Broken Glass

[Ashton "Ash" Douglas]

Ashton walked carefully into the nearest clothes store. It was dark with rails thrown everywhere, clothes stamped on and covered with mud and blood. Zombies had probably come in here, she thought, and pulled a handgun from the holster on her shoulder. Aiiming it in front of her for any sign of movement, she edged into the shop. The broken glass of the door was skittered everywhere, and each step she took made a loud crunching noise. Not good.

[Maddie Foxx]

Maddie followed Ashton into the shop carefully, cautiously, a baseball bat heavy in her hands. She glanced around her to scan for any zombies and saw none. Matt was supposed to be bringing up the rear, though she hadn't noticeed him behind them so far. Maybe he was parking the Jeep in an easy-to-overlook kind of place. He was good at that.

But what if he'd ran into trouble? Would they know if he was eaten? Surely he'd warn them - scream or something. She smothered a whimper. The zombies would hear the slightest noise that was connected to a living human and then they would be all over them like a rash.

They edged further into the shop. Maddie nudged a backpack out of the way to reveal a box of matches and a few candles, and also a massive super strenght torch. She picked them up and stuck them into her own backpack.

[Matthew Knight]

Matt hurried in behind Maddie and pulled the glass doors closed, chained them and then added a fat padlock to it. He yanked on it a few times to test its strength, then aimed his rifle in front of him and rushed up towards Maddie and Ashton. "There were a few walkers behind me. Don't know how they got the trail, but there you go." he whispered. Pause. Then, "You guys found anything yet?" He meant it in both senses of the word: zombies and good loot.

[Annabel "Snowball" Toritz]

Annabel ran after them, skidding to a stop and pulling out her rifle. She hurried around the back of the shop that she knew Maddie, Matt and Ash were raiding. She pushed through the back door and then bolte it shut behind her. She quickly caught up with the others. "Area isn't too secure, Walkers everywhere. We need to get our shit and get out of her, quicktime. Hurry." she said with all the authority of a Hideout founder. They jumped as a zombie crashed into the glass doors ineffectively. But they'd get in soon enough. "Hurry!" Annabel shouted again.

[Ashton "Ash" Douglas]

Ash jumped into action. Running towards the glass doors, she pushed a large wooden table display in front of them with a little help from Maddie. Then, she rushed over to the nearest clothes rack and grabbed an armful of tops and jeans, stuffing them into the massive army backpack she was holding. The four Raiders rushed around like mad people, grabbing all the clothes the Hideout desperately needed and then stuffing them into their bags. When they had as much as they could carry without falling over, they followed Annabel to the back door, hoping against hope that there were no zombies. But it was locked - from the outside. Ash pushed against the door with all her weight, but it wouldn't budge. She stood up straight again and looked at Matt. "They're blocking the exits. Are there any more doors or windows?" she said calmly.

[Matthew Knight]

Matt looked around him and the others quickly. "I don't think so, no. I used to work in this store before the Beginning and I never found any other ways out. We're left to choose between the front door and an upstairs window that will open onto the crowd in front of the front doors anyway."

[Ashton "Ash" Douglas]

"Hell in a Handbasket." she muttered under her breath. "Right then guys. Here's our options: stay in here until the zombies get in and eat us, go out the upstairs window and fall to our untimely and unattractive death or walk out those front doors fighting our asses off, the result of all three will be death." she told the group. There was a niggling of guilt in the back of her head: they shouldn't have brought Maddie along with them today, because they knew how scared she was of being trapped. Crap, she cursed.

[Maddie Foxx]

"Um," Maddie piped up. " I know what MY decision is, guys. I say we fight." It was super hard for her to say this, especially when she didn't want to go anywhere near the zombies. "The front doors are nearest to the Jeeps and if we can get to them, we can get back to the Hideout. However, there are a few other things we need to pick up before we go back - food being one of them. And we need to swing by the University to check with Mallory and Ellie." she said in a calm voice. She was hoping that she sounded calm anyway, because she felt anything but. Zombies just did that to her, and although she was a member of the Hideout's Raider team, she was scared shitless.

[Ashton "Ash" Douglas]

Ash had been shaking her head before Maddie had even finished her sentence. "We can't get the food or get to Aston Hall without the zombies trailing us. And you know that when they hear other zombies groaing at their meal-to-be, they all come trailing up to the walking menus. By the way, those walking menus are US." she added unnecessarily. "But you're right about the front door thing, though, I think. There's more room to run if we get trapped there, whereas at the back door we'd get caught and bitten for sure. And the window thing is utter crap." She turned to the others. Annabel may be a Founder of the Hideout, but Ashton was the leader of the Raiders. Everyone knew that.

[Maddie Foxx]

"But," Maddie interrupted before Matt or Anna could speak. "The thing is, if we hurry out of here and get to the Jeeps quicktime, we can miss out a good chunk of the zombies, and that's a good thing. Because we didn't expect to have to fight and we haven't got too much ammo."

[Annabel "Snowball" Toritz]

Annabel considered this. "You both have good points. I say we run for the front doors. But we need a plan so we know what to do when we've got out of the doors. Here's one: we run to the Jeeps and drive super fast to the Warehouse Foods shop so we can stock up on non-perishables then drive mega fast to Aston Hall Uni and speak to Ellie about whatever you need to do, then drive super fast back home."

[Matthew Knight]

Matt listened to them all talk and then butted in eith his opinion. "It needs to be better than that Annabel, no disrespect." he said. "So, here's what I say. We find more weapons, block off the other exits completely so none of those bitches can sneak up on us while we're fighting. Then we try to get out of that door as quickly as possible and run to the Jeeps. I say two to each sounds good - that way one can drive and the other can keep a look out for the other zombies. I'll drive one. Then we drive around a bit to loose them. We get back to Warehouse Foods and get our unperishables and then gun it to Aston Hall. We do whatever the fuck we've gotta do with Ellie and then we get back home."

[Ashton "Ash" Douglas]

Ashton nodded at both of their plans. "I agree with the both of you. We could have Matt driving your Jeep-" This was directed at Annabel. "-with you in it, and then Maddie could drive the other and I'd ride with her. If Matt takes the lead around the city and we go through a little water, we might be able to loose them. Then we could double back here, grab our shit and go chatter to Ellie." She was adamant about the secrecy of her conversation-to-be with Ellie. Thoguh she had never met the girl, Ashton felt that Ellie must be a good leader because not many of the Aston Hall lot got bitten, even though there was only about 15 of them there. "Then we can gun it back to the Hideout. I'm sure that Sarge would like to know about the amount of zombies congregating around here."

[Matthew Knight]

Matt was nodding slowly. "I like it. Everyone agree that we should do that?"

[Ashton "Ash" Douglas]

(GODMODDING!PLEASEFORGIVEME!))

The others nodded and they rushed around the store trying to find more weapons, anything that could be used against the zombies.