Disclaimer #1

I do not own Left 4 Dead, or Left 4 Dead 2, or any of the characters featured here as they are depicted in the game. This is my interpretation of the story written by, and owned by, the Valve Corporation. I am not associated with Valve, or Gabe Newell, in any way. (If I was, I'd tell him to finish Half Life 3.) All and any OC's here are of my own invention. I only request that you give credit to me if you use them in another fanfic/fanart/what-have-you.

Disclaimer #2

This is a Left 4 Dead story that has very little to do with Left 4 Dead.

Sure, it's set in the same timeline (Roughly) and the same universe, but the story is not centered on Zoey, or Bill, or Francis, or Ellis, or Coach, or any of the other main characters in the games. Sorry, I don't like messing with the canon that much. I may or may not include them in cameos, but only time will tell in terms of that. Otherwise, sit back, relax, and enjoy the story that has driven me to madness. Read it, review it, and please show a little mercy when you do so.

You could call me pretty genre-savvy, if there's a word for it.

I guess it comes down to my upbringing; being raised by a survival nut does wonders for inherent paranoia. You see, Dad went beyond the usual "Keep a 1st-aid kit nearby and some spare batteries in case of a blackout" thing everyone else does. When it came to disasters, Dad was like those dudes who stand on street corners holding up signs and yelling "The end is near!" 'Cept, instead of yelling at people and handing out pamphlets, Dad prepared.

Dad had every single survival book ever written, from Alaskan Wilderness Living to The Zombie Survival Guide. (Well, the last one was a gag gift from my Uncle Whit, but Dad kept it on the shelf all the same.)

Dad made me take combat medical courses, the ones where you learn to saw off a leg in the middle of a battlefield.

Dad built a nuclear-warfare cabin in the middle of the Maine wilderness "Just in case." (More on that later.)

I don't know why Dad was like that. Maybe there was something wrong with his head. Maybe it was just a quirk he had. In any case, he made sure to impress his survival doctrine on me during the duration of my tender, sensitive childhood years. This has done two things to me.

1. It has made me a cynical bastard. (Nothing makes for cynicism than being told, at the age when most kids are still on Blue's Clues, that humanity will probably fall into anarchy and chaos)

2. It has made me paranoid as hell.

Not that paranoia is a bad thing. It certainly saved my ass several times, not the least during the Green Flu Outbreak.

They say it started in Pennsylvania. Patient Zero reported into Mercy Hospital on September 18th, reporting dizziness, vomiting, headaches, and an urge to murder every living thing within their immediate vicinity.

And that was just the beginning.

By day two, it was out and beyond the hospital. Everywhere else, people dismissed it as 'just another flu,' but I knew better. The quarantines; the blocked news reports; the glint in official's eyes as they said "Yes, yes, it's all under control." Right then my BS detector went off, and a little voice in my head said, Something is coming. And it isn't good.

So, I decided to get the hell out of dodge. The last thing I needed was to be fighting for my life out of the city with some other weirdos I didn't know, but was forced to team up with in the name of survival. Seriously, who would want to do that? I asked my neighbor to water the plants, told my boss I'd be gone, and left before the shit hit the fan (And when it did, it hit it hard) up to The Cabin.

To call The Cabin as a little side project of Dad's would be a grievous insult to him, and he'd probably come back as a ghost and kick my ass if I referred to it as such. Besides, it would be a gross understatement. The Cabin wasn't just a place. It was a state of mind. An embodiment of safety; of preparedness; of survival. It was a fortress of solitude, independence, and MRE's. (Which could be also be used as building materials in a pinch, but unfortunately, Dad decided to stick with wood.)

It started 20-odd years ago, as a side project. (Dadpleasedon'tkickmyass!) He bought it, dirt-cheap, off of a deer-hunter up in Maine who was "Gettin' too old for this BS". (Whatever that meant) Before Dad starting, ah, modifying it, the cabin (Lowercase here) was pretty simple; a couple of bedrooms, one main room, an old woodstove, and a small basement. No running water (Unless you counted the pump outside) no electricity, and about 150 or so miles from the nearest little ramshackle farm you could call 'civilization'.

It was (To Dad, at least) perfect.

He poured his money, time and (Probably) love into that damn thing. Oh, it started innocently enough; first it was, 'Stock the cellar with a few provisions.' Then, it was 'Turn the entire cellar into a fallout shelter.' The, it was 'Turn the entire damn thing into a fallout shelter."

As you can see, it escalated pretty quickly.

When I was younger, it wasn't as big a part in my life as it was later. At that point, it was just someplace north of us that we'd visit occasionally. But, as time went on, it crept into my (And Dad's) life, to such an extent where it became like a second child of sorts. There were three piles of presents under the tree come Christmas time: For me, for Dad, and for The Cabin. I spent my summer vacation not at Disneyworld, or at camp, or even at home; Instead, I'd be in the middle of nowhere, Maine, helping put in solar panels/set up barbed wire/stock the woodshed/whatever Dad felt The Cabin needed added. Hell, he even judged my first car on whether it could make it up to The Cabin. Yep, he selected the very first vehicle that he bought for me based not on cost, or on whether I'd like it, but on whether it could make it up to a goddamn log house hundreds of miles away from us.

