Angie - Parking Garage, on the safe side of the SUV barricade
The grenade shook me to me senses alright. Sure, everything had just gone to shite in a handbasket, I'd lost the very last member of my old group, but I was still alive, and that's what mattered. I would grieve for the girl later. For now, there was the question of getting to safety. In all the chaos that had ensued after the car crash, I'd realised that although I was following the group, I'd lost track of Alex, my only friend in the sea of strangers and dead people. He was a soldier though, tough and gritty. I knew he'd make it, at least I hoped so. I was barely away from the SUV when the explosive went off, and it right startled me out of the trance I'd probably been in since I lost my grip on Sophia. I gripped my bat tighter and got to my feet, now in firm control of myself. Around me it was still very noisy, what with the gunfire and constant shouting, but I now realised that the soldiers helping us weren't even American. Aye, they were Asian, probably Japanese from how quick they were talking. I couldn't tell one from another anyway, my guess was as good as anything. They were busy trying to get to a survivor, apparently, that was near the tail end of the horde that was attacking us. In all the noise and shooting and everything, we'd almost passed one by. I didn't see how we'd escape from the parking garage but I sure as hell couldn't let another die on my watch.
I gripped me bat tightly in me hands, staring down at the scene where the soldiers were scrambling towards the lone survivor. It was a she, apparently, and with her was the Middle-Eastern man that was going to her rescue, along with one of the Japanese soldiers. They'd need help getting back here though, and as I saw the front edges of the horde rising to their feet from the carnage of the grenade blast, I knew what I had to do.
The SUV itself was toppled over, had been after the dead shoved it over by force of weight. The two men and lone woman were on the other side, and they'd no doubt need help. Ignoring the other soldiers, I broke into a run, getting past them as I headed straight for the fallen vehicle. One of the dead was approaching, with his friends right behind him no less, but that all changed when I introduced my bat to his face. He fell over backwards and I gave him more encouragement by kicking him straight in the chest. That made the bloody lot of them all fall down, just like dominoes. A slight improvement. Aye.
I gave another sod a bat to the face and shoved him down to finish him off with a stomp to the face. The dead man's skull crushed like wet cardboard underneath me foot. Must've been dead a long while, that fella.
No time to think about that. I needed to give these people some room.
I got on top of the SUV and went right over, landing next to the man and woman. No time to learn their names, instead I stepped forward and jabbed the front end of my bat into the gut of a particularly scrawny shambler that was getting up behind our would-be rescuer, wound up, then threw a swing that I reckoned would've hit a ball for miles. It sure knocked him back, way back into a crowd of his friends, keeping them down where they'd been downed by the grenade. With that out of the way, I turned to the two of them.
"Oy, you two done flirting or what? In case ye haven't noticed, we be surrounded by these things and these kind souls are helping us out. We need to move. Now."
Without waiting, I clambered back onto the SUV and beckoned for them to follow with a wave of my hand. Then, in a burst of an idea, I flipped my bat around and held the taped grip out to the man and woman.
"Here, grab on! You two need to be over this thing sharpish!"
Meanwhile, I stole a glance at the other Jap troops.
"Oy! Guys! Shoot this way! Cover me!"