Harper took the lead as the trio sprinted to the front door of the station. By the time they reached the door, she already had her keycard in her hand, ready to swipe. Her hand stopped mid-way to the scanner as she peered through the porthole windows in the door and saw stacks upon stacks of equipment and metal cases piled high in some sort of desperate makeshift barricade, blocking them from entering. Whoever had set it up was likely still inside. And safe.
"Huh..." Harper muttered out loud. Clearly, she wasn't expecting to find herself on this side of the fortification. It only figured that they weren't the first ones to try and head through the front of the building. Nathan arrived at the door last, panting heavily. Harper turned to him.
"They plugged the entrance," she said, gesturing for him to take a look. Calvin kept his eyes alert, scanning the darkness around them for any signs of movement. They had passed through a gated parking lot to reach the station, and he silently prayed that they had slipped in unnoticed. On the drive over, they had seen everything from lifeless bodies in the street to rampaging looters, demolishing storefronts and taking anything their arms could carry. Looting flat-screen TVs seemed to be an odd priority as the world was burning down around them, but who was he to judge... he had four different 3D TVs in his loft.
"What about the service door?" Nathan asked, bringing Calvin's attention back to the matter at hand. Harper's eyes lit up at the suggestion, and she bolted towards the back of the building. There were fewer lights on this side of the building for some reason, so they proceeded cautiously. The road began to slope down into a loading dock next to the service door, the last two viable options for getting into the building. Nathan lifted the chained rope for Harper and Calvin to pass under before ducking through himself. Again, Harper ran to the door and, card in hand, swiped again. A small LED light flashed briefly from red to green, and Harper pulled the handle of the door, swinging it open.
"Thank God..." Nathan exclaimed, passing through first. He flashed a beaming grin and turned back to the two of them.
"If that hadn't worked I'd have totally driven the van straight through the--""LOOK OUT!!" Calvin screamed, pointing past Nathan's head. A figure had emerged from behind the lockers and was charging up behind him, fast. Luckily, Harper had already been fumbling around for the light switch and hit it just in time to... well... shed some new light on the situation. The fluorescent bulbs flickered to life above them, revealing a disheveled man in a tattered suit poised with a bat in his hands. A flash of recognition and relief danced across his eyes as he saw who the intruders were.
Harper gave a sigh of relief.
"Damnit, Chuck. You scared the hell out of us..."The newscaster lowered the bat.
"Harper?" He buckled over, hands on his knees.
"Holy shit. I thought you were-- you guys scared the shit out of me. Christ... We thought you guys were gone." He took a few deep breaths to try to gain his composure.
Nathan clapped his hand on the man's shoulder.
"Good to see you too, Chucky." Chuck jerked a thumb towards the stairs behind him.
"Steve's gonna want to see you, Harper."She nodded and turned to Nathan.
"Grab the van and get it in the garage. It might be our only means of getting out of her if we need to, so stock it up with whatever you can. You got that SD card?" He rummaged around his pockets, roaming for the card, and eventually tossed it to Harper who gave the two of them one last glance before heading up the stairs.
Chuck picked up his bat and offered it to Calvin by the handle.
"I think you might need this..."Calvin accepted the weapon and looked at Nathan, who signaled that he was good to go. As Chuck retreated up the stairs, the two of them ducked back out the service door and headed for the van. The constant wail of sirens and calamity around the city seemed closer now, oddly. Calvin was no stranger to the occasional blaring siren, having lived in Los Angeles for the last eight years, but this was something different. Something worse. The ferocious roar of helicopter rotors soared over the parking lot as a military chinook flew close overhead, followed by another. Calvin could faintly make out the shapes of the soldiers hanging from it's frame and wondered whether they had any better idea of what was happening. Somehow he doubted it. The two men continued to keep low as they hustled to the van. Other cars sat vacantly in the parking lot offering poor visibility of their surroundings, and they approached cautiously as they neared their vehicle.
