AUTHOR' NOTE: This chapter covers the intro movie and attempts to start fleshing out the characters. Further chapters will not adhere so closely to the game map/script. I love the intro movie and didn't want to make any massive changes to it, so I didn't.
Bill poked his head cautiously out the door of the police station, checking out the street for infected. He held the door open and waved the others out. "Keep together and keep quiet, let's not call attention to ourselves." He whispered to them as they filed out.
The young manager, Louis, looked nervously around and nodded. He was sweating and clutching to a submachine gun tightly.
The young woman, Zoey, anxiously peered around Louis, glancing at Bill as she passed. She held a pair of pistols as she crept forward, a rifle slung over her shoulder. She followed closely behind Louis, almost stepping on him.
The hulking shape of Francis, a heavily tattooed biker, emerged last. His face seemed set in a permanently annoyed glare, his massive shoulders hunched as he crouched over his raised shotgun. He looked around suspiciously, he didn't know what to expect. His eyebrows arched in surprise as he took in the bedlam surrounding him. The city had been a chaotic mess when he had been arrested a few days ago, but this was far beyond chaos, it was near total destruction. Every imaginable vehicle was either crashed, haphazardly abandoned or burnt to a shell. Buildings, houses and stores had been broken into, their contents spilled out into the yards and streets. The dead were scattered everywhere, while infected creatures could be seen stumbling through the rubble here and there. No wonder they were evacuating the city, he thought to himself.
"Come on!" Bill spoke quietly to them as he jerked his head toward a nearby alley. They needed to head toward the downtown area, there should be a central evacuation spot there. If they were really lucky there might be a National Guard or Army unit stationed there too.
Bill led the group down the deserted alley. He proceeded cautiously, scanning ahead for trouble. He pulled up short as he spotted a pool of viscous, green goo on the ground, automatically throwing up the "hold up" signal he had used so often in 'Nam.
"Hold up!" He said firmly, quickly realizing the others might not recognize the signal. He knelt down and examined the goo, dipping his fingers in and rubbing them together. "Never seen this before…"
Francis glanced down and gave a snort of disgust. "Don't let that stop ya from smearin' it all over yourself!"
Bill scowled up at him and stood, then wiped the goo across Francis' vest. It was past time to put this kid in his damned place.
Francis leapt back, brushing at the goo. "Goddamn it, Bill! Aaaghh, it stinks!" He glared angrily at Bill, as Louis unsuccessfully tried to stifle a surprised giggle. Francis drew himself up to his full height, towering over Bill. He didn't know what the old man thought he was playing at, but Francis wasn't about to let him get away with that shit. It was his favorite and only vest, after all. Nobody screws with a man's leather vest.
Suddenly, loud sobbing interrupted the men's tense stand off. It seemed to be coming from a nearby room.
"Somebody's alive!" Zoey looked with astonishment at the others as she approached the door.
Bill reached forward and carefully opened the door, as Zoey called into the darkness. He cautiously entered, setting his feet quietly down, heel to toe as he crept forward. Zoey followed him, her flashlight scanning the room as she continued to call out to the sobbing person.
A flash of lightning illuminated the room and they suddenly saw where the sobbing was coming from. An emaciated woman, dressed in torn rags, was kneeling on the ground, sobbing and hissing. This was no person, but a strange undead creature.
"Lights off!" Bill hissed at Zoey. She immediately switched it off, horrified at their discovery.
Outside, a drizzling rain had begun. Francis hissed out a curse, now his favorite vest was going to get wet, too. He hoped it would at least rinse the crud that Bill had smeared on it off. He cursed in irritation, that old man was going to get an ass kicking before this was all over if he wasn't careful. The old fossil had already gotten one warning from Francis, he wouldn't get another.
A series of howls started up down the alley, as some infected appeared to detect their presence and started running toward them.
Francis began blasting them down with his shotgun, pumping the shells quickly into the creatures scrambling toward them.
Louis started to panic, he dashed into the room to warn Bill and Zoey. "They're coming!" He yelled, as his flashlight shined on and startled the weird female zombie. She rose, shrieking as her red eyes searched for the one who dared disturb her, long and sharp claws spreading out.
"Run like hell!" Zoey screamed as she bolted for the exit behind Louis. Bill scrambled after her, slamming the door behind him. The zombie slammed into it, shrieking in fury.
Louis threw himself against the door, his eyes widened in surprise as the zombie clawed its way through the metal door. He began to spray bullets from the machine gun at it through the hole it had made. "How do you like that!" He screamed at her, suddenly very pissed at the shrieking creature that was doing her damnedest to try and get to him.
"Stick together!" Francis bellowed back to Louis, as he fired his shotgun as quickly as he could toward the horde dashing down the alley towards them. They could use the submachine gun over here, screw that thing behind the door. He turned back as he shoved shells into his weapon. A choked gasp from Bill caused him to glance behind him. Bill was dangling in the air, kicking futilely, suspended by some sort of wriggling tentacle leading to a tall mutant zombie standing on a fire escape.
