Zombies in Fiore. (10 year revision)

Chapter 3 : Leaps of Faith

"Hide."  Natsu said, quietly sprinting to the door. Peeking out, down the hall shambled a corpse. Slowly, Natsu closed the door, but the door was a snitch and protested with a squeak, catching the attention of the one corpse in this hallway. "Shit!" He jumped away from the door and bolted into the small closet, shutting it behind him. 'Why does this closet feel smaller than it looked?' He thought, feeling around to see where the walls were. Lucy let out a muffled squeak. She had also hidden in the closet, it made sense now. Turning to face her, he put his hand over her mouth and shushed her. "One heard the door squeak. It's headed this way now, be very quiet or--" He stopped because someone was opening the door. Opening?!? He turned around, making sure Lucy was in the corner behind him. She brought her hands up and put them on his back, tiptoeing to peek through the slats on the door. The lone zombie shambled in, looking around as if searching with intention. 'They search? Zombies can open doors? Maybe there's more to this disease than the books mentioned... But then, I thought those weren't supposed to be real.' 'That's not good, man,' Warren interrupted his thoughts. 'Warren! Where are you hiding?' 'I'm under the bed. I didn't get lucky enough to hide in the closet too,' he thought with an oddly snide tone. 'I didn't know Lucy already hid here!' 'Mmhmm,' Warren thought. The shuffling stopped, and the zombie reached for the closet door handle at an agonizing pace. Natsu leaned back to be sure Lucy was safe if it opened the door. She could feel him tensing. They held their breath for what seemed like minutes before something made a loud noise in the bathroom. The zombie stopped and abruptly turned to head to the sound. 'Guys. What's the plan?' Warren asked. 'We go to the roof!' Lucy patted Natsu's shoulders lightly to tell him to move. He slowly opened the door and let Lucy out, then quickly and quietly shut the bathroom door and pushed the couch in front of it. They packed light, so they each grabbed their small bags and headed to the stairwell, leaving the zombie to throw itself at the door.

Running down the hall and leading them up the stairs was Lucy. It was clear of zombies the first few flights, she optimistically pushed forward. They had to cross the building's last floor to get to the roof. Lucy ran up to the first corner in the hallway. "Almost there!" she relayed. Confidently rounding the corner, only to be met with a zombie. She screamed, it pushed her back against the wall, and Natsu landed a flaming punch on its head, knocking it clean through the wall next to it. He grabbed her hand and ran again. "Are you alright?" he said, eyes forward and alert. "Yes. I didn't expect there to be any up this high yet."

Up to the roof they went. "Okay, now what?" Natsu said. Lucy pointed at the line of buildings that hugged the beach. "We leap the buildings." "You're joking right?" Warren said, looking 14 stories down to the street below. "Not even slightly. We can all jump a decent height and leap forward significantly. We've done it during fights before. If we are careful, we should make it out without being recognized." "Or worse," Warren added, both boys still looking down. 'Well, Lucy... Lead by example.' She backed away from the edge, getting a good running start. 'Just don't look down, don't look down, Lucy.' She got her dominant foot up on the ledge and pushed off, careful to get both upward and forward momentum to carry her across. 'Oh my gods, oh my gods, oh my gods.' She was nearing the next building, and in mere seconds, she met with the rooftop, rolling a few times but generally unharmed. She dusted herself off and looked across the way to see Warren still looking down and Natsu shocked but sporting a proud grin. She raised her arms in triumph and gestured for them to follow. "Look out!" Natsu shouted. There were three zombies on her rooftop shambling over to her. Natsu's shout attracted zombies into and onto the hotel. Lucy called Cancer out to assist her while Natsu was trying to get Warren to jump over. Natsu's attention was split between helping Warren and if Lucy was alright. The stress was amping up so he just picked Warren up and just launched him across, leaping over, narrowly getting his ankle grabbed by one of the zombies that raced up the building. Both men came tumbling to the next building. Their abrupt landing knocking the wind out of them. "Lucy," Natsu rasped, getting up despite his lungs' complaint. More zombies attempted to jump the gap, and after a few fell to their second departure, they all stopped. "Lucy!" Natsu was frantically searching the rooftop. "Lucy! Where are you!" "I'm here!" She came around a gated fuse station. Natsu let out a sigh of relief, not realizing he held his breath. "Are you okay?" "I'm okay," she reassured him with a smile. "Geez, Luce. You gotta look before you leap." "Oh ha ha, Mr. Wise guy, you've got a point... But why did they stop?" She pointed over to the hotel. Zombies shambled, zombies groaned, zombies started climbing each other to make the gap. Zombies made a bridge.