Zombies. In Steelport. Who would've thought that, that could happen?
Well, besides Zach. He was what many called a 'Prepper', some with more disdain than others. While the rest of us went to and from work each day, he was building up food stores, ammo caches, and arms for a "Zombie-esque viral outbreak". Crazy right? That's what I thought before the STAG plane crashed in the middle of Arapice Island.
Now, I think he walks on damn water. Well, I would if a zombie didn't get him while ushering John, Heather, and me into his hideout. He screamed as he was dragged into the crowd of flesh-eating monsters. It wasn't a plead for his life. No, it was "Close the fucking door!"
We did as he said and closed the heavy metal door. Inside was a survivalist's paradise. Gas masks, full chem suits, food, medicine, ammo, guns, the whole shebang. First thing we did was put on the gas masks (eery green gas leaking from strange containers? Huh. Wonder what's causing the zombies...). Next we grabbed weapons. John took a semi-automatic shotgun that had a fourteen round magazine while I took a Krukov with a red dot sight. Heather took a D4TH Blossom. We also took as much ammo as we could carry (did I mention he had assault harnesses?). Our gas masks weren't the old fashioned 'fish lenses' things with the dangling hose. Ours were the ones with the large plexiglass face shields and canisters attached to the side of the mask.
Now, as nice as that place was, we knew we had to get off the island, fast. We had ventured outside the next day (what? We were tired. We're not soldiers) to find that the zombies had dispersed and had now taken to walking the sidewalks almost like they were human again. Strange as it was, we moved out, closed the door, and started down the center of the road in a rough triangle formation. Luckily, Zach's holdout had been close to one of the bridges. We thought that if we could just get to the bridge, the military should be waiting for us.
If only we were that lucky. We knew were screwed well away from the bridge as we could see it rising over the houses in front of us.
"Well, that sucks," I heard John say. No shit John. Looking around, we saw an Atlantica sitting in front of the Rim Jobs down the street. It was black with dark windows and large, whitewall tires. It also had a purple trim around the doors, hood, and trunk. Eh, add it to the list of "What the fuck?". We took it, noticing with some delight that the thing had a big red button that we took for it's Nitrous button. Driving it back wasn't much of a problem. Surprisingly, most of the zombies decided to leave us be as we drove back to our holdout. When we exited the SUV, though, the zombies seemed to smell us and charged. Guns blazing, trying not to ruin our new ride, we retreated into the holdout.
As we did, I thought I heard a jet engine. I also thought I saw a zombie's head explode just before John finally shut the door. I wasn't too worried about the jet engine. What with STAG's occupation, those were all too common. The explosion of the zombie's head interested me, though. Had someone else survived? Had they barricaded themselves on a nearby roof with a Sniper Rifle? Should we help them? Ugh, too many questions.
Seeing as we had another night ahead of us in this shelter, we experimented with whether or not the holdout had an air scrubbing system. Really, I took off my mask while John had a pistol to my head and Heather watched for any signs of "Zombie-ness". I don't know how he got the money for it turned out that there was, in fact, an air scrubber. With that settled, we all took off our masks and enjoyed a good meal.
With our tummies full and safe in the knowledge that the air was clean, we all went to "sleep". I say that with quotations because it's kind of hard to sleep when you hear the squeaking of bed springs and muffled "God yes!"'s coming from behind a thin sheet curtain. However, I endured, tuning it out as I let them enjoy themselves. Who knew what could happen the next day, might as well let them do their thing. When they were done (what felt like two hours later), I finally drifted to sleep.
I was woken by a moan. No, not a "Fuck me harder" moan but a "Braaaaaaiiiiiins" moan. Instantly, I had shot to my feet with pistol (kept one under my pillow) in hand. The thing was working it's way through an air duct. A FUCKING AIR DUCT! What zombie does that? I mean, seriously! How the fuck does it have the process to think "Maybe I can fit in that air duct and get me a snack?"
Anyway, one pistol shot later, it lay half hanging out of the air duct. The pistol shot had woken the nude love birds and both were staring at the, now motionless, corpse with wide eyes.
"Masks and clothes on! We're moving now!" I had ordered, grabbing my own mask and slipping it on. After stuffing the pistol in the back of my pants and grabbing my Krukov, I turned back to see the other two fumbling with their clothes and other gear. I felt some respect for them when I saw that, even though they were just now putting on undergarments, they both had on their masks. However,
"Hurry the hell up. Our air won't last long and I don't want more of those damned things trying to crawl through."
A couple minutes later, both were dressed and decked. We moved to the big metal door and prepared ourselves. Opening the door, we rushed out to the Atlantica that sat exactly where we had parked it. We were about to get in when I noticed that the front end was kind of... well... crumpled.
"Oh give me a fucking break!" I shouted as I threw my left hand into the air. That was when we heard the roar. Turning to face down the street, we saw the Brute. Unlike most Brutes, this one was covered in sores and had a greenish tinge. Lowering it's head, the thing began to charge at us. We opened fire but nothing seemed to stop it. Well, nothing except the sniper round that tore through the back of it's head and into the pavement. The thing dropped and skid to a halt right in front of the three of us.
Looking where the shot came from, I saw a figure standing atop a rooftop, their Sniper Rifle pointed upward and one had waving for us to come to them. That was when the loud moaning of zombies reached my ears and I turned to see a horde of the things charging from the opposite direction. Hmm? Decisions, decisions. Go to who appeared to be our savior or go towards the horde?