"Hang on!" He yelled to Bill as he shot the mutant creature. It burst in a puff of putrid, choking, green smoke as Bill dropped heavily down onto the pavement. Francis urged him to his feet, even as he blew away a zombie charging up to throw itself on Bill, barely glancing at it as he blew its head off. "Merry Christmas!" He threw Bill a little smirk. Here he wanted to kill the guy a few minutes ago, now he was saving his ass multiple times. Too ironic, Francis thought to himself. Didn't mean he was off the hook for the vest thing, though. He whirled back toward the horde surging down the alley toward them. Their combined fire finally eliminated the infected, leaving a pile of corpses spread through the alley.
They all looked at one another, panting, as they realized just how much trouble they were in. This wasn't going to be some leisurely stroll to the evacuation area.
Their stunned silence was broken by the thudding sound of a helicopter passing overhead.
Louis looked skyward and began to race toward it, yelling as he ran. "We're here! We're not infected! We're down here!" He raced into the street as the chopper disappeared. "Damn it!" His shoulders slumped as he realized it hadn't seen him. A screeching shriek caught his attention and he looked up toward the building as a dark shape hurtled down toward him, throwing him down on his back as it ripped at his chest with sharp claws. He screamed in pain as he tried to shove it off him.
Pistol shots peppered into the creature, as Zoey fired both pistols at it, and it staggered back from him. He pulled his pistol out and shot it in the head. It fell dead, splatting against a car and setting off the loud blaring of a car alarm.
"Aw…this is gonna get bad…" Bill observed, as he listened to the howling and screaming erupting all around them as the zombies, attracted to the alarm, scrambled toward them. They clustered nervously together, as masses of infected started dashing down the street to converge on them.
A loud roaring erupted over the screaming of the writhing crowd descending on them. A massive creature appeared, towering over the others, it was a steroid-ridden nightmare. Huge, pinkish and covered in bulging muscle it stampeded its way through the horde, dashing anything in its way aside.
Francis stared at it in disbelief, the gigantic thing looked unstoppable. It bashed a fist into a car, sending it rolling through the horde, crushing them in its path. The car bounded past, and the others turned to gaze in disbelief at their newest problem.
"Run or shoot? Run or shoot?" Louis asked, as he backed away in barely concealed panic.
"BOTH!" Bill shouted, as he bolted down an alley, firing backward toward the pursuing zombies and gigantic beast. The alley came to a dead end, they looked around in desperation for a way out.
"Up the escape!" Zoey screamed, pointing to a fire escape leading to a rooftop. They ran toward it.
Francis knelt down at the base, aiming his weapon on the alley behind them. He narrowed his eyes, growling. "Come on, come on!" He wanted his shot at that big son of a bitch. The idea of running away from the thing didn't sit well with him.
It charged around the corner and he blasted it with the shotgun, the pellets slamming into it. It barely even flinched as it grasped a nearby zombie and flung it full force into Francis, bouncing him off the wall. He fell stunned to the ground as the creature raised its fists, preparing to pound him into the rubble.
Bill fired a burst from his M16 into its face, distracting the creature towards him and away from Francis. It flung an arm toward him, he ducked it as the zombie punched through the wall behind him. The others had all started up the fire escape. He glanced up, wondering if he would have the same chance.
"Go! Go! I'll hold them off!" Zoey shouted as he charged up the escape. The young woman fired her pistols into the face of the monstrous zombie and the common infected flooding in behind him. The giant leapt after them, tearing the metal escape apart from its sheer weight. Bill was helped onto the rooftop by Louis, just as it started to tear away from the wall.
Zoey was trying to jump off, but the escape sagged backward, throwing her back, away from the roof. She dropped her pistols and lunged for the edge of the roof, as the escape collapsed beneath her. She saw Francis leaning on the edge as he reached for her. She realized she wasn't going to make it. "Francis!" She cried out in desperation as she missed the edge and started to fall. Suddenly, his giant hand darted down and closed over her arm in a death grip.
Francis gasped in pain as he took her full weight on his badly bruised shoulder. He knelt down and pulled upward, reaching with his other arm to grab her belt and haul her over the edge, with Louis helping him. They got her safely on the rooftop. Francis fell over against a nearby wall to sit, gasping, he needed a couple of minutes to work his way through the throbbing pain he was feeling in his shoulder and aching head. Being bounced off a brick wall by that leviathan had been a very painful wake up call.
Louis sat shakily down on some stairs. "We made it! I can't believe we made it!" He wiped at the sweat running down his face.
"Son, we just crossed the street. Let's not throw a party until we're out of the city." Bill observed with a grim shake of his head. This situation was so much worse than he ever thought it would be. He looked over at his little crew, collapsed in exhaustion behind him. If that wasn't a trial by fire, he didn't know what the hell was. They had done well, far better than he could have hoped for. They were a ragtag little crew, but he was proud of them. They stuck together and helped each other, even in the face of overwhelming odds. He sat down for a quick breather before leading them further into the depths of the hell surrounding them.