"I think we're good," Nathan whispered as he looked around. Calvin stayed close behind him as they ducked behind a nearby Ford Focus before their final approach towards the van.
And then they saw them...
Several dark silhouettes slowly shambling through the parking lot from the way they came in. Calvin's heart leapt to his throat as he grabbed Nathan's shirt and threw him to the ground behind an adjacent car.
"Shit," Calvin cursed quietly,
"we've got company."Nathan hugged the rear side of the car and peaked over to see what Calvin was talking about when suddenly somebody's hulking frame slammed against the car window from inside. Nathan jumped back, losing his footing and falling backwards into another parked car. The keys that were in his hand skittered across the ground, sliding to a stop behind the wheel of a nearby Harley. Instantly, Nathan's collision triggered the car's alarm, triggering a chain reaction across the parking lot. Painfully loud beeps, boops, and faux sirens echoed back and forth between the sea of cars, alerting every walker within a mile radius... if not further. From inside the Ford, the walker smeared its bloodied face back and forth across the window, gnashing its teeth at the two of them like a caged animal.
"Shit, shit, shit..." Nathan repeated as he scrambled across the pavement. Calvin swung his head around, confirming what he feared to be true... dozens and dozens of walkers converging on their position. And fast.
"Get down!" Calvin ordered, pulling Nathan back down to the ground. The two of them sat motionlessly with their backs to the car, each pulsing siren like another nail in the coffin.
"What do we do?" Nathan bemoaned. They were running out of time and they both knew it. Calvin wasn't religious... but he had never prayed so hard for anything in his life.
"Nathan..." The cameraman looked at him, panic-stricken.
"The keys...""H-How...?"Calvin tightened his grip around the weapon in his hand.
"Like a bat out of hell..."The two of them took off around the car in opposite directions, Nathan heading for the keys, Calvin for the van. Several walkers took notice of Calvin immediately as he approached them, bat in hand. The first opened its mouth in a grotesque snarl as Calvin swung hard at the side of its head. He connected forcefully, nearly knocking the bat out of his grasp, but the walker reeled sideways as it went down for the count. The sound of the blunt impact seemed to incite the surrounding walkers even more as they bee-lined for Calvin. From behind him, he heard the scrape of keys on pavement as Nathan scooped them up from under the motorcycle. Calvin threw a second swing, but was intercepted by the walkers flailing arms, affording him a mere glancing blow off of its body. It let out a bone-chilling scream as it staggered to the side, barely maintaining its balance.
"Behind you!" Nathan shouted out from somewhere amongst the cars. Calvin pivoted in place just in time to see three more walkers funnel in towards the van. They were bunched together so tightly that Calvin couldn't get a good swing in at any of them without hitting the other. One of them reached out for him with two groping arms and Calvin sent the hilt of the bat squarely into the beast's nose, sending him back into the crowd. He swung the weapon a few more times, batting the flailing arms away from him. Nathan had successfully navigated his way to the van and, being the only one without a weapon, started scaling the ladder on the back. The walkers had begun tightly circling them, affording little chance of escape, and Calvin followed Nathan's lead and vaulted onto the front hood of the news van. Nathan had reached the roof and offered Calvin his hand, pulling him up the rest of the way where they both remained barely out of range of the walker's reaching limbs.
"What do we do, dude?! There's too many of them!" And he was right. Calvin searched frantically for any opening, anything at all...
And then the idea seemed to come to both of them at the same time as they looked at each other, then down at their feet. They were standing on top of a sun-roof. In a last ditch effort, Calvin flipped the bat around and jammed it through the pane of glass, shattering it. Nathan lowered himself through into the drivers seat, followed by Calvin, as the walkers began pawing ferociously at the outside of the van, filling every window frame with their bloody and maimed visages. Nathan jammed the keys into the ignition and their chariot roared to life. Calvin wiped some of the blood off his face with his sleeve, and looked at Nathan.
"Punch it, Chewie..."