Jan burst through the door as a single gunshot rang out from behind her. She threw her hands out as she fell to the linoleum floor, unbalanced by her own momentum. Though she knew her pursuers were brutally close behind, she was strangely reluctant to rise back to her feet. Even with her body in the most desperate mode of survival, the sheer length of time she was forced to run was taking its toll. Forcing herself back to her feet, she turned to see Tom scramble inside. He slammed the door shut, locked the deadbolt and threw his shoulder against it.
"Keep going! Upstairs, now!" he yelled. Jan ran down the hall, finding a tight spiral staircase to the next floor. A heavy thud crashed against the door Tom was holding. She took the steps two at a time. Reaching the top she looked over the railing for Tom to follow. "Tom!" she screamed. "The attic!" he yelled back, his voice strained. She hurried through the upstairs, searching desperately for the entrance. She heard more crashes against the door, more distant but still frighteningly loud. What Tom's plan was in backing themselves into a corner, she still didn't know. Jan pushed the thought from her mind and rounded the corner to find a small wooden ladder going into the attic.
"Here!" Jan yelled. She clambered up into the loft, taking in the room at a glance. It was a surprisingly large space, though still requiring Jan to hunch in order to stay standing. A circular window provided a small measure of light to the room. She waited at the top, ready to pull up the ladder as soon as Tom followed.
Jan's heart jumped as another gunshot went off. She stood frozen in horror, unsure of which direction it came from. She ran to the window, half-expecting to see another survivor. She saw a figure running down the street, away from the house. She gasped, realizing it was Tom. Her stomach dropped. Was he abandoning her? Her vision turned to the movement just below the window as the horde of pursuers spilled out of the house, lingering for a moment before following Tom's path. Tom was leading them away.
She felt a flicker of hope. He was leading them away. Once he lost them he could circle back and find her. They might make it out of this in one piece. A part of her still considered that he was leaving her behind. Why didn't he tell her what the plan was? Was she that much of a burden that he would leave her for dead? She couldn't be sure, but with the zombies still in the immediate area she didn't have much choice but to wait.
Coming back from her thoughts, she looked back down at the horde. The main part of it was still moving towards Tom, with some stragglers coming out of the house, losing focus on the chase and moving into adjacent streets. She would have to be as quiet as possible till they all passed. She scanned to the left and her eyes locked onto a walker. He was looking right at the window, right at her. Jan snapped her head away from sight, catching and knocking a single cardboard box off its stack as she moved. The box hit the floor with a single thunderous crash.
Again Jan was caught paralyzed in fear. She turned her head to the trap door, expecting to see one of the gray unblinking faces staring back at her. The hatch was still open. She stole as silently as she could across the floor, grasping the stepladder. The contraption creaked awfully even as she tried to pull it closed as slowly as she dared. She got back to her feet and eased into one of the corners of the room, on the opposite side of the window, hidden behind a stack of boxes.
The house was still. There was no slow shuffling of feet, the horde must have passed through. Jan couldn't know if the sound was enough to draw their attention, or if the zombie looking towards her had truly seen her. Zombies' senses varied between impossibly sharp or in other cases heavily dulled. The infection removed much of any human intelligence, but there were stories of some being able to do basic, latent tasks. A small number of zombies could climb, others could open doors. Some carried weapons, but dropped them when seeing prey. All of them were impossibly strong and moved without tiring. Anything they did was quite sluggish. Jan didn't know what she was up against. If she got caught up here against any number of them, the only way out was the trap door. The window was likely too small to fit through. Jan had never seen an attack before her very eyes, she had always been running away, only hearing the screams, refusing to look. She was not going to be one of the victims.
She faintly heard movement in the floors below. It was the slow dragging of feet, too ponderous to be human. It would fade and grow louder. The zombie was moving through the house, searching. It may have been the one she saw, or just a random passerby. The footsteps drew under her and passed. They stopped under the trap door. There was silence. Jan forced herself to look through an opening between the boxes. She didn't have a clear view of the trap door, but could see a portion of the room. A few interminably long minutes passed, but she didn't hear the zombie move away. Then she heard the creak of the trap door being pulled down. Her instincts screamed to run, but she had nowhere to go. The fear was overriding, but if there was only one zombie she stood a chance of slipping past and getting away.