Claudia concidered jumping off the van more than once as Michael almost got them crashed several times, she also squeaked every time the vehicle ran over a zombie, from time to time the passengers huged each other as no one could garantee they wouldn't get killed inside the vehicle by one of Michael's mistakes.
At some point the van started making noises, then Michael started swearing, everyone immediately knew they had ran out of gas "Great" someone muttered before Michael turned to see the rest of the group and ask if anyone would go with him inside the High School. Just like before everyone stayed silent, no one wanted to move at all. A bit annoyed by the other survivor's silence Clauida spoke up "I'll go" the blonde replied and immediately moved to the door.

Once outisde the van Claudia could take a better look at the building, it was quite big so she looked at the old man and joked "I hope we don't have to run around the place looking for keys..." as she made her way up the stone staircase, luckily for the old man it was quite short.

Architectonically the building was beautiful, resembling contructions from the XVIII century, but in such situation with the dark smoke columns coming from unknown locations at the back of the building was a bit terrifying.

“Well, you’re certainly a brave one, miss Claudia.” Michael said with a respectful nod as he piled out of the vehicle, and did his best to hide the annoyed look as he took in the stairs. He grunted slightly with each step, moving slowly so as not to hurt himself as his arthritis made itself very much known. As he reached the top of the stairs, he looked back down the short stairway with a brief mutter. “Not looking forward to going back down.”

As the pair approached the old building, Michael braced himself. He didn’t know if the riots and all this mess had gotten into the school before the students were evacuated, and while he knew himself capable of putting a dead kid to rest, he wasn’t sure about Claudia. A full-grown person who turned was one thing, but some of these high schoolers were still practically kids, at least as far as he was concerned. “Miss Claudia… I dunno what we’re gonna find in here. And if those freaks got in, it certainly ain’t gonna be pretty. Just… brace yourself.” He allowed her to open the door first, moving in behind her with his gun pointed at the ground, but at the ready.

The foyer was a large and open space that, on any normal day, would’ve seen a lot of foot traffic, the original flooring having been covered over with linoleum tiles with a symbol of a shield emblazoned with a raccoon and a scroll below it reading Raccoon City High painted on the floor in the center of the room. Two staircases went up either side of the room’s far walls, one blocked by stacked desks and the other blocked at the top by a steel scissor gate that prevented access upstairs. Three hallways were immediately accessible, one on either side of the room and one down the center between the stairs. On the bright side, the lights were on, at least in this part of the foyer. What took away the old man’s hope that this would be easy, however, was the sight of a mauled police officer lying dead against one of the stairwells, and the blood on the floor of the foyer combined with the distinct lack of bodies.

Claudia kept Michale's warning in mind as they got in, she had seen these kind of Highschools only in movies and this one in particular was pretty much what she had exected to see in real life, however it was no time to admire the architecture of the place, not with the corpse of a police officer laying near them. The sight gave goose bumps to the blonde and that if a trained person such as the officer there was killed and mauled then what would be of an old grumpy man with a gun and a naive medicine student with a hammer?.

She tried to stay positive, although it was extremely hard, and slowly approached the corpse with her melee weapon ready for any possible jump scare. By the color of the blood on the floor the girl could tell quite a few hours passed since the officer crossed to the other neighbourhood, even so she kicked the corpse's leg to see wheather it would react or not. Luckily for them the officer was dead for good so Claudia approached to search or the reglementary gun but only found a full 9mm magazine. She turned to Michael with a smile, like children when they get a new toy.

"Here, you will need it" Unknown to her, Michael's gun used a differnt cartidge. "The gun is nowhere to be seen though, well, I don't even know how to shoot anyway" she chuckled.

Michael stayed at the ready as Claudia made her way across the room, resting his gun in both hands as he watched the corpse. If he had the ammo to spare, he would’ve dead checked the thing, but her kick and rummaging worked for now.

The old man looked over the magazine she handed him, taking a moment to look it over. “Double-stacked mag, fifteen rounds, nine mil… probably a G19.” He muttered as he felt the weight of the mag. It was fully loaded judging by it’s weight, but that wasn’t any use right now. “I’ll hang onto it for now, sure.” He said as he slotted the mag into a coat pocket. Maybe he’d tell her about it not being the right caliber later, but it didn’t matter at the moment. Besides, if they found the dead officer’s gun somewhere, having two loaded guns between them was better than only one. “Tell you what. If we find another gun, I can give you a crash course on usin’ it. You won’t be an Alvin York in five minutes, but you should be able to keep from shooting anyone you don’t want to shoot.”

He took a moment to glance upstairs, noting the scissor gate was secured with a chain and padlock, as he took that as a sign the top floor wasn’t going to be a problem… probably. “Alright, well this place looks secure for now. There’s going to be a service door somewhere that leads to the basement, though knowing our luck I’d bet that’s going to be locked.”

Claudia was a very obliging person so she was happy to offer the bullets to then man, in exchange he came up with the idea of teaching her to shoot. That idea however terrified her, she had seen many cases of peole accitendaly shooting themselves due to the lack of experience, on the other hand it may be the only way to get out alive, she could not relay only on Michael saving her.

The old man mentioned the service door, and from there to the basemnt, "Why the basement? Monsters are always lurking at the basement" she thought but coud not refuse to go, nor she could let Michael go alone. "A-Alright..." she held the hammer with boths hands and started walking, checking every room one by one but only looking through the small window every door had on it, she knew those doors wounldn't lead to the basement but it didn't hurt to check if there as someone, or something, inside the classrooms. They didn't need another surprise like the one at the apartment block.

It didn't take long before they found the door at the end of the east hallway "Mr. Mich-" she quickly realized shoting was no good and made a signal for the man to approach. "This must be it" she muttered as she tried to open, no luck. "Just as you said...locked..."

Michael hung back a little as Claudia moved forward, letting her check the classrooms as he alternated between checking in front of and behind them, finding nothing of note. The corridor, lined with lockers on either side, was eerily silent, save the faint clicking of his boots and her shoes against the tiles, and the dim hum from the lights. He smiled as she waved him over, mentally applauding her forethought of not shouting at him. That’s when he heard it.

Something scratched across the tiles behind Bennett as he turned, pistol raised, but saw nothing in the lit corridor. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as he peered down towards the main entrance. He paused for a moment, before turning back and rejoining Claudia.

“Well, the key’s gotta be here somewhere.” Michael said softly, as he turned back towards the direction they’d come from. “... It’s probably with the staff, or whoever turned else moved in. Or we could find somethin’ to pick the lock with and figure that out, but there’s no tellin’ how long that’d take.” He said, trying to pick out whatever had made that scraping noise. He didn’t trust it, even without any cover for zombies in the hallway. “... Might just be losing it.” He muttered, trying to convince himself to keep moving rather than investigate that. He didn’t have the bullets to waste on dealing with that, if it was a threat. “We should probably keep movin’.” He said with a certain urgency. He didn’t like this, it felt as though they were being hunted.