Well this is my first Left 4 Dead 2 story and probably my first fan fiction, the title sucks but I can't really think of anything else. I got the idea to do this whilst listening to Wake Me Up When September Ends by Greenday and decided to try writing it, I don't really like it myself but others have liked it and said I should post in online. I've re-read this a couple of times and also sent it to a few friends to catch as many errors I may have made while making it but there are probably a few grammar or tense mistakes hiding within, if that is the case then I'm sorry.
The story is based around Nick and is shown through his eyes and this might be continued (as my friend claims I can't leave it there) but at the moment it's completed. I tried getting the characteristics right for all of the survivors but they're mostlikely not acting like they should be (Like Nick seems to be alot kinda in this somehow?). Anyway enjoy and this contains swearing and gore at one point.
Well this sucks, we're walking along a deserted road and the rain is pelting down around us. Usually a zombie or two would be stumbling around but at this point in time, we're alone. I'll take a chance to relax in this rare moment of silence and rest my AK-47 onto my shoulder as I am walking. I look over at the others and see they are also taking a more relaxed approach to this; Ellis is whistling silently to himself scanning the area while his arm swings slightly at his side, Rochelle straightens up and slouches her shoulders showing she is no longer looking for any threat. Coach however continues to hold onto his gun with a death grip and whips his head around at any sound made, stubborn bastard. I guess the fight we've just finished still has him shook up and alert, don't know why he isn't the one that got pounced on by the frickin' hunter.
"Hey guys, do you remember what time of year it is?" Ellis inquires, pulling me out of my thoughts. I frown and look at him.
"Why would you want to know that?"
He lifts his hat slightly and scratches his head.
"Curiousity mainly. I mean I've been thinkin' a lot about what it was like before this infection hit and I know it hasn't been long an' all but... It sure as hell feels like it." He replies placing his hat firmly back on his head. "So do any of you guys know?" I begin to think about it and find I am unable to remember aswell, with all that's been going on recently the past hasn't been much of a thought to me, not like I particularly care.
"Well sweetie I think I remember it being near the end of summer before this infection started... So it could be the beginning of September." Rochelle cuts in turning her head to give Ellis a smile. He returns her smile and thanks her.
"September huh? Weird to think how fast time goes by... and to think about how fast this infection has spread. Like have you ever asked yourself what caused all this shit to happen? And how it was able to wipe out so many?" Ellis says, clearly not giving up talking anytime soon as usual. I notice Rochelle frowns a little at his words and even looks kind of sad. "Hey Rochelle? You hear me? Hmm what bout' you Nick? You ever thought about it?" I turn my head to see him looking at me expectantly. I sigh and simply state:
"No, I haven't."
"Heh just me then?"
"Yes. Now shut up for a while okay?" He looks at me and frowns but quickly shakes off what I said and continues walking in silence. When everything falls back into a solitary feel again I look up to the sky seeing the rain falling down on us. The sky is almost black and filled with clouds, it's weird how fitting it looks to the situation we're in. I move my left arm slightly and hiss in pain. The others swing round to look at me as I look down to see what is causing the sudden stinging, my arm has a cut across it and is now bleeding again from the sudden movement.
"Aw shit, this must have been from the hunter." Rochelle stops and raises an eyebrow at me.
"How did you not notice that?" I shake my head, temptation to say how I'm so used to things like cuts that at times I just don't notice them rose. But it's quickly discarded, I don't want to give anything away about my past.
"I don't know. Isn't being attacked by zombies who try to eat you enough to make you forget about simple things like this?"
"Simple? Man are you all there? That thing is deep and must be painful." The more we speak about the cut, the more it's making me aware of the numbing sensation I am starting to feel in my arm and hand. I roll my eyes.
"Whatever. You all just gonna stand there? Or is anyone gonna help me?" I look at each of their faces when saying the last part. Coach just grunts and turns away continuing his look out for any zombies. Rochelle sighs and gets out her medkit and starts stitching my cut up, when she finishes I sigh in relief.
"Thanks Ro." She simply smiles at my response and starts walking ahead of me.
"You should be more careful Nick. We can't go around bleeding all the time now can we?" Coach says without turning back to look at me, he's serious but still has a hint of mocking in his voice.
"Kiss my ass." I mutter under my breath, the comment goes unnoticed by the others. I shake my head again trying to force old memories out of my mind but after this event it becomes hard not to think of certain events in my life, putting me in an even more sour mood. My past isn't exactly all fucking rainbows and sunshine. A low growl nearby cuts my thoughts off and I immediately become alert.
"You guys hear that?" Coach asks whilst looking among us. We all nod back at him, answering his question in silence. I take my gun off my shoulder and ready it for the attack, the others also ready themselves. The sound grows louder and a shout erupts from the infected lips, I turn and catch sight of what is after us.
