Realistic or Modern Code Z

Alex's eyes widened as he heard the collective sound of smacking flesh and cracking bones from the base of the building - he looked out a nearby window, peering between a crack between two of the wooden slats that barricaded it and seeing a man - around mid twenties from the look of him - sitting at the front of a large white RV. The crimson blood from the zombies seemed to be splattered all over the side of the vehicle and the man appeared to be crying at the wheel. Alex wondered if he was affected by what he's just done, dismissing the possibility from his mind - very few people counted the zeds as people, and fewer still were soft enough to let it get to them when they killed them - killing people, he could understand the emotion behind that... but zeds...


The man got out of the car then - his golden, blonde hair draping slightly over his eyes, besides that he appeared to have a slightly bulkier stomache, this was masked (poorly) by a floral pattern shirt - slight stains decorating it just as much as the white and blue flowers that were emblazoned onto it. The whole image would be comical if it weren't for the splattered bodies and twitching limbs of the newly dead zombies patterned around the floor like the flowers patterned across his shirt.


It was the RV that caught the attention of Alex the most, how did he get one of those - they were uncommon before all this - now... it seemed almost alien to him. "Hey - up here" Alex called down - against his better judgement - the others could harass him for noise if they wanted but by this point - with a gunshot and a vehicular massacre at the building - he doubted his calls would do much. As the man looked up Alex called down again "50th floor" he called down - again against his better judgement - but he had just made their exit a hell of a lot easier, he owed him something for that. "you guys come over here" Alex said to the others, indicating the window and widening the gap between the slats slightly so they could all see.


@GabrielD921


@Annabella


@Jadea Smyth

Kai had witnessed the whole scene from behind the boy's shoulder, her eyes widening in surprise as the man somehow managed to dismantle a group of zombies with his RV. She quickly calculated the distance from downstairs to here along with the interference of clickers before turning away from the group which had gathered in the hallway, her hands gripping the knife she held. The man had no collective chance of reaching this destination if he didn't have assistance, she stopped abruptly as she reached the stairwell. Listening.


Click..


Click..


Click..


Kai froze, acknowledging the source of the sound before cringing inwardly as Alex spoke aloud. She flattened herself against the base of the stairwell, knife held at the ready as the clicking noise grew ever so louder. Closer, closer..the steady sound of feet against metal became apparent as the clicker trudged downwards, Kai braced herself..


And plunged the knife into its head as it appeared around the corner, feeling slightly sickened by the yellow fluid tinged with red which oozed out of its pores, she slid the knife out before thrusting it back in and almost laughed in triumph as the clicker fell to the floor, the noises which it was producing fading away.


@GabrielD921

People! He'd finally found them - uninfected, living, real people, just a few flights of stairs away. Why was he crying again? If he had been, he wasn't any more. But something else stopped his all-too-merry train of thought. If he had been able to find zombies in the streets, out in the desert, in the mess hall of a hospital, then would it not make sense that more zombies would await him on his way to the fiftieth floor? With that in mind, he retreated briefly to his RV where he'd left the trash can lid. It was no assault rifle or machete, but never was a more effective zombie-shield bought, sold, or made. He offered the boy in the window a cheerful wave before entering the building.


Now, Felix was no zombie expert, but he knew that clickers were among the most common of zombies, and they were attracted almost exclusively to sound. Any unwanted noise could be fatal. The main staircase was made of wood, which left him at risk of stepping on a creaky floorboard. If there were no other options, then that was that, and he'd have to risk it. But the first thing that popped into his mind after the main staircase was the fire exit. For the sake of fire safety regulations and overall functionality, it was made of concrete and sealed off from the rest of the building, provided that the doors on each floor had been closed. It would give him plenty of cover from the zombies that might be on each floor. However, if he ran into a zombie inside the narrow stairwell, there would be nowhere to run.


But in the end, Felix chose the fire exit. The one in that building was similar to that of any building - a tiny, humble stairwell wrought from concrete and exposed wiring. Only a few of the fluorescent lights had survived the lack of maintenance, and those that did flickered, giving off a sort of horror movie vibe that Felix had never, ever hoped to relive outside of the screen. The very best thing about the fire exit, he thought as he ascended floor by floor, was the acoustic properties of the place. Shambling zombie footsteps from above or below would be quite easy to hear, let alone the click click click of the aptly-named clickers. Everything echoed, down to his footsteps and his bated breath, but couldn't pass through the walls to the residential floors. That is, if the doors were closed. But oddly enough, the doors to the fire exit had about a four-to-one ratio of closed-to-open. Not a bad deal, considering that a zombie being right next to the door when he passed by wasn't all that likely, even if the door was open, but it was still his weak spot.


