"This is not happening… This is not happening…" Those four words had left Rochelle's lips countless times throughout their entire journey. Now, however, Ellis was the one speaking them, for Rochelle was no longer around to do so.
The last few minutes played through the young man's head like a movie. Everything seemed to be looking up; they'd treacherously made their way through miles of swamp, blissfully stumbling upon a plantation house with a grand gate behind which was a river, and outside was a radio that allowed them to flag down a boat that would take them to safety. It seemed that all they had to do was wait… But of course, it could never be that easy.
It had started with Nick, who decided to linger by the gate in case Virgil- the boat's captain- arrived while the other three survivors rushed back to the house to scour for any supplies they may have missed. The combination of Nick's AK-47 shooting rapid-fire and the screeching of the common infected mobbing him drowned out the rhino-like cry of a Charger, leaving Nick oblivious to the monster's advance. By the time he glimpsed the beast in his peripheral vision, it had barreled through the weaker zombies and grabbed Nick's waist in its massive right arm. It carried him nearly halfway across the property, halting just before crashing into the wall on the left perimeter. Grunting powerfully with each slam, the Charger steadily pounded Nick into the ground.
His choppy yet still clear screams of "GET… THIS… THING… OFF… ME!" sent Rochelle and Coach rushing to his aid in a heartbeat. Ellis would have joined them as well, but he was struggling over whether or not he should replace his health pack with a defibrillator. Panicking, he made the split-second decision of choosing the chest paddles and bolted off to assist his friends.
Rochelle got there first. Gifted as she seemed to be with taking down the special infected, she shot at the Charger with her submachine gun. Soon enough, it released its victim and crumbled to the ground. "We don't have time for this! Get up, get up!" she shrieked, reaching for Nick's hand, but it was too late. The Charger had shattered his spine. Rochelle uttered a choked, agonized gasp as a puddle of crimson blood formed beneath the man. "Bye, Nick… We'll miss you," she murmured before reluctantly unclipping the dead man's first-aid kit from his belt and adding it onto her own. She met up with her remaining companions.
The two of them stopped running, Ellis looking over Rochelle's shoulder to Nick's motionless body. His eyes widened; he absently rested his hand on his newly acquired defibrillator. "Holy shit, is he-" Ellis was cut short by an abrupt yell from Rochelle. Perhaps staying in the house would have been for the better, because lurking in one of the hedges was a Smoker. It wrapped its impossibly long tongue around Rochelle's body, yanking her through a number of bushes until she had been dragged to where it hid.
"RO!" Coach and Ellis both shouted, dashing around the maze of shrubs in search of the monster that had just taken their female companion. They found it a few rows down, clawing brutally at Rochelle's hopelessly flailing form. Ellis unstrapped his hunting rifle and hurriedly took aim. He managed to shoot the Smoker directly in the head and sent it collapsing to the ground in a burst of smoke. All three of them immediately fell into a coughing fits, Coach and Ellis's coughs heavy while Rochelle's were feeble. Not waiting for the smoke to clear, Coach grabbed the woman and urged her to stand up between coughs. He sucked in a terrified breath as he realized Rochelle had fallen silent, her body limp. After all, she had been knocked to her feet a number of times… It seemed that she simply couldn't handle another fall.
Coach turned to Ellis once the smoke cleared, tears shining in his eyes. From the smoke or from agony, Ellis couldn't be sure. "Hurry, use that defib. unit!" Coach insisted in a raspy voice, grabbing his young friend by the shoulder. Too horrorstruck to protest, Ellis scrambled to unhook the machine, only to freeze as he felt the ground rumble. "God damn it," he breathed.
The group had come to identify the mini earthquakes as the presence of a Tank. Sure enough, the earsplitting roar of the beast rang out across the plantation, and Ellis and Coach had to duck as a chunk of earth ripped right out of the ground sailed their way.
Both men scrambled to their feet, backing away before the monster came into view. "Run!" Coach yelled, heaving the chainsaw strapped to his back over his shoulder and revving it up. Ellis shook his head stubbornly; from his belt he unhooked a Molotov, chucking the bottle of fire right at the Tank the moment it turned a corner. The sight of the unbelievably gigantic zombie storming their way, seemingly unfazed by the flames licking at every inch of its body, was enough to rob someone of their mental calmness for life.
Never in the time they knew each other had Ellis seen Coach look so fierce, so determined. Using all his strength, he ran headlong at the flaming behemoth, driving the blade of his chainsaw right against its chest. The Tank roared in protest- the chainsaw was doing quite some damage- and picked the large man up in one hand. The movement was enough to make Coach drop his weapon, narrowly avoiding cutting off his own leg. Ellis, grasping his gun but shaking too horribly to safely do anything with it, was forced to watch the Tank hurl Coach right at the farthest wall as if he was nothing but a ragdoll. Ellis heard the bam of the impact and crack of his friend's skull even from where he stood. He gulped and looked away helplessly as a mob of common infected kicked and swatted at the man's nearing-lifeless body.
