Jonathan hit the switch and ran over to the door as the metal started sliding upwards, the alarm was already going off loud and clear and he could hear the ... things ... screeching and hissing. He could hear footsteps but the footsteps weren't coming at them. They seemed confused on the other sides of the doors. With any luck they could make it out of here without any of them coming down the ... Jonathan paused as three came down the main stair well barreling towards them ... stairs. Jonathan stood behind Nigma, mainly because the man had a weapon and he didn't.
He looked around, the zombies where nearly on them and the door wasn't even a foot up. He looked around and caught the gleam of black as the red light from the alarm light flashed over it. That was it! Jonathan dove out from behind Nigma and ducked under the swinging arm of a zombie, its hand narrowly missing him as Jonathan dove towards the over turned hospital gurney. He grabbed onto the black baton that the guards used and swung at the zombie that was directly behind him, his hands already on his shoulders ready to bite him as he swung. Blood splattered onto his face as the thing fell to the ground dead.
"Aim for the head!" He said as he jumped over the fallen body.
Two feet off the ground. The door was taking far too long. More footsteps where coming. They were making too much noise even over the siren.
Edward listened, tense, as the alarm started wailing out through the asylum. Those things were out there, definitely, and in a frenzy over the flashing light and noise, but the witless things seemed to make no connection between the disturbance and this room... yet. They could make it. This could work, they could make it, they could...
Incoming.
Three of them came rushing down the stairs, and Edward took note of Crane standing behind him. He glanced back at the door... Not even a foot up. Alright, then. Time to make a fight of it.
Edward shifted the cane in his hand, gripping it toward the bottom, and swung it at the nearest assailant, using the solid, question-mark-shaped handle as a bludgeoning end. The thing's sternum cracked on impact, and discolored blood splattered. But still it kept coming.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Crane dive out from behind him and make an insanely brave dash for the old hospital gurney. Before Edward could say "Look out behind you," Crane came up swinging a guard's baton, and dropped the creature with a hit to the skull.
"Of course, the head," Edward muttered, and swung his cane at the nearest wretched thing again, spattering blood and cranial matter across the floor. "Always has to be the head."
Of all the cliché creatures that they just had to be exactly like, even though there was absolutely no way such a thing could possibly be real...
Nigma aimed another swing for the third one. Well. Logically impossible zombies? He could fix that problem. One at a time.
He glanced down at the door.
Jonathan moved back over to Nigma and stood behind him, though this time he wasn't hiding. His back was pressed against his, watching Nigma's back, though it was more so for his own benefit than Nigma's. If he was watching his back, Nigma would be smart enough to watch his. After all, he had to watch his own front.
Jonathan glanced down at the door as he knocked another zombie to the ground, stomping on its head to kill it. Three feet. They could make it. Pounding on the doors sounded on either side of them. "We're fucked." Jonathan said, swearing for what must have been the first time in his life.
Edward felt Crane's back against his, a reassuring barrier between him and anything that might come creeping up from behind. A simple, logical act for mutual self-interest, it felt like the beginnings of a strategy, an almost tangible increase in their chances for survival.
This was manageable.
...And then the doors started pounding. The Scarecrow's reaction was far from reassuring.
"Shut up," he hissed, and glanced down at the door. "There's got to be a way to speed this up."
Nothing was forthcoming.
"Or something to buy us more time."
Jonathan looked back at the door. Five feet. It still had another eight feet to go. They weren't even half way there, and there wasn't even a guarantee they would be able to get the door open. "Well, you got any bright ideas?" Jonathan asked swinging at another zombie that came flying down the stairs. Jonathan hit its head like a baseball player with a bat, it's head flying from its body and hitting the wall.
He could hear the gears in the door turning, pulling the heavy doors up. "Cause my only remaining plan isn't sounding so good in my own head!" He said knowing the only other option they had was suicide. There was no getting out of this. He heard gun shots come from upstairs and glanced at the stairs. The booming on the doors stopped as a doctor came running down the stairs, the gun shots still continuing from upstairs.
"Dr. Mathison!" Crane said as the doctor hit the bottom of the stairs. The doctor was covered in blood, though it didn't seem his own. Dr. Mathison's appearance was a surprise, though short lived as a zombie leaped from the second floor banister, barrelling straight down on the doctor, it's teeth cutting into his arm before Jonathan flew forward and knocked it back kicking it in the head and stomping down on it.
"I'm thinking!" Edward snapped, clubbing two more mindless assailants in the skull. These were not, by any means, circumstances contusive to concentration.
Still, he refused point-blank to just give up and die here, trapped right in front of the door to freedom, in a drab, unwashed, gore-spattered Arkham uniform, because of an unthinking, dead-eyed horde of ridiculous, reality-defying, biologically improbable zombies.
Besides, armed only with bludgeoning weapons, suicide was looking unfeasible anyway, and he refused to waste time attempting to plan better ways to off himself.
If he could just concoct some form of distraction...
The gunshots upstairs took him by surprise, and he almost couldn't believe that the booming so suddenly ceased.
"That'll work."
