Those Who Survive

Escape Plan

They step out into the hall and Mark puts an arm out in front of Jack, who looks at him questioningly. Mark gestures ahead towards an infected that's just standing a few feet away, its face in a corner. Jack's eyes narrow lightly and he nods, raising his knife. Mark retrieves his knife as well and approaches the diseased corpse slowly, holding his breath. Jack and Mark meet one another's gaze and both nod. Take this fucker out. Mark moves and shoves the infected's face against the wall quickly then drives his knife up into the base of its neck.

It falls limp, crumbling to the floor as Mark pulls his knife free and steps back. He gives Jack a thumbs up and Jack just smiles lightly before continuing on. Mark is quick to follow, they have to be careful about this. They clear the floor with relative ease, that is until they come to the stairs leading to the floor below. Jack quickly pulls Mark back and they hide along the wall beside the stairwell full of living corpses.

There's no way they can get through that without some serious fire power, and guns are something they have yet to be able to get their hands on besides Ken's one shotgun and Nate's pistol. Mark and Jack look at one another, both with a look of uncertainty. It doesn't look like the infected in the stairwell heard or saw them, since they haven't come to attack yet. They have no choice but to head back, so that's what they do. Ken looks at them questioningly as they enter and Jack shuts the door behind them.

"What's it look like out there?" Ken asks.

"We were able to clear the floor, but the stairwell is full of infected, no way we can get through that." Jack sighs, walking over and sitting on the couch.

Felix frowns, "So we're stuck here for who knows how much longer? This is bad. What should we do?"

"The fire scapes almost reach the ground from the roof. We could try that way if we have to." Mark offers.

"That might be our only option at this point." Ken nods, looking to be in thought.

"So how are we getting to the fire escape then?" Felix asks, crossing his arms, "No way we can all make it up the stairs without the dead freaks noticing us."

"He's got a point." Jack shakes his head, "So we need a plan, that's for sure."

"Anyone got one?" Mark asks.

Jack shakes his head and shrugs, frowning. Felix sighs, "I wish. I've never been that good at this stuff.."

"Ken?" Mark turns to their friend and leader, hopeful. He hasn't come up with an idea yet himself, but they need to do something. They can't just keep sitting here, it's not a safe place to make a home of.

"I might have an idea," Ken affirms after a few moments of silence, "Go wake Nate, see if he's capable to move. We're going to need everyone to be able to for this to work."

Mark nods and crosses the living room to the bedroom, peeking in before he goes inside fully. Mark smiles softly at the sight before him. Nate's asleep on the bed, and lying next to him is baby Oli, chewing on one of Nate's jacket drawstrings, or trying to with the baby's lack of teeth. He walks over to the bed, patting Oliver on the head, causing the baby to coo at him before he shakes Nate's shoulder, "Hey, wake up, man."

Nate groans after a moment and opens his eyes. Mark smiles at him lightly, "Glad to see you're okay."

Nate nods slightly, pushing himself to sit up and rub his eyes, causing Oli to squeal lightly in protest when the drawstring is taken from him. Nate looks down at the baby and smiles softly. He then looks at Mark, "What's going on..?"

"You think you're fit to move? Ken's got a plan to get us out of here." Mark replies.

Nate nods, "Yeah, I can move. I'm still feeling pain, but I can move well enough."

"Good." Mark nods back, "Come on, let's go see what Ken's cooked up in that big brain of his."

Nate nods and carefully makes his way off the bed. He follows Mark out into the living room and Ken smiles, "Glad to see you on your feet, Nate."

"Yeah, thanks," Nate says awkwardly, really all this healing he keeps having to do is getting old. Jack and Felix stand from the couch and Ken looks around at everyone, "Alright, first things first, let's get all our supplies packed up and ready to go. Shouldn't be too much to pack at this point. Here's the deal, we need to get up to the roof and going up from this floor is a no go because of the infected in the stairwell. There's a floor on top of us before the rooftop, so that's how we're getting to the roof."

"Wait, I missed the part on how we're getting to the next floor is we can't use the stairs." Felix shakes his head, confused and annoyed.

"Simple." Ken states with a smirk, "We're going out the window."

"You're a crazy motherfucker, you know that?" Felix scoffs, "How do you expect us to do that without falling to our deaths?"

"We're only on the second story, we probably wouldn't die." Jack interjects.

"What about the zambies outside that'll eat our juicy asses when we fall?!" Felix groans.

"Don't say that ever again." Nate rolls his eyes.

"Very carefully, and one at a time." Ken says.

"Pretty much the same way we got on my roof when this all started remember?" Mark adds.

"Oh, yeah, I remember." Felix says bitterly, "I remember Nate leaving me to die and you having to save me."

"You left them to die first." Nate counters.

"Guys, that's enough." Jack huffs, "Unless anyone has a better plan, Ken's plan it is."

"But, Jack--" Felix whines.

Jack shakes his head, "Don't call me that, not anymore. Look, we have to get out of here one way or another. Do you have a better idea?"

Felix frowns, taken aback by his friend's seemingly sudden detest for the familiar nickname.

"Didn't think so. So we're doing this. So, who's first?" Sean looks around sternly for the answer to his question from his friends.