This strategy worked out for him until floor forty-five. He could see that the door was open, so he took his default course of action - pass it by quickly and quietly and move on. It almost worked, too. But his banking so heavily on clickers making up the majority of the population turned against him in that moment. The moment he turned his back, he heard rapid footsteps behind him, and turned to bear his shield just in time to deflect a runner zombie. It fell down to the nearest landing, but quickly recovered itself, coming in for another hit. Again, he threw it off, with a little more force, then took the opportunity to back up a few steps. There were a lot of factors working against him as he fought his way up those last few floors. For one thing, he was no athlete, and he was quite winded before the runner showed up. Also, the stairs in the fire exit were steeper, and he had to devote a lot of focus to not tripping and falling as he walked backwards up the stairs. This was made worse by the repeated impact of the runner throwing itself against his shield. At one point, he did fall, and the call was so close he could smell the runner's foul breath before shoving it away again.


But against the odds, he did reach floor fifty. It took one massive thrust to delay the zombie long enough for him to open the door, squeeze through, and throw it shut again. The cafeteria situation seemed to repeat itself, with the zombie throwing itself against the wall a few times before moving on. That was it, then - he'd made it. The situation was better than he could have hoped. There were four people, one guy and one girl who appeared to be rather young, maybe seventeen or eighteen, a slightly older girl with curly hair, and a muscular guy probably close to thirty smoking a cigar. Though he was panting heavily and shaking, he managed a smile. "You - you guys want a ride out of here?" he managed. "I've got room."




@GabrielD921


@Annabella

John had already out enough cans into his backpack, even enough for few months. As he was loading the last one, he heard a car running down clickers, runners and other alike. Few questions already buzzed through his mind, is it a group of bandits? Is it here to scavenge the city? Or is it a lone survivor? Those questions are yet to be answered. He had already made up his mind, find, think and act. He realized that the car plus the gunshot should've attracted anough infected to this place. John began to quickly close his backpack then proceeding by putting it on. He looked around himself, seeing the other people preparing themselves too. "It seems that I will have to join them for now." he thought to himself. Cigar in his mouth, glasses on, backpack ready, pistol loaded and the sharp machete in his right hand ready to be used. He walks over to the window, peeking down on the ground seeing the car, which turned out to be a RV riding the infected over, but not all of them. The next second he sees a figure walking out, by the shape presumably a male, however it seems he has no weapons but some kind of shield, "The guy has some guts, that's for sure..." he mumbled. He then heard footsteps and growls coming from the infected in the building. He adjusts his sunglasses, looking downstairs. John puffs out a small cloud of smoke before reaching his left hand to his pistol he had holstered on his left tigh. He grabs it pulling it out swiftly as if he held weapons more than enough. He pointed the gun towards the stairs, finger on the trigger. His patience was running low, the growls he heard and the amount of footsteps coming closer, this all had influence on him. However he kept being calm, his hand steady as stone, his stance composed as if he was prepared for a rock to land on him.


Now of all times, he sees a man running for his life towards them, with a runner behind him. The man however manages to close the door behind him, but it won't last long, that's the crude truth. The man seemed just few years older than the bunch behind John. "Geez...another youngster, but atleast he has a car...hope it's still usable." John thought. As the man moved towards them he lowers his pistol, moving the finger from the trigger. The man was all panting, but who wouldn't after this run? The man seemed to catch his breath and then pull out a sentence along with a weird creepy smile; "You-You guys wanna ride from here? I've got room.". the sentence John was expecting to hear. His was relieved and at the same time still tense, because to get to the RV he has to slaughter atleast dozen infected. John grinned from the good news he heard, puffing out another cloud of smoke. "Right you are boyo! Now let's move our asses down to that RV...but I am tellin' you guys beforehand that I am not and will not be responsible for any bite, twisted ankle or death at this moment!" John said sarcastically. Beginning to slowly walk towards the doors runners have been bashing into.

"It's okay," Meena partially admitted, it was sort of nice to be around another girl. Especially a girl her age, it was sort of like the old times. Biting her lip, she pushed away imaginations of possibilities that could be. No, she wouldn't become friends with these people. To have friends you have to care for people, and caring for people only gets you killed. She had seen this enough times.


