The next piece I am submitting is an excerpt from the Left 4 Dead Fan Fiction I wrote.
CHAPTER ONE - Dead End
Darkness was sweeping over the city but tonight the familiar glow of street lights and skyscrapers was replaced by the incandescence of burning buildings against clouds of billowing smoke. The four survivors, skin covered with sweat despite the cool November air, made their way at breakneck speed racing against the setting sun. They ignored the horrid scenery around them, the stench of scorched flesh from those that had been trapped in their homes, the sight of bodies strewn across the street, and pressed on. Malana was once again taking point, her sharp eyes scanning each direction before giving the go ahead to the others. They hadn’t seen many infected since entering the city and those they had seen hadn’t been a threat to them. Still Malana knew better than to discard her caution in favor of haste. She brought the group to a halt for a moment surveying the school yard for signs of the Infected. Her heart skipped a beat as they walked across the playground now turned graveyard for hundreds of children that still lay rotting under the setting sun.
“Were they infected?” Kael, the youngest of the group at barely sixteen, asked.
“Not likely,” Malana admitted softly afraid their voices might attract any nearby zombies.
“These are bullet wounds,” Allan Wright pointed out.
“Look Doc,” Brutus said, “This is heartbreaking enough without you stopping to do your Doctor thing. They’re already dead.”
“Keep your voices down,” Malana reminded as they neared the door to the school.
Brutus and Allan continued their exchange nonverbally casting angry stares as they made their way into the school. The two had been at odds since they’d met. Brutus was impatient by nature though he was hardly without a heart he often let his temper get the best of him. Allan felt a bit of his soul leave him with every dead child he passed. This school stood as a tomb in an already dead city, a testament not to the infection, he realized, but to the sins of CEDA. The Civil Emergency and Defense Agency, CEDA had failed to handle the infection and by the time they realized it was too late their way of handling things quickly became killing. Now they killed with impunity in collusion with the military, wiping out any who were infected or even just those that are not entirely immune.
Malana gestured for the group to stay put and signaled the confirmed presence of an infected. She slipped around the corner with her silenced M9 pistol drawn and ready. She made sure to take off her shoes to ensure silent footfalls as she got within range rushing toward her prey. The first two infected fell dead with a thud against the tile but Malana quickly realized her mistake in rushing out into the hall as a shout from behind her forced her to spin. She lifted her weapon and placed a round between the eyes of the sprinting zombie. With a racing heart and a silent reminder to herself not to go rushing out alone she gestured for the others to follow.
The group secured the rest of the school without incident and boarded up one of the rooms in the basement as a safe room. The entire thing had seemed all too easy. Despite the tenseness of their journey across the city they had encountered almost no resistance. It was that lack of action that had kept their nerves on high alert ever since they’d stepped off the boat three days ago. Another factor in the weirdness was their discovery of Kael O‘Connor. The young man had been in his home still when they found him but according to him he’d only encountered one infected the entire time. It’d been two weeks since the infection and yet here in Harrisburg they seemed all but absent.
“Do you think CEDA wiped out all the infected here?” Brutus asked, “I mean we haven’t seen anything in three days and yet before we got on the boat there were tons of infected. Remember when we stopped to get those Survivors in Riverside? There were hundreds of them.”
“I don’t think its CEDA,” Allan said, “or the military. Something else drew them out of the city.”
“Evacuation,” Malana postulated, “Everyone left the city so the zombies chased them into the suburbs.”
“Well whatever the reason this whole excursion was a waste of ****ing time,” Brutus said crossing his arms.
“We saved Kael didn’t we?” Malana said defending her decision.
“There ain’t no zombies to save him from,” Brutus sneered.
“We saved him from going mad from loneliness then,” Allan chimed in in defense.
“Whatever,” Brutus said throwing his hands as if done with the entire line of debate, “I’m going to sleep. Wake me whenever we can leave this crap city.”
“We should all get some rest,” Malana suggested, “We’ll head along Route 15 tomorrow that will take us out into the suburbs to look for Survivors and maybe find a car that works.”
Malana lay down on what used to be a teachers desk and tried to get some sleep. It never came easy, not since the infection started to spread. She’d been up North in Scranton at the time working as an instructor for woman’s self-defense. It’d started normally enough, a flu hit and started to spread. They called it the Green Flu. Soon enough most of the people in her classes had come down with it, within three days she didn’t even have to come in for work. Then the reports came in talk of attacks by those who had caught the flu. It’d all gone to hell after that, legions of infected stormed buildings tearing people limb from limb. She offered to help Brutus, one of the men who taught Karate in the same building, get out of the city in her truck.
