J. Knoll - Zoe, Undead

Setting her hands on her hips again, she looked around her and asked, "Does this place have a fire escape?"

"I don't think so," Doctor Caswell replied. "I've never seen one. The evacuation plan seems to be to just use the stairs."

Zoe nodded, then she turned and strode the way they had come. "Come on, guys."

They followed, but Rachel protested, "We saw zombies down that way."

"I'll take care of them," Zoe assured.

Arriving at the stairwell without incident, Zoe slowly opened the door and looked in, then she went to the stairs and looked up, then down, then she beckoned to the doctors and started up. They went slowly and as quietly as they could, looking about them carefully the whole time. Zoe felt more anxious than afraid and as they reached the third floor she heard something and stopped, grasping the handle of her revolver as she looked up. A banging started way above them, many hands against a steel door, and she could hear something moaning on the floors above.

She proceeded slowly, hesitantly, keeping her eyes above her for the most part.

Eventually reaching the fourth floor, it became clear that there were many zombies on the stairs above them. They could hear more moaning, more banging, and Zoe could make out the shuffling of feet on the rough surface of the floor and steps up there. She could not see them, but it was clear that there were many of them up there. She reasoned that they could not safely go higher and abandoned the stairs, reaching for the door that would allow them onto the fourth floor. She held it open for the doctors, then she closed it as quietly as she could behind them.

"Now what?" Rachel hissed, glancing around her with fearful eyes.

The thumps of gunfire rocked the ceiling and walls and they all looked up.

"Sounds like they're still fighting them off," Kavorski observed.

Zoe looked down the hall, then the other way. "I don't think there are any zombies on this floor."

"Why would you say that?" Rachel asked.

"Well," the girl responded, "if there's nobody here to eat and nothing to draw their attention then they would just keep going. I think you guys will be safe here for a while. I don't think we should stay here by the stairs, though. Come on. Let's see if there's some better place to be."

They found a nurse's station nearby and Doctor Caswell set the box and folder down on the desk, then she sat and looked to the phone. "I'll bet we can contact someone on five," she assumed. Picking the phone up, she punched in the numbers for one of the nurse's stations on the fifth floor and put the receiver to her ear. Shaking her head, she huffed a breath and hung the phone back up. "It's dead. We're on our own."

"How long will we be safe here?" Doctor Kavorski asked.

Zoe looked around her again. "At least until they smell you in here. If more come up the same stairs we did then they'll follow your smell." More thumps from somewhere above them rattled the walls around them and she looked up and added, "Of course, it doesn't sound like they are doing much better up there."

"What should we do?" Rachel asked desperately. "If we stay here too long they're sure to find us!"

Now feeling fully responsible for the safety of the doctors, Zoe clenched her jaw as she looked about again. "You guys can fix this," she said absently, "and I have to keep them from getting you." She walked away from the nurse's desk, her eye panning about for an idea, then she stopped at a door that looked like all the rest, but for one detail: The sign that read Nurse's Lounge. She reached for the door handle and opened the door, looking around inside. There was a sink, a couch, a couple of plush looking chairs, a coffee table, coffee maker by the sink… It was a comfortable looking room. She looked to the other side of the room, to the door handle, and she raised her brow as she saw the little button that would lock it. Wheeling back, she strode with quick and purposeful steps back to the nurse's station and ordered, "Come on. Not waiting for a reply, she turned back and returned to the lounge. When they finally caught up to her, she ordered, "Take off your lab coats and throw them back toward the nurse's station, and don't touch the door or the walls around the door." She opened the door and held it for them as they stripped their lab coats off. "Lock the door once you're in there and don't open it if you hear zombies on the other side. Unless it's me. I'll knock three times if it's me."

The doctors entered the room, careful not to touch anything around it.

Zoe did not give them the opportunity to say anything to her. She quickly closed the door and reminded, "Be sure to lock it," then she darted to the lab coats and picked them both up.

Back to the stairwell, she went in and looked up toward the upper floors, still hearing the zombies up there trying to gain access to the people on the fifth floor. She threw the coats over the side of the rail, then sprinted up the stairs and stopped halfway up from the second landing. The zombies were packed tightly up there and kept trying to move forward and toward their intended victims. She could not be sure how many there were, but there were far more of them than she had bullets!

With no actual gift for strategy, she only meant to get to the door that they meant to break into and defend it from there. The mob of zombies was about halfway up the stairs and she strode up behind it, grabbing onto the collar of the shirt one wore to pull herself up and hopefully divide the mob enough to get through them. She stumbled and tugged back against the zombie to regain her balance, and when she did it fell backward, straight backward without even trying to break its fall.

Zoe watched it slam into the steps behind her and slide and roll the rest of the way to the landing below. It was not hurt and just picked itself back up, not upset or angry, not even inconvenienced. It just got up and began to climb the steps again.

She looked to the next closest, grabbed onto its collar and pulled back as hard as she could, and the results were the same, but as it fell backward it tripped the one that was trying to rejoin the mob, sending them both down to the landing. Raising a brow, Zoe looked to the next, and grabbed its collar.

This part was almost ridiculously easy and she pulled down one after another, counting to herself as she toppled them one by one, and finally she reached the door. Turning back to them, she saw them in a tangled mess at the bottom of the landing, and two were up and trying to climb the steps again.

"Okay," she said aloud to herself. "Twenty-nine of you and twenty-one bullets." She drew her revolver and added, "I guess it's first come, first serve." She aimed and fired at the closest of them and watched it fall straight back and take the other down with it. "I'll need more bullets," she mumbled as she watched more start climbing the steps.

Before they could get halfway up, she half turned and tried the door, finding it barricaded from the other side. The handle would turn, but she could not push it open. She knocked on it three times with the handle of her gun and shouted, "Hello? Is anyone in there? It's Zoe!" Turning back, she aimed and fired as one of the zombies was right at the top of the steps, and she watched as it fell backward and took most of those climbing back up with it. Another was too close for comfort, about four steps from the top, and she shot it as well, then she turned and knocked on the door again, three times. "Hey, guys! I need more bullets!"

A zombie moaned from above and she looked to the steps that went to the sixth floor, and she groaned, "Aw, man!" as she saw others climbing down from the sixth floor door, no doubt attracted by the noise. Those would be harder to deal with, since they would fall right at her.

Looking to the stairs coming up, she aimed and fired, hitting one square in the forehead, and she watched as the domino affect knocked four others all the way to the landing below.