So, my latest craving for writing has been Left 4 Dead 2.
Inspiration was drawn from the video game (obviously) and also from the Stuck in Savannah series by Parle' Productions (This is actually what got me interested in the game in the first place.)
Three days.
That was how long it had been since Ellis had seen another human being. Or, unless you counted Nick, another normal one; he'd seen plenty of abnormal ones.
There were hordes of them; common, hunters, jockeys, witches. And they wanted nothing more than to kill him. This whole thing was a load of bullshit. One little germ and the world had gone to hell in a hand basket without so much as a 'be back soon.' Talk about bad luck.
Before the infection hit, Ellis had often wondered what a zombie apocalypse might be like. His buddy Keith had a pretty good idea.
"I'll tell you what; it'd be the best dang shootin' range ever! You could just go out there and kill all those sons-a-bitches."
Well, Keith had been right. Ellis even came up with a motto. They'd been in an overrun evac station, trying to make some sense of what was going on, and Coach had found a pamphlet. CEDA liked to think that it was helping people, but the survivors knew better. The man's voice was pure sarcasm as he read the paper out loud "Report unusual behavior. Barricade your homes. Avoid all contact with infected individuals. Wait for official instructions. Tch! Wait my ass!"
"Kill all sons-a- bitches," Ellis said. "That's my 'fficial instructions."
And that was exactly what he did. It was easy to see that Ellis hated zombies. Another thing he hated was the fact that it wasn't actually easy to make something zombie proof.
He'd tried to make his truck zombie proof after the infection got serious. He thought he'd done a pretty good job considering he was a mechanic and Keith had given him a lot of helpful pointers, but it turned out that the truck was actually only ninety-nine percent zombie-proof. The other one percent tore it to shreds. Ellis had liked that truck. It was the last thing he and Keith had done before the Infection hit. Ellis hoped that his friend was okay. He probably was. Keith had more lives than an immortal cat. According to the laws of human existence he should have died…well, a long time ago. That was why Ellis liked Keith. He wasn't stupid; he just liked to have fun. Even if fun involved the police tear gassing him for shooting crows on the top of a building.
After the zombies destroyed Ellis' truck, he'd made it on foot for a while. Then he met Coach and Rochelle. Coach was a football coordinator at a high school. He had a bad knee that liked to give him shit at all the wrong times; like when they were trying to climb stairs to escape the zombies. He loved food too. He often brought up a thing called the 'One-Man Cheeseburger Apocalypse'. When Ellis asked about this, Coach replied simply, "It's an apocalypse for cheeseburgers, Ellis. I'm the apocalypse."
Ellis liked Coach. He was from Georgia too. They both loved Jimmy Gibbs Jr. and the Midnight Riders, and also amusement parks. Even though Ellis rambled sometimes, Coach still looked out for him and made sure he got back on track.
Rochelle wasn't from Savannah. She was from Ohio; Cleveland, if Ellis remembered correctly (he forgot stuff like that sometimes.) Anyway, Rochelle was a producer for a news station. She was setting up for a segment about Savannah's CEDA Evac station when a horde of zombies crashed her site and she had to run for it. She and Coach had been looking for other survivors before they found Ellis. They'd met Nick on the way to another Evac Station. Ellis wasn't sure what exactly it was that Nick did, but apparently it involved gambling…and other things that the man wouldn't elaborate on. He made it clear that he was solo kind of guy, but had changed his mind after realizing he had a better chance of surviving in a group.
Ellis had lost track of how long they were together. One week, maybe two. Fighting for your life 24/7 tended to do that. Everything was still a blur.
After they escaped the mall in Jimmy Gibbs Jr.'s stock car, it was okay for a little while. They had to go on foot when they reached the highway. It broke Ellis' heart to leave the car behind, but there was no way to drive over twenty miles of abandoned vehicles. They made it as far as the amusement park. After that, things got really bad really fast.
They lost Coach first.
A Horde and some Hunters swarmed them on the way to an evac station. Of course, it was on top of a building. As they raced up the stairwell with the screams of hunters echoing in their ears, Coach slowed; his bad knee had finally given out. Nick tried to help him, but the man staunchly refused and told him to go. He made it two more flights before the hunters overwhelmed him.
