Prologue
Hunger
That was all the young man had felt for the past week. Truth be told, hunger was one of the few things he still retained the ability to feel at all.
The man shuffled awkwardly down the street, making his way patiently past the broken street windows. Rubbish and garbage was strewn all over the place, agitated by the occasional dry summer breeze. Corpses littered the street, but the man paid them no special attention. They had been dead a long time and were not suitable for eating.
Others like him shuffled up and down the street as well, wandering around like aimless specters, shadows of what they had once been. The man ignored all of them as well and they him. They were not food; therefore, they were not worth his attention.
The man had had dirty-blond hair at one point in his previous life, but over half of it had fallen away, exposing the rotted, pockmarked scalp underneath. His shirt was gone and his pants were torn, resembling more rags than respectable articles of clothing. He had dozens of scars, lacerations, and abrasions crisscrossing his bare torso.
His left arm was also missing, blown off by a stray shotgun shell fired by another, dark-skinned man in another time and place. The man had already forgotten the dark-skinned man, forgotten the pleasure he had felt as he sank his teeth into the shooter's neck, feeling the dark-skinned man's blood spurting all over his face. He still bore the stains.
To be technically honest, the man did not have any memory. Higher brain functions such as those were alien to him. He felt only raw, animalistic desires for sustenance.
The man did not know how long he had been walking. Had he still retained the human ability to think, he would have guessed—based on the rising and setting of the sun—that at least a week had passed. He had killed and eaten many along the way; his stomach protruded far out beyond the waistband of his tattered jeans, full of the flesh of his unfortunate victims. But again, he did not remember any of this. He kills, he eats, he moves on to kill and eat again. An endless cycle, a perpetual routine with no outcome, no ending other than wasting away.
The man did not have the ability to consider his situation. He did not have a left arm, but he could still walk and he could still use his mouth. What more could he possibly need?
It was hot, sticky. Summer. The man was able to feel temperature, but it did not affect him. Hot, cold, wind, rain, snow; the man would slog through them all in order to continue his endless hunt for his next meal.
He had started in a large city. Buildings, tall skyscrapers, shattered doors, overturned vending carts, screaming victims, streams of blood running down the streets and into the sewers. The man had walked through the hell of that place as it collapsed all around him.
He walked, and walked, and walked.
Eventually, sidewalks and buildings transformed into green forests and wide, rolling fields. He walked even more, pushing through the tall grass and the trees. He had come across many meals along the way, places where his victims gathered. Collections of houses, barricaded buildings.
They had all screamed so deliciously. The man had ignored their cries, taking pleasure only in their flesh and not the ear-splitting noises they made.
After a time, the green countryside had turned back into a city. More buildings and shops and houses, all of them either empty, burned out, or broken down. The great light in the sky was not nearly as visible as it had been previously, masked behind a layer soot and smoke from the countless fires burning across the city.
The man shuffled his way through a narrow place. He walked over a pile of torn-up corpses, paying no heed to the stink of the viscera sprawled all over the sidewalk, nor of the rats, flies, and maggots making their abode in them.
He emerged into a wider place which stretched off forever to either side. Dozens of others, shuffling about aimlessly, also occupied the wider place. The man stood still for a second, plagued by a brief moment of indecision, unsure of which direction to go.
Then he smelled it.
It was only a brief, faint odor, but there was something about it which drove his senses wild. It was a wonderful, wonderful smell…he had to get to it. He had to reach it, no matter what the cost would be.
The dozens of others shuffling about the wider place smelled it too. As one, they all froze, their heads turned up to the sky, sniffing the air, catching more whiffs of that fantastical, tempting scent.
The man was the first to break the silence. From his throat came a deep, raspy moan, which then intensified into a vicious, growling snarl. Saliva dribbled down from what remained of his chin and his knees bent, lowering himself into a predatory stance.
Then he ran. He ran like another meal was just around the corner, flying past the nameless, generic shops, past all of the piles of corpses, past all of the other shambling people.
Others joined in. Dozens of other people who had caught whiff of that smell fell in step behind the man.
The man, though he had been the forerunner of the horde, quickly lagged behind and soon became one of the stragglers. That same dark-skinned man had also hit him in the leg, though the shot had not been enough to separate the limb from the body. The man had not given the dark-skinned shooter a second chance, either.
Agonized, angry rasps and snarls erupted from the man's throat as he spotted the source of the smell. There were five figures standing their ground in front of a flat, blank brick wall. Two of them were covered in a slimy, greenish substance which was the source of the smell which was driving the man and all of the others wild. In their hands they held shiny metal objects, objects which gave off loud, sharp, miniature explosions which hurt the man's ears, and tiny—though bright—gouts of flame shot from the ends of their long parts along with those explosions.
The man did not feel anything as his brethren fell all around him. He moved as fast as he could, but it was no faster than a slow jog. Soon, he was alone on the street, the once-mighty horde now in pieces all over the asphalt and concrete.
