Outbreak - The Zombocalypse

Chapter 1 – Outbreak

Episode 1 – The Beginning



New York City, Central Park, East 65^th Street Transverse

January 15^th, 2011, 6:00 PM



Working in Manhattan, not the easiest of lifestyles, certainly not for an individual not used to the bustle of city life, let alone one of the most densely populated cities in the world. Eiji often found himself regretting moving to the States, having to put up with the stress and the hassle every day of his life, and often wondered why he hadn’t at least settled somewhere quieter… but NYC was where the money and the work was, and that’s what he needed.

At that present moment, he was wandering across the park, close enough to the main street to know where he was going, but far enough away to ignore the traffic and enjoy the scenery. He did this often to escape from his everyday life, even though Central Park was a good few miles out of his way home, but he didn’t mind; he’d rather be here than sitting alone in his apartment and watching some mindless TV show or catching up with his workload.

As it happens, he was lucky to be there, for in a few minutes, the first attack would occur out on the Upper East Side, and the madness would not reach the park for some time. Not everybody was so lucky…



New York City, Upper East Side, Park Avenue/East 61^st Street, Loews Regency Hotel

4^th Floor, Room 415

7:30 PM



Ema had barely closed the door before there was a knock at it, or rather, a thud. “Funny,” she thought “I didn’t see anyone on the way up here…”. Either way, she went back to the door of her hotel room, and opened it slightly, peering around the opening. The man standing there was fairly odd looking, by anyone’s standards. He had semi-congealed blood all over his face, seemingly originating from his nose, and his skin was oddly pale, not as though he’d been out of the sun, but a sort of grey hue…

Her train of thought was cut off abruptly as the strange man shoved the door open, clawing at her with his nails. Bubbles of saliva formed around his mouth like a rabid dog as he attacked, and Ema fell to the floor, luckily close enough to grab the baseball bat she’d got as a souvenir, having visited the Mets stadium earlier that week. Not that any of that was going through her head. No, all she could consider was how best to get the freak off of her.

There was a sickening crunch as the wood impacted with flesh, breaking the man’s nose, and sending him sprawling to the ground. Not for long, though, he soon rose, looking as though he hadn’t noticed the painful wound, and came back at the unfortunate tourist. But this time she was prepared, and swung with much more force, sending blood spraying onto the ceiling as her victim’s head came partially away from his neck. This time he was definitely staying down.

“Oh… oh shit, I’ve killed him…” was the first thing Ema thought, followed by “What the bloody hell was he doing?”. But then she noticed that he wasn’t bleeding from the gaping wound in his neck, a trickle of blood had escaped, but it was hardly coming out as though pumped by a dieing heart. Judging by that, and the colour of his skin, the man had been dead for a while before he came at her, but surely that didn’t make any sense, unless… “No, he’s not a zombie, zombies don’t exist.” Ema told herself, but found it difficult to believe with what looked like a re-dead one lying before her.

But this train of thought was also cut off suddenly, as another lurched through the open door. This one was female, walking with a pronounced limp. She looked to be just a few years older than Ema herself, and was wearing an engagement ring. “That’s not right…” Ema muttered as she noticed the ring, but quickly lost sympathy for the poor woman when she too attacked, hissing like an angered snake. Two loud impacts later, she joined the almost-decapitated man on the floor. Before stopping to consider the ludicrous situation, Ema vaulted the bodies, and locked her door.



New York City, Upper East Side, East 62^nd Street

7:35 PM



Brian doubled over, huffing and panting. For some reason, a mob of freakishly grey-skinned people has chased him all the way down Park Avenue, and he’d been lucky to duck into a stairwell, eluding the strange people. For now, at least. If they were after him for any good reason, they’d probably come looking, he reasoned. But as he peered out from his hiding place, he saw the strange crowd dissipating, each one lurching off in a random direction, making odd grunting and growling noises.

So, safe, for now. He drew a handgun from his inside pocket, a Glock 17C, and checked his ammunition; 2 magazines of 17 rounds each - hardly effective against that many people, but still worth having in a pinch. Gun in hand, he checked again to be sure it was safe, and set off in the general direction of the nearest Police Station.