Nick was the first to snap out if the shock. "Damn," he said, "that was Coach…well, it doesn't matter now."
Ellis and Ro had been slower to accept the loss. The woman had been closer to Coach than any of them, so Nick allowed her some leeway. However, he was condescending towards Ellis until Rochelle told him to knock it off because he wasn't helping. One thing Ellis had learned about Rochelle was that she was a lot tougher than she looked. She could kick your ass if she wanted to. After Coach died she stopped pretending to be patient with Nick. How she had even managed it that long was a mystery to Ellis.
Nick and Rochelle fought a lot. Ellis hated listening to them, but Nick's favorite phrase quickly became, 'Shut the fuck up, Ellis!' whenever the mechanic tried to intervene. More than once, he was sure that the two would just shoot each other right then and there.
That was one thing Ellis did not want to happen. If Nick and Rochelle died, he would be on his own. He didn't want to be alone in the middle of a zombie apocalypse with nothing but jockeys and witches for company. Thankfully, the violence never rose above shouting matches. There was one time when Rochelle slapped Nick across the face and it got close, but the man 'played the mature adult' and nothing else happened.
After that, Rochelle became distant. Ellis thought she would leave, but she didn't. She did refuse to speak to Nick for a long time, and after that, only when necessity demanded it. She stayed for the same reason all of them stayed: no one wanted to be alone at a time like this. It was bad enough having to survive hordes of zombies in the first place. Surviving them on your own? Good luck. You might be okay for a little while, but if a hunter caught up to you, you were fucked.
Ellis, Nick, and Rochelle made it almost another week. They got out of Savannah on a helicopter. However, Nick ended up having to shoot pilot because he changed into a zombie mid-flight, causing them to crash in Mississippi. They'd made it to a large warehouse relatively unscathed. There weren't many zombies to deal with for some reason or another, and they'd been able to get some supplies along the way. Life had run at a near standstill compared to what they had been through. They had a small moment of well deserved peace. Then, Rochelle found the witch.
She was dead by the time Nick and Ellis got to her.
Nick killed the witch. Ellis tried to revive the bleeding woman, but she was gone. Nick sighed. "Well, there goes our chance at repopulating the earth. But I guess there's nothing we can do about that now, is there?" As he had with Coach, Nick showed little sympathy. It didn't help that the two had been at each other's throats constantly. He'd taken the woman's gun and medical pack and left without another word. Ellis had a choice to follow or be left behind. He chose to follow.
After being with Nick this long, Ellis felt that he should have been used to the man's detached personality. But it was hard. Nick's attitude about life was the complete opposite of his. Where Ellis cared about others, all Nick cared about in the long run was himself. And it wasn't just because the world had gone to hell either; he'd been like that for a long time.
Ellis had a long-standing respect for life. Even when he killed zombies, he couldn't help but feel sorry for all the innocent people whose lives had been destroyed by the CEDA's Green Flu. But that was where sympathy ended. It was kill or be killed now.
After they lost Rochelle, Nick and Ellis continued towards New Orleans. It was slow going, and they spent a lot of time holed up in the top stories of buildings waiting for hordes to thin out. Another thing about Nick was that he got twice as irritable when he was cooped up. Ellis quickly learned to steer clear of him as much as possible, which was difficult in such a small space. Often times, Nick would mutter to himself, as if complaining out loud would somehow make him feel better.
Currently, they were in Meridian, a city just under one hundred miles from Jackson. They had found a recently abandoned apartment building and were in a room on the top floor. It wasn't comfortable at all, but that was to be expected at this point. As long as there were no zombies, anywhere was home.
Nick had just returned from his daily routine to check if the horde that had gathered in the apartment lobby had thinned out yet. They were a few less in number, but still too many to get through in one piece. The con-man opened the apartment door. He walked into the front room and was greeted by Ellis sitting against the wall trying to balance a fire ax on the top of his head. Nick stared at the mechanic incredulously.