Now the Tank had Ellis, the only remaining living thing, in its sights, and stampeded after him with another roar. Thinking fast, Ellis took the jar of Boomer Bile he'd snatched from the plantation house earlier and launched it at the approaching Tank. Bored with Coach's dead body and intrigued by the scent of the vomit, the hoard of common infected practically pushed past each other on their way to the Tank. The humongous special infected could easily break past these inferior zombies- after all, it had just tossed a 200-and-some pound man with ease- but at least they would slow it down a bit. Checking to make sure he wouldn't have to reload too soon, Ellis took shot after shot right at the delayed Tank's head. He was on his last bullet when the monster stumbled to its knees and fell.
Some of the regular infected had already fallen due to the Tank's contagious flames, but to take the remainder of them out, Ellis tossed a pipe bomb into the midst of them. The crowd was so thick that he couldn't even see the flashing of the bomb- would it even work? His question was answered with a small explosion, blasting the final batch of zombies to shreds. Now everything was silent except for the ringing in Ellis's ears.
Once again, his hand trailed to the defibrillator strapped to his almost empty belt. Breathing heavily and aching everywhere, he briefly wished he had kept his health pack… He shakily unscrewed and downed the bottle of pills he had on him to at least keep from passing out. Now all he had was his weapons and the defibrillator. In that moment, he knew he needed to use it.
Mind working much more sluggishly than he needed, the usually carefree young man thought over this extremely drastic decision. Nick was a bitter, selfish pimp… but he had a softer side. A side that allowed him to call the other survivors his friends. Rochelle was like a sister to Ellis, perhaps even more. She would get whiny or sassy at times, but that surely didn't mean she wasn't a good person. Coach was an all around good guy, with a good sense of humor and usually positive outlook. So what if he had a constant craving for chocolate, and never got along with Nick; besides, if he was the one Ellis brought back, he would have no Nick to deal with.
The very thought of that made the breath catch in Ellis's throat. He was no medic, but he knew that these particular chest paddles could be used once and only once. At least, that's what Rochelle had told him. Only one of his friends could be brought back from the dead, and there would be no time to save the others. Peace never lasted very long these days, so Ellis knew he had to make the decision and make it quick. He unhooked the defibrillator.
Ellis had grown up hearing so many ghost stories that he couldn't help but believe in them. What if the spirits of the friends he chose not to revive came back to haunt him? He would already feel an immense amount of guilt; a constant reminder of what he had done would be unbearable. No matter who he chose, it would be inevitable that they brought up the question, "Why did you pick me?" That was something Ellis didn't know if he could answer. Not without badmouthing the others, at least, and he simply wouldn't be able to bear tarnishing his memories of them like that. He wanted to remember them in a positive light; if there were any negative thoughts he harbored about them, he wished only to be reminded of them in nightmares.
He could, of course, bring his rifle to his head and end his life right now to avoid making the decision. But Ellis was not a quitter… If he killed himself, he would destroy all chances of getting back home, saying he survived the Infection, and maybe seeing Keith again. No, he had to live… And he had to choose which one of his friends to bring back.
BOOM. Ellis's concentration was startled with the sound of an explosion, bigger than when a propane tank blew up or a pipe bomb when off. He whipped his gaze over his shoulder to see that the gate had been blown to pieces. Virgil's voice was shouting at him over the radio to get aboard the boat. Rescue had arrived; he needed to make his choice, right now.
Distance was not an issue. Coach and Nick had died nearly side-by-side, and Ellis was standing directly in the middle of their bodies and Rochelle's. It really all came down to who he wanted alive the most. But they were all his friends… He loved them all… Common infected had begun to climb over the gate, Virgil was still calling him, another Tank roared in the distance; amidst the sudden chaos, Ellis made his decision.
"Go, go, go!" Ellis gasped at Virgil, gripping his side after having run as fast as he possibly could down to the dock and onto the boat, whacking zombies back with his ax as he ran. The boat's slightly elderly captain stared at him with widened eyes.
"Whoa there, I thought there was four of youse?"
For the first time in God-only-knew how long, tears jumped into Ellis's eyes. They rolled down his cheeks as he inched closer to where Virgil stood, the Tank having made its way to the dock and zombies attempting to swim up to the boat. He could've sworn he heard a Jockey cackle. "They're dead. Now go!" Deciding it best not to question, Virgil steered the boat away and drove it off down the river, leaving drowning zombies and an enraged Tank behind.
Ellis drifted back onto the main deck once the plantation started to become a speck in the distance and the screeches of zombies faded away. "Nick… Ro… Coach… I'm sorry," he whispered, closing his eyes tightly to slow the fall of his tears. He turned his back to the plantation and never looked back.
~Author's Note~
This is my first L4D story, so sorry if it isn't that great! Every time I play, I get the urge to write some form of oneshot, but haven't gotten around to it until now. I had been playing Realism Swamp Fever with my best friend last night, and we ended up giving up because even though we had a great, cooperative team, we always ended up killed. The facts that Ellis was always the last to die, and the person with the defibrillator was always knocked down before they could use it, inspired me to write this. Please review, I hope you enjoyed!