19 minutes. The car held out for nineteen minutes, before it came to a slow, rolling stop without any sound. Except for the fuel gauge blinking an jingeling wildly. Then the motor turned off and silence descended. Takiko hit the wheel with her hands furiously, her feet kicking the pedals and for a moment she allowed herself to full-out violently thrash about, cursing loudly at the poor vehicle.

When she stopped she was breathing hard, her limbs hurting from the continued impact with the cars solid interior and she slumped in her seat, rubbing her face with her hands, not caring that her glasses fell off, landing in her lap. Once her frustration was tightly under control again, she looked up and studied her surroundings. Trees. Trees and bushes and the road she had been driving on, that had gotten considerably less roady and more dirty. But nothing else, it seemed. She sat up, reaching for the gun tucked in the back of her jeans, which had been uncomfortable, but it reassured her and you never knew. She had done that thing with the safety-belt, where you put it together behind you, to keep it from alerting the car, but without having to confine yourself to the car. In case of an accident, she'd honestly prefer flying through the car and breaking her neck instead of getting seriously hurt and being unable to leave when the creatures came to get themselves a meal.

She unlocked the guns safety lock, something that had taken her forever to find out about, since she'd never used one before. And slowly opened the door, peeking out and searching the area behind her for any movement. None. She opened the door a little wider, carefully to not make much noise. She wasn't sure how much exactly the creatures perceived, but she wasn't eager to find out. Especially not in the middle of a damn forest all on her own. 

The door opened fully, she got out, carefully standing by the door as she tensely and slowly looked around. Still nothing. She sighed and stretched, her back cracking and her limbs hurting from the long drive. Then turned around to stare at her car. How was she ever going to get a that basket anywhere? She could fill the backpack with as much rations as possible, but leaving even the smallest amount behind might be fatal later. She couldn't be sure when she'd next be able to get herself some more. She sighed andslumped against the car with the front of her body, hitting her forehead on its roof a few times before freezing in shock at a loud rustling behind her. She gulped and slowly turned around, raising her gun as she did so and stared at one of them. Her heart beating up into her ears. "Oh." she breathed, "not good~".

The creature was tall, definetly once human, but now not so much. Its skin was pale, but blackened as if burned and missing on some parts of its body. Scraps of clothes hang around its limbs and it was making soft, hearable breathing noises, while staring right at her. Her initial impulse to scream it to death was less helpful, her second thought of pulling the trigger more so, but not perfect either. She didn't knwo how long it would take for her to get away from there and attracting more of them wouldn't be too good for her health. She gulped, her hands shaking as it kept standing there on the other side of the road, staring at her with his dead, blinded eyes. She had to squint to keep it in focus, her glasses having been dropped to the floor when she'd gotten out of the car. She wasn't sure whether she'd be able to hack its head off. She could do some martial arts, she knew how to fight and she was fast, but she had never needed to use, or learn how to use, weapons before. And as dead as this creature definetly was, it still seemed to somehow be alive in some way.

She caught herself praying for help. But what where the odds of meeting someone in a forest a distance from the suburbs of Chicago? No. She wouldn't be saved, she'd need to fight on her own. Keeping that thought in mind, she slowly pulled her left leg up, grabbing the handle of the long, sturdy and definetly expensive kitchen knive she had acquired with the car and her rations, tugging the gun back in the waistband of her jeans again, this time in the front, so that she could grab it if her initial plan of getting rid of the creature silently didn't work out. She tightened her grib on the knife, getting into fighting stance, her eyes taking in every movement of the creature before as it slowly, moved towards her. She bent her knees slightly, her feet steadily planted on the ground and her upperbody slightly angled. Raising her hands into the position she'd taken in her MA classes, she raised the knife as well, going about in a way that felt right. Her mind raced, thinking of the best way to go about this.

THe creature got close, too close for her comfort and fluently moved back a little, pulling ehr arms up to make room to strike out with her left foot, forcefully slamming it into the creatures ribcage. It was send flying back, stumbling back off the road, seemingly unable to coordniate its movements well enough to catch itseld, it landed back in the bushes, on its back, struggling to get up. Takiko sighed. Maybe this would go well after all.

The moment she'd finished that thought, she heard more rustling and withing seconds there were two more of them beside their companion, watching her with those dead, blank eyes their kind seemed to have in common. She gasped in shock, then again as she realized how different they states of... what was it.. decaying? were. While the first had looked kind of burnt, the one to his left had a crooked bag, his neck way too long to be human held the head up unevenly, swaying from side to side, half of its face showed the bones, the other half was still covered in greenish-looking flesh, that had seemed to be ripped of around the edges. The one on the right side was entirely different again. Small, with twig-like legs and broad feet that counted way to many toes. Its head seemed almost normal, if it hadn't been covered in greasy hair. Its arms were missing. Takiko had a hard time not retching at her feet.

Things were getting seriously dangerous. One she could've handled. Two might've still been within her possibilities as long as they weren't too quick on their feet. But three... She gulped, trying to push down the panick rising inside her. Three were too much, especially since it seemed the new arrived ones were a lot faster than the first one, since they'd seemed to come out of nowhere.