"Oh, yeah, that seems fuckin' smart."
Ellis caught the ax as it tipped and laid it across his knees. Nick shook his head.
"You know, one of these days I'm just gonna walk in here and find you impaled on that thing. That would be, like, the greatest fucking day ever," the man sat down on the floor and leaned back against the wall.
"I checked outside…it's still the end of the world."
Ellis looked up. "Oh, well that's a surprise."
The con-man growled under his breath. "Shit. Yeah, I didn't exactly take the end of the world into account in my life plans. Why couldn't I have been in Vegas when this thing hit? Or even Atlantic City? Why'd it have to be down here?
"How come yer so negative all the time?"
In hindsight, it could have been a very bad thing to say, but Nick merely closed his eyes. He drew in a breath and let it out again.
"You wanna know why I'm like this, Ellis? It's my ex-wife's fault," the man shook his head. "Everything was great until that whore came along and fucked it up… fucking dragon bitch."
Ellis wasn't sure how someone could be a dragon, but he knew what a bitch was. He'd seen a lot of those; dog ones and human ones. In his experience, the dog ones were a lot better. At least they couldn't try to run you over with their cars.
"Ellis, look," said Nick. "All women are emotional wrecks who will eventually kill you, okay? Just remember that and you'll be fine."
"Is that why you got them scratches on yer chest?" the mechanic asked
Nick looked at him warningly. "I told you, a hunter attacked me."
"Well, those don't look like hunter marks ta me." said Ellis matter-of-factly. "They look like fingernails. Skinny ones."
Nick was quiet for a moment. He looked closely at his fingers. "Ellis, have you ever tried to stab yourself?"
"Like, deliberately? Well, I ain't never tried…I have a few times, but nothin' too serious. Though this one time, mah buddy Keith was cleanin' some frogs an' he-"
"God damn it, will you stop talking about Keith? It's always 'Keith did this" and 'Keith did that' or 'This one time Keith almost killed himself driving off a cliff.' Do you seriously have no other friends?"
Ellis thought for a moment. "Well, I do, but Keith's the only interestin' one."
Nick stared at him. "That doesn't surprise me."
"There is mah friend Dave; he helped us at the auto shop sometimes. But he went ta jail a while back an' I ain't seen 'im since."
"Have all your friends been to jail, Ellis?"
"No, just Dave 'n Keith. Keith's never been in for more'n a few days though. I think Dave mighta stole a cop car or somthin', but I don't remember.
"Have you ever gone to jail, Ellis?"
"Nope. I can't, cuz then Keith'd have no one ta come get him. See, Keith'n I got a system. We can't get in trouble at the same time, cuz one has ta be able to come bail the other one out. If we were in jail together, no one'd come to get us."
"…I can't imagine why"
"Nick, have you ever gone to jail?"
"You don't need to know that."
Ellis frowned. "But I told you."
"You didn't have to answer."
"Well, you musta sometime cuz you ain't allowed ta own a gun."
"Legally."
"What'd ya do?"
Nick paused. "You know what, Ellis, I just might tell you."
"Really?"
"Yeah…'cause then I'd have to kill you. God damn it, if you don't stop playing with that thing I'm gonna stick up your ass."
Ellis stopped trying to balance the fire ax on his palm. "How long are we gonna stay here?"
"Until those infected downstairs clear out, I guess."
"How long's that gonna take?"
"How the hell am I supposed to know? You think I went down and asked them?"
The mechanic was quiet. Nick pinched the bridge of his nose and inhaled slowly again. "Look, Ellis, tomorrow we can try to leave, okay? We need more ammo anyway."
Ellis nodded and stood up. "You hungry at all?"
"No. Not for that canned shit anyway."
The mechanic shrugged "Well, I hate ta break it to you, but that's all we got."
"Don't remind me."
"Well, if you'd a let me get stuff from that groc'ry store I coulda made you a cake or somethin'."
Nick opened his eyes and stared at the mechanic. He tried to comprehend what he had just heard and gave up.
"Why the hell would I want a goddamn cake?"
"'Cause…cake makes stuff better?"
