Briggs snatched the sidearm from Tyler, an agitated look on his face. "The hell's wrong with you?" He holstered the weapon and ordered everyone to wait in place. When no sounds were heard back, he continued on down the steps.
Dallen turned his attention once again to Elizabeth.
"Sure," he told her.
"It's on me.""You, trigger-happy, you get to hold this door open," Briggs said to Tyler when they passed the doors. "Think you can handle that one?"
The rest of them headed lower until they reached the ground level. The groans of the dead could now faintly be heard on the other side of the steel door. This door was being controlled by Steven, up in the security room. The security camera moved to look at them all, indicating that he was watching.
"How's it look?" Briggs asked into a handheld radio.
"-There's only two by the door right now- they aren't aware-"
Briggs gave a confirmation nod to the camera. "Ladies, stay back and be ready for anything. Open the door Steven!"
The green light blinked on, turning the door unlocked and also quickly getting the attention of the two dead ones from the other side. Briggs opened the door while Dallen stood in view. The infected came forward, still resembling the human it was before. Its eyes were pale and blood trickled down its mouth as it lunged.
Dallen backed in further to bring it inside the stairwell. It worked, but as soon as it entered and Briggs tried to close the door, the other one was already slammed up against the other side. With it came more, and soon Briggs found himself dropping his weapons to put all his strength into keeping them from barging in.
Dallen twisted the walker's arm behind its back, then kicked in its knee to bring it down and somewhat in control. With his free hand, he continuously started stabbing the thing with his tactical knife all throughout its left body side. As more blood spilled out, he lost control. The walker wasn't even slightly fazed by the knife, as it found itself on top of Dallen, trying desperately to eat his face. The creature was kept at bay with his bent legs between them, and his left hand holding onto its throat.
"Lock it!" Briggs yelled when the door finally shut. The door turned locked, as Briggs ran over and grabbed the walker off of Dallen. He lifted the thing up, then tossed it hard into the wall. Dallen rolled over and stuck the knife deep into the walker's forehead. It stopped moving entirely.
Dallen got up, lighting a cigarette in the process.
"So they can die, again," he said.
"Get 'em in the head." "Time for the distraction," Briggs said in the radio.
On the other side of the door, the elevator started working once again via Steven up in the security room. He brought it down to ground floor and opened it. Inside was a strobe light, and next to that was a boom box that was kept for entertaining the long hours of the job, and within it a cassette tape played Ted Nugent's
The horde within moved toward the sounds of the rock music blaring loudly as if it were a live show. The entire room cleared as they all huddled around the elevator entrance, focused blindly on the distraction.
"You hold this door open for us, the security system might not be fast enough," Briggs said to Ava, giving this task to her as Steven unlocked the doors again.
"-It worked!-" Steven confirmed through the radio. "-go now!-"
Briggs led the way into the room with his shotgun at the front. Dallen and Elizabeth trailed behind, all of them immediately being struck with the smell of flesh and death. The room was a massacre, with body parts lying everywhere. Some were infected even with having half eaten torsos. A few crawled without legs, while the rest staggered and huddled together. The music wouldn't prove to be much of a distraction, though, as the infected quickly found themselves bored from it. They slowly started to turn back to fill the room again.
Dallen waved for Elizabeth to get low, as they crawled from behind the desks to avoid eye contact. The cabinet with the little girl still inside was at the far end of the room, but was completely clear of the dead for now. Briggs leaned in next to Elizabeth, whispering to her, "We stay and cover. Faster if he goes alone."
Dallen moved quick, slipping and sliding across the floor until he reached the cabinet. He pulled it open to see the girl inside, a few years younger than his daughter. She was Asian, scared, and in tears when she saw Dallen.
"It's okay..."She screamed at the top of her lungs, the pitch of it even surpassing the noise of the music in the background. Many walkers turned toward them, and after a few snarls, they moved in.
"Here they come!!" Briggs yelled, coming out of cover to blast a walker's face off. He took the heads off of two more, as Dallen forcefully pulled the little girl out from the cabinet. He had no time to think, as a walker jumped at him and he lost the grip on the girl. As she ran off, Dallen fell to the floor. He quickly unholstered his firearm and shot the thing in the brain, causing the corpse to fall on top of him. He fired a few more clean shots from the ground, nicking off headshot after headshot. They all fell on top of Dallen, nearly covering him whole.
"Get the girl," Briggs told Elizabeth. Dallen was already lost to him, so instead he moved to clear the path. He took down a few more walkers while reloading shells into his shotgun back to back. "We need to leave!"
As more of the dead started coming toward them, Briggs began to back up and head back the way they came.
