Blindsight » Places

         As Haytham bum-rushed the door, with Max and what he could only hope were the others quick on his tail, there was a barely audible oof, as if someone had been punched in the stomach. Haytham, the first person out of the door, turned to see what looked like a menacingly well-toned yet affably upright zombie standing behind the door. Haytham slowed to a halt, glaring at the figure, his stare quizzical in nature. It took but a moment for his brain to catch up to his eyes.

That's not a zombie!

Max, the second person through the door behind Haytham, lay witness upon the same sight; however, where Haytham met the circumstance with caution and forethought, Max leapt immediately to action. Before Haytham could even begin to shout a warning, Max had brought his pistol to bear, aimed, and fired three shots in quick succession, straight into the man's chest—or at least he would have had Allison, the third person to emerge from the doorway, not tugged on his arm at the last second. The cacophonous reports rang out thrice into the air, safely aimed away at the sky.

Max shook off Allison's grip like the plague. "My ammo... What the hell was that for?!" He demanded, a venom in his voice, briefly taking his eyes off of his target to focus on Allison. It was for this reason that he was startled when his target spoke. "Easy, where's the fire, can't you at least stop to ask the guy you bashed with the fucking door?" Apparently, this brush with a bullet-riddled demise didn't even phase him in the slightest. Everyone just kind of stared awkwardly at everyone else until one of the others bringing up the rear of their group shouted what Haytham interpreted as "why the hell aren't we running?!"

"Oh right, yeah running from the dead...yeah forgot my bad; for a minute there thought the only thing I had to worry about was a nose bleed." Haytham couldn't tell if this guy was joking or serious. Why was he here, behind the door? What did he want? While his mind was spinning questions, he realized that his legs had begun moving again without his permission. He was about to start running, but to where he didn't know. Somewhere. Anywhere to get away from these things. Perhaps into some random yet well-lit building—

"Look, the stranger interrupted his train of thought and impending absconsion, I'm not a zombie, if i was i'd be rather pissed about the door; I saw you alerted quite a good amount of zeds, you've two choices, you can run like idiots and alert them more." Haytham gave him another quizzical look before taking a quick peek back through the door and into the police station. The zombies hadn't made it around the hall yet, but their time was running extremely thin. "Or you can follow me quietly, and I can lead us towards a safe place..."

Both Haytham and Max looked at each other, each youth recognizing the distress in the other's eyes, before glaring back at the stranger, almost as if synchronized. They didn't trust him. Why would they?

But if he was telling the truth, did they really have any better option? With panic setting in and time running out, Haytham looked toward Lauren. She was the "eldest" of the group in his eyes, and he trusted her more than any of the others—especially Briar. He gave her a questioning gaze: should we trust him for now?

         OOC: Sorry for my post being placed in the wrong Area, fixing now.

         Mariam scrunched her face in a gesture of shared pain when Derek relocated Claire's shoulder. She had no time to reflect on what had just happened. As had become usual over the course of the last few hours, they were being pursued by the living dead. Inside the building, one of the things shrieked again. She scrunched up her face again. Hands weren't enough protection against that blood-curling sound.

They had to get down, right.

The fire escape, right.

With one last glance at the door they'd just come out from, Mariam followed the others as they made their way to the steel stairs. They were about four stories high. The scientist swallowed with apprehension, hoping that the door would hold the undead inside long enough for the group to get down. She flew down the first set of stairs. All of a sudden, the cyclic nature of the fire escape seemed too long, somehow undoable. Despite the adrenaline pumping through her system, Mim was tired, there was no denying it. She ran down the second set of stairs. She wasn't as young as she used to be. Derek seemed the only one close to her age yet he was clearly in shape, what with bending steel up there in the roof. She pulled through the last set of stairs. It was like she'd forgotten what the ground was up close.

At least Derek was right. The noise within the building had apparently prompted the shamblers in the street to go into their building. The street looked deserted yet even three floors down Mariam could still hear the sound of the zombies banging on the roof's door. A few were banging on the windows directly next to the fire escape, through which their group had passed on their way down but without too much force. Perhaps, Mim hypothesized, the lack of resolve of those shamblers was due to the lack of olfactory stimuli the group had provided. They'd seen them pass alright, but they hadn't caught their scent, which would've been a major stimulus. Still, glass was definitely more fragile than a steel door.

"I think the street is clear. As clear as it'll get, anyway," she panted. The group took the sliding ladder down to the ground level, an accomplishment Mariam had found a lot harder than she'd care to admit. The ladder slid back up to the first floor with a resounding creaaakk. Of course. It hadn't been oiled in at least three months, perhaps more if the appearance of the building was any indication.

Mim's head felt hot, she could feel heat radiating from her exposed face. Okay. They were bound for 72nd street. What way was that again? "Wait. Uhm." She paused to regain her breath, "That car wasn't there before we went into the building, was it?" Hopefully the strenous amount of exercise she'd done in the last couple of hours wasn't playing tricks with her mind.