Now it had been eighteen days of Hell, eighteen days of dodging the infected and trying to find a safe place to stay. It never got any easier. There was no way to get used to the stench of corpses, the sight of blood or having to pull the trigger and end a life, even if it was the life of a zombie. Each zombie was different; each one was once a person. Many were caught in a freeze frame of their mortal life. During the first week Malana had seen infected individuals with shaving cream and half a beard still attached to their sickly green faces. Now they were finding children and ordinary citizens, not infected but clearly riddled with holes. It was bad enough many had been left for dead but now some were being outright killed. As the hours moved past Malana felt her mind fading until fatigue finally erased the nightmarish images in her head and sleep took her.
Malana’s eyes shot open and her hand immediately went for her pistol. She cast her eyes every which way and blocked the snoring of the other sleeping survivors from her mind as she searched for the origin of the disturbance she’d sensed. It had been only a faint sound, the pitter-patter of feet across the floor in the hallway outside but those footfalls had been far too light to be made by her companions. She’d been startled awake by the faint sound of a small intruder. She rose quietly from the desk and grabbed a hammer unfastening the wooden boards that kept the door shut. The others were stirring but she cared not as she slipped out into the hall.
It was quiet as she progressed down the hall with only a small spot of light emanating from the flashlight mounted on her M9. It was still dark down here and Malana was unsure if the schools backup generator was even working. She froze for a moment watching a shadow slip from one room into another. It was small, no more than four feet tall. Malana’s heart skipped a beat at the possibility that this might be a child. She raced toward the room her socks slipping along the linoleum tiles as the child emerged from the room in front of her and stood staring. It was a child, sad and pale. The only clean spots on the poor kid’s face were two channels carved by tears down its cheeks. Malana reached for it but before she could touch its pale flesh the child was bolting its way toward the stairwell.
Malana took off but somehow the child was faster than her. She followed the lone child out into the open air of the still smoldering city and then the child stopped. Malana sat in the doorway of the school catching her breath and watching the strange sad child. The sound of soft whimpering caught her heartstrings as the poor little girl started crying. Malana eased forward off the stairs and approached the child once more.
“I’m not going to hurt you sweetie,” Malana assured the girl, “My name is Malana, what’s yours?”
The child turned its head on an angle as if perplexed. Malana was sent reeling back as the child’s head continued to turn until it was bent at an impossible angle, a sickening grin grew on the child’s face as it opened its mouth to reveal razor sharp teeth.
“What the hell?”
The infected child took a deep breath in to its sickened lungs and let out an unearthly screech that sent shivers shock-waving across Malana’s body. The scream seemed to go on forever and even after the demonic child had finished its vocalization still leapt from building to building echoing onward. Malana lifted her pistol but before she could fire a shot the little girl dashed off. There was no time to follow her either for in the wake of her scream came a horde of infected barreling at breakneck pace toward the schoolyard where Malana stood.
Cursing her own emotions for getting her into trouble she turned and ran for the school shutting the double-doors behind her. She had no time to brace them with anything, the infected horde hit like a ton of bricks launching her away from the door to send her sliding along the tiles. She lifted her pistol picking off the first wave of Infected to come through all while getting to her feet and heading for the stairs. She reloaded in mid-air as she leapt over the railings to halve the time it would take her to make it down the stairs. The infected seemed just as fast, even faster but she couldn’t afford to turn and shoot. Screeches and screams of the ravenous horde just behind her kept her legs pumping in desperation as she reached the basement and ran for the saferoom. Fists began pounding onto her back, slowing her as sickly green and gray hands grabbed at her skin seeking to tear her to shreds.
“Duck!” Brutus shouted.
Malana dropped into a fetal position and Brutus, offering a grin to the Doc, opened fire with his M4 assault rifle. Standing beside Brutus Doc picked his shots more wisely aiming for the heads of those infected that avoided death at the hands of Brutus M4 using his M1A scoped rifle. Before the Horde even realized they had new enemies to contend with all three dozen of them lie dead. Doc was the first to rush in clearing off those that had landed on Malana. He had Brutus assist him in getting her into the safe room.
“How is it Doc?” Malana asked, her head still reeling.
“Some minor bruising,” Allan replied, “Other than that you seem fine.”
“What the hell were you going out alone for?” Brutus asked, “And what was that screeching we heard?”
“There was a little girl,” Malana explained, “I thought she wasn’t infected. She started screaming and then they just came from everywhere.”
“She was infected?” Doc asked and Malana nodded, “Fascinating, it seems that she tried to lead you out there to get you killed.”
“I guess there really are still infected left in the city,” Kael said with his eyes darting around as though feeling suddenly insecure.
“Yeah,” Brutus said reloading his M4, “And now they all know where we are.”
The faster we leave the better,” Doc agreed, “Will you be alright Lana?”
