Nicole's Note: Thank god, my roommate isn't in the room right now. Please, she's keeping me hostage down here! Call for help! The only thing she lets me eat are the rats that share the basement with me! Oh crap, I can hear her returning from the bathroom! TELL MY MOM I LOVE HER!
Banana: Dammit Nicole, I leave the room for only half a minute to pee and already you're telling people I keep you locked in the basement!
The Teufort Police Station stood completely deserted within. Most of the on-duty officers were currently out at the barricade, leaving behind a lobby strewn with police reports, room temperature coffee, and half eaten donuts. They looked around, noting that the lobby itself was about the size of the foyer of a mansion, which was rather large for a police department serving such a small population like Teufort.
A man who had a mustache that looked like a woolly bear caterpillar had taken residence on his face sat upright behind the front desk when he heard the door shut, the badge clipped to his uniform shirt identifying him as Chief Ryan. He didn't look all that surprised to see the Teufort Nine standing there.
"Oh! Visitors! You've come to file a missing persons report too, eh?"
"Missing persons?" Spy asked.
"Yes! We've been having missing persons reports filed left and right since last night, don't cha know?"
"Hm. Probably all of them were eaten by zombies," Medic shrugged nonchalantly.
"Zombies? Why do people always come in here talking aboot zombies?" the chief said. "It's probably just some of them hippies, hopped up on that mary-jew-anna stuff I've been hearing about lately. This will all blow over in a week or two, don't cha know?"
"Right..." Sniper replied. "Listen, we need a way out of Teufort, but the mayor's got us all barricaded off. You're the police, so maybe you know a way out?"
"Hmm...barricaded off from the world, you say?" Chief Ryan replied thoughtfully. "I always knew this day would come. And they all laughed at me when I had a secret escape tunnel built into my office!"
"So you do have a way out!" Engineer said with relief.
"I do. Follow me."
He led them to his office all the way at the back of the gargantuan police station. The room was full of bookshelves laden with detective novels and police manuals and creepy taxidermy animals. Soldier was looking at a stuffed raccoon posed to look like it was fishing in horror and had a hand clamped over Lieutenant Bites' eyes.
Reaching under his desk, the chief hit a button which moved one of the bookshelves aside, revealing...yet another door. "Ta da!" Chief Ryan said as he presented them with the locked door.
"That's great...now how about you unlock it for us?" Scout requested.
"Hmm...that's the thing. It requires five keys to unlock it and I only have one, don't cha know?" Chief Ryan reached into his pocket and pulled out a yellow key, unlocking one of the tumbler locks with it. "If you want to get oot, you'll have to find the four other keys, don't cha know?"
Spy looked at him in confusion. "Wait, what? You have an emergency door, which I might remind you is intended as a quick escape for emergencies, and you need five keys to unlock it, which you hid in five different locations? What kind of an idiot thinks this emergency plan is a good idea?!"
"That sounds like a great idea! Why don't we have an emergency plan like that?" Soldier asked.
"Exhibit A..."
"So, where are these other keys then?" Demoman asked.
"Hidden in various strategic locations aboot the city, don't cha know?" Chief Ryan replied.
"What? You mean we have to go back out there to find them?" Sniper asked. He indicated his empty sniper rifle. "Can you at least give us some bullets? A spare gun maybe?"
"Oh, we don't have any of that around here," the chief shook his head. "We here at the TPD don't believe in using that kind of lethal force, don't cha know?"
"You don't believe in guns?" Spy asked. "You're the police!"
"Oh, but I can give you some of these!" he said. He reached under the desk and brought out a box, overturning it so that a bunch of walkie talkies spilled out of it. "Maybe you can throw them at 'em, eh?"
"Can you just tell us where the bloody keys are so we can get them and go?" Sniper sighed.
Chief Ryan made them a map indicating where the other four keys were located. They decided it would be faster to just go in pairs and find them all at once. Each pair would take one of the police two-ways, which were all tuned to the same frequency so that they could keep in touch. While they all debated who should stick with who, Engineer busied himself by setting up one of his sentries in the middle of the lobby, aiming it at the front door and programming it to target any invading zombies.
The first key was in the station somewhere. Chief Ryan had absolutely no idea where, but he had a very good feeling that it was in a box and that box was probably either blue or green. Or gold. Or maybe even magenta. In fact, maybe it wasn't even in a box at all. Maybe there was a statue involved?
"Great. This place is a mansion!" Medic grumbled as he and Heavy went off to search the station for it.
The second one was at a well known liquor store down the street.
"Call it!" Demoman exclaimed. No one had a chance to argue with him before he and Soldier both raced off out the front door after it, the raccoon dangling off of the sleeve of Soldier's coat.