I might sound bitter.

In fact, I'm not. Sure, I would occasionally resent the fact that sometimes, the only thing on Father-dear's mind was CabinCabinCabinCabinCabin and wonder if maybe he could inject the name Marcy in between all the Cabins. I even wondered if he loved it more than I did.

But, sometimes, he'd make little comments like We'll be safe and sound here or I won't have to worry and all that, and I'd kind of half-listen, 'till one day it hit me like a ton of bricks falling from the sky:

Dad loved me through The Cabin.

All the crazy stuff he added on to it, from the basement to the drying shed to the MRE's (As horrible as they were) was his way of saying I love you, because he built that Cabin not just for him to survive, but for me to survive, too, right there with him. Looking back, some of my best memories are sitting there with him, repairing the roof, or taking stock, or the million other things he could be come up with to make The Cabin safe and comfortable, for him, and me, too. And all the whole time, he was telling me I love you, Marzia, and I want you to be safe no matter what happens, 'cept he'd be saying it in his own way, which was by preparing for the worst to come, instead of just saying it.

Love's a funny language, when you look at it.

Frankly, I think the way Dad told me was the most honest way of saying it that he could, and a hella lot more sincere than most ways people say I love you. Words are only sounds, anyways, and sounds are vibrations, which go away, fading into entropy in the air.

I don't think you could make that Cabin go away, no matter how hard you tried.

I love you too, Dad.

Though he prepared for the more spectacular kinds of disasters, Dad died in the most unspectacular way possible, which is why I think God is a sadistic bastard.

I found him in his apartment just hours after he'd gone, lying in his chair with a copy of The Vault Dweller's Survival Manual, Pocket Edition in his hands, and a blood clot in his brain, according to the doctors.

I scattered his ashes by the Cabin. It's what he would have wanted.

That was a year ago. Cue back to now, where I'm buying a candy bar at a convenience store and waiting to pay for gas. I'm nearing 'ramshackle farm town' territory, and the last thing I need is an empty tank with only cows to help me.

The station clerk was a middle-aged man with the sort of look that said he was happy with his lot in life. (Which is saying a lot for his disposition, with him being a gas-station clerk. Make of it what you will.) He was cheerful enough to actually attempt to start a conversation with me.

"You're not from around here, are you?" he asked as he rang up my candy bar and a tank full of gas. I gave a non-committal shrug.

"Just taking a little break from work to come up here. Y'know, see the colors, get away from it all." I decided beforehand not to reveal anything about my true intentions; I didn't really want any half-starved townspeople ramming down the perfectly nice door to The Cabin in two weeks, because of my loose tongue. It was just the right season for tourists, too; for some unexplainable reason, people from the south feel strongly compelled to watch a bunch of trees turn yellow and orange at certain times of the year.

It seemed to convince the clerk, anyways; He nodded to me as he handed over my receipt and change.

"I'm just glad I'm up here." He said. "I heard that Green 'flu down south is spreading pretty quick. Kids around here are saying is a zombie apocalypse or somethin'…"

I smirked. "Feh, it's probably just an overreaction." I said, pocketing the money. "It'll blow itself out in two weeks, and no-one'll be the wis-"

The metallic ding-ding of the store's door sensor cut me off, and a heaving, gasping man stumbled in.

He was clutching his arm, and looked deathly pale, his eyes wild, and full of fear.

"Max!" Cried the cashier, seeing the man. "What the hell happened to you?!"

The man wheezed, still clutching his arm, which I now noticed was bloody. "Some sicko over at Doc Bren's jumped me…bit me" he managed to gasp out. "Managed to out run him…" he gulped. "Feel c'ld..." The man collapsed to the floor.

The clerk grabbed the phone under the counter, and started to dial what I presumed was 911, and I nearly went to help the poor bastard on the ground.

Something made me stop.

This isn't right. I thought. This wasn't the look of someone who just has a fright; this guy looked right-out sick. Pale skin, the coughing…

The fact he was growling.

The cashier put down the phone now. "Don't worry, Max, they'll be here in 15 minutes…" he said, starting to make his way around the counter. I blocked him with my arm, however, before he could get any closer. "Wait." I said, never taking my eyes off the man.

The cashier shoved my arm away. "He needs medical attention!" he hissed, starting to push past me. "Right, Max?" he asked, glancing back at the prone man.

Only, Max wasn't lying down any more.

He was rising, slowly, awkwardly, like a man not used to walking. He stopped clutching his arm, and was mumbling words to himself that I couldn't quite make out. "Max?" asked the clerk, a little tendril of fear in his voice.