The con-man nodded shortly. "Did Keith tell you that?"
"No, I made it up myself. I figured "Hey, e'erybody loves cake." You can't stay angry when yer eatin' cake. Trust me, I've tried."
Nick stood up and began walking towards the other room. "That very interesting, Ellis."
"Really?"
"No."
Ellis watched him leave. "Fine, go be depressin' in there then."
Nick flipped him the bird as he disappeared through the doorway.
Ellis sighed and walked over to the window. They were up high enough that he could see a fair way to the city's center. Meridian was burning. Smoked billowed from hundreds of fires spread across the skyline. It's like a warzone, though Ellis. Shit, it is a warzone. And they weren't on the winning side. The mechanic looked down to the street; only a few infected wandered around here, all of them common ones. The special infected were surprisingly few here . The only ones they had seen since coming to the apartment complex had been a spitter and a boomer. Hopefully they wouldn't meet any more when they left.
If they did, Ellis prayed it would be something easy and hopefully not a jockey or a tank. Mostly he hoped it wouldn't be a jockey. He hated jockeys the most, and it didn't help that they seemed to like him. There was nothing more terrifying than having a screeching demon spawn that looked like a cross between a goblin and a sloth grab onto you and try to claw your face off. Ellis could attest to that. He had plenty of scratches to show for it.
The mechanic looked back over the cityscape. He wondered if there was anyone else still out there. What if he and Nick turned out to be the last ones? Now that would be a miserable time. The mechanic sighed. He would just have to wait for tomorrow to find out.
Something was touching Ellis' face. A voice whispered hastily in his ear.
"Ellis…Ellis, wake up…Ellis…god damn it!" There was a pause before something hit him hard on the backside. The mechanic jerked awake and lunged for the fire ax. "Holy shit!" He sat up tense, gripping the weapon with both hands. Nick stood over him holding the baseball bat.
"What was that f-"
"Shut up." Nick put a finger to his lips. The sunrise was coming through the pulled blinds. Ellis listened quietly. At first, he heard nothing; then there came the cries and yowls of the Infected.
"Oh shit…shit shit shit."
"They're in the stairwell," said Nick. He was closing up his pack. "I heard them this morning. One of them must have hit an alarm on a lower floor. It turned off, but they're pretty riled up."
"Aw, hell." Ellis got up and grabbed his pack and rifle from the corner. "Well, so much fer getting' out quietly."
"I know. I didn't check the back stairwell though, so we might still have a clean exit. Come on."
The two men made their way to the door.
The stair well was dark, but Ellis could hear the zombies several floors below them. Nick held a finger to his lips again and they stayed close to the wall as they moved across to the entrance of the other wing. Nick locked the door behind them. They moved quickly down the hall, hoping that the back stairwell really was empty. As they rounded a corner Ellis suddenly pulled Nick back.
"What the-"
"Shh, listen."
Nick was quiet. Then he heard it: a faint sobbing. The man let out his breath.
"Witch."
"She's in one of those rooms," whispered Ellis. He nodded down the hallway. A dark exit sign at the end of the hall pointed to their escape route. Nick growled under his breath and leaned towards the mechanic
"Okay, here's what we're gonna do. You take that side and I'll take this side. We walk back to back so she can't sneak up on us. If all the doors are closed, we get the hell out, got it?"
Ellis nodded and hefted the rifle.
"Let's go."
They moved silently down the hall, each watching a side of doors, pointing a gun into any open rooms and moving past closed ones. Once, Ellis thought he saw it, but the witch did not appear. As they neared the end of the hall, Nick stopped, put his ear close to a door, and listened.
"I think she's in there. I can hear her scratching the floor."
"The door's right there, c'mon." Ellis continued down the hall. Nick stayed by the door. He considered opening it and killing the horrific creature within. Those things reminded him of his ex-wife anyway; maybe it would help him relieve some anger. He was reaching for the handle when he heard another sound from down the hall
"Shit." Ellis was standing by the exit. "It's locked."
Nick cast one final glance at the door and then ran down to Ellis. He tried the handle. Sure enough, it was locked. Why were the last possible doors out always locked? The man hefted his gun.