The third missing key was at a donut shop favored by the TPD.
"Who chose the hiding places for these keys?" Spy questioned.
"We needed to think of a place where no one would think to look for them, don't cha know?" Chief Ryan replied.
"Yes. Because no one would ever think the police would hide something at a donut shop," he replied sardonically before heading off to find it.
"Bet I can beat you there, bitch!" Scout shouted as he ran past him and bolted off down the street.
"Scout, wait!" Spy shouted as he followed after him. "One of these days I'm going to break both his legs so he can't run off anymore..."
"And the last one is at my house, don't cha know!" the chief said. He pushed a map across the desk towards Sniper. "It's this one right here! It's a bit far to walk though, so you can borrow my car!"
Sniper looked at the large red circle on the map. The address was written on the side with the same bright red marker. He looked up from the map and watched Engineer move on from his sentry to board up the windows.
"I take it you're not coming?" Sniper replied.
"Sorry. Have to make sure this place ain't overrun without you guys here to protect it," Engineer apologized.
Sniper looked at Pyro and sighed when he realized that he was now stuck with the leftovers. He was already pretty against the thought of having to go out to the police chief's house with two broken ribs. Whatever Medic had done had done little to help with the pain and the idea of having to go out with two broken ribs and Pyro tagging along was even worse. He wondered if he could trade him for Heavy instead, but he knew asking would likely hurt Pyro's feelings, and Medic would probably retaliate if he tried to take him.
Pyro seemed eager to follow, though he gave Engineer one last longing glance as though he were about to board a train to another country and never see him again rather than simply run out to pick up a key. It suddenly occurred to Sniper that he hadn't seen Pyro and Engineer separated for a while now. The separation must have been miserable for Pyro, who didn't have many, if any, friends outside of the other mercenaries, and was closest to Engineer.
"Come back safe, Pyro," Engineer said, clapping a hand on Pyro's shoulder. Pyro nodded and followed Sniper out the door. Engineer waited until he was gone to return to adding wooden boards to the windows with a power drill.
A bell on the door jingled as Demoman pushed it open. He and Soldier looked around and quickly determined that there was no one there. "If it's not okay fer me to jus' take this, just say no!" Demo shouted into the back as he grabbed a bottle off a shelf. "No protests. Grab as much as ya can!" he said to Soldier.
Engineer's voice crackled over the radio. "Did anyone reach their destination yet?" he asked.
"Non," Spy's voice replied. "I'm still trying to catch up with Speedy Gonzales."
"Still on the road," Sniper added.
"Aye, we're here," Demoman replied. "Does anyone want anything while we're here?"
There was a pause before Medic's voice crackled through the speaker. "Grab a case of German beer while you're there. None of that American Scheiße!"
"Hey, ah actually like that 'American shit'!" Engineer protested.
"If I were a key, where would I be?" Soldier asked.
He tried to leap over the counter in an awesome action movie-ish way, but ended up falling over onto the floor. He looked up to see if Demoman had seen that and was relieved that he was looking the other way.
"Key's not over here," Demoman said, though it was seriously debatable if he was really looking all that hard.
"Not here either," Soldier determined upon fishing around under the counter. There was nothing of use under there at all, just a bottle of painkillers, an adrenaline pen, a shotgun, and a box of shells. He turned around and suddenly saw it, a pink key with a key chain that looked like a bottle of Jäger dangling from Lieutenant Bites' mouth. "We found it!" he shouted.
"Where?!" Demoman popped up practically out of nowhere on the other side of the counter, several liquor bottles in his arms.
"Right there!" Soldier pointed out the key.
"Oh...the key. Ah thought you found where they hid the Kahlua..."
There was a sudden banging on the front door. They both spun around and found that zombies were beginning to swarm the store. "Dear god, they're everywhere!" Soldier said in alarm. "Get behind me, Lieutenant Bites!"
"PROTECT THE BOOZE!" Demoman shouted before charging at them, grenade launcher locked and loaded.
The donut shop was several blocks from the police station in the opposite direction of the liquor store. The lights were off inside, leaving the interior lit only as far as the sunlight could penetrate. Scout held his face up to the window and peeked in.
"Are they open?" he asked.
"Guess not," Spy replied. The zombies that appeared last night must have put a damper on their usual schedule.
Scout reached for the handle and was surprised when he pulled the door open with just a slight tug. An earsplitting burglar alarm went off, the sound reverberating through the empty streets. Scout quickly slammed it shut again and looked back at Spy with a guilty expression.
"Someone's getting fired..." he stated of the unlocked front door.
They both heard a thousand shrieks echoing through the streets and looked around, trying to pinpoint the source of the sound only to realize that there were several coming from several different directions.
