At this moment, Laura shyly let go of Dominik. But after seeing the towering man beside him wearing a tactical skull mask, she pointed a trembling finger and asked, "Dom, who is he?"
Dominik turned around, naturally shifting his weight to shield Laura behind him. Only after he racked the charging handle of his Type-56 to chamber a fresh round did he say, "This is Simon. He insists on wearing the mask. It's... a long story."
"Simon? Big Brother Simon?" Laura was startled at first, her eyes widening. But then, despite the blood and smoke surrounding them, a fragile, joyful smile spread across her face. "You're both here. Our whole family is together!"
"Yes!" Dominik nodded vigorously, but his eyes were already scanning the hallway. He pushed her gently back toward the AV room. "Laura, get back inside and lock the door. Simon and I need to deal with the stragglers at the stairwell."
"Okay." Laura obediently darted back inside. She knew better than to distract them now.
"Prep another WP or a frag! I'll lay down suppressing fire!" Dominik shouted. He moved forward, firing short, controlled bursts from his Type-56 to pin back the infected that were trying to push through the shattered fire doors from the stairwell.
Simon didn't have a grenade launcher, but he pulled a heavy M67 fragmentation grenade from his webbing. He didn't want to use another White Phosphorus canister in such close proximity if he didn't have to. "Frag out! Get clear!"
Dominik stopped his advance abruptly, pivoted hard to the left, and crouched tightly against the concrete wall. He dumped his half-spent magazine and slammed a fresh one in.
This wasn't a video game; there was no magical HUD in his vision telling him he had 12 rounds left. He had to count his shots mentally, and he preferred to reload early rather than hear a click when he needed a bang.
Clink-clink. The grenade bounced off the doorframe and down the stairs.
BOOM! The concussive blast shook the floorboards, immediately followed by the rhythmic thumping of the SCAR-L as Simon pushed forward to clear the smoke.
After firing a half-dozen shots into the haze, Dominik slowly walked forward, his voice hard and authoritative. "Push forward! Secure the landing!"
Simon paused for a fraction of a second when he heard the order. He didn't know exactly when the terrified university student had started barking tactical commands, but Dominik's call was the absolute right play.
A grim smile touched Simon's lips beneath the mask. He stepped into the smoke, weapon raised. "Copy that!"
Bang! Dominik put a single 7.62 round into the skull of a twitching zombie at the edge of the stairwell, then lowered his rifle slightly. "Landing clear!"
"My side is clear too!" Simon called out from the opposite end of the hall.
At this moment, Dominik was covering the main elevator bank, while Simon was standing at the edge of the fire stairs, peering down into the gloom to ensure nothing else was rushing up.
Oww~
Thump... scrape... thump.
Simon's head snapped down. He could hear the low, collective growl of a massive number of infected, paired with the wet, shuffling sound of hundreds of footsteps echoing up the concrete shaft. He turned his head and growled, "We've got a problem!"
Hearing the urgency in Simon's voice, Dominik quickly abandoned the elevators and ran to the stairwell. "What is it?"
"See for yourself." Simon held the battered fire door open and gestured downward with the muzzle of his rifle.
Dominik frowned, stepping onto the landing to look over the railing. His brow furrowed so deeply it almost touched his hairline.
Below them, the stairwell was a nightmare. It was a solid, writhing mass of infected flesh. They were densely packed, crowding the narrow stairs, surging upward like a morbid tide. It wasn't a few dozen; it was hundreds.
Anyone with a weak stomach—or claustrophobia—would have lost their footing just looking at it.
"The explosion. It drew every walker in a five-block radius right to this stairwell," Dominik said.
Surprisingly, Dominik didn't panic. He just pinched the bridge of his nose and began to analyze the geometry of the threat. His adaptability was kicking in. He was a scholar by trade, used to absorbing complex information and finding the through-line. That analytical mind was now being applied to survival.
"Hmm." Simon looked at the sea of dead faces. "There must be at least three hundred of them. We're almost black on ammo. Even if we dropped every grenade we had down there, we wouldn't dent that horde."
"Humm..." Dominik pondered, running a hand over his jaw. "We can't go down. Judging by the crush and their movement speed, they'll breach this floor in about three minutes."
Dominik looked at the buckled hinges of the fire door. "This door is already compromised. It won't hold them back for more than thirty seconds once the pressure builds."
"Agreed," Simon nodded. "So, Commander, what's the play?"
Dominik didn't answer immediately. He turned his back on the stairs, walked briskly down the tenth-floor corridor, and stopped at a large, reinforced window at the southern end of the building. He smashed the glass out with the butt of his rifle, leaned out, and surveyed the alleyway below.
He pulled his head back in and looked at Simon. "Do you have a rope?"
Simon walked over to the window, glancing down at the dark alley. "You want to fast-rope down?"
"Yes." Dominik pointed out the window. "Standard commercial construction here is about 3 meters per floor. Ten floors make it 30 meters. But there's a heavy reinforced awning over the loading dock down there at about the second-floor level. That makes our drop roughly 24 meters."
Dominik gave Simon a sideways glance. "As a Tier One operator, tell me you pack 550 cord or a rappel line."
"Always." Simon reached around to the assault pack integrated into the back of his tactical vest. He pulled out a thick, tightly coiled bundle of black static rope and a carabiner.
"You have to account for every exfil scenario," Simon said, rapidly tying a secure bowline knot around a thick, structural steel water pipe running along the wall. He threw his weight against it to test the anchor, then kicked the rest of the coil out the shattered window. "It's 30 meters. It'll reach the awning."
"Good. We'll get Laura harnessed up first—"
"Excuse me... please don't shoot! We mean you no harm!"
Just as Dominik was outlining the exfil plan, the steel door to the AV room creaked open. The man and two women they had seen earlier stepped out tentatively into the ruined hall.
As the man took a step toward them, Simon spun on his heel, his SCAR-L snapping up to his shoulder, the red dot sight painting the center of the man's chest.
Though Dominik and Simon had seemed to be chatting casually, their adrenaline was redlining. Any unexpected movement was treated as a lethal threat.
"Uh..." The man froze, his Adam's apple bobbing nervously as he stared down the dark barrel of the suppressed rifle. He slowly raised his hands. "Please. We are not infected."
Simon's trigger discipline held. After confirming they were clean, he lowered the muzzle slightly, though he kept the weapon ready.
Dominik, however, stepped forward, looking at the trio with calculating interest. "Who are you? I'm guessing... the VIPs those guards outside died trying to protect?"
"Yes, yes!" The man nodded frantically, his glasses slipping down his nose. "That's right. I am Quaid Sears. You can call me Professor Sears."