Outbreak Chapter 40

HSS Dormitory Complex
Saturday March 12 2:59 P.M.
Day 1


It had seemed like an eternity but they had finally reached the doors to his old dormitory building. It was a ten story tall complex that had a ring of windows around the entire first floor. He had known that the first floor would never be secure, but the buildings saving grace was that there were only two elevators and two stairwells with access to the upper floors. The horde was hot on their heals but they had managed to put enough of a gap between them and their pursuers that they had just enough time to grab all of the bags from the back of the truck before heading to the building. Brendon directed Griffin to take his team along with Aidan and Rebecca to cover their six while the rest of them got into the building. The first set of glass doors swung open as Brendon and Wiggins led the rest of the group in. Brendon grabbed the handle to the next set of doors but they wouldn't budge. Dammit, he had forgotten that the inside doors required a student ID to be held in front of the reader before they would unlock. There were dozens if not hundreds of zombies closing on them from the rear so he had no time to mess around. "Everyone get back," he yelled to the others in the small room then fired six rounds into different areas of the glass door. A few kicks were enough to knock out enough glass to make room for them to squeeze through the opening without cutting themselves.
Brendon was the first through and spotted three zombies in the immediate area headed for him. He squeezed the trigger on his AK-47 twice and two of them fell. He was just taking aim at the third when he heard a shot from Wiggins' AR-15 and the zombie slumped to the ground.
In no time the first half of the group made it into the lobby and had fanned out to cover the area while the last of the survivors came through the doors. Griffin was the last one into the building, laying down a stream of steady fire at a group of zombies that had almost been on top of them as he backpedaled through the doors. Both of the elevators were at upper levels which was good since Brendon had no plans of using elevators, everyone moved together to the side of the lobby that had the stairwell door. Brendon grabbed a hold of the door knob and Wiggins readied himself next to the door. "Clear up to the second level doorway but don't go any higher than that, we don't want to get too spread out. If you think you have the manpower to make a beachhead in the second floor hallway immediately by the stairwell floor go for it."
"Got it," Wiggins said. Brendon tore open the door as fast as he could and Wiggins burst into the stairwell as the others in the lobby followed one at a time. Brendon heard glass shatter as someone’s shot missed a zombie in the lobby and broke one of the exterior windows. That was just great, now the zombies had more ways into the building. Brendon raised his AK back up and began firing on zombies that were coming through the opening. Even with a number of them still firing on this floor there were still at least over a dozen zombies that had made it into the building and were still moving.
One by one everyone moved into the stairwell until it was just Griffin and Brendon on the first floor. "You head up first," Griffin yelled to Brendon, "I got this." Brendon turned and headed through the doorway, heard five more shots from Griffin's AR-15, then saw his friend dart through the doorway behind him. They slammed the door shut and he breathed a sigh of relief when they heard it latch. The door didn't have any type of lock but these things were too dumb to turn a knob and the door opened out into the lobby so the zombies would just be pressing the sturdy metal door against the doorframe. The door was reasonably secure but with the entire horde of them out there they may just have enough weight to bring the door down.
In the stairwell Brendon saw that Wiggins already had Chris in position to cover the stairs that lead down to the basement. He left him there agreeing that it was a good idea to make sure no zombies came up from the tunnels that lead between the different buildings in the complex. He called the woman that had been referred to as Heather by the dead man and the girl they had picked up from the truck over and pointed to the door leading to the lobby. "You two hold that door closed, it doesn't have a lock and I don't know how strong it is, but you damn well better make sure that it holds and nothing gets through." The two of them both looked scared and had tears rolling down their cheeks but they both moved off and leaned up against the door and Brendon lead everyone else up the stairs and to the second floor.
He signaled Brian and Leslie over to him and positioned them one more flight of stairs up from the second floor doorway. "You two are going to make sure nothing comes down the stairwell from up above. If you see any zombies coming down those steps I want you to take them out, if there are too many for you to handle I want you to call for help from down below." He looked over who was left in the group and tried to think of which ones probably wouldn't be suited for room clearing. "You two are going to stay here as well," he said pointing to Megan and Rebecca, "If anybody needs assistance give them help. In the meantime I want Megan going into dorm rooms and finding things we can use to barricade the doors. Rebecca you're in charge down here while the rest of us are clearing the second floor."