None of them said a word. They were frozen. Alyx was glaring at Claire, her pistol gripped tightly in her fist. Gordon still had one hand on Claire's hip, the other hovering next to her face. Claire's fingers were intertwined in Freeman's hair. Alyx was the one who made the first move, and what she did Claire didn't expect at all. Her pistol twitched upwards, as if she were thinking about actually shooting them. Gordon moved Claire behind him slightly to protect her. Then, Alyx simply turned and walked out of the building.

"Alyx! What the hell are you doing?!" Claire yelled out. Alyx didn't respond. "You're going to get killed!!"

Gordon ran after her. Claire started to follow, but he stopped her.

"What?" Claire asked.

Gordon motioned to her clothes, and she realized she didn't have her suit or any weapons. She sprinted off towards the room while Gordon chased after Alyx. Claire scrambled into her suit, not bothering to take off her other clothes. She grabbed her weapons and the shotgun and revolver that Gordon had left behind, and headed out of the room. She jogged down the hallway towards the direction that the other two had headed. Then she realized something. She was alone.

And that was a bad thing.

Claire had to find the other two immediately. She exited the building. She glanced around, but couldn't see Alyx or Gordon. Carrying two extra weapons wasn't easy, and she was still wrestling with them, trying to find a comfortable way to hold them. She finally ended up shifting three to one arm, and using her free hand to hold Gordon's revolver at the ready.

"Leave me alone Gordon!!" she heard.

She was surprised, it seemed to come from above her. She looked up, and saw Alyx on a ledge on the building to her left, with Gordon standing on a platform almost directly above her. She wondered how Alyx had gotten over there, then realized she must have taken some flying leap of faith from the platform that Gordon was on. She looked on nervously as Gordon prepared to jump. He made it, landing slightly roughly on the edge.

"Gordon!" she called up to him. When he looked at her, she tossed up his two guns. He nodded in thanks, then turned back to Alyx, who was standing at the far end of the ledge, looking as if she were going to jump off. Claire climbed up two ladders until she reached the platform, then closed her eyes and leaped onto the outcropping. She scuffed her hands up a bit in the landing, but over all it was pretty graceful.

She glanced up and saw that Alyx and Gordon had disappeared. She walked to the edge where she had last seen them and looked down. There were some wooden boards suspended in the air, held by some cross-support beams. Claire jumped down onto them, trying not to loose her balance in the landing. Alyx was trying to clamber through a window into a building at the other end. Crazy bitch. Claire thought.

Gordon was right behind Alyx, and Claire was soon to follow. She entered the small room and saw that Gordon was standing in front of the doorway, blocking Alyx from going any further. She turned to exit out the window again, and saw Claire blocking her in that direction, too. She scowled and stared at the floor.

"Leave me alone." Alyx said.

"In the middle of Ravenholm? You're crazy. We can't just let you wander around here alone. Even if you hate us, we still have to stick together. After we get out of here, you can run off and do whatever the hell you want." Claire said. Gordon nodded in agreement.

Alyx continued glaring at the floor, refusing to look at either of them.

"Fine. But you two get all lovey dovey in front of me, I'm out." she snapped.

Claire glanced up, and saw that Gordon was mouthing Alyx's words, making a weird face and crossing his eyes, mocking her. Claire fought furiously to keep from bursting out laughing. She shook her head and made a cutting motion across her throat to tell him to knock it off; if she started laughing, there was no way she would be able to convince Alyx to come with them. He simply grinned and winked at her. When she felt confident she wouldn't start cracking up, she spoke again.

"'Kay. We might as well keep going now." Claire said. She knew this was going to suck. She had loved Gordon for so long, and now when she found out he loved her too, she couldn't go near him. She felt like punching Alyx, but refrained. They had to get out of this.

They entered the adjacent room to find a huge, gaping hole in the floor. They glanced down into it, and saw a zombie wandering around, moaning to itself. Gordon took out his chunky Anti-Grav gun, grabbed small fuel tank with it, and launched it at the zombie. It exploded on contact, killing the zombie and catching its corpse on fire. They all dropped down into it, and Alyx shot a headcrab that was waiting for them. They went into a hallway, then exited through a door into a small alleyway.

"What the heck?" Claire muttered. There was a small crank, with a rope attached to it, which strung around some beams to support an old white car that was hanging at the mouth of the alley. Gordon studied it with a experienced eye.

"Guys…get ready…" Claire said, raising her trusty shotgun. There were at least fifteen zombies wandering around in the courtyard at the end of the alley. Gordon suddenly moved, and walked over to the lever. He waited until there were about five zombies under the car, then pulled the lever. The car dropped, crushing all of the zombies under it. The car automatically lifted and dropped a few times.

"That reverend guy is officially my best friend." Claire said. Gordon repeated the wait-for-the-zombies-then-drop-the-car method until they were all dead. He lifted the car again and made sure it was staying up until he and the girls walked out into the place where about five roads met. Looking down each one, they saw that all the roads had been boarded off.

"Now what?" Alyx asked, looking at Gordon with a solve-this-one-wise-guy look. He glanced up, and suddenly seemed to understand something. He walked back to the lever, and pulled it. When the car dropped, he jumped on top of it, then stepped onto some boards suspended above the street. Claire made Alyx go next, to make sure she didn't run off on them again. After she was safely on the boards with Gordon, Claire walked up to the car. The cables supporting the car creaked, and she hesitated a moment before stepping on it.

She got about halfway up before she knew the cables were going to snap. She dove off, just as the car crashed down, landing inches from her body. Gordon looked over with an expression of panic, then relief as he saw she was ok. But not for long. In the distance, Claire heard a very distinct noise….

Fastzombies. And lots of them.

"Shit." she muttered.

AUTHORS NOTE: I have no idea why the last chapter was italicized and underlined. I hope this chapter doesn't do it too. :/