The horrid sound of zombies screeching in the distance answered for her. She would have to be alright if she wanted to remain alive. The group grabbed their things and rushed for the back door of the school emerging into the parking lot and scanning the area for incoming infected. Malana lifted her silenced M9 putting down three infected and spending only four rounds doing so as she scouted a path clear of zombies. There was little time to truly choose a path though as dozens of infected emerged from the surrounding area with their sickly white eyes shimmering the morning sun.
Malana directed the group to rush down the nearest street sprinting as fast as their legs would carry them. She quickly saw the error in the decision. The zombies were lean and fast and easily able to keep pace with the group. Each of the survivors was weighed down by a pack in which they kept essential supplies but now that which was essential for survival threatened to kill them as the horde began to codify into a coherent unit and rush toward them. The momentum attained as intense and it forced the four to duck into a nearby store through the shattered glass of the broken front window.
Malana leapt to behind the counted and looked to Brutus who was already ahead of her. He tossed her the M4 and pumped his Remington 870 as the horde crashed into the store. Brutus waited for them to get in close before unleashing his first shotgun shell, the spread of pellets tore into the oncoming horde stealing their momentum almost instantly. Another shot followed and the resounding thud of Brutus’s shotgun was soon accompanied by the percussive melody of Malana’s M4. In the rounds flew tearing flesh as the horde continued to pour in from every angle. Those that survived the wrathful duo of assault rifle and shotgun dealt with the sting of Doc’s scoped rifle and those few that survived that met their end as blood splatters on Kael’s baseball bat. Soon enough the horde began to dwindle and the group, low on ammunition and lathered in zombie blood, set out once more into the city.
“That has to be all of them,” Doc remarked sadly, “We must’ve killed close to a hundred.”
“More than that,” Kael suggested wiping down his bat, “I must have swatted nearly two dozen myself.”
“Kid’s taking a liking to zombie killing,” Brutus said with a grin, “Maybe having him along wasn’t such a bad idea.”
Brutus hadn’t appreciated Malana’s decision to bring the young man along for the journey. It wasn’t any prejudice he retained against teenagers but more a concern for the young man’s life although Brutus was never very good at verbal self-expression. It was that struggle to express himself properly that had turned James Arthur Brutus into a fighter. Although he’d never had the opportunity to make it big Brutus had fought in plenty of street brawls along with several legitimate MMA tournaments. The man was truly built like a tank and stood over six feet three inches with legs like tree trunks. The big man often opined the fact that zombies didn’t feel fear for he was certain that if they could feel fear they would turn tail and run the moment they caught sight of him.
Brutus kept a close eye on Malana Landry who was leading the group. While he was in his early forties Malana wasn’t even out of her twenties. Beneath layers of dirt and dried zombie blood she was actually quite beautiful. Her parent’s had been a perfect blend of races with her Mother somewhere between Hawaiian and Japanese and her Father halfway French and halfway Scandinavian. The result was something like a cross between a Viking warrior and a dainty Hawaiian princess. Brutus had instantly taken a liking to Malana when she had stepped into the dojo only a few months earlier and once the infection hit the two had stuck together.
The group made their way out into the suburbs trying to stay as quiet as possible by switching over to silenced weapons. For Malana that of course meant her Beretta M9 while Brutus made the transition to a compound bow. The blocks slipped by at a slow and steady pace with only a few infected being spotted and most of those too far out of the way to be bothered with. The cool November wind brushed past them stealing the heat that would have come from the midday sun as they neared the outskirts of town. Soon they would be out of the city and that meant the search was now on for a vehicle that worked.
Thanks to military intervention the roads were fairly clear. Harrisburg had been one of the first targets for evacuation but it was the Military and CEDA that had assumed responsibility for such matters and so the city was littered with abandoned cars. Brutus moaned as he checked a nearby truck but as per the rest it was too new to be hot-wired the old fashioned way. Something the big man’s attention as Malana tried another car but found it entirely empty of gasoline. Brutus trained his bow on the slow moving target ambling toward them up the street.
“It’s a man,” Malana announced incredulously, “He doesn’t look infected. What do you think Doc?”
“Looks okay,” Allan replied taking a look at the man’s condition through his rifle scope, “But he’s talking.”
“Must be delirious,” Brutus said and the others nodded as the rambling man approached.
“What’s your name dude?” Kael asked leaning against his baseball bat.
“What?” the man asked suddenly stirring from his stupor, “ Zombies. . . They took her from me.”
The man was horribly disheveled. His hair sticking out in all directions with dried zombie blood coating it and his clothes were torn in several places. There was a bandolier of ammo across his chest and in his hand he gripped tight to a .357 Colt Python. He seemed utterly dissociated from the fact that there were other survivors around them, his eyes were cast against the ground and his hands were shaking. Malana bent and took a cloth from her pack, she wetted it with water from her canteen and took the cloth to the man’s face clearing it of dirt and blood and looking into the man’s forlorn blue eyes.
