured, reaching over to pat her shoulder gently, "Think there's a chance they missed whatever it is you're looking for?"

Ashley looked back at Alana for a moment as she patted her shoulder. "I just hope they didn't take anything useful.. Look for anything you need to." She said going towards a closet and pulled out a duffel bag and quickly went into the kitchen searching for food that whoever looted her room was left, Ashley managed to grab at least four cans of food stuffing them into her bag and went to her bedroom pulling out some of her clothes that she would need along with a med kit that she used while in school. Ashley turned around hearing a noise in the bathroom and slowly went towards the door to open it. A bloodied man with his neck bitten barged out of the door knocking Ashley onto the floor and quickly got on top of her and started to struggle.

Alana gave a little nod, though she couldn't help but feel odd at the prospect of going through the things in the apartment, even with permission and in this situation. Still, she did, taking a quick look around, and then checking in a closet, where she found a broom. Not much, but it seemed a better improvised weapon than her U-lock for the moment, so she took it before rummaging a little more and finding a flashlight, which she stuffed into her pocket for the time being. It was then that she heard a door slam against a wall inside the apartment, and ran around the corner in time to see the bloodied man falling on top of Ashley. She could hear his teeth clack together as he bit at the air, trying to get to her.

"Get off her!" she yelled, pressing the broom against his neck and pushing hard to get him away from the other woman. The moment he topped off her, she reached down, grabbing onto Ashley's arm, dragging her to her feet and pulled her back with her. The man seemed unable to decide whether to just crawl over or get back to his feet, and was trying to do a bit of both at the same time. Alana glanced around, realizing they were in the kitchen now, and grabbed the first thing she saw - a good heavy frying pan. "St-stay down or I'll use this!" she warned, unable to bring herself to just hit him without trying, but he kept coming, and so she swung. There was a dull crack as the pan connected, and the man collapsed motionless on the floor.

Ashley started to struggle against the man as she could hear his teeth clacking together a he tried to bite at her, some of the blood coming from his wound and blood on his hands getting over her clothes. When Alana came by watching her hitting him with the broom until he finally rolled off of her, Ashley quickly followed behind her new friend as they backed up into her kitchen the man slowly followed them into the room, Ashley looked away the moment Alana hit the man across the head with the heavy iron pan hearing a sickly cracking sound as his body hit the floor she looked at him then back at her. "I-is he dead?" She asked softly looking to the bag of supplies she had back in the other room.

Alana drew a shaky breath, and nodded slightly. "Yeah, I... I think so..." she said quietly, poking the man a little with the broom, and he didn't move at all. She took a closer look, and frowned, seeing her attack had left a wide wound in the skin on his head, but he was barely bleeding from it. "He should be bleeding more... his... his blood is coagulated, but that shouldn't happen unless he was... already dead..." she murmured, drawing from her EMT training. "We should get out of here as fast as we can..." she added a moment later, "Whatever this thing is, it's already gotten this far... I think things are going to get a lot worse, and soon..."

Ashley knelt down rolling the man over onto his back to get a look at his face and recognized his face he was the apartment manager for the building, and she had seen him earlier in the day before going to work. "I saw him earlier today before my shift.." She said looking at the blood seeing it had coagulated already and looked at Alana. "That's impossible though it would take awhile for blood to coagulate even if you died an hour ago." Ashley said before getting back up and nodded going towards the bedroom again grabbing her duffle bag along with a picture of her family and her car keys. "Let's take my car it will be safer to get out of the city then riding your motorcycle, where should we go?" Ashley asked.

Alana frowned deeply at Ashley's comment about the blood, which made the revelation even more troubling. "Maybe it's this sickness, whatever it is - maybe it causes that..." she said. She paused, letting the other woman pick up what she needed. She couldn't help but frown slightly at the idea of leaving her motorcycle, knowing she'd likely never see it again, but given the situation the sentimentality was easy enough to shake. A car would provide much better protection, after all. "North. Those news reports were from south of here, so I say we go north, try to get out of the city," she decided easily enough, "We're probably not the first people to decide that, so the bridges will probably be crazy, but the only other option that I can think of is trying to find a boat and getting across the water that way..."

((OOC: if we could have them come across a firetruck - probably crashed or something - as they make their way through the city, that'd be good, so Alana can pick up her weapon.))

((Sounds good to me.))

Ashley nodded adjusting her duffle bag and started to leave her apartment looking at it one last time remembering the times she spent in there for the past year. "Then we can head north then, the military is probably setting up some kind of camps out of the cities or something." She said going back the way they came looking back over her shoulder at Alana and spotted more of the Walkers coming out of the rooms at least four of them were shambling towards them. "Don't fight them lets keep going!" Ashley yelled and started to run finally making it to the stairwell and opened it to let Alana down first.

