Disclaimer: I do not own Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, or Left 28 Alive 7… Seriously though, I'm not part of the production at all.

My eyes widen as I step out of the garage. There are so many zombies, and so little of us. I turn to my little brother Pete and see his pale face, I feel sorry for him, being twelve and in a zombie apocalypse must be a nightmare… well… more of a nightmare than it is for me at least. I put my arm around his shoulder, avoiding the axe he has over his shoulder. He looks at me and forces a smile. I smile back, but it's a genuine smile. I'm happy that even though with everything that's happened, I can still take care of my little brother.

My sister Sarah is the first one to step out, tugging on a chain that starts up her modified chainsaw. I've always admired how much of a boy she was, even before the zombie outbreak began. The past week of these zombies, she had shut herself in the tool shed, pulling apart different power tools and machines, and putting them all together.

The weapon that she steps forward with now is a sign of her good hard work paying off. I take a moment to get a good look at it, making sure not to let go of my brother. It is a chainsaw body, with lawnmower blades attached to the end. A huge fuel tank hanging from it looks like it would keep the chainsaw going for over a year!

There are some wires flailing around the motor with the vibrations of the engine but I don't want to ask what they're for, in case she does something gruesome to demonstrate, I don't want Pete to have to witness gore unnecessarily, although he is a strong little boy. One time he had to take a zombie's arm off with a kitchen knife and he did it without hesitation to save Sarah from being bitten. That's his strength, that he can achieve anything for people he cares about… not me though, I was there watching her scream my name… I hear it in my head even now, 'Aaron! Aaron help!', but I froze, I just watched in horror…

That's no way for a 17 year old to act, I should be taking care of everyone, not hiding and letting my sister die over my foolishness. I don't even hesitate thinking about it now. I pull the cleavers from my belt and step out after Sarah, who – for a 16 year old – was already tearing through a zombie that had dived over a fence, grabbing at her. Even Pete followed me fearlessly, which didn't fail to surprise me.

The zombies were always easy to kill, the problem was their numbers. They would swarm a street and eventually pack it shoulder to shoulder, stopping the three of us for staying in one area for too long. This street we had to leave early, however, because food in the houses was scarce to begin with. Usually we could last a few months at most, sometimes only a week though.

Luckily for me and Pete, the zombies haven't had enough time to build up and there is only thirty or so from what I can see. I step forward to a zombie woman that had started to shuffle towards me and Pete. I try to step in front of him but he swings the axe off his shoulder, barring my way.

"What is it Petey?" I ask, keeping an eye on the zombie, that was slowly getting closer.
"I wanna do this one Aaron!" He replied with such a childish tone. If someone didn't know what he was asking about, they would have thought it was a task like walking a dog, not executing a member of the living dead.

I don't doubt Pete's ability, so I step to the side, keeping an eye out if he needs any help. However as I expected, he raised the fire axe above his head, dazzling me with his strength for such a small child. He leapt at the zombie, cleaving down into its head, embedding it half way down, shattering it's skull with a loud crack, that was audible even over the sound of Sarah's chainsaw.

By now, the zombies had well and truly seen us. They began to group together, coming towards us. We did the same, except we backed up to the garage, keeping a clear space behind us so nothing could attack us from behind. We employed this tactic after Sarah lost her boyfriend to a zombie sneaking around behind us. From that day on, she had completely changed, becoming a mindless zombie slaughtering machine that only lived to protect me, and more importantly, little Pete.

Sarah closed in on my left and I swapped places with Pete, so he was in between the two of us. Sarah Took a step forward and I did the same. The zombies were getting closer, the first few beginning to step up onto the pavement off the road. It was only then that I realised I had underestimated the amount of zombies. More of the mindless freaks began to walk into the street from the two entrances to the left and right. They just kept coming, I saw Sarah beginning to panic too.

Her version of panic is different to mine, I begin to shake and sweat breaks out on my forehead. Her version of fear is the snarl on her face fading. Her version of fear began to happen and I know she only ever worries if there is a definite chance of something going wrong. I feel my mouth getting incredibly dry, and I can't swallow. I close my eyes and start breathing deeply, just like Jarod taught me before Sarah lost him. It calmed me down but I had to open my eyes before the zombies reached us, and when I noticed how close they were, I froze. I nearly stopped breathing and my mind flashed back to that night… one month ago…

Zombies were breaking in all around us, smashing boards from windows and pushing down doors. I have to find us an exit, but there isn't one! Sarah is cutting off zombie's arms as they break through windows, stopping occasionally to wipe the blood off my cleaver. Pete has my other one; he is helping Sarah as best he can. I take his axe from the floor and start smashing the roof with it, I barely reach it but it starts to dent. Some luck! Luck until the door breaks down, Sarah shrieks as the door falls down, pinning her under it. I can't stop breaking in the roof or we're all going to die and it will be MY fault. I catch a glimpse of Sarah under the door, she has flipped the door off her and is limping backwards, slicing zombie faces as she goes. Nothing lethal though, the cleaver is too short for that.