"Stand back."
"You ain't gonna shoot it?"
"It's either that or stay here with the witch."
Ellis stood back. A single shot did the trick. Nick yanked the door open.
"C'mon, c'mon', c'mon!" He shoved Ellis into the stairwell. The mechanic peeked over the railing. There were no zombies that he could see. He couldn't hear any either. Nick shut the door behind them. "Only problem now is we can't lock it behind us. God that better not have startled her."
"Ain't no zombies down there." Ellis said. Nick looked over the railing.
"Good, hopefully there won't be any nearby when we get to the bottom. Let's move!"
By the time they got to the bottom of the stair well, Ellis could hear faint sounds from the zombies in the adjacent wing. He peered through one of the doors that led to the ground level lobby. Infected milled about, partially dormant because there was nothing to attack. The mechanic exhaled slowly.
"Yo, Overalls, get over here." Nick was standing by the exit door. He looked carefully through the glass. "There's a few of them out there, but I think they're all common- wait." Nick looked closer. "Damn it, there's a boomer over by that building. God, I hate those things."
"Which way do we wanna go?" Ellis asked. Nick thought a moment as he tried to recall what direction they were facing.
"We want to go towards the edge of the city, so we should head right. I think there's some more buildings over there. I'm trying to decide if we should just run for it or shoot at them right away.
"Well, they gon' see us when we come out, so we're gonna have ta shoot'em either way."
"Yeah. Keep an eye on that boomer. If it gets either of us, we're fucked. You ready?"
"Hell yeah."
The first zombie to see them was a thin female with half of her arm missing. She howled and headed towards the two men. Ellis dropped her with a single shot to the head. Their cover was blown.
"This way!" Nick was running towards the industrial park. A maze of abandoned buildings loomed before them. On the other side was about five blocks of warehouses, and then a river. Then they would be into the rural land and one step closer to New Orleans. Ellis could hear the infected screeching behind him. They were catching up. The mechanic heard the boomer groan, alerting the horde of nearby survivors. This was not good. Suddenly, Ellis saw movement out of the corner of his eye. The boomers groans had summoned more Infected from the other side of the building.
"Nick!" the mechanic yelled "Watch yer right!"
The con man turned just in time to stop a zombie from tackling him to the ground. A small stand-off began. Ellis and Nick were only a few yards from the safety of the industrial park. The horde was thankfully small, but it was still hard to deal with. Ellis dropped zombies left and right, beating those that got too close with the gunstock.
"We gotta run!" Nick was yelling at him now. "Ellis, we can't kill all of them!"
The mechanic knew he was right. More and more infected were coming around the building.
Nick yelled at him again. "I'm gonna take out that boomer! Get to those factories back there!
Ellis turned reluctantly, throwing the nearly spend rifle around his shoulder and taking up the fire ax instead. Behind him, Nick was screaming some sort of berserk war cry as he shot at the bloated boomer. Sometimes you just needed to kill something.
The abandoned factory was a maze of narrow paths and alleys. Ellis kept the fire ax held at the ready in case anything was hiding. This place gave him the creeps. There were too many nooks and crannies; too many empty doorways for something not nice to be concealed in. Ellis listened for the tell-tale sounds of jockeys or witches. They liked to hide and then jump out at you when you were least expecting it. The mechanic kept his eyes on the doors as he passed them; constantly turning to make sure nothing was following. He was so concerned with the walls around him that he forgot to watch the ledges and windows above.
The hunter was quiet. So quiet that Ellis didn't know it was there until it landed on top of him.
The mechanic's head hit the battered concrete. Above him, a hooded, cat-like hunter roared and began to claw at him without mercy. It went for his face. Ellis managed to hold if off with the rifle, but it was stronger than he was, and the pain from the claw rakes was excruciating. The hunter tore the gun from Ellis hands. The mechanic screamed.
"Nick! God damn it, get it off me! Help!"