"We've got a charger!" The others whirl around to see a Charger rushing towards us, we all jump out of the way and he goes crashing into a car nearby. The impact to the car sets off the alarm and another scream tells us that our silent time has officially ended.
"Here they come!" Rochelle shouts.
"Ah, Lord!" Ellis says, looking anxious. As if the Charger and horde isn't enough shit to put us through the rain starts picking up too, hailstones join it. We have no choice but to ignore the pain and fight. The Charger turns, enraged by the fact he has missed the first time, and starts for us again. Rochelle is too fixated by the horde to hear the Charger approach and gets caught by him.
"HELP!"
"Hang in there Rochelle!" Ellis shouts back. He shoves some of the zombies away from himself and quickly finishes them off with bullets. Once he is seemingly satisfied that he has enough room to move in he runs off towards where the Charger is currently pummeling Rochelle, all the while shooting bullets at it as he runs. I look to see where Coach is and see that he is surrounded by more zombies than I am. So I shoot the ones after me and start on the ones after him too, making sure he doesn't get injured too much. He turns to see that I have helped him and raises an eyebrow.
"Thanks for the help" I flash him a smirk and quickly continue in the fight with the horde. Blood splatteres against my suit as I smash the bottom of my gun into a zombies skull, the fallen zombie stumbles back and crashes to the floor. The other zombies don't care, they still run at us with blood staining their skin and saliva dripping from their mouths, not the prettiest bunch really. Nothing seemes to stop the zombies oncoming attack other than bullets and I am running low. A spitting sound and a scream of pain pulls my attention towards where Ellis and Rochelle are, they are currently running towards us as a Spitter shows up and covers their path in goo. Both of them have been caught out in it and fall when they finish running across, I shoot the Spitter right between the eyes and as it's limp body hits the floor I rush towards the two. Coach follows shortly behind.
"Ah shit that burns!" Ellis complains, holding one of his feet. Rochelle is crouched next to him panting.
"You two gonna be ok?" Coach asks looking them both over, while I finish off the remaining zombies running towards us.
"We'll be fine." Rochelle answers as Coach helps her up. The weather picks up again and this time a full blown storm hits us. As the storm hits another scream can be heard in the distance.
"Good, because we've got more company." I say, reloading my gun. As if on que another horde rushes out towards us. Each of the zombies pushing and shoving eachother to try to get to us first.
"How the hell are we sposed' to fight? I can't see nothin' with this storm going on" Ellis asks, getting ready to fight again. Coach is about to answer when the zombies catch up with us and attack, cutting Coach off. Once again we unload on the half dead bastards whilst sticking as close to eachother as possible. Blood is spurting everywhere covering us, the surviving zombies and the floor, the smell of it is becoming sickening but we still fight. We have no choice but to. A new type of growl comes from somewhere nearby but with the storm in full blast, I'm unable to see where it is coming from or what it is. I try to shoot again at a zombie heading straight for me but my gun won't shoot, I don't have much time to figure out why as I use the weapon to kill the zombie. I fall back into the middle of our huddle and look at the gun, realising the thing has jammed on me.
"Shit. It's jammed! Cover me while I fix it will ya?" I shout at the others.
"Ok but hurry with it, we haven't got much ammo you know!" Coach replies. I ignore him and continue to try to fix the gun but a screech cuts me off. A sound I know far to well.
"Hun.." I try to warn the others but the Hunter is too fast. He pounces me and the force of it has knocked my gun out of my hands sending it flying across the floor away from me, if that isn't bad enough my teammates are also missing as the force sends them flying too. I'm fucked. I'm unable to do anything but shout at the others while the Hunter rips away at my torso. I flare my arms in an attempt to knock him off but it won't budge, I try punching it but it doesn't care it only has one purpose, and nothing is going to stop it until it has killed me. I hiss in pain as the bastard rips my stomach open with its claws, red strands of muscle and tendons stretch along with the movement of
it's claws until they snap from the pressure. Blood spurts out of me and onto his hoodie, my head spins as the pain seares through my body. I want to scream and shout but I can't, all the breath I have available has been knocked out of me and the only thing escaping my mouth is blood. I choke a little and my vision starts to blur, I swear the others are shouting and that the floor is moving but I don't know if that is really happening or not. I feel the Hunter's claws grab my intestine and I flinch, the sudden contact with them makes the pain increase and I start to lose my vision even more. But now I can't feel the Hunter anymore, it's weight on me is missing and my stomach is no longer under attack, I don't understand what's going on.
"Holy shit. Nick get up man." I look up to see a faint outline of someone, they crouch down and help me up. As soon as I get up I wanted to fall back down, my stomach hurts like fuck. "How you feeling?"