"I think we need to get that key and leave," Spy said frantically. He pulled the door open and shoved Scout inside, following in after and shutting the door.
Scout immediately began trashing the place in his search while Spy jammed a mop through the handles of the door to keep them from being opened. Crawling out from hiding places under cars, emerging from dark allies, and charging up the street were hundreds of zombies, all in varying stages of decomposition. The wooden handle of the mop would not hold long and Spy was suddenly very aware of the fragility of glass windows.
"Did you find it?" he asked over his shoulder.
"No! Help me!" Scout shouted over the screech of the alarm.
They both tore through the donut shop, checking for a hidden nail on the wall, a place where it might be hidden under a table, anything, but the key was nowhere to be found. Suddenly Scout had an epiphany.
"Spy, help me get the register open!" he said before hopping behind the cash register.
"Scout, this is no time to start robbing the place!" he retorted.
"No, I mean the key might be in there!" When Spy hesitated a little longer than he would have liked, he quickly explained. "When I was 16 I had a summer job, and we hid spare keys in the registers all the time!"
Spy jumped when the sound of pounding on the glass behind him caught him by surprise. He looked at the zombies banging on the windows and noticed that a few hairline cracks were already appearing in the glass.
"Alright, move!" He shoved Scout aside and pulled a lockpick out of his jacket, which he used to jimmy the register open. After a moment there was a click and the register drawer rolled open. They dug through a few loose screws, paperclips, and a pen, and found an orange key at the very bottom. "Scout, for once you actually did something right!"
"What do you mean 'for once'?"
Shards of shattered glass sprayed the floors as arms jutted through the windows and reached for them. "Scout, to the back!" Spy ordered. He didn't have to order him twice. Scout was already at the backdoor by the time Spy even managed to turn around.
They hoped for a quick getaway through the back alley. They almost made it to the end before Scout pointed straight ahead and shouted, "Walkers!"
Emerging from the emergency side exit of the Early Risers Retirement Home next door to the donut shop was a barrage of geriatric zombies moving with the assistance of walking frames, all of them converging on their location and cutting off their escape. Spy grabbed Scout by the arm and dragged him back, turning him around and pushing him towards the other end of the alley.
"Go!" he shouted over the sounds of moaning.
"Spy, it's a dead end!" Scout pointed out.
"Get onto the dumpster! We can climb onto the roof from there!"
Climbing onto a smelly dumpster was not exactly Spy's preferred afternoon activity, but getting eaten alive wasn't either, so it was an even trade off. Scout pulled his handgun and fired a few rounds off into the heads of any undead that got too close to climbing up with them.
"Scout, get up there!" Spy ordered him.
"Are you mad? Not without you!" Scout retorted.
"I'm going up after you, now get the hell up there!"
Scout did not look so eager to abandon Spy, but he had made it clear that he wanted him to climb up first. Maybe it was because he knew that Scout was better at jumping and thus hoped he'd be up there to pull him up or maybe he just wanted to make sure that Scout was safe before he saved himself, in which case he found that kind of weird that Spy would care that much.
He leapt up, catching the edge of the roof and using both the gutter and side of the building as leverage to climb. He didn't realize how high up it was until he was actually up there and he suddenly realized that there was no way in Hell that Spy would be able to make that jump. Somehow he knew that Spy had already figured that out long before him.
"Spy! I'm up!" he shouted down to him once he'd made it. "Give me your hand!" Maybe, just maybe, he might be able to make it after all.
"And so you are," Spy replied. "You have the key. Get back to the police station!"
"What? I already told you, I'm not goin' anywhere without you!"
"Scout, this is no time to argue! Get up there before..."
The sheer force of the alarming number of zombies pressing forward shoved the heavy dumpster backwards in a surprisingly abrupt manner. Spy lost his balance and fell into the crowd, quickly disappearing under the mass of walkers and grabbing hands.
"SPY!" Scout shouted as he watched him swiftly get engulfed by the horde. He fired shots into the heads of any zombie nearby where Spy had fallen, but did so with the worry that he might hit him. "SPY! WHERE ARE YOU?!"
Will Spy make it, or has he already been messily killed off by walkers? Will he survive only to be captured by the Classic team and be bludgeoned to death in front of his teammates with a bat? How many episodes of The Walking Dead can I watch in a row before the sleep deprivation makes me pass out? How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop? Why do people like minions so much? For the answer to these frustratingly unresolved cliffhangers, rage online with your fellow fans for several weeks on end and then tune in a year later to find out!
What the hell is that accent that Chief Ryan is speaking in, you ask? Originally I was trying to channel Pickles the Drummer from Metalocalypse, but somewhere down the line he became some sort of Canadian...I suck at writing accents, is what I'm saying.