Alana nodded, hoping she was right about the military. She took the U-lock from where she'd tucked it into the back of the waist of her pants, and tossed it onto the couch on her way out, finding the frying pan a much better option for the moment. As they moved outside, she caught sight of the walkers just as Ashley did. "I won't argue," she said, following on Ashley's heels, running with her to the stairwell and moving through the doorway as it was opened for her. "Pull it shut behind you," she told Ashley urgently, "Maybe that'll slow them down..." She waited a few moments until that was done before starting quickly down the stairs. "Where's your car parked? We'll probably need to get to it fast..."

Ashley nodded and opened the door for Alana to go in first and quickly closed the door behind them and looked around to see a broom leaning against the wall and shoved it in where the knob of the door connected jaming it shut. "It's in the back parking lot of the building." Ashley said going down the stairs as quickly as she could. "How do you think this all started?" She asked.

Alana nodded, continuing on down the stairs, and glanced back at the question. "I... I have no idea. Granted, I'm a fire fighter, not an infectious disease specialist, but I've never heard of anything even remotely like this... for it to be spreading so fast..." she said, shaking her head. Before too long they were back down to the street level, but as Alana pulled open the door to get out of the stairwell, she found herself looking into a lobby with about a dozen walkers in it. There was more blood smeared across the floor now, and she closed the door quickly, though instead of slamming was careful closing it the last inch or so. "It's full of them..." she whispered, "People covered in blood... maybe we can get out a window from the first floor, down into the parking lot... it's either that or we make a run for the front door..."

Ashley looked out the door for a moment gasping seeing the walkers that shambled into the lobby of the apartment complex. Ashley backed up thinking for a moment risking either to run into the room and risk being bitten, or going up one story and risk getting injured on the fall. "Lets go up one floor and find an open window." She said quietly and quickly headed up the stairs again opening the door to see only two walkers in the hallway. "Theres two of them." Ashley said quietly looking at Alana. "We can jump out a window or take them both out."

Alana's jaw clenched and she swore under her breath a little when their way ended up blocked again on the first floor. At least two of them damn things were more manageable than the crowd growing in the lobby. "I say we take them out quick... blow to the head like the one in your place, that seemed to do it..." she decided after a moment, "Then we look for a window over the parking lot and figure out a way down... apartment building like this should have at least one emergency fire station on every floor - the hose in that should be more than strong enough to hold our weight, let us climb down at least a little before jumping so we don't get hurt..."

Ashley nodded at Alana her hands were shaking slightly as she held her baseball bat, she looked at the window at the end of the hallway and pointed towards it. "That window over looks the parking lot." She said quietly then nodded towards the emergency fire station at the middle of the hallway. "I'll get the two while you get the hose ready sound good?" Ashley asked looking at Alana. "Though I have a question once we are out of the city what do you have planned?" Ashley asked brushing a stray strand of hair away from her face.

"Alright, good..." Alana said when Ashley pointed out the window, and then grimaced slightly at the thought of having to take the two walkers out. She nodded, though, realizing there was really no other way. "Yeah sounds good," she agreed, but frowned, "Honestly... I haven't gotten that far ahead... I just know that staying in the city seems like a really bad idea right now..." She took a breath, peeking out again, and then looked to Ashley once more. "Don't hesitate about those two... I don't know what this thing is, but the way some of them look... I don't think there's any coming back from it for them," she said, taking one more deep breath before opening the door and stepping out, holding it for Ashley so she could go after the walkers and open up the path to the fire station on the wall.

"I won't just watch my back okay?" Ashley asked and then went out the door quietly sneaking up behind one of the walkers that was closest to the fire station she took her bat out and swung it as hard as she could, the walker's body was quickly knocked to the floor it's skull was caved in from the impact. The second one hearing the sudden hit turned it's attention to Ashley and slowly stumbled it's way towards her, then it suddenly lunged at her Ashley quickly got out of the way and hit it in the back missing it's head which angered it more she swung it again this time in the head only causing it to fall to the floor and tried to crawl towards her she then swung it again before finally killing it.

"Yeah," Alana agreed quickly before they went for it. She moved out behind Ashley, just a couple steps after her. As soon as the first walker was down, she went to the fire station, but paused, watching Ashley in case she needed help. She almost moved to do so when the other woman landed the final blow. Turning back, she opened the fire station, quickly taking the end of the hose and running it out down the hall toward the window, motioning for Ashley to follow. She kept unreeling it once they got there, making sure there was enough of it to get them down at least quite close to the ground. "Okay, uh... take this..." she said, tying a loop near the end of the hose for her to hold onto more easily, "Hold on tight with both hands when you go out, alright? We smash the window, then I'll lower you and I'll be down right after you, sound good?"