Doris leads the group down the corridor, bringing the newcomer along with them. Despite the deteriorating situation, she remains calm and focused, a trait befitting of someone who had lived to a full life. The rest follow her without question, but in truth, she only really cared that Sophia was in tow. The others, they were full grown adults, and she would be damned if she was going to babysit them. Sophia though? If Doris was going to one last thing with her life, it would be to get that girl to safety.
She reaches the end of the corridor, and it splits in two directions. It is a question of left and right, but the chorus of the dead suddenly raises a few octaves - and she sees them. They're coming from the right, scores of them, crammed wall-to-wall. They see Doris and Sophia, and their shambling pace quickens with the prospect of fresh food.
Doris does not flinch, she does not panic. Her heart thuds in her chest, bringing agony with each beat, and though it restricts her sprinting potential - it doesn't restrict her ability to make a decision. She runs left, grabbing Sophia's hand firmly, and pulls her along. Up ahead, she's greeted by sun light; the whole wall to her immediate right is windows the whole way across the corridor.
And what's better?
There's a door! A fire door, still shut, but easily opened by a push-bar. A quick look out the windows reveals only a couple of shamblers, with their backs turned and some way off. Finally, an exit!
She runs towards the fire exit, puts her hands on the bar a-
BANG.
Doris falls backwards, an inch-wide hole in her chest. Sophia screams.
The sniper it seems, has taken particular interest in the school...
The group, only seconds behind, screech to a halt. A second shot sounds, shattering a glass pane. The unsettling noise of dozens of foot steps can be heard shuffling behind them.
Caught between a rock and a hard place, would be one way of describing their position.
Roland J. Anderson halts as he hears the shot; the shooter is close, very close.
He stands in the garden of a suburban-looking house, which overlooks Washing-Lee High school. Shamblers are everywhere, slamming against the garden's reinforced fence, moaning for his flesh. A quick look around confirms that they're unlikely to break through though, because someone has gone to a great deal of effort shoring the place up.
The fence panels themselves have been reinforced by metal poles, and have been given a good barbed wire coating. The house's windows are boarded up, and the stairs to the porch torn to pieces.
Another shot rings out, and Roland flinches, ducking low. Is the shooter friendly? Maybe, but then if he's shooting the dead, why are his shots so sporadic? He must be targeting something specifically, but what?
Roland moves closer to the house, his training kicking in. He moves slowly and quietly, edging around the building, until he comes to the front of it. A throng of dead men yank and batter at a chain mesh fence in front of him, and it seems that like the reverse of the garden, someone had spent an equal amount of effort shoring it up.
Another shot rings out, right above him from a bedroom window. He sees for a second the muzzle of a rifle poking out. Then he looks back, towards the school, past the dead clawing at the mesh fence. It's too a far distance to glean any real detail from, be he can see movement along a windowed wall - not the usual shuffling gait of the shamblers, but rather, the spasmodic rhythm of living people.
Roland puts two and two together quickly, the bastard is shooting at people! But why!?
Shouldering his rifle, he decides his course of action.
