As Jacob stumbled down the last few steps, concrete and metal raining down around him as the building came crashing down upon itself, he felt his legs beginning to give out beneath him. The shock of the explosion combined with the exertion of climbing up (and then down) thirty flights of stairs had sapped him of any strength he possessed. No… goddamn it, no… it can't end like this! Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to take another step. And another. With a conscious effort of will, he raised his arm to open the door that looked out over the street, and a broken piece of I-beam slammed into the ground near him, embedding itself in the floor. Shitshitshitshit! Jacob's mind frantically hammered at the cage of exhaustion and numbness that had settled over his body, and, painfully slowly, he pushed open the door and half-collapsed out of it, staggering onto the sidewalk. God, I hope there aren't any infected around. His head was still ringing from the blast, and it felt like the explosion had turned every muscle in his body to rubber. He was lucky to be alive. Turning, he saw Rob stumbling down the stairs behind him, his bulk having slowed him down. "Jaco-…" Rob, however, never got to finish the word, as the entire staircase came crashing down on top of him with a deafening clatter and crash, throwing up a cloud of concrete dust.
The grim finality of the situation took a while to settle in. Jacob stood there, on the sidewalk, watching in stunned silence as the building came crashing down, piece by piece. Each impact of a chunk of wall or floor slamming into the ground seemed to shake him, as if he was a leaf blowing in the wind, barely hanging on to his mother tree. After the dust had settled, and St. Mark's hospital was nothing more than a slowly shifting pile of concrete and rebar, Jacob's brain finally kicked back in. George was dead. Rob was dead. Jack was dead. The three men that he'd known for the past three weeks, loved like brothers, were gone forever. Swallowed up by the living hell that this city had become. BOOM… BOOM… the ground shook as explosions ripped apart the city, the planes moving farther and farther away, letting loose their lethal payload onto the raging turmoil below. The worst of the first bomb's shock was fading, and Jacob was relieved to find himself (mostly) in control of his body again. There was still an aching grief in the pit of his stomach that he stubbornly shoved down, vowing to deal with later, but it was a whole lot better than a few moments ago. Drawing his axe as they started to gather, drawn by the noise of the collapsing building, he gritted his teeth and surveyed his opposition. They were coming from everywhere, but fortunately hadn't seen him yet. They were still just idly curious, attracted by a new sound, and hadn't identified him as prey yet. But that was about to change.
As soon as the first one noticed him, the reaction of the rest was a foregone conclusion. The feral howl let out by the blood-crazed zombie as it sighted Jacob immediately attracted the attention of the others, and they surged forward like a pack of wolves. Only it wasn't just a pack. There were easily a hundred zombies in the street, and more were coming from houses and alleys, forming a tide of unloving flesh and blood that swept towards Jacob like a flood. His eyes darted around, but no exit presented itself, no route of escape except through the horde. "Well shit," he said, hefting his axe. "Guess it's just you and me left, old girl. Let's give these undead assholes something to remember us by, shall we?"
The first zombie to reach him was met with bloodstained steel, the axe biting deep into its forehead and felling it instantly. Planting his boot on the corpse and ripping his axe out of its face – triggering a jet of fetid blood as the foul thing slumped backwards – Jacob whirled it through the air to decapitate a second zombie, its severed head hanging in the air insanely for a moment, an expression of inexpressible hunger and rage sculpted forever onto its features. The hissing metal reaped a grim toll among his attackers, slicing open any of the zombies foolish enough to come within reach. However, the sheer numbers of attacking undead soon wore down Jacob's defense, and he felt cold, lifeless arms lock themselves around him from behind. The zombie's stinking breath was hot on his neck, and the others closed in during the temporary distraction. Reaching behind him, he grabbed the zombie by the scruff of its neck like a cat, and with strength born of desperation, hauled it off of his back, hurling it into the crowd in front of him. However, his respite was brief before one slammed into him from the front in a full-body tackle, knocking him to the ground and straining for his throat. From his prone position, Jacob slugged the zombie across the face as hard as he could, but it didn't seem to notice and its head snapped back almost instantly, seemingly unconscious of its broken jaw hanging at an odd angle. Keeping the zombie at bay with his fire axe as the others closed in, Jacob reached behind him and unsheathed the pump-action shotgun slung on his back. Planting the barrel under the flailing zombie's chin, he squeezed the trigger, blasting the now-headless corpse backwards off of him with the force of the shot.
Leaping to his feet, Jacob held one weapon in each hand, racking the slide of the shotgun on his leg. Bracing it against his torso, he blew another zombie to pieces, before lopping the head off one that got a little too close. How much longer can I keep this up? He thought, desperately looking around for any help. He was starting to tire, and hadn't even killed nearly half of the horde yet. Shit! This looks like it for me. Growling oaths, he did something that none of the infected would have expected if they had the mental capacity to expect anything; charged. Dropping the shotgun, he held his axe two-handed and whirled it like a Viking berserker, cleaving a bloody path through the horde. Lifeless hands grasped at his coat, and he shrugged it off, running on and leaving the infected to play with their new chew toy. Vaulting over a parked car, he sprinted down the street, his undershirt soaked with sweat, breathing hard. God damn that was close! Turning to watch as the flood of zombies poured down the road after him, he cursed under his breath. He wasn't out of this yet.
After running for an entire city block, Jacob's lungs burned like fire, his legs felt about to give out at any minute, and he was almost to the point of giving up when he saw a sign dangling from a nearby store that renewed his hope; Bubba's Gun Emporium, it proclaimed in faded red letters. Swerving to the side, he smashed the boarded-up window with one stroke from his axe, and leaped through. Diving behind the counter, he snatched up twin UMP sub-machine guns. Desperately ramming magazines into the stocky weapons, he stood up from behind the counter just as the horde reached the store. Bracing the twin SMGs against his shoulders, he squeezed the triggers and let out a roar of defiance, bellowing to the night as the swarm outside was torn apart by the hail of bullets. The guns clicked dry just as the last zombie fell in a bloody heap, and Jacob slumped against the wall behind him, sliding down it to sit panting, guns falling from his limp fingers. Hot damn, does a nap sound good right about now…
"Wake up." The voice, cold and hard as ice, punctured the abyss like a knife. Jacob blinked drowsily up at the figure standing over him, but all he could see silhouetted against the window was the outline of a long trenchcoat and a wide-brimmed hat. "Get up. Now. We're leaving," the figure said, and Jacob caught the glint of glasses beneath the hat. Blinking repeatedly to clear the haze of sleep from his eyes, Jacob snatched his axe from the ground and pushed himself to his feet, even though his legs groaned in protest. "Who the hell are you?" Jacob said, walking around the counter until he stood in front of the newcomer, who was around an inch shorter than him and thin enough to look almost emaciated. "I'm saving your sorry ass, and that's all you need to know right now. Follow me," trenchcoat-hat-and-glasses said, turning on his heel and stepping nonchalantly through the broken window in a swirl of coattails.