As she looked up to see the disturbance, Meena literally face palmed as the young boy ran to the window. Was he insane? Did he have a death wish? Well, the answer it seemed was a pretty certain yes because soon enough he began waving. For a moment, she sort of felt bad for him. She imagined the sorts of mental disabilities he could have, but after the moment of consideration she decided against the idea and all sympathy was gone. He was just naive and clearly didn't understand that not all survivors were your friends.


"Well, since dead men can't speak you won't be calling me anything," she hissed grabbing his shoulder and pulling him back from the window.


Shuffling a little, she tightens her grip on her bag. They were gonna have to find a way out and quick. Zombies were a handful on their own, never mind fighting people too. However, as she stood near the door, she was soon confronted by a new figure. There he stood, the man from the RV and Meena didn't think she had ever seen anyone more cheerful than his expression.


"You - you guys want a ride out of here?" He stuttered, "i've got room"


Okay, she was wrong, she had to give it to Alex. Waving at this man was one of the best things to happen in years. He had an RV? A real RV and he was gonna share it with them? Finding one of those working was basically the same as finding a gold mine. It was a fricken miracle and she simply couldn't believe it. Things were finally going right for her.


A loud crash suddenly brought her back to reality. Nope, things were definitely not going right for her. Seeing the swarm of clickers banging against the door was petrifying and enough to remind her how close she was to death. Therefore, quickly she pulled her knife from her boot and urged the others to move back.


"No, wait they're clickers not runners! Everyone grab something sharp from around here and move back somewhere. These things can't see, only hear, so wait until they come near and stab them right in the head. Okay?" She muttered the plan as it came to her.





@GabrielD921 @Annabella

Kai backed away from the steadily decomposing body of the Clicker before turning towards the man who had somehow managed to reach the 50th floor with no assistance. She was highly impressed at how quickly he had managed to get here and was even more so when he offered them a ride. Generosity was certainly a difficult thing to come by and Kai felt sympathetic towards the man due to his earlier display of emotion at the death of those zombies, she jumped at the sudden commotion which came from downstairs before signing in resignation at the steady clicking noises which accompanied it. She looked at the small group of people before inclining her head at the blonde-haired man who had chosen to join them.


"It would be an honour to be able to accompany you." Kai was still reeling from the earlier events and gathered the supplies she had been provided with from the surly woman's apartment, clutching them before thanking herself inwardly at how little she had selected to carry. It would come in handy whilst fighting her way through the mob.


@GabrielD921


@hitman654

Alex grimaced slightly - he was NOT getting involved with these people, the innocent one - Kai - seemed nice enough but the other girl was a loose cannon at best, a complete and utter maniac at worst - and the guy with the cigar seemed to ooze arrogance from every pore - no thanks. "You guys seem nice enough but there's no way in hell I'm getting involved with another group" Alex said bluntly, pulling out his hunting knife in preparation for the current fight with the zeds and holding it horizontally in his right hand.


Alex suddenly had an idea, pulling an empty can from his backpack and rolling it against the floor - the clickers moved hastily towards the noise, as the first one turned the corner Alex rammed his knife straight through it's neck, severing bone and flesh with the slash and preparing for the next clicker to attack him.


"I'll fight with you for now - then I'm gone" he said sincerely to the group, ramming his knife through the next clickers head and dropping him, deep red blood mingling with grey brain matter on the tiled floor. He then dodged back slightly, the number of clickers had suddenly increased a bit - but with 5 survivors he still gave him and his temporary allies a decent chance at getting through this unscathed - assuming they knew what they were doing...

Felix let out a little yelp as Alex took out the clicker. It had caught him off guard, as zombies were apt to do. Sharp object, sharp object... where were all the sharp objects? Or rather, why did he even bother? He knew better than anyone that he wasn't going to be killing any zombies. He scrabbled along any flat surface he could find, feeling for an impromptu weapon almost more than he was actually looking. "Fantastic, fantastic." As much as he meant it, because it was fantastic that he'd finally found other human beings, he said it in passing, for he was desperate to get his hands on a weapon. His fingers found the shaft of a shard of wood, decently sharp; maybe a passable weapon. "Now," he said, brandishing the wood. He didn't know what he was doing, and probably looked the part. "You guys gotta understand, I'm just awful at - uh, you know..." He made a somewhat forced funny face, then gave a couple of exaggerated stabbing motions. "I mean, I just took the fire exit up here. Like... me? Fight that whole way up? Heh, no. If I took the main staircase, I'd be extra dead right now."




@GabrielD921


@Annabella