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</div></div>LuAnn looked back, her hand clutching around the base of her bow, as she heard Zach's boots scrape over the pavement.  She didn't stop, not yet, but she divided her attention behind her and in front, already planning out the moves she would need to notch and loose an arrow if it was needed.<br/><br/>It wasn't.  It went down, and it may not have stopped, but it was slowed long enough that they could burst through the doors and slam them behind.   Leaving Zack to secure it behind them, LuAnn looked for immediate dangers, checking behind the reception area desk, and then padding on the dusty, stained carpeting whose faded, dusty surface still held the oriental design.<br/><br/>Was it like this in other countries?  Was Japan now wall to wall zombies on the crowded city streets?<br/><br/>The thought was moot.  Hell, she didn't even know what it was like in her own country.  The days of public broadcast were over, though she supposed that satellites overhead still beamed down information to receivers that had no power to pick it up.  Maybe somewhere they'd acted fast enough, decisively enough, to protect the power grids ... military bases and the like ... but that might as well be on some distant planet for all it mattered to them in the here and now.<br/><br/>Nothing under the desk, nothing behind the overturned sofa, the furniture -- once orderly, now askew -- where she imagined that family and friends might have visited in happier days.  Now it was just cover, or firewood, spare parts or nothing more than rubbish.  They didn't need a fire at the moment, and Zack had blocked the door, and nothing was hiding behind them so they ceased to matter.<br/><br/>She nodded at the urgency in Zack's voice, and set her shoulder against the inner door that led into the hallway.<br/><br/><i><b>"Larry!  Musaad!"  </b></i><br/><br/>The air smelt musty, and there was a faint odor beyond that, decay that had lost its bite to time. Weak daylight streamed in through open doors and dustmites danced madly in the light before retreating to the shadows.   A laminated floor plan, curling around the edges, marked the layout and fire escapes.  "Dispensary is down to the end, then take a left down to the end.  Security doors."<br/><br/>The others would have gone that way, and from the beating and howling from outside, their pursuer was still held at bay by wood and glass.  Thank god it wasn't one of those revolving pieces of shit, or an automatic door that had an emergency release for when the power failed.<br/><br/>Again, she took the lead, switching her bow for the blade.  At the first turn, there was a downed walker laying lifeless on the floor, arms akimbo and head smashed in by something heavy and large.  There was an empty clip on the wall nearby, so maybe Musaad had used a fire extinguisher to make sure -- she'd seen him do it before and it was fairly effective given that he had been a weight lifter in the olden days.    The goo leaking from the shards of rotting bone smelled a little of rot, but walkers didn't smell like corpses unless they were fresh.  Mostly they just smelled like something that had gone bad, and maybe that made as much sense as anything else did.<br/><br/><i>"What were walkers before we started seeing them everyday?  Looks like evolution has it in for us, <b>yeah, baby!</b>"  </i>Her voice was a little wild, and she hooted, loud, and then called for the missing members of their raiding party.  The silence in return put her on edge, particularly now that she could see signs of their passage.<br/><br/>The security door had been pried open; the marks of Larry's crowbar were on the pale sea green paint, and on the floor, between the light from two open doors, was another unmoving body, remnants of a horror movie dressed in gore-covered scrubs.  She could see teddy bears under the accumulation of filth, a badge dangling from the torn fabric that read 'Shelly'.<br/><br/>Inside, there were cabinets that had been pried open, and some pharmaceuticals scattered around.  LuAnn brought out her flashlight, solar rechargeable ... another find from a grunt who had no need of it anymore ... and swung its beam around.  She picked up one box and gave a little snort of laughter.<i>"Ducolax. I can see why they left it behind.  Looks like they found some stuff."</i><br/><br/>There was another door, also reinforced, now half askew, leading to the right.<i>"There's a side entrance leading to the parking lot down that hall.  Kept locked."</i>This was courtesy of another floor plan taped to the wall.  Handy things, those.  She wished more buildings had been as accommodating.<br/><br/><i><b>"Larry!  Musaad!" </b></i>She tried yelling one last time.   When only silence answered, she shrugged and moved out, though not before she grabbed a couple more bottles within reach without bothering to look at their content, and stuffed them in a pocket on her leg.  Hell, even Ducolax might come in handy for something.