Kristie sighed deeply as she rested her back against a toppled gurney just inside the ER Trauma wing. She'd taken a very small dose of morphine, enough to keep her mind of her aching body and then wrapped a bandage tightly around her ankle. Tightly enough it gave her support for her injury, but not tight enough to constrict the blood flow. As she inched he way back up, she stumbled ever so-slightly with the morphine already playing with her mind. She shook her head a few times to get her focus back, and walked back towards the main entrance of the hospital, yanking the bent piece of steel from the door handles and quietly pulling the door open. As Kristie stepped outside, movement to her left caught her eye, she casually glanced over, and saw several staggering figures. She squinted slightly, and her mind immediately figured out what was going on.<br/><br/>She immediately dropped to a low crouch and slung her shotgun over her shoulder, switching it for her M16A4 in a single precise move, and in doing so, she began to move backwards along the wall of the hospital, until she ment a slight bend in the wall, and immediately took cover. She breathed deeply for a few seconds, and looked around. Kristie struggled to understand how she'd been dumb enough to walk outside like that with no thought. But she quickly realised now wasn't the time for this, and slowly began to make her way towards the adjacent running wall of the hospital. She peeked around the corner, a large pool of blood stained the grass, but no body. She looked back at the roaming mob, and thought for a second of putting them out of their misery. She could easily kill at least 3 before they got within striking distance, and a single round to the chest usually knocked these things down long enough to take a headshot. Kristie had always been proud of her marksmanship abilities, but over the years her true skills were explosives.<br/><br/>Don't ask Kristie to disarm a nuke, but if your talking IEDs or basic demolitions, shes the girl. "<strong>Ooh-rah, HomeDepot.</strong>" Kristie quietly whispered to herself, a small sign catching her eye in the background of the shambling group of undead. "<strong>Pick up some supplies for a few home made traps, set up shop in a house near here. Take a few days off, get some food and rest, be back on the road.</strong>" Kristie laid her own plans out in front of her. She almost felt like laughing she was so happy the potential for safe haven and rest was so close, all she needed to do was snake her way past these things. Kristie spun on her heels and quietly made her way down the wall. It took her about a minute or so, she had to crouch under windows and she could swear she hear noise from inside the hospital. Her heart jumped at the thought things were inside the hospital, of course people would go there. Kristie felt like screaming at her stupidity in going to the one place most people would go after being attacked. There could be hundreds in that hospital, a room away from where she'd been resting.<em>Stupid, stupid!</em>Kristie thought to herself, as she arrived at the rear wall from the ER.<br/><br/>Peeking out, she could just barely make out the shapes of the undead people, blending in with a mix of vision blur due to distance, and the fact Kristie was tired. She dropped to a crawl, and slowly made her way across the street. When she arrived at the next building, a loud thud began to emerge from near by. Studying it for a second, her mind drew a blank, and reluctantly she peeked out. Sllight movement caught her eye before anything else, two figures in the middle of the parking lot. She immediatley snapped back behind the building, cursing silently. "<strong>Great...more.</strong>" Kristie scoffed.<br/><br/>As she prepared to bound across the street, the sound of footsteps behind her made her heart soar through the top of her head. She slowly turned to see a bloodied young woman shambling across the road. The only reason she wasn't on top of Kristie now was Kristie hadn't been seen yet, and she was wearing a heavy dose of scent masking spray, essentially she smelled a lot like trees. To the undead, she was green, likely not moving and smelled like grass, meaning; not food. But the woman had her head half looking at Kristie as she stumbled around, beginning to turn towards her. Kristie felt her heart begin to race as the undead woman began to straighten out in her direction, quickening her pace. Kristie had been spotted. With her ankle messed up and all her gear on, and no space to move about, she was boxed and her options were few and far between. On one hand, she could shoot the woman. From this distance, she'd have her M16's sights on this womans head in about a second, and a round through her brain by number 2. But that would attract more of those things. No, she had one option. Do it quietly.<br/><br/>Flipping the safety on her rifle, Kristie brandished her knife, as the womans face turned from blank and unemotional to almost an angry, ravaging look, as she broke into a light jog, and shortly after a light run. Kristie, without thought, moved herself left towards the hospital, hopefully breaking the line of sight from the undead down the street. Kristie herself broke into a slight run as the woman closed in rapidly. Kristie, at the last possible second, ducked down and brought her feet off the ground, hitting the woman in the stomach and chest, almost like a body check. It had worked before when hand to hand combat was the only option. The undead were not good at standing up, and Kristie could use that for her advantage. The impact hurt more than she expect, Kristie muffled a grunt by biting her lip. Both tumbled to a violently roll, but Kristie recovered first and charged again, pressing her knee firmly against the womans chest, she almost growled, mixed with a hiss and gurgle, the blank eyes and angry expression on the womans face attempted to bite at Kristie's knee, while her hands moved around, grabbing at Kristie's waist. She didn't give the woman another chance, as Kristie jabbed her knife into the side of her opponents head, the womans hands fell limp and her expression went back to lifeless.<br/><br/>Kristie hesitated from moving for a second. This was the, at least the 20th one of these things she'd killed. Each time it happened, Kristie felt sorrow. She knew there was no other way, but this woman had a life. Probably a husband, maybe a kid. Parents, a job, all the good things. Then, for no explainable reason, its all gone. Kristie broke herself from the afterthought, ripping her knife out of the womans head, cleaning the blood on the womans shirt and carefully sliding it back in her sheath. Kristie scurried back to the house she'd been taking cover behind, and picked up her M16, peeking back down the street. Nothing seemed to have changed. The larger undead group was banging away at the helicopter, and the occupants were either dead or...dead. Kristie again dropped a slight crouch and quickly scampered her way across the street, jumping and rolling over a concrete parking block, and quickly regaining her footing as she ran across the HomeDepot parking lot. A body, hunched over a police car, caught her attention. Her M16 snapped up to her shoulder, but the dried blood on the officers chest told the story. A 9mm pistol sitting on his lap, and a small dent in the roof told her all she needed to know. Kristie took a deep breath, and continued to light jog towards the entrance. Which, to her dismay, was locked. "<strong>Aw, fuck!</strong>" Kristie cursed, looking around.<br/><br/>Little movement on either direction, and those undead on the roof needing at least about 45 seconds to reach Kristie. Cautiously, she knelt down, pulling a small black lockpick out of her LBV front pouches. She'd taken it off a dead civilian she'd stumbled across, littered with bullet holes, but not showing signs of infection or...mutation..or whatever the hell happened. Likely, an armed police officer or nervous soldier, probably a state reservist not used to combat, got trigger happy.<em>Poor bastard...</em>Kristie remebered, as she began to fiddle with the lock. She had very little experience dealing with locks, an FBI HRT member Kristie had dated a few years ago, gave her the lowdown on advanced tactics, in exchange for...'relationship building moments'. Kristie figured having the extra know-how would help her progress, luckily it did. She got Corporal a few months later during a series of testing and qualifications required for remain in service. Kristie peeked over her shoulder periodically, checking for any movement behind her, as she prayed to God that lock would pop open.