Where the hell do you think we went? We ran for our lives towards the store that the sniper was atop of, shooting over our shoulders as we did. Reaching the building, I yanked open the door and waved the others inside. Turning back, I saw the zombies approaching but here and there, one would drop to the ground, blood exploding from it's body. Firing a burst at them with my rifle, I went inside, slammed the door shut, and charged after John and Heather for the staircase. Finding it, we went up to the roof access door.
We crashed through it, coming onto the graveled rooftop. In the middle of the roof I spotted what looked like a bike. It sported no wheels though, being held up by two landing skids. I saw what could only be the housing for a small jet engine. It was painted pitch black with purple trim and a purple fluer-de-lies on the side, near the back. It was no secret that the Saints were in Steelport and quickly taking over the city but seeing them with something like was a certainly a shock.
We saw the sniper and started to approach them. I soon realized it was a her dressed in a very form fitting, black spandex leotard. Over it, on her chest was a gray chest piece. A purple holster was strapped to her right thigh with a Shepard in it while a purple sheath held a knife to her left thigh. She wore black boots and a purple fluer-de-lies hung center chest, below her collar. She had iridescent hair (black with purple) in a cheerleader fashion and a black, Saints headset. Her skin was pale, which was interesting. She wore a gas mask like ours, which was unsurprising.
She turned to us, reloading her rifle, and smiled. "Well, glad to see you made it through the night."
"Why are you helping us?" Heather asked. They say not to look a gift horse in the mouth but when that horse is apparently a Saint with some advanced tech and scary marksmanship, one must question their reasoning.
She shrugged, "You looked like you needed help. I didn't think anyone was alive until I saw my car moving down the streets. I saw you all pile out and make a break for the back of a building. Couldn't innocents on their own."
So, that was why the SUV had purple trim. Wow, I feel stupid. She must have stored the bike thing at the Rim Jobs on the island and had been stuck on the island at some point during the outbreak. Grabbing the bike thing, she had to leave the SUV to escape. Makes sense.
Suddenly, she put a hand to her headset and nodded to herself, "Yeah. I got them, send in a pickup. Full armor and gas masks. What? Of course I want someone in the back. Oh, just hurry the hell up."
Finally, she turned back to us, "Pickup is on it's way. We just have to hold out for about half a hour. Shouldn't be too bad."
Not three minutes later, we had zombies pouring onto the roof. They were climbing the fucking walls to get to us. We soon found ourselves formed into a tight square with the strange bike in the middle of us. Even with just the sniper rifle, the Saint was proving to be a worthy fighter at close range. She was even able to help the rest of us when we were almost overrun (which was more times then I would like to think of).
"Shouldn't be too bad, huh?" I remarked as I sprayed into a group of zombies coming from the stairwell.
"Hey! They seem to have a real hard-on for you three. What the hell did you do?" she asked.
"I don't fucking know! Survive?"
A moment's pause, "Makes sense!"
"How does that make sense?" John asked, his shotgun booming.
"I don't know! It just does, alright!"
"That makes no sense though!" Heather shouted.
"Let's talk about what does and doesn't make sense after we don't have zombies attacking us. Agreed?"
"Agreed," replied John, Heather, and me simultaneously. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her shake her head before going back to shooting the animated corpses. About a minute later, I saw her sling her rifle across her back, draw her pistol and keep firing.
It wasn't long after that, that my own rifle clicked dry. When I fished for another mag and came up empty, I threw the rifle at a group of zombies before drawing my own pistol (a Kobra) and fired.
What felt like an eternity later, I heard the roar of jet engines. Looking up, I saw a STAG Condor swooping down towards us. Nice fucking timing they have. "Oh, there's a Saint helping three innocents fend off zombies? Let's kill all of 'em and dub the innocents 'associates to gang violence'. That'll give Cryus a nice hard-on."
When it came to a hover over the rooftop, though, I saw the Saint symbol spray painted on the side. With the fast paced 'pew, pew, pew' of laser (again, what the fuck?) machine-guns, the Condor mowed down the zombies that were near the edge of the roof. While we took out the ones closer to us, the Condor spun around and got closer to the roof. On the back, over the STAG symbol, a purple fluer-de-lies was spray painted on. The ramp dropped down and a figure in black fatigues, black vest, black helmet, black everything (even his gas mask was tinted) stepped onto the roof and fired his AR 55 on single-shot at the zombies still around us. The only thing that identified him as potentially being a Saint was the purple arm band on his right bicep.
The soldier (he damn well looked like one) knelt down and fired at the zombies coming from the doorway.
"Come on!" he shouted, quickly motioning to the hovering Condor with one hand before going back to shooting at the zombies. The three of us wasted no time as we charged for the troop bay. Jumping inside, we grabbed our seats. Looking out, I saw the female Saint get on the bike thing and, sure enough, the back opened to reveal a small jet engine. The bike flew up off the roof. The Saint gave us a salute before the bike transformed with a flurry of mechanics and zoomed off out of sight.
As if on cue, the soldier came backpedaling into the troop bay, still firing at the zombies coming out onto the roof.
"Gogogo!" he shouted quickly, seemingly into a headset. Grabbing onto a handhold, he continued to fire as the Condor pulled up and away from the roof. When they were far enough away, the soldier sat down and the ramp started to close. With the flurry of mechanics, I felt the craft lurch to the side (it's forward) as it switched to airplane mode.
The three of us had removed our masks when the ramp was shut. The only lighting was the orange lights that STAG liked so much. It was enough to see John and Heather holding each other, though. I smiled, feeling happy for my friends. They were both alive. Feeling someone looking at me, I looked over at the soldier next to me. He had his head turned my way and I could feel that his eyes were looking at me.
"So," he started, "wanna make a difference?"