Along his route down Madison Avenue, he noticed that, besides those that had chased him earlier, he hadn’t seen anyone on the streets since he’d left the subway. Even the roads were empty save for abandoned cars. It struck him then; he hadn’t been able to think before, whilst being chased, that he hadn’t even seen the people that had been on his train. For a few moments he wondered if it were some sort of hallucination, or a sick joke, but if it were the former, he wouldn’t think anything were wrong, and the latter would be impossible to orchestrate.



New York City, Upper East Side, East 61^st Street/Madison Avenue

7:39 PM



Then he heard a pane of glass shatter, and turned his head to see what was going on. Down the road from him, a young girl toting a baseball bat was fleeing a similar looking horde of people; her bat was noticeably bloody, as were her clothes. After a quick head-count, Brian raised his gun. If he used up the whole magazine, there would be 6 left at best, “Better odds than 2 on 23…” he muttered, and opened fire.

Naïvely, he aimed for the legs, hoping to simply incapacitate the crowd and not kill anyone. His first 3 targets fell, but before he took a 4^th shot, he saw the third climbing back to his feet, “What the hell?” he yelled, and suddenly he heard a horrible hiss from behind him, and hands clawed at his chest. Instinctively, he twisted and placed a bullet between the attacker’s eyes.

Meanwhile, Ema had closed a lot of distance to him, “Shoot them in the head!” she yelled, turning slightly to bash the face of one that had gotten too close for comfort. Brian’s response was immediate, and next two closest to her fell, one with an eye missing, the other with a large hole put through his forehead.

Some confidence restored, Ema slowed slightly, and began to engage her attackers head on, letting them draw close, then smacking them to the floor with a strike from her bat, whilst Brian picked others off from a distance. By the time they converged, he was sliding his second magazine into the handgun; he fired a single shot, dropping the last man with a bullet in the side of the head.

Breathing heavily from the exertion, Ema leant on her heavily bloodied weapon, trying to muster the breath to thank her rescuer. “Thanks… for that… if you hadn’t… been here…” she panted, before he replied “I’d never dream of abandoning a lady in danger,”, he grinned slightly, hoping he’d sounded suave rather than idiotic, “What’s going on here?” he continued “I was attacked like that too…”

“I don’t know why, but they’re just… crazy. I got a pretty good look at the first two that attacked me, it was like they were rabid or something.”

“I thought only dogs got rabies?”
“I know, that’s what I thought. Whatever it is, they’re hardly human any more, just seriously angry savages.”

Episode 2 – The Infection



New York City, Central Park, 65^th Street Transverse

7:40 PM



Eiji let out a low grunt as he hefted the heavy branch back onto his shoulder, taking a brief look at the unfortunate, now headless, man at his feet. “Whatever the hell his problem was...” he muttered, not quite sure how to finish that sentence, and with nobody around to hear him, it didn’t matter.

Taking a seat on a fallen tree, he inspected his injuries; superficial, for the most part, just a few scratches, only a few even drew blood. Regardless, he got the feeling they wouldn’t be the last, the man who had attacked him seemed to have done so completely at random, and hysteria like that often hits more than one person.

“You’re not infected… are you?”

Eiji almost jumped out of his skin at the sudden voice. It seemed to be coming from behind some nearby bushes, so he lifted his improvised weapon, and went to check. Hiding behind them was a young girl, perhaps 15 or 16 years old, a bloody kitchen knife secured in her belt. She spoke again; “Thank God, I thought you were one of them…”, when Eiji’s face took on that familiar ‘I-have-no-idea-what-you-mean’ look, she clarified “That guy who attacked you, he was infected, it’s sort of like rabies, but humans can contract it too. I guess that means you’re either immune or plain lucky.”

“Yeah, lucky me, I get to fight of crazies who want to eat me for no real reason… wait, rabies is pretty easy to catch, how bad is this infection?”

“It started out in the Upper East Side, so it hasn’t affected the park too much just yet, but most of the East will be infected by now… well, that’s the most likely scenario.”

“How do you know all of this?”

“Both of my parents work for the biochemical company that made the virus,” when Eiji shot her a distinctly pissed-off look, she continued “It was an accident, they never meant for humans to become infected!”

“Yeah, sure it was, either way, we’d better get moving away from the East side. Name’s Eiji, by the way.”

“Cassie, nice to meet you.”



New York City, Upper East Side, 5^th Avenue/East 65^th Street

7:40 PM



“There, Central Park, should be a little safer than out here…”

“Open space and clear visibility, certainly will be.”