"I have seriously... felt better." I reply bitterly, how the hell do they think I feel?
"I don't mean to be pickin' on ya, but ya'll look like shit." I look at the person who is helping me. At first they are just floating lines but then my vision clears and reveals Coach standing there staring at me. "Hold on Nick, we'll heal ya. You just gotta wait and fight through the pain for a little more okay?"
"Wait? Does it look like... I'm gonna live much longer with this... hole in me?" I breathlessly bark, agitated. Coach chuckles, ignoring my words, before turning serious and looking around nervously. I realise the floor is still shaking and a cold chill goes down my spine. "Aw hell, don't tell me theres a Tank around is there?" Coach looks back at me and nods. Shit. Coach puts my right arm around his shoulders and moves me over towards a nearby car, the walk is awkward as I'm limping and twitching like a freak but I'm glad when I'm allowed to sit down again. Coach looks at me and forces me to look back.
"You are not gonna die. You hear?" He whispers to me, a shout made him look away for a second but his attention is back on me soon after. "Just hold on a little while! I'll be back." After saying that Coach reloads his gun and I'm alone again. I look down at my body and a feeling of dread washes over me. There is a gapeing hole in my stomach, parts of the red strands still hangs loosely outside of it. Claw marks can be seen along the lining of my insides and shows up on some of the skin around the hole. My t-shirt is in ruins and I think I can see parts of it stuck inside my wound, my suit is now red on the inside with only small gaps inbetween the blood showing the true colour of the suit. I swallow the clump of blood stuck in my throat and look up again, the storm is passing and it becomes easier to see the surroundings nearby, the Tank's shouts also becomes clearer. I start scanning the area carelessly, my head drooping at times as my neck no longer held the strength to keep it up. When my strength slightly regaines I'm able to see the Tank chasing Ellis whilst the others chases after it shooting at its back, Ellis keeps stumbling giving the Tank a better chance at catching him up.
"Ellis...watch out." I try to shout out but my voice came out hoarse and he doesn't appear to have heard me. I'm trying to warn him about how he was heading for a dead end which would trap him with the Tank. I don't know what I'm thinking but I pushed myself off the car and begin crawling, ignoring all the pain going through me. I try going faster but am unable to as the pain become too unbearable.
"El..lis" I continue trying to warn him but he still won't hear me. It doesn't take long to find out that I'm right about the dead end he's putting himself in. His back presses up against a wall of a run down house and he frantically searches for a way out and see's he could only sidestep a little. The Tank seems to realise the situation Ellis is in and starts picking up its pace getting ready to crush him. In a split second I know what to do: I grit my teeth, call all the strength left in me, got to my feet and run as fast as I can. The pain is unbelievable but I ignore it, I have no other choice but to.
"Nick NO!" Rochelle screams, seeing what I'm about to do. I ignore her and continue forward towards Ellis. The wind blowing into my open stomach stang me making me gasp and almost collapse. Ellis turns to look at me after hearing the sound of my gasp, he stared at me with a confused look on his face. I reach Ellis just before the Tank does and push him out of harms way before getting hit by the Tank myself. The hit makes me fly backwards slightly into the wall, my blood smears along it as I slide down to the ground, more pain went through me and I start to feel numb. The Tank's attack doesn't last long though, as he finally takes all the damage he can deal with and collapses near me. I pay no attention to it. I feel nothing but pain and it's getting harder to breathe, every breath lit a fire in my chest and burns through me. I move a shaky hand towards my stomach and blood covers my hand. It's weird, the blood feels so warm... yet I feel so cold and was only getting colder. I can hear my name being called out by the others but their voices are growing distant, Ellis runs to my side and looks at my wound.
"Oh man. Oh man Oh man Oh man, Nick hang in there. I ain't leaving you buddy!" He holds onto my stomach wound in a bad attempt to stop the bleeding, he turns to the others. "Guys go find a medkit! He ain't gonna be around much longer if you don't!" I start to think back to the last time I felt this bad, is it 10 years? 20 maybe? I don't know. All I know is I may have survived it then but I'm not gonna survive it now. I turn my head slightly and my vision blurred again, through it though I can see the others running off leaving me with Ellis. I turn back to him to see him still trying in his attempt to stop the bleeding by pressing down with his hands, I can't feel it though and I know this is the end of me. I lift my arm closest to Ellis and grab his shirt in a weak grip. He looks at me and bent down to hear what I have to say to him.
"Hey... Ellis, you remember all those... things I've said about you?" I ask in a weak voice. Ellis looks at me, I swear I can see tears in his eyes.
"Yea why?"
"I was... kidding." When I finish those words, everything fades to black.