Hello, my name is Guardian Shotgun. This will be my first fan fic, so please be kind. This chapter will be sort of an introduction slash explanation before the story truly begins. The reason I chose Left 4 Dead would be that it doesn't give a plot, so it's a gigantic, zombie covered canvas open to any kind of innovation and background. So this will explain what I think happened in the two (or so) weeks after that first infection. I've chosen the title Homegrown because all of the locations used in the story are real places not thirty miles from where I live. If I can procure the equipment I may post pics of locations I use as to help with my visual ideas.
Time to start the show.
LEFT 4 DEAD: HOMEGROWN
Prologue.
"Evil unchecked grows, evil tolerated destroys."
In Texas there was a small city called Corsicana. Roughly only thirty one thousand people lived in the area. In fact it was only considered a city for its college. The small community college was called Navarro, and it was horrible condition, just like the rest of the town.
At this college was a rather large administrative building, and of all the identical rooms, one was different, with two doors, both made of steel and painted red. The doors seemed quickly constructed yet were deceivingly sturdy. Much like the many identical doors now littering the country, marking the few safe areas left.
The room was fitted with a large amount of survival equipment and ammunition for various firearms. The walls were covered in writing from its past inhabitants. Some messages where illegible, others written in pencil, marker, highlighter, and even human blood. Some of the texts depicted advice for survival. A few were messages to other individuals. Obituaries, suicide notes, and even kill counts littered the wall. One was written in bright red permanent marker, and the writer seemed to have bad handwriting, yet it was legible.
It was dated July 5, 2010.
I write this for… hopefully… the survivors of the next generation.
My name is Johnathan Edward Baker-Bennett, age 18. I, along with two other survivors plan to travel, roughly, thirty miles to a nearby small town and attempt to find the nearest evacuation sight. All of those in our group are immune to the… sickness, along with the very few others with a chance to survive.
It was not supposed to end this way… monsters were not supposed to be real.
Monsters were meant for the movies and children's nightmares. They were meant to be good scare to lighten up this otherwise dull world. The creatures of the night were something imaginary, never to truly see the light of day…
Monsters were supposed to be fictional.
A corpse was supposed to stay a corpse…
The dead were not supposed hunt the living…
And they definitely were not supposed to maul and kill the living for no reason…
Too bad they do not seem to know that…
No one knew exactly how it started, but everyone knows exactly when it got out of hand.
June nineteenth, 2010. Some call this Z day, Ground Zero, Day 1, or; Beginning of the End. But it's more commonly known as First Infection.
It was the day we realized we lost control.
The infection started in the south, New Orleans, Louisiana had been quarantined for a month now. A strange virus had spread like wildfire through the entire city, and people were dropping like flies. Hospitals were overflowing with cases and staff members were quickly catching the epidemic. While fear and panic was spreading faster than the sickness, the authorities quarantined New Orleans for fear of a massive, country-wide outbreak. The Civil Emergency and Defense Agency, or CEDA was in charge of researching and containing the virus. When family members and friends of the citizens trapped in the city caused uproar at the danger zone, CEDA feared losing control. Seeking additional help, the National Guard arrived to help hold a perimeter five miles from the city. Soon every news channel in the free world had a cover story on the New Orleans Epidemic.
Twenty three days after day one of the quarantine the first scream was heard. Soul wrenching cries of pain and agony pierced the air all the way to the edge of the quarantine zone. For five days and nights the screams for mercy rand through the air, soon accompanied by gun fire. Not ling after that the entire city of New Orleans seemed to have become a war zone. Aforementioned family, friends, and troops slept and waited in fear as the cries continued.
On the thirty first day of the quarantine, it stopped. Not just the screaming, but the shooting, explosions, even the sounds of nature itself stopped. A quiet so nerve wracking that not a soul spoke for a complete hour. After a short meeting between CDA and the commanding officer of the deployed troops an agreement was reached. They announced to the civilians that half of the present National Guards and a few CEDA members would enter the city to check for survivors.
They didn't come back.
Gunfire and screams could be heard for hours, and slowly it died out. Confused, and obviously freaked out, all remaining CEDA and National Guards boarded the remaining vehicles and stormed New Orleans. A few news crews managed to plead and bargain their way into the group. So now the entire nation watched as the remaining troops and CEDA agents moved into the city.
What was witnessed that day is still remembered. It was mankind's first glimpse into our own hellish future.
Roughly one hundred armed personnel entered into New Orleans. They found the streets littered with several hundred civilians, all staggering around in what seemed to be a drunken stupor. They shuffled, fell, crawled, and groaned loudly, oblivious to the armed military members approaching them. At about two hundred yards the large group stopped to observe the inebriated crowd and devise their plan of action.
One lone camera man pulled out his equipment, with which he used to get a closer look at the pedestrians. One stood out among the crowd; he was clothed in the same uniform as the uniform as the troops marching with them now. He motioned the reporter following him, pointing out the stumbling ex-military man paying no attention to them.
