Snippet #2376605

God, Claire hated the feeling of being trapped. The situation they were in wasn't much different from Claire's a few months back. December came washing over her, a tidal wave of emotions, mostly guilt.

She wasn't the same as back then, dammit! They were going to get out of there, and alive. They had to. They would....

"If we go up on the rooftops and something follows us up there we're basically fucked," Claire found herself saying in response to Derek. Her voice was wavering, trying to keep in control. Talking fast, she tried to make sense of the situation. "The only way from there is down, so if we get trapped it's either broken necks or the Alamo. We can't exactly go through the street, tho', 'cause that's instant suicide. So the roof's the best idea...."

It was waaaaay too cliche to work. The daring heroes somehow find their way out of a sticky situation by thinking on their feet. Totally shitty zombie movie material. Next, all the people who had sex with other people present would die a horrible, drawn out, agonizing death. Or the zombies would actually start saying 'braaaaaaaains'. Complete and utter bullshit.

See? This is what happens when you spend too much time on your own. The lightbulb in the attic goes poof! Breaststroking zombies! Everywhere you lo-

wait.

Lightbulb. Bingo.

"Everybody up! Let's go, people, I have an idea!" Claire looked around frantically for a stairwell of sorts, but everything was shrouded in a cloud of black. Strange, for being midafternoon. Oh well. She whipped her backpack around to her front, feeling around in the front zipper pocket. "C'mon, where are you... Got it!"

Of all the things Claire had with her at the swim meet, one of the only things she had left was her backlit GBA SP (adapted to take triple-a's, thank you!) Fixing her bag, she pointed the device towards the darkness and turned on tentatively.

In an extremely anticlimactic moment, the stairwell was revealed, and no zombies. Go figure.

"Okay. I have a plan. We're gonna go up to the roof, and I'm gonna shoot out a far away streetlight. Then we're gonna run like hell across the rooftops in the direction of the city center while the zombies are stupified by sparks and broken glass. Sound good? Great. I'll go first up the stairs. I've got the light. Mim, you go second. Don't want you to have to duke it out with a stray zombie. Derek, can you bring up the rear? You fend off any of the little bastards that get any ideas."

With that battle plan said, the trio moved cautiously towards and up the stairwell. The first flight was fine, but the second flight of stairs had scattered office equipment all over it. "Watch your step, guys-!"

Claire was never good with watching her step. About halfway up the second flight, she tripped violently up the stairs, a red stapler being the culprit. "Shit!" she hissed. Her fall had caused a lot of noise. They needed to be more careful. They could attract all sorts of baddies this way.

SCREEEEEEEEEEEECH! Something below them was pissed.

Well, shit. "RUN!"