Author's Note: So this is my first Left 4 Dead 2 fic; actually, my first fic at all, so be gentle :P

Left 4 Dead 2, its characters, and zombies are all property of Valve. Andy is not.

Enjoy the story! Remember to read and review!

Chapter 1: Lives Ending

They were dead. All of them. He just couldn't believe how this had happened. All of them were friends, good shots, but most importantly they were all ready. But now they were dead. Andy looked down at Taylor's body; she had been the last to fall. But everyone dies sometime; this goddamn apocalypse was a testament to that at least. He let her lie; only stooping low to the Savannah street to close her still open eyelids with two of his fingers. All of them were dead, but he was alive. He would carry on in their memories for as long as he could, kill every one of these bastards with his bare, god-damn hands if he had to. He stood again, wiped away his salty tears with the scuffed leather of his jacket, and smoothed his hand through his long blonde hair. His right hand still held the rifle he had used to slay the tank that had claimed the last three of his closest friends; in his former life it was his guaranteed zombie-buster, the HK 416, now battered and smoking, but still his only ally. He shook his emotions back into the dark corners of his mind and looked at his surroundings. He was by an abandoned semi-truck by the plaza of the hotel he had been staying at. One of the CEDA evac centers was just a few meters away. For now, there was a dead silence echoing through the street. He chuckled at the pun.

"Hehe, dead silence." Then he laughed; not because he thought the pun was funny, but because of how fucked up his life was right now. It was almost funny.

Several loud bangs made him freeze. He snapped to alert, dropping the empty clip out of his gun and jamming a new one in, and pulled the bolt back into place. He heard the telltale signs of gunfire, and the inhuman moans of those undead-sons-of bitches.

"You wanna go again?" he screamed, "then fucking bring it!"

--{()}--

Coach ran into the saferoom, a large wave of zombies crowding behind him.

"Hey, close that door!" Ellis yelled, peppering the zombies behind coach with his Mossberg shotgun. Nick and Rochelle both lunged for the door, slamming it behind Coach on several flailing zombie limbs, which Coach promptly disembodied with his chainsaw. With the door finally shut, Coach let out a loud laugh.

"You made me proud out there people!" He then looked around the saferoom, spotted a food pantry, and walked towards it, rubbing his hands together. As he rifled through the cabinets, Rochelle and Nick tried to extricate themselves from the other, their limbs tangled and Rochelle on top off Nick. They finally succeeded, brushing themselves off while panting, red in the face.

"You know, you two almos' looked like you wur havin' fun down there." Ellis snickered, grabbing more shells for his shotgun from the table.

"Yeah, why don't you tell that to that to the hunter-zombie that would have ripped your guts out if I wasn't there." Nick replied frostily.

"Now, now, children." Rochelle chided in a mock-motherly voice.

The conversation stopped when they heard what they thought was a squeal from where Coach was. He pulled out a can of peaches, his face hidden behind the massive grin he was wearing.

"Uh huh! Peach cobbla!"

Nick looked at Ellis, and Ellis looked at Nick, and Rochelle looked between the two. Then all three burst out laughing.

"Was that a squee I jus' heard from ya, Coach?" Ellis managed between bouts of laughter. Now Nick was rolling on the ground, clutching his stomach and laughing.

"Yeah, yeah, keep it up you two. Just wait until I find some a' that cobbla they make at Joe's down the street. Then you two'll be laughin'." Coach said, his eyebrow quirked and half of a smile creeping up his face.

"Wait! Do you hear that?" Rochelle said, staring intently out the window, her Uzi at the ready. Immediately the other three stopped what they were doing and looked out the window. Right at the edge of the hotel plaza, there was a throng of zombies, all clumped around something that was clearly giving them trouble. Just then a whole wave of zombies fell away in bits and pieces, revealing a blonde man dishing out all that they could handle. In his hands he had a fire axe, the handle soaked in blood, along with the black leather jacket that he had on. He was up to his knees in dead zombies, and they just kept piling up. Suddenly, a distant screech could be heard, the unmistakable noise of one of those hooded bastards. The zombie was crawling its way behind him, so it could leap on him and rip him apart.

"We gotta get out there and help 'im!" Coach yelled, grabbing his suppressed Uzi. They all immediately grabbed their weapons and bashed open the saferoom door, running to his rescue. They were ten feet away when the hooded zombie was finally able to jump on him, its claws tearing mercilessly into his flesh, while the man tried to push it off of him. Then their path to him was blocked by a mob of the undead bastards. Coach took the lead, sawing through flesh and bone with his chainsaw, blood and unrecognizable organs splattering everywhere. Rochelle and Nick fired their machineguns, the bullets tearing through zombies. Ellis ran into the throng, bashing a path to the man, blasting heads off of any zombie that got too close.

"Get it off me! Ah, this guy is tearing me apart!" The man yelled. The path was now clear and it was not a good sight. The zombie was sitting on top of him and ripping at him, blood soaking the man's white shirt and jacket.

Ellis came to the rescue, knocking the zombie off of him, and then blowing its face off with his shotgun. The other three arrived soon after, inspecting the scene. Ellis was trying to help him out of the puddle of his blood, but it was no good. The man was actually a fairly young boy, with blonde hair down to his eyebrows, which were now stained with his own blood. He turned so he was on his hands and knees and lost his breakfast.

"Hey, kid, we have to see how bad it is before we can heal you up." Nick stooped down, and lifted up the scratched and torn white shirt. Underneath it was just as bad. Whole pieces of flesh missing, large, gaping slash marks, blood quickly pouring from each one.

"Kid, I'm gonna need you to bite down on this." Nick offered him a small, cylindrical piece of wood. Nick didn't want to put the kid in any more pain, but he had to stitch this up and fast. He grabbed a sowing needle from the pocket of his white jacket and then lifted up the boy's shirt and started to work.

--{()}--

"So howdya think he's gon hold up?" Ellis asked the other two. They were standing several feet back, trying to give Nick some room. Coach and Rochelle looked at the injured boy lying limp on the ground. He couldn't be any more than seventeen. They exchanged worried looks.

"Sweety, I don't know."

"Yeah. Seems like he took a pretty bad hit, son. I don't know if he can get up from that."

Then finally, Nick lowered the boys shirt after what seemed like hours and proclaimed the news.

"Anyone have a first-aid kit?"

So what? Good? Bad? Review plz!