Slowly it turned to the side, giving the camera man a good look at his face. Every viewer across the world saw as he focused in on the figure among the crowd. The camera man promptly blew his chunks all over the reporter at the sight. The trooper's face, or lack there for of, had no skin, and was missing an eye along with many of his teeth. The worker re-focused his camera to the man in the crowd to find him staring back. The sound alerted the mutilated man, and he stared for a few seconds at the group of intruders not a few hundred yards away…
And screamed.
It wasn't a scream of pain, sorrow, or joy. It was a scream of inhuman rage. It was pure bloodlust, and a hunter spotting its quarry. Alerted by the cry, the other wandering individuals snapped to attention, also noticing the other group. All together they charged the smaller crowd, gaining ground horribly fast, cutting half the distance in a few seconds. At this point the other group could see the condition of the others.
Many were covered in blood, though few had enough wounds on their own bodies to produce such quantities. Others were missing fingers or other body parts. A few were even missing limbs; those missing legs were crawling strangely toward them. Altogether the crowd sent the message of what they were very easily: zombies.
Every rational thought of reasoning with the charging fled the minds of every individual holding a firearm. A wave of fire and gunmetal washed over the horde, and the screams of the living and the dead were drowned out in the deafening assault. As the sea of corpses neared, the smaller crowd of troops began to lose their nerve. Many began to retreat and soon the entire crowd was running for their lives. The unlucky few in the back of the group were quickly overwhelmed; the zombies caught them with unimaginable strength and speed. The undead legion quickly began to maul and dismember their bodies.
When the few remaining living individuals finally reached the quarantine line, it seemed as if half of New Orleans was following them. The civilians waiting for them were shocked to hear gun fire, but soon realized why. Screams once again filled the air as panic spread through the crowd. Before the survivors of the rescue mission even breeched the barricade, the horde had shifted its attention to the screaming crowd before it. The bystanders were quickly consumed in the flood of undead, many died within the next thirty seconds, while others slowly bled out. A dozen or so lucky individuals made it out with only a bite or scratch before making it to their cars and escaping.
Among them was a lone cameraman who had been with the second group to enter New Orleans.
Three days after the footage of New Orleans was aired worldwide, more cases of violence and sickness were showing up all over America. Horrific scenes of groups of undead tearing civilians apart and eating them alive were accelerating quickly. Within twenty days, at least half of the United States of America population was infected by the zombie disease. Individuals that had been attacked by the infected quickly succumb to the sickness, adding more to the ever growing legion of undead.
The military and CEDA provided all the assistance they could, but it was already too late. Plans of evacuating survivors from infected cities to safe zones were disastrous. Many times the surviving individuals being rescued were already infected waiting to turn into zombies themselves. Screening processes to find who was infected usually led to riots or a hoard of infected overwhelming the survivors trying to leave.
But with every successful evacuation, it only led to more problems. The safe cities remaining were just as dangerous as the hostile world outside, with riots and looting becoming the norm. Martial laws were quickly set in place and the few logical individuals left banded together to create safe zones within the cities if worst came to worst. Stocked to the brim with "liberated" supplies, the safe zones would mark their escape routes. Guns and other weapons were quickly becoming a necessity among survivors, and fights often broke out over ammunition, leading to additional deaths.
Television and radio stations were now used mainly for emergency broadcasts and designating evacuation sites. A few where used for helping survivors in other ways, most notably was a show ran solely by the loan cameraman from New Orleans.
His first broadcast was the first sign of hope in a long time. He simply raised his arm to show a bite wound from an infected. It was slowly healing and he showed no sign of infection. The ex cameraman said he was now hold up in a fortified news station with seven other immune survivors. He gave advice on how to make safe areas into bunkers with fortified doors and windows that the infected couldn't break down. His experience led to many survivors to make a stand and saved many lives.
Two weeks later, it all stopped. Almost no remaining safe cities remained; either lost to the undead army or rebel groups. Radio towers and the like had either been over run or destroyed. All cell phones had lost usefulness days ago, and contact between humans was becoming rare. The only messages getting out were on shortwave radios used in evacuation zones, but by this time it was already too late.
The entire nation was now lost to the outbreak.
That's it, it turned out a bit longer than I thought it would but that's good I guess.
If you have any questions about my choices in the story background please e-mail or just ask in a review and I'll defiantly give you a shout out in the next chapter. I don't care what you say in a review; flame, congratulate, or criticize. I just like to know people are reading. As I promised earlier I'll jump straight into the story next time. I wrote this in about seven hours in all over three days, so the next update may take a week or so unless I get even more into the story. I'll post the next chapter once I get enough reviews... ten sounds good, but I wont throw something together if I get that many before I'm done so don't worry, I want this to turn out awesome.
So thanks for reading.
Peace.