It was just as improbable as the zombies, but he'd take it.
A doctor came running down the stairs, but the gunfire continued.
Perfect. If there were more staff fighting it out upstairs, the noisy distraction would continue as long as their ammo held out, presenting plenty of other targets to occupy the creatures' attention. For now.
And the doctor would have security clearance. If there was any missing key or extra step to get the actual door open once the large metal one had finally cleared, there was a good chance each doctor would have it.
Another teeth-gnashing monster sprang for the Riddler's throat, and he slammed its head into the wall with his cane, dashing its brains (such as they were) out from both sides. So he was too late to stop the creature falling on the doctor from above. Crane pounced immediately after, and stomped the monster like an insect.
As for the Dr. Mathison... he had already been bitten.
A chill ran down Edward's spine. Before long, they would know just how much like movie zombies these things were.
"Crane," Edward eyed the Arkham doctor warily for any tell-tale signs, and casually moved within swinging distance. "Move away from Dr. Mathison."
It wouldn't come to that, of course. What he suspected was logically impossible. He would laugh about his momentary lapse in reason later. Because it was ludicrous that Dr. Mathison would suddenly change into... something else, right in front of them. But right now, however implausible that scenario might be, the Riddler was not willing to risk it.
Dr. Mathison laid on the floor a few minutes gripping his arm before his body seized back, his body starting to shake as if he were having a seizure for a few seconds before he flipped over onto his stomach.
"Six ... seven ..." Jonathan whispered under his breath as the doctor stopped moving. "Eight ... nine ... ten ... eleven ... twelve ..." The doctor shot up like a crouching angry cat and looked at them. Jonathan moved back as it jumped to his feet. He stared at Dr. Mathison - or what used to be Dr. Mathison for a moment before he swung forward, the baton crushing into his skull at the same time as the giant metal barrier clicked into place at the top of the door. He moved to the doctors body, cringing at the stench that was already reeking off his body. He grabbed the key card from the doctors jacket and ran for the door.
Edward's stomach turned as Dr. Mathison's body twisted and contorted, taking on the dead eyes and ashen, veiny appearance of disease and death in mere seconds. It felt completely surreal. It couldn't be happening, yet it simply was. Crane seemed well aware of the situation. In fact, he appeared to be observing it, documenting it mentally and storing it in his head for further application later.
Always the scientist.
What was left of Dr. Mathison sprung up on the attack, but Crane already had the situation under control. Edward focused on keeping his ally covered, caving in skulls left and right as more of them approached, allowing Crane to get the card key, much to Edward's satisfaction. There were certainly far worse people he could have escaped with.
Edward ran after Crane as he went for the door, covering his back and bludgeoning any more mindless, teeth-clacking zombies that got in their way.
Jonathan's heart pounded as the banging on the doors got louder, the wooden boards in the door handles starting to shudder and break. He slipped the key card through the door, it's red light flicking to green. Jonathan didn't know what was on the other side, but his fear of what was in here outweighed his fear of the unknown.
Jonathan grabbed onto the handle and pushed, the door giving little resistance. Unfortunately the security system could only be reactivated by the inside. Jonathan quickly assessed the situation. There seemed to be few of them on the grounds and the only way out of the asylum was the front door. He doubted these things were smart enough to get that door open but who knew what they were capable of.
Crane had the door open quickly, and none too soon; the thumping and pounding on the other doors seemed to have returned tenfold, and their makeshift barrier wouldn't last.
Thoughts raced through Edward's head. There was no way to make the steel door come down behind them from the outside. Would the front door open again without a key? Edward wasn't sure. These things were clearly able to break down a door, given strong enough numbers, but that took time. Could they open a door? For all he knew, they could. And the only way to keep them in if they wanted out bad enough was... to reactivate the security system.
Fuck.
No way of convincing Crane to do it, and no time to bicker.
Edward tossed his duffle bag over to Crane and snarled: "Keep that door open, or I swear I'll come back and bite you."
Given the circumstances, it wasn't as lame a threat as it should have been.
Then he sprinted to the security control panel, spilling out anagrams and curses in equal, jumbled measure under his breath, cane snapping out to fell a zombie as it lunged for him. He skidded to a halt at the controls, eyes flicking back and forth from the besieged doors (now groaning and creaking inward, convex with the weight of God knew how many blood-thirsty monsters) to their exit. He flipped the switch, and sprinted headlong back toward the door.
The larger, metal door was lowering slowly enough; that wasn't his worry. But there was nothing to keep Crane from slamming the door behind it in his face, taking the card key with him. The only thing Crane could be counted on to do was save his own skin.
Damn-damn-damn-damn...
Almost there, glaring at Crane all the way. If you lock me in here now I swear I'll... What? Become a mindless killing machine? Damn it! He dove for the door.
((A/N - Aaaaand there's chapter 4 another loooong week gone by. Hope you all enjoyed and until next week when I update Chalk outline ... Hope you all enjoy, please R&R. New chapters every week, alternating between For Someone Who's Dead and Chalk Outline. Busy busy bees we are. :D ))