“Thanks for that, Captain Obvious.”

Ema punched Brian lightly on the shoulder for that last comment, not really annoyed, but pretending to be. A quick look to the horizon told her that night was nearly here, and she had no intention of spending the night in the open with the infected around.

“It’s almost night-time, shouldn’t we find somewhere to hide out and barricade until dawn? I’m no so keen on the whole ‘getting-eaten-in-my-sleep’ thing…”

“Should be somewhere well defensible in the Zoo, and they might have some more ammo there.”

“The Zoo? What if the animals went psycho too?”

“They’re in cages for a reason, kid.”

“I’m no kid… and it’s Ema, in case you were wondering.”

“Y’look like a kid to me, Ema. I’m Brian, by the way.”

As the pair approached the transverse, they heard a man shouting, followed by a female voice in response. Warily, Ema raised her bat, and turned to Brian, “Ever hear the psychos talk?”

“Nope, maybe they’re normal.”

Nodding, Ema took the lead, and started down the Transverse road, towards the source of the voices.



“Ssh, someone’s coming!” Cassie, hissed, dragging Eiji into the bush. A few seconds passed, and they both realised how this would look if they people coming weren’t infected and crawled hastily apart. Then there was a rustling sound, and a pair of hands parted the foliage. “Someone down there?” Eiji climbed to his feet, sure that the voice wasn’t that of anyone rabid, and found himself staring down the barrel of Brian’s pistol “Whoa, whoa, we’re immune, don’t shoot!”

Brian lowered the gun, his expression rightly confused, “Immune?”

Cassie too got up, and explained “The reason people are attacking you; they’re rabid… except it’s worse than ordinary rabies. Luckily, the four of us are immune to it. Or at least, you three are, I’ve been vaccinated, myself.”

“Lucky us, we get to be the odd ones out.” Ema said, leaning on her bat

“Funny, that’s exactly what I said…” Eiji replied, forcing a laugh

“I’m Brian, and Little Miss Comedian over there is Ema. And you guys?”

Cassie chuckled at the jibe, answering “Cassie, and he’s Eiji. I think he’s Japanese, before you ask.”

“Well, I suppose it’s best the four of us team up, right? Do the two of you have anything to defend yourselves with?”

“I have a knife, and Eiji picked up a pretty sturdy branch, it’s the best we’ve got right now.”

“Good. Ema and I were gonna head to the Zoo, see if we can’t hold out there until dawn, and then get out of the city. We figure it should be easy to barricade, and there should be some food and weapons there.”

“Sounds like a plan to me, you two, quit laughing at yourselves and get over here!”

Ema and Eiji dutifully stopped, and stood to attention, Eiji even gave Cassie a mock salute. Sighing, Cassie continued “We’re going on a lovely day trip to the zoo, so get moving before it gets late.”The four of them chuckling under their breaths at their improvised humour, they set off to the south.

Episode 3 – Dusk

New York City, Central Park, Central Park Zoo, Fifth Avenue Entrance
8:00 PM

Eiji rattled the lock on the gate a few times, before turning to the others, shrugging noncommittally. “It’s all locked up, guys.”
“Well I’ll be damned, and here I thought you were doing that for the fun of it.” was Brian’s scathing reply, earning him a light clip about the ear from Ema, who then asked “Can’t we just get in over the wall or something?”
“Aww, but I’m tired!”
“Suck it up Eiji, unless you’d rather spend the night outside with the infected”
Cassie had a point, and so Eiji started to scout around the wall for somewhere easy to climb, the other three soon joining in.
Soon enough, Brian found it, a loose section of the brickwork, where the individual bricks had come apart enough to be passable handholds. He scaled the wall fairly easily, and called out to the others “You guys, over here!”
Of course, it’s carelessness like that that screws things over, and not three seconds after he raised his voice, an infected emerged from the cover of the trees, letting out an unnerving screech. It was quickly put down by Cassie’s knife ripping through its throat, but the noise had been enough to attract more. Brian pulled out his hand gun and prepared to give covering fire as he yelled “Climb up, quick!” Eiji was the closest, and with a little help from Brian, was the second up onto the apex of the wall, whilst Ema and Cassie moved quickly to their position.

