Tyler Bodgin slammed the door to the apartment shut, sliding down the wall and breathing out a sigh. He rarely had a close call like that, but that didn't mean it didn't scare the hell out of him. Outside, he could hear the Dead growling and slamming their bodies repeatedly against the barricades down the hall in their 'hangry' attempts to get to him.

   "Yeah yeah, I hear you." he waved at the wall dismissively, picking himself up and trudging over to the broken window of the apartment that lead out onto the fire escape.

    Before this whole apocalypse thing had happened, Bodgins would have killed for a place like this. In ways he had, but the Dead were- well, they were dead! His earnings as a busboy at Fat and Bat weren't enough for anything other than his 'anything but glamorous' hole in the wall room at a boarding house. There was an upside of working at the shady gaming center, though. Whenever he was on break or it was after hours, he would get to use the batting cage for free. Bodgins always wanted to be in professional baseball, but as things tend to be, he never could get his big break.

The batting skills came in handy when dealing with the Dead, though. Bodgins was more than thankful for that and his stock of steel bats.

     Below the metal grating of the fire escape, Dead growled and hissed. Bodgins gazed down at them, reached for the pile of bricks by the building's wall and dropped one down onto one of the growling monsters. The brick caved in the Dead's head with a loud 'crack!' and the thing toppled to the ground next to its' fellow Dead. As the noise below continued, Bodgins heard another growl. His stomach. He reentered the apartment and searched the cabinets. Almost completely barren. There was a half empty bag of Saltines and a can of beans, but the rest was dust or crumbs for mice.

Sighing, he packed the food into his travelpack and grabbed his bat. It was only a matter of time before he needed to do a food run, but he didn't think it would be this soon. Opening the door and preparing himself to literally knock some heads, Bodgins peered into the hallway. The Dead were no longer slamming angrily against the barricades, but were idly wandering in and out of the open apartments and up and down the stairs.

    He stood on the one way ladder he had made and hopped over the pile of wood. A couple of the Dead noticed him and started to walk towards him. Quickly, Bodgins closed the doors of the two open apartments and slammed the baseball bat into a Dead's head. Its body fell against the others and they stumbled backwards. Bodgins kicked the pile of Dead over the decayed railing of the stairwell. Hearing the muffled thud of the bodies hitting the floor, Bodgins descended the three flights of stairs and came to stand in the lobby of the apartment building. The place smelled faintly of barbeque smoke and fermenting corpses- so the scent was majorly better than the other places where he had taken shelter.

   Bodgins slid through the broken revolving door of the lobby and cautiously moved to hide behind a van. So far he'd spotted two across the street and one lingering a few feet away from an alleyway. He bounced, hyping himself up for the fight, and rolled his shoulders. Before he could jump out from behind the vehicle, the van lurched as if it had been hit with something. Tyler flinched and stumbled away from the van as the sounds of combat reached his ears and no doubt alerted any nearby Dead of his location.

"Great," he sighed. "I just can't catch a break today." as he darted around the front of the van to assist whoever had gotten caught in a skirmish with the Dead. His arms fell to his sides in a mix of dismay and disappointment.

"Stadium's down the street. 'Fraid you won't be able to catch a game today, though." the girl standing in front of him said, pulling on her arm until she heard a satisfying 'pop'. Around her feet, the Dead lay on the ground motionless and for the most part, faceless. Their noses were bashed in as well as they could be with a billiard ball. Bodgins shook his head, resting his bat on his shoulder.  

"Aren't you a little young to play pool?" he raised an eyebrow, smirking.

"I saved your ass didn't I?" she grumbled and pushed past him. Tyler Bodgins' eyes followed her before his legs started working and he hastened his pace until he was walking alongside her. "So, what are you doing sneaking around in the middle of the day?"

"Grocery shopping." Bodgins looked around the street for a store sign. The girl stopped abruptly and turned right.

"Follow me," she gestured to an alley between two buildings. "There's a place that hasn't gotten completely ransacked yet."

They wove through the alleyways, dealing with the lingering Dead as they went, until they reached a department store. A few Dead were shuffling near the back of the building, but other than that it seemed safe.

   Tyler tapped the sliding automatic doors, which remained in place. He looked over his shoulder at the girl who was already pulling a crowbar from her bag. Instead of placing the crowbar into his outstretched hand, she stepped forward and pried the doors open herself.

"Hurry up, I don't want to get caught by a hoard." she mumbled, squeezing through the opening. Tyler, getting stuck only once, followed suit and pulled the doors close enough to keep anything out. The only thing illuminating the store was the sunshine that was streaming in through the front windows, and besides a couple of items strewn across the floor it seemed relatively clean. Tyler's new 'buddy' was crouching in front of one of the isles with her billiard ball tightly clutched in her hand and was whistling lowly. They both jumped slightly as there was a sudden crash at the back of the store and somebody screamed. Tyler exchanged glances with the girl for a second before bolting to the back of the building. A door with an 'Employees Only' sign was ajar and the screaming seemed to be coming from inside the room.

    Tyler threw the door open to see a Dead grabbing at a pair of legs that were kicking wildly.Without thinking twice, he bashed the thing's skull in with his bat. The sound of erratic breathing turned his attention to the figure sprawled on the floor, halfway under a desk. The boy(he assumed it was a boy) jolted and scrambled backwards, scrunched up completely under the desk. Tyler knelt down and squinted his eyes in an attempt to adjust to the darkness of the room.

"Hey, you okay in there?" he asked the figure cowering underneath the desk. He was shoved over and the girl dragged the boy out by his ankle.

"Are you bit?" she asked.

"N-no." he stammered, holding up his arms defensively. She held up the billiard ball and stepped forward.

"Are. You. Bit?" she growled.

"No!" the boy insisted. Tyler watched in confusion as the girl abruptly left the room. "What the hell is with her?"

"Doesn't want to take risks, I guess." Tyler shrugged, standing up and dusting himself off. He sized up the boy on the floor. The room was so dim, he couldn't determine many details, but he could tell he was pale, had glasses and blonde hair.

"GUYS." the girl yelped, sliding into the doorway. "COMPANY."

'Crash!'