“What happened sir?” Malana asked, “We’re here to help.”
“We shouldn’t even be here at all,” Brutus protested pointing to the open road.
“ Zombies,” the man repeated, “all their hands undoing her flesh. Oh God, I can still see it. They killed her.”
“Killed who sir?”
“My daughter,” the man answered with a whimper, “She was barely fifteen. My wife and I, we, we were going to take her to Gettysburg with us to meet up with my son there. He’s in the military, they were going to get us all out. My wife and I, we had supplies, ammunition, everything we needed to get out but then they came and they killed my dear daughter. My wife started to get sick and, well, I came looking for help. . . I fear she’s becoming one of them.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Malana said helping the man to his feet and taking a step back, thinking the worst was over.
“I hate them so,” the man griped sadly staring at his gun, “I can’t bear to live in this Hell. Shiny metal will make the madmen go away.”
“Now sir,” Malana said taking a step forward.
“Don’t stop me,” he begged, “I want to be with her. . . Just promise me you’ll end her life for me,” the man handed them his wallet and pointed out the photo of his wife as he scribbled his address on the back.
“We can survive together,” Malana tried.
Malana and the others turned away as the man lifted the barrel and placed it against his temple. A resounding thud rippled through the air as he ended his life. There was little time to grieve however as the deafening sound of the gunshot had set off a nearby car alarm. The neighborhood was now alive with the stomping of feet and the screeching of an army of zombies. The group had no choice but to run for it and try to make it to the man’s house.
“Says here his name was Arnold Wilhelm,” Brutus remarked slipping the man’s Colt Python into his bag before following after the others, “1244 Larch Avenue.”
“We’ll never make it with this horde on us,” Kael remarked as the infected spilled into the street ahead of them.
The young man narrowly avoided a claw to the face from a nearby zombie. He fell to his knees bunting the kneecap of the swatting infected before standing up. As he stood he spun around swinging the bat hard enough to crack through the skull of the next zombie for an instant-kill that brought a satisfying thud along with it. Brutus was at the back of the group spilling arrow after arrow from his quiver as the infected flanked them.
“M4!” Malana demanded as she spent the last round from her M9’s magazine.
“Cover me Doc!” Brutus shouted as he took off his backpack and pulled out the M4 tossing it into Malana’s waiting hands. He spun then with his shotgun in hand pumping off three shells at the oncoming horde that dropped nearly a dozen of them. Malana was hard pressed to hold them back but she wasn’t about to let them overtake Kael. She directed the young man to get back as she spent the last few rounds of the M4 magazine in several successful bursts. She rushed for Brutus’s bag and grabbed another magazine but the infected were too fast. Kael stepped in with his bat barreling into the midst of the crowd with a heroic, albeit unwise, charge.
“Damn kid‘s gonna get himself killed,” Brutus moaned reaching into his bag for an item he‘d almost forgot they had, “pipe bomb out!”
Brutus tossed the pipe bomb and it bounced along the street beeping as it went. Early on they had discovered that the zombies were attracted to the slightest sound and that fitting an alarm of some kind to an explosive device was highly effective in dealing with the immediate danger of a swarming horde. While the ravenous mob hunted down the source of the new blaring siren Kael slipped out and rejoined the group. All four watched as two dozen of the craven creatures were blasted to oblivion. Limbs and organs and gallons of gore painted the street where the horde had once stood.
“That deals with them,” Kael said thinking the day won.
“Except that the explosion will bring in every infected for half a mile,” Malana corrected.
They wasted no time. Running as fast as their feet could carry them they found their way to the home of Arnold Wilhelm and slipped inside. They found his wife, her flesh sickly and green, beating against the chest of another infected which she had apparently killed. Offering a silent apology Malana lifted her pistol and pulled the trigger officially ending the life of Arnold’s late wife.
“Looks like they had a *** load of guns,” Brutus announced after a quick search of the property, “Ammo too.”
“Good thing,” Allan remarked, “We’re all pretty low on ammunition.”
“Food and water too,” Kael chimed, “and a back-up generator with plenty of gas.”
“Board the place up,” Malana directed, “We leave this God forsaken city in the morning.”
“I told you this city was a dead end,” Brutus said.
“Give it a rest James,” Malana said using his first name to get on his nerves and judging by the expression that emerged on his face she knew she had succeeded, “Kael, come with me and grab some of that gas.”
“Where are we going?” Kael asked glad that he got to go off with the only girl on his own.
“We’re going to find a car,” Malana answered with a smile.