It was at that point that things started to go to hell. Ema, having the longest reach with her weapon, had allowed Cassie to start climbing first, but was then confronted with a veritable horde of infected. She made a valiant effort to hold them off, but there were too many, and soon Cassie was forced to drop down to her aid. Brian’s gunfire thinned the ranks somewhat, but with only 16 bullets left, he was soon left with a useless piece of metal in his hand. He turned to Eiji, “Where’s your sense of chivalry, get the hell down there Eiji!”. Eiji looked down at the two girls, surrounded by the mob, at least three deep on each side, and with a yell of false courage, he jumped, swinging his improvised club straight into the skull of an infected getting dangerously close to Cassie from the side. Now three strong, the group was able to hold their attackers off far better. With their backs to the wall, Ema and Eiji pushed and smacked the infected back with their blunt weapons, whilst Cassie stood between them, delivering decisive, killing blows with her knife.
After a few minutes, they were the last three standing amidst a sea of corpses, breathing heavily and checking themselves for wounds. Miraculously, they were mostly uninjured; Ema had sustained a fair few scratches and shallow bites, mostly from the first few seconds alone at the bottom, Cassie was mostly unharmed save for cuts and grazes, while Eiji had managed not to get hurt by any infected, but had twisted his ankle on his drop down. With a little assistance from above, the trio managed to hoist themselves up onto the wall. They later found a cart full of hay, which facilitated a much safer drop, and ventured into the zoo, in search of the guards’ quarters.

New York City, Central Park, Central Park Zoo, Guards’ Quarters
8:26 PM

Night was falling fast, and the group became understandably annoyed when they found that their intended salvation was locked up tight. However, Brian was oddly calm, and on Eiji’s enquiry of “What’re you so pleased about?”, he ejected the cartridge of his handgun, showing that he’d saved a single bullet for this eventuality, and after reloading, blew the padlock off of the door, and opened it up.
The door creaked ominously on its hinges, opening slowly inwards on the dark room, and the four allies entered, looking around.

Episode 4 – Nightfall

New York City, Central Park, Central Park Zoo, Guards’ Quarters
8:30 PM

A quick check of the building told the survivors it was abandoned. It was a mystery as to why the main door had been locked, as almost every door and container within was unlocked, most left open, many had been emptied. Nevertheless, a more thorough search turned up four Beretta M9 handguns, and a locker stocked with ammunition for them. Brian distributed them to the others, and kept the spare himself. “Lucky they use the same ammo, huh?” he commented, as he reloaded his Glock.
“Yeah, I guess. Shame none of the rest of us are much good with a gun, mind you.” Ema replied, adding “Shame there aren’t any rifles, I’ve actually got some experience with those…”
Eiji frowned, asking “Aren’t firearms illegal in Britain?”
“Really? Was my accent that obvious?”
The three others shared furtive glances for a moment, and then burst into laughter, much to Ema’s chagrin. “Oh grow up, guys. Honestly...”
Brian was the first to catch his breath, “No offence, but… you really are really British.” Ema shot him a withering glare, to which he quickly added “Not that that’s a bad thing, right!?” He looked to the others for support, which they quickly gave.
There was an awkward silence for a few minutes after that, Brian sat fiddling with his guns, Cassie attempted somewhat unsuccessfully to rub the dried blood off of her knife, and Ema paced the room, looking out of the windows every so often. The silence was finally broken by Eiji trying to pull open a locked filing cabinet, causing it to swing forwards. He yelped, and pushed it back to the wall, making a loud clang.
“Well done, Captain Oblivious…” Ema sighed, taking a quick look at the windows to see if the noise had alerted anyone, or rather, anything.
“Hey, it was an accident!” was Eiji’s retort, but it lacked conviction, he knew just as well as the others that it was his fault.
“Keep it down, no need to make it worse!” Cassie hissed, keeping her voice low by way of an example. Brian shuffled around uncomfortably, and cocked both of his weapons, pointing one towards the window. “It’s a bit late for that, I’m afraid…”

