shadowsworn

OOC: from the time catherine screams to when she runs away, only about 30-45 seconds pass. With the short amount of time, combined with the difficulty of navigating a ruined house, I'm assuming the others wouldn't be able to get there in time to help, and would find Helena as she is described at the end of my post.

IC: Catherine gripped Helena's arm in excitement.

"There are voices! I told you there were survivors here!" she whispered.

Helena stood still, trying to listen. The house was pretty big, and all the destruction and decay made it difficult to hear where sounds were coming from.

"We don't want to sneak up on whoever it is," she said, frowning, "Even if they're not thugs, I don't want to surprise them and get shot ourselves..."

The sound of breaking glass behind her made her turn. A ragged, grey arm had punched through one of the ground floor windows, and in a moment it had seized Catherine's arm.

The girl screamed and tried to pull away, half-falling as she did so, but the zombie's rotting, four fingered hand was gripped firmly around her arm.

Helena swore, and pulled out her gun, but by this time Catherine had been pulled in front of the window. Behind her, Helena could see a second and third zombie reaching for the girl.

"Adam!" Helena screamed, "They've got Catherine! Do something, you asshole!"

She ran towards the window, narrowly dodging one of the grasping arms, and hacked at one of the limbs with the sharp end of the sword. The hand's grip loosened, and Helena reached over, intending to wrench Catherine backwards, but at that moment she felt one of the cold, foul hands grappling at her own arm, and she fell backwards just in time.

By this time, Catherine was half in, half out of the window, and there was blood on the floor and spattering the frame of the window where the shards of glass had pierced her flesh.

She saw the girl, her face twisted by pain, kick back, catching one of the zombies in the face as it bent forward with it's mouth open, forcing it back. Then Helena raised her gun, and began firing.

Her first shot hit the wooden frame, in an explosion of rotten wood. The second shot went over Catherine's shoulder, striking the shoulder of the other zombie holding Catherine, blowing it's upper arm apart.

With no one holding her, Catherine fell with a cry of pain from the window, and lay for a moment on the ground.

Helena ran to the window. There were still at least ten zombies out there, and she could see more closing in.

Shit... she fired the Desert Eagle again, hitting one zombie near to Catherine in the face. Too many.

She felt her eyes blur slightly with tears of frustration and fear. She forced them back with an angry shake of her head.

"Run!" she screamed, firing as quickly as she could now, just trying to keep them away from Catherine. And, to her surprise, Catherine raised herself, one bloody hand clutching the frame of the window, not feeling the sharp glass that cut her.

"No time," Helena said, as Catherine opened her mouth to speak, "You need to go, I'll meet up with you later..."

and Catherine nodded, and turned, ducking and weaving, Helena's shots driving back the zombies closing around her. Then, suddenly, she was free, and she ran down the street.

Helena stood watching her for a moment, and then forced herself to turn away, pushing fresh bullets into the Desert Eagle with an aggressive absentmindedness. Several of the bullets fell on the floor, and she stood looking at them for several seconds, before bending down to pick them up.

Finally, she snapped the barrel into place, and fell more than sat against what remained of a cabinet, looking expressionless as the moans of the zombies and the voices of the other people in the house came nearer. One tear rolled down her cheek, then another, and, silently, she put her head in her leather glove clad hands, her purple hair falling over her face as she did so.

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