The five figures against the wall did not notice him. They straightened up and conversed which each other. The man could not understand them, nor grasp the concept that they were communicating.
He spotted one man, a large, muscular man in a blue-colored uniform and some sort of hat. He had dark skin as well. That was why the man chose him as his first target. He could not remember the dark-skinned man who had blown away his left arm, but the image of dark skin had been imprinted in what remained of his mind. Though he could not know why, the man was driven into a rage at the sight of this new dark-skinned man.
The future victim's back was turned, his neck exposed, begging to the man, begging him to bite into it and lay it open. The man slowed down so that he made less sound and closed the remaining distance between him and the dark-skinned, uniformed man.
He had been walking for so long, so long…he needed to eat. This man would be his next meal.
The man reached forward and grasped the dark-skinned man by his shoulder, leaning in to strike.
Loud noises arose from the dark-skinned man's companions, but they were gibberish to the man.
The man opened his mouth, which was rapidly watering at the prospect at having more blissful flesh to chew and to enjoy.
The dark-skinned man was not a pushover. He felt the touch of the man and quickly whipped around, slamming a meaty fist into the side of the man's face.
The man felt pain explode in the right side of his face as what remained of his jaw cracked and fell away. He staggered, trying to regain his balance. He hit the wall and used it to keep himself upright. He turned back around to face the dark-skinned man, who had brought his shiny metal object about. The long end was pointing right at the man.
The man did not care. All that mattered was his next meal. Time to eat. Time to eat. Time to-
The dark-skinned man's finger moved and the metal object in his hands gave off another loud explosion, accompanied by a bright, blinding flash, which was the last thing the man ever saw.
The African-American man in the police uniform racked the pump of his Mossberg-590 tactical shotgun, sliding the next shell up into the firing chamber. The smell of weapons discharge from the firefight still hung in the air.
The Infected who had just tried to tear out his throat from behind was thrown back by the force of the shotgun shell, the top of its head blown away. It collapsed onto the sidewalk and—for the most part—lay still, apart from the occasional twitch of its legs or its single remaining arm. The infected man must have been a straggler, sneaking up after the last of its fellows had all been gunned down. It had leaped for the African-American police officer first. Only a startled warning shout from his fellow survivors had alerted the officer to what was about to happen, effectively saving his life.
Smoke still curled up from the end of the barrel of the police officer's Mossberg, adding its own trace contribution to the smog in the air.
"Thanks for the yell," the officer said to one of his fellow survivors—a lean, wiry Hispanic man of nineteen or twenty. "Sneaky bastard nearly had me there."
"Don' worry 'bout it, amigo," the Hispanic teenager shrugged, slapping another clip into his illegally-owned handgun, "There'll be a lot more ass-saving in the future for all of us."
"You all saw that fat one?" a third survivor asked, running his fingers through the thick, green bile which stained his fatigues. "He freakin' retched on me..."
"Yeah, I saw that too," the Hispanic nodded, the expression on his face the epitome of disgust, "That shit was fuckin' nasty, man..."
"Where to now?" a fourth survivor—a yellow-haired street artist—spoke up, sliding her pistol into the tiny space beneath the back of her jeans' waistband.
The officer pointed north, up the street the most recent horde had just attacked them from.
"Have you lost your mind?" the last of the survivors interrupted. He was a taller, older man wearing what had used to be a white, immaculate dress shirt for a suit. He was mostly bald, though he did have somewhat thick, brown, curly hair around the fringes and temples. He spoke with a pronounced, proper accent, almost British, but with audible traces of Boston mixed in. "If you care to recall, that is where this whole thing started. Logic would dictate we travel in the opposite direction."
"No," the officer shook his head, pointing north up the street again, "That is where the secondary city evac is. With the evacuation center at the park gone, that is our only chance. Otherwise we'll have to walk out o' this goddamned city on foot. If that's the case, then hell, we might as well put bullets in our heads; it'll be easier that way."
"No sense in waiting around for the fuckers to get another shot at us, yo," the Hispanic teenager interjected, fidgeting nervously as he heard moans in the distance.
"Everyone check your ammo. Check for bites, scratches, anything," the police officer ordered.
The other four survivors all did so, peeking under their clothing for any injuries and making sure their weapons were fully loaded and ready to shoot at a moment's notice. One by one, they all gave the policeman a nod.
The police officer hefted his shotgun and carried it on his shoulder, stepping off the sidewalk and onto the street, leading the way north. "It's getting late. We need to find someplace safe to sack out before dark."
The survivors fell in step behind the policeman, their weapons at the ready, their eyes ever vigilant as they forged ever deeper into Hell.
Author's Note
Hey, what's up everyone. I'm new in this area of the website and this is my first attempt at L4D. I've written two Halo stories and, frankly, I need something new. My second Halo story is not yet complete, so I won't be updating this one yet; I just needed to get something in writing to start from. I'll get back to this one very soon, so I hope you all enjoy it!
-TheAmateur