But Nick wasn't there. No one was there. The man hadn't seen where he had gone in the factory. For all Ellis knew, he was dead. The mechanic cried out at the hunter slashed at his chest again. He grabbed the feral creature by the shoulders in a last attempt to fight it off. He was going to die here. Already his arms were shaking and his vision was spotted with black.
"Get the hell away from him!"
The hunter looked up at the new voice. Instantly, its chest exploded with multiple gunshots. Blood splashed Ellis' face. The hunter scrabbled away and turned to attack the newcomer as they ran forward. But it never got the chance to pounce. The shooter bashed it over the head, splattering more blood and flesh onto the ground. Ellis managed to look up. A few feet away stood a woman with brown hair. She was holding a shotgun and a pistol. At her feet lay the injured hunter. The thing was shrieking death motes. The woman raised the pistol and pulled the trigger. Once. Twice. The hunter stopped shrieking.
The woman waited a moment to make sure it really was dead, and then holstered the pistol. She quickly raised the shotgun and did a sweep of the windows around them, but nothing else appeared.
Ellis couldn't move. He felt like someone had attacked him with a crowbar, which was essentially what had happened. He was vaguely aware of the woman rushing to his side.
"Hey, are you still with me?" The woman's voice sounded young. Ellis groaned. "Close enough. Okay, stay with me now, alright? Come on, I know you can do it," she put hand on his shoulder and inspected the injuries.
"Damn it, that thing got you good." The woman looked around. "Was there anyone else with you?"
Ellis tried to answer, but the pain was starting to get to him. The woman shook his shoulder.
"No, don't go to sleep on me, come on. You have to stay awake. Hey, look at me." Ellis turned his head. The woman's face was concerned. "Was there anyone else with you?"
"Ellis!"
"N-nick," the mechanic breathed. The woman looked in the direction of the voice as it came again.
"Over here! We're over here!"
Moments later, Nick appeared around the corner. He was covered with fresh blood, but none of it was his own. He stopped when he saw Ellis lying on the ground, and the dead hunter.
"God damn it…Ellis!" he sprinted over and knelt next to the woman. "Aw, shit, kid. Is he dead?"
"No, that hunter got him pretty bad though. We need to get him out of here."
"Well, don't go back that way." Nick nodded behind him. "I just got away from a bunch of Infected."
The woman looked at him apprehensively. "Did they follow you?"
"No. There weren't that many, and I killed a boomer so they went after that."
The woman wasn't listening. "I need your coat."
"What?"
"I need something to stop the bleeding."
Nick reluctantly took off the coat and handed it to her. She rolled it up and laid it across Ellis' chest. "Can you lift him up?" Nick did so and she tied the sleeves in a tight knot.
"There's a factory over that way. We can bring him there." The woman touched Ellis's shoulder.
"Hey, can you stand up?"
The mechanic nodded, groaning slightly.
"You'd better be able to," retorted Nick .
The woman looked at him. "You're going to have to help him. It isn't that far."
Nick looked like he'd just been asked to babysit a room full of kindergarteners. Then again, Ellis wasn't all that different in his opinion. The woman picked up Ellis' gun and slung it over her shoulder, then helped the mechanic sit up.
"Not too fast, okay?"
Nick put one of Ellis' arms around his shoulder and hauled the injured man to his feet. Ellis stumbled, but Nick kept him upright. "You'd better not blackout on me, Overalls. 'Cause there's no way I'm gonna carry you."
The woman clicked another round into the shotgun. "You ready?"
"Yeah, now where's that factory?"
"This way. Follow me."
In case you haven't realized, one of my favorite parts of this story is writing the character dialogue. It just makes me laugh sometimes. It brightens my day. This is a mini-fic, so there's only going to be 3-4 chapters. Sadly, I've never been able to play L4D myself 1) because I suck at video games and 2) because I don't have a gaming platform and/or friends who do that I can play it with at this point. So, I was stuck with videos and wiki pages. Hopefully I got stuff right.
PS: Now that you're done here, you should go on Youtube and find that series by Parle'. They also have a others pertaining to Harry Potter, Kingdom Hearts, and The Avengers universe, so if that trips your trigger, I recommend those too. Trust me, they're pretty awesome ;)