An inhuman screech pierced the silence of the evening, going up like a rallying cry for the infected. And rally they did. In their masses, they descended upon the walls of the zoo, slowly but surely managing to breach the perimeter by climbing or simply through brute force and ignorance.
Inside the security room, the four sleepy survivors were likewise quickly marshalled to action, grabbing anything that looked heavy and tough, barricading the windows and door crudely, but effectively. “Looks like we’re in for a rough night…” Brian commented sardonically, his voice raised to be heard over the now-incessant grunts and moans of the infected outside. “They probably won’t make it inside for some time, but it’d make sense to have one of us awake at all times, just in case,” he continued, tapping his watch “There’s four of us, so if we each take two hour shifts, we can get 6 hours of sleep each. I’ll take first watch, unless anyone disagrees?”
There was no dissent, so Brian settled into a chair, feeling quite smug about his ability to organise the others so quickly. Everyone else moved into the most comfortable lying positions they could, and decided amongst themselves who would take over, eventually settling on Ema second, Cassie third, and Eiji last. With everything decided, the three covered their ears as best they could, and tried to sleep.

End of Chapter 1

(yeah, I've had this in reserve for a while, actually. I forgot for a while, and then didn't want to upload it when I knew I wouldn't be continuing for a while. But I figure I might as well.)

[AN: Neither Parasite nor Outbreak are discontinued any more. But working on both is gonna be awkward, coupled with College and laziness. Don't expect a regular release schedule... not that I ever had one to start with.]

Chapter 2 – Outwards
Episode 1 – Dawn

January 16th, 2011, 5:00 AM
Central Park, Central Park Zoo, Guards’ Quarters

A dull buzzing filled the air, causing Eiji to look up from the book he’d been reading. It was a handbook on proper conduct for the Zoo’s employees, an odd choice at the best of times, but with two hours to kill alone, anything was preferable to outright boredom. A quick check confirmed what he already knew – his two hours standing watch had passed, and it was time to awaken the others. Gingerly, he approached the nearest person, Brian, and tapped him on the shoulder; “Rise and shine, Sawyer!” Brian groaned, stirring on the floor for a few seconds, before blinking the sleep out of his eyes and looking up at the man standing over him. “…Sawyer?”
“He was a southerner in some show I watched some time.”
“Jeez, now I know how Ema felt… speaking of which, they awake yet?”
Eiji shook his head, and pointed towards the room’s female inhabitants, who had somehow managed to roll close together whilst asleep. With a grin, he whispered into Brian’s ear “Don’t ruin it, okay?”
At that moment, Cassie herself awoke, feeling something lightly resting on her shoulder. A glance around told her it was Ema’s arm, which meant her hand was… “Ack! Get off me!” she yelped at the other girl, who was still snoring, as she herself leapt to her feet. It didn’t take her long either to catch Eiji staring, and Brian part way through looking back at him disdainfully. With the accusative cry of “Perverts!”, she managed to make enough noise to wake Ema up, who mumbled “Feh.. I was having such a nice dream..”
An awkward silence fell on the room, with meaningful glances thrown in every direction, until, for Cassie, the penny dropped. “Why’s it so quiet?” she asked, nodding towards the nearest barricaded window.

Once outside, having taken a few minutes to arm themselves and wake up fully, the group discovered a disconcerting, but hardly unwelcome, sight. At least a hundred infected lay dead in the area surrounding their safe house, many decapitated or otherwise dismembered. Unsurprisingly, the floor was stained with recently dried blood, and the sickening smell of decay filled the air. Ever the optimist, not worried about the kind of person, or people, capable of such a slaughter, Ema noted “Looks like we’re not the only ones left, huh?”
Eiji was about to reply, but he was interrupted by an inhuman roar, not alien to the kind the infected they had encountered so far made, but certainly not the same. The four exchanged panicked looks for a few seconds, until Ema made the executive decision; “Inside!”. The others were quick to comply, rushing back in and rebuilding the makeshift barricade behind the flimsy barrier.

The roars continued outside, getting closer each time, until eventually the sounds of huge feet pounding the floor punctuated them. Huddled in the room they had slept in, the survivors kept perfectly still, too petrified to make a sound much louder than a whisper. “Wh-what the hell could it be?” Eiji hissed at the others. It fell on deaf ears with Brian, who had thought to plug a security headset into a nearby radio, miraculously with batteries still charged, to see if anyone was broadcasting nearby. Ema and Cassie, on the other hand, shared his panic, replying “I have no bloody clue…” and “And I don’t think I want to get one.” respectively. Eiji was again cut off before replying by a far more horrifying sound, coming from straight outside the blocked window. The thing, whatever it was, was sniffing them out, not unlike a bloodhound. Ema, Eiji and Cassie sat petrified, biting their lips and trading looks of horror, though Brian seemed oddly calm. He removed his headset, and spoke in a hoarse whisper “I found something, there’s a helicopter pilot, says he’s doing runs in and out of the city. Apparently the infection hasn’t crossed the river.”
Spirits were instantly lifted, to the point that Cassie and Ema had to restrain Eiji, to stop him jumping for joy. Whilst holding Eiji’s mouth shut, Cassie asked quietly “Where’s the pick up?”
“CitySpire Center. Once we’re out of the park, I think it’s about four or five blocks away.”
Ema raised an eyebrow, “That far, with whatever the hell that is on our tail?”
“Hey, it’s the best hope we’ve got.”

