As the strange man escaped the store and the blonde slammed the door closed, Chris let go of the young girl, tugged Tony close to her, and pointed the rifle at the store. More than anything she wanted to wrap her arms around Tony and reassure herself that he was okay, alive, and uninjured. But as she stared down the sights of the rifle at the undead beating themselves against the store front windows, sounds of more undead getting closer, she knew she wouldn't be able to do that for a while.

Another voice jolted Chris out of her thoughts. She spun to face it, gun raised until she saw the scantily dressed woman and her dog. Hesitantly, Chris lowered her gun just a little. No sooner had she lowered the gun than a walker stumbled into view behind the girl. “Move!” Chris shouted, lifting the rifle again, before another girl dropped from a tree above them and landed a blow to the walker with a shovel.

Too much happened at once; she struggled to think and place each of the survivors in her mind, and keep Tony close at the same time. She was failing already. For his part, Tony silently pressed himself against her shoulder. It was a small comfort, and he knew it was all he could do for her in the moment.

[b]“We need to go . . . If we stick together for a while we’ve got a better chance of getting through this.”[/b]

Tony and Chris thought the very same. The glass windows would not hold the horde for long, and not a moment after the blonde spoke, the sounds of another herd became too loud to ignore. With one look in the direction of the undead filling the street, diving the town in half like a moving wall of rotting flesh, Chris' stoicism returned. 

Her eyes flickered to the next pair of arrivals; two people about her age. She started to take a mental count of everyone they had encountered. The blonde and the little girl, that's two... the man in the cabinet, the woman in blue, the girl with the shovel... and now the newest couple. Seven. Not including herself and Tony. While the blonde was right, there were too many to keep an eye on them all.

Still, they did have to move.

One of the girls – Rena, she called herself – spoke of a third horde at the other end of town, and survivors. Chris began to feel caged. The group started batting ideas around.

“They'll be fine,” she added. “They have each other. We can't risk it.”

As soon as Rena grabbed the woman in blue and pulled, Chris swung the rifle over her shoulders once again and turned to take the blonde woman's hand. She felt responsible for hers and her young companion's life, now, and she'd be damned if she let two bullets go to waste by letting the blonde die. “Tony-- the girl,” she instructed, then took off towards the forest, confident her friend would follow.

Tony nodded, stuffed the crowbar into his belt loop and made to follow Christina with the girl.