At the sound, the man shot his head up. His eyes were black, all the way through, and the snarl he gave was totally inhuman. With an angry howl, he launched himself, arms out, at the cashier, who screamed, holding his arms up in a futile attempt to block himself.

There was a bang.

Max crumpled to the ground, a bullet hole in his head.

I flicked the safety back on the handgun as I strapped it (Carefully) back into my holster, silently thanking the fact Dad loved me enough to make me learn quick-draw. I turned to the cashier, my face stony.

"It's not a flu, mister, whatever the hell it is."

The clerk was still standing there, dumb-founded, unable to tear his eyes from the body of the luckless Max.

"And it's on the move."

No going back now, was there?

"I recommend you do the same."

The clerk nodded, finally taking his eyes away from the corpse. He reached under counter, and grabbed a .22 rifle, cocking it with his hand. "That's what I'm gonna do, miss." He said, nodding, as he made his way to the door. "I have a family to go to."

Good for you. I though, absentmindedly, as I wondered where he got the gun from in a boondocks place like this.

He nodded to me as he grabbed the door handle. "You saved my life." The clerk tossed me something jangling, which I caught without looking at it. "Help yourself." He said, pulling the door open, and running off to who-knows-where, leaving me alone in an empty store, with a dead zombie and the ding-ding of the door tone for company.

I looked at the object the cashier had tossed me. It was the keys to the store, and the gas-pumps.

I grinned.

I have this state of mind Dad used to call my dead-mode. It was when I just stopped giving a damn about anything, and just got on with life. I didn't stop to panic, or even to contemplate the grimness of situation; for me, it would just be business as usual. It only happened once in a while; I'd had my fair share of freak-outs in life, where the panic would rise in my chest and the fear would settle in my stomach like a badly-digested lunch, and basically go nuts.

But, sometimes, I'd just go cold.

Eyes glazed over, my mind worried about different, less important things, while the world burned around me.

I guess us humans can do that (To a lesser extent) all their lives. It's why you see people crying over which celebrity asshole broke up with some other celebrity asshole, yet they don't care about EMPs or impeding nuclear war or, in this case, a zombie virus threatening to destroy the world.

Maybe all my non-worry is bottled up in me, since I never did use it on celebrities, or what-have-you, and actually did worry about stuff that mattered. I'm not sure. But whatever it is, I'd just get all eerie-calm and go around like the world wasn't falling into chaos around me. This was one of those times.

I could have been worried about the man I just killed. I wasn't.

I could have been wondering what life would mean to me now that my home city was probably overrun with millions of bloodthirsty, crazed cannibals, or what happened to my fellow co-workers and neighbors at home. To be frank, I could have cared less.

Hell, I could've even wondered of that clerk got out OK.

But, nope, I was worried about candy bars. How many I would need to make it up to The Cabin without any more stops, to be exact. I didn't feel like making any more pit stops, in any case, if this was the scenario I'd have to go through every time I needed to gas up. I settled on raiding the whole stock, and went out to load up the tank.

Later, I'd care about what happened. I'd look back at that incident, like someone watching a movie, and not remembering an experience they had, and I'd think about what a cold, cruel bastard I was then. I'd spend my time worrying about Max, and the clerk, and my neighbors, and everything else I left behind, and I'd let it weigh me down with regret and fear, and let it eat away at me a little bit.

But for now, I was in my own little void of what they call 'Not Giving a Fuck at All'.

I guess it goes to show. I'm not sure what, exactly, but I'm sure it shows something.

Dead-mode or no, the rest of the day was pretty quiet. I had yet to see very many zombies; One of 'em tried to jump me while I was loading up the gas-cans I brought with me, but a bullet through the head shut him up.

What scared me, though, even through the coldness, was how fast these bastards were. While I wasn't much of a movie junkie (Dad generally didn't approve of them) I'd seen my fair share of zombie flicks, and in all of them, they were slow; shambling, shuffling, walking- Not lunging and running, for God's sake! Whatever the hell this virus was, man, it was fucked up.

Either way, I wasn't disturbed for the hour and a half it to me to ride up there. Nothing but cows and grass and trees, and no zombies to mess up the view.

It was only early dusk when I arrived, but it was still surprisingly dark, without any other light than the fading sun, and my car lamps. The air was fresher and cleaner up here, and I knew that as soon as I opened the door to The Cabin, I would be greeted by the smell of wood, of smoke, and of old rooms.

I was home.

A/N: Hello, all! This is the first chapter of my very first fanfic! Yay! (*Kermit flail*) Please read and review it, it would be greatly appreciated. Please also know that I am seeking a Beta reader for this story, so if you are willing, please send me PM. I have all the chapters written out, so it's ready to go. I will try to upload every couple of days or so, so keep checking. Thanks!

-Author