Episode 2 – Abomination

January 16th, 2011, 6:05 AM
Central Park, Central Park Zoo, Guards’ Quarters

The four survivors stood awkwardly by the exit. Each was armed, prepared, and even warmed up and stretched out for the occasion. But calm and ready they were not; everybody knew they had no choice, but nobody wanted to make it. Surprisingly, it was Eiji that eventually pushed through to the front to make the first move.
Of course, he decided it would be a great idea to try a rallying, manly speech. “Ladies and Gentleman, your attention please. We don’t have any idea what’s outside that door, but we do know it’s big, bad, and probably wants to maim and/or kill us horribly. So... let’s... not let it?”
As the ‘speech’ petered off, he noticed blank expressions from Cassie and Brian, and an outright face-palm from Ema. The latter looked up and groaned “Next time you feel like being Kamina... please, don’t bother.”
Now thoroughly embarrassed and red in the face, Eiji turned and started to dismantle what was left of the door’s barricade, “On three?” he asked, resting one hand on the knob. The others nodded silently, preoccupied with making sure they truly were ready for whatever awaited outside.
“One...”
Ema raised the pistol’s sights to her eye, checking the aim one last time.
“Two...”
Brian opted to holster his extra handgun, hoping to conserve ammo using only one at a time.
“Three...”
Cassie, quite intuitively, grasped her knife in her left hand, holding in reverse next to the gun, in preparation to switch to using it at a moment’s notice.
“Go!!”
Eiji twisted the handle, and pushed through the door quickly, followed with equal haste by the survivors behind him. Somewhat disorientated, they each scanned for their exit, which was soon located by Brian – who’d had the foresight to actually look at a map whilst hiding inside. Almost melodramatically, he pointed with the barrel of his gun, announcing “This way!”, and indeed not waiting for the others to join him as he set off at considerable speed.
Perhaps without the grandiose shouting, it wouldn’t have noticed them moving just yet. Perhaps, or perhaps not, humans can’t rightly say. But nonetheless, it knew of them now. Bringing up the rear, Cassie was the first to see it. At it’s speed, compared to it’s gargantuan size, the vision was almost hazy for a few seconds. And then it came into focus; a hulking mass of human upper-body muscle, with an almost comically small head perched on it’s oversized shoulders, and similarly small legs beneath, muscular enough to carry the fearsome creature along, but not nearly as much as it’s arms or chest. Before having a chance to forewarn her companions, the monster decided to do it for her, again with an ear-splitting roar of inhuman rage that had all three look over their shoulders with horror. It didn’t take a physicist to realise, but Ema was the first to point out “We can’t outrun that thing forever, the hell do we do?”. Cassie, it seemed, had a good enough answer. She levelled the barrel of her Beretta at the charging beast, took aim as best as she could at it’s head, and emptied the first of her magazines at it.
Unfortunately, the logic “It’s just a bigger zombie, it shouldn’t be much harder to kill.” didn’t quite work. If anything, it made it angrier. And it was then that Eiji, taking another look over his shoulder, noticed something possibly worse, and voiced his concern rhetorically “That can’t be all it’s own blood, can it?”. The others soon saw his point, the blood matting it’s bulging flesh couldn’t possibly all belong to the beast itself, so it had either been the one the slaughtered the horde outside, or it had gone after more humans than just themselves.
The others, however, were also not that interested in such a hope-sapping piece of information, a group mentality made vocal once again by Ema; “What’s it matter who’s blood it’s covered in!? Save your breath for running!”. The advice was taken fairly quickly, and the four’s collective pace was duly quickened.
Sadly for them, the same could be said for their pursuer.