A loud bang sounded, echoing around the small store front and causing Alice to emit a small scream. Her eyes already adjusted to the dark, scanned the store front but could see nothing out of the ordinary. Alice held her breath as her fingertips rested against the cool glass, in the dark store front she could barely see her reflection in the glass pane, and was kind of glad. She had gotten drunk, had sex, been attacked and then locked herself in a building with a bunch of insane people…Alice could tell that she would not look her best when she got to a mirror. And if what these people were saying was true, then something was wrong with this town and she'd probably die. What! What was she thinking, of course they were insane. Zombies didn't exist…but as the blond thought it over, it did kind of make sense. The way that Adam and his friends had been killed, yet Alice hadn't been asked to view the body, the way people had been going missing for weeks, and that man who had attacked Declan. At first Alice had thought 'drunken, homeless guy stoned off his face and going cannibal' but his eyes were void of any human emotion, and his skin had felt waxy when she had grasped his unnaturally strong forearms. If she was going to believe that zombies were real, and that they were following people trying to eat them, then she wanted to go back and stand with the group…after all they had a gun. But then again she was surrounded by guns, and with a grimace Alice used her fist to break through the glass, and then using her elbow she popped most of the glass out of the frame. Reaching in, she extracted the heavy gun and smiled…much better.

Alice was stood the serving counter, reaching for a box of ammo when the second bang sounded, followed quickly by bang three and four. Shoving a box in each of her pockets, Alice hopped down off the counter and walked straight into the muscled chest of Louis, who was flanked by the rest of the small group. Backing up to allow them inside the store front, Alice peered through the large window for an assailant outside that would cause that repeated banging, but saw nothing.

"What's that banging?" Jay asked, voicing the concern each of them felt. Shaking his head, Louis stepped closer to the window than Alice had dared go, and peered out into the darkness. Looking back at the band of civilians that he had decided to protect, the Latino just shook his head once more to show he couldn't see anything. Alice, trusting that If anything nasty was coming for them that Louis would have seen it, pulled out a box of ammo from her pocket and started to load the gun, discarding the now half filled box in favor for a fresh one that was on a lower shelf. Smiling at Kim to try and break the tension, Alice was given a glare back that said 'I'm alpha female, your nothing' and all she could really do was smile at the girl. If they came to blows, Kim would wipe the floor with her, and she didn't fancy taking her chances running from zombies with a black eye.

"Why don't you all get a weapon…" Louis said, and like trained animals the team set to work, each grabbing a weapon that they could find and bringing it back to Louis so he could tell them how to hold, shoot it properly. They all had pistols similar to the one she had picked up, except from Jen, who grabbed a crossbow gingerly. When they were all armed, Alice noticed they unintentionally formed a circle around Louis, as if waiting for orders…and it was then, in a silent moment that the shop descended into darkness.

Screaming, Alice grabbed the closest thing to her, which happened to be Louis' arm, which he shrugged from her grasp and simply shouted

"Hey!" to stop the panic that had set in when the lights had gone out. Pushing his way past her, Alice saw Louis disappear into the darkness that surrounded the group and come back a few seconds later, and as he did the lights came on. Not the natural light from the moon and streetlights, but the fluorescent lights that the shop used to illuminate its contents. Reassured, the group visibly relaxed all except Jay, who had spotted what a few seconds later Alice did, and slowly, one by one the rest of the group did. The darkness had not come from the breaking of the street lights like Alice had thought, but the window was blocked by a black curtain. A twitching, shifting curtain of darkness. And now that the curtain had descended the bangs increased, into a symphony of noise and slowly cracks started to form on the thin glass…

"Crows" was the only word Alice had heard Martin say, and the only word that any of them got to say before the window shattered and all hell broke loose.

The birds swarmed in, and the group as one rushed for the door, with Kim leading followed by Martin, Louis and then Jay. Alice was next, and the young blond got through the door and was about to pull Jen through the door so she could shut it when the swarm of crow hit Jen all at once, her thin frame getting lifted easily into the air and slamming into the wall behind the counter. Her screams only lasted for a few seconds, and when they stopped Alice slammed the door and ran down the corridor toward the shouts of Jay. And as she moved, the door behind her burst open and Alice had to sprint as the black swarm followed her closely, and turning the corner on a corridor, Alice screamed as she dropped down into the cellar, and with a bang Louis and Jay pulled the trap door closed. For thirty seconds, the group sat in a stunned silence, each breathing heavily and silently mourning the loss of a member. It was during this silence that Alice noticed the glint of a wedding band on Martins finger…so that was the 'good lady' that the zombies had grabbed. Martin had lost his wife, and now the group had lost a member, each sitting in a circle in the small basement, the only sound was the scratching of the birds on the wooden floor above their heads, their squawking and a dull ripping sound that Alice was only fifty percent sure wasn't in her head. She had left Jen, when she could have fired into the swarm and tried…the ripping sound was the guilt in her head. And she deserved it.