I get to the part that plays in my head before I fall asleep at night and I feel a chill run down my spine. All the while, the zombies in front of me slowly approach.

I crack the roof, Success! One more hit and it will all break in, then I hear a thud and a scream.
"Aaron! Aaron help!" shouts a familiar female voice. I slam the axe into the roof, breaking a decently sized hole before turning to see her. Sarah is pinned on the ground, unable to get up with a zombie latched onto her leg. She can't shake it off and she can't stand up. I freeze, as usual when something bad happens. Pete doesn't hesitate to leap forward, landing on the hand with all his might, slicing it clean off the zombie that makes the sound of gargling as blood jets from its mouth onto Pete's arm.

The zombies are only a few metres away, but the story keeps playing in my head, I spend sleepless nights pondering the end.

I drag a chair to the hole in the roof. Sarah leaps up no problem and hauls herself into the roof. Pete jumps and Sarah grabs his arm, lifting him up. My turn, I stop my legs from shaking and climb onto the chair. I'm still too weak to make the jump myself, I look to Sarah, she looks back. I jump and fall back down, unable to grab the roof. The zombies are pushing through the door, falling over the handless zombie. I begin to panic.
"Sarah help!" I yell, but she just stares at me.
She thinks what I did was on purpose!? I'm going to die now, I make a few more jumps but it's no use, then I see a small, bloodstained hand hanging from the roof. Sarah was gone, replaced with a welcome sight.
"Jump!" Pete called to me.
I didn't hesitate, jumping and grabbing his wrist, he tried to haul me up, but despite his courage, he couldn't do it, he wasn't strong enough. So he pretended to fall back down trying to hold me. I heard a female shriek and a weight pulling Pete up, Pulling ME up! Pete pretended to fall so Sarah would save us both. He really never fails to amaze me.

The memory goes on but there's no time to think about it as the zombies are little over a metre away. Sarah begins the carnage, as usual, stepping forward and slicing two of the zombies heads clean off with the rotating lawnmower blades. I throw my cleaver, embedding it in a zombies head. Then slicing through the one in front of me, I step forward to retrieve it. As I duck, I hear a whirring noise overhead; I get sprayed with a fine mist of blood as an axe slices through a zombie's throat above me. Petey! Saving me again, probably not for the last time today either.

The zombies keep closing in as we back up to the garage. I begin to have flashbacks of the time when Sarah nearly got bitten… this is how it started. The zombie's trip and pile over the re-killed bodies, decapitated and covering the pavement in a new coat of dark red. The zombies are filling the street and there's no time to do anything but kill and protect Pete.

Sarah turns and bolts, I begin to panic that she's lost her nerve… but this is Sarah, and she always has a plan.
"RUN!" She shouts.
I hear a grinding noise and realise it's the garage door closing. I spin and wrap my arm under Pete, who is mid swing with an overhead cleave. Picking him up, I bolt for the door, already at about head height.

By the time I'm 2 metres away from the door, I realise I won't get under it with Pete. It's me or him… one of us will have to stay outside. I hesitate, Pete screams. I quickly react, getting right up to the door on my knees and sliding him under, I just pull my hands out before it closes shut, leaving me outside, and a mindless horde of undead freaks behind me.

I hear Pete crying through the door, and Sarah giving a few screams as well as yelling "No no NO!" over and over. I have barely any time with the zombies about 3 metres behind me, so I pick up the cleavers from where I dropped them. Turning, I shout back through the door. "Run and get out of this house, leave while I hold them off.

I think that I've finally gotten over my fear, saving Pete and sacrificing myself. But then it happens. I freeze again, the zombies are closing in on me, their bloody hands outstretched, beckoning me into death's embrace before the inevitable re-animation. I try to scream but no sound comes out of my mouth. I close my eyes and prepare for the pain to come, but then I hear a loud engine in the distance.

Even over the shrieks of the bloodthirsty monsters walking towards me, the roaring of an engine closes in, echoing off the houses in the street. As it gets close enough to tell where it's coming from, my eyes shoot to the left entrance of the street to see a huge oil tanker, hauling down the street incredibly fast.

A smile breaks over my face as the zombies, who are only a metre away, stop and turn to look at the truck. It's a huge machine, with two figures in the front seats, but it's too hard to make out detail. The zombies that are foolish, or unlucky, enough to get in the way of the monolith are crushed without a second thought; the front of the truck is coated in blood and guts.

As it drives past, the man in the passenger seat looks towards me. He looks about 30, his eyes widen as he notices me and realises I'm not a zombie, he turns and shouts something and I hear the breaks hiss and screech as the truck begins to slow. Some luck, hopefully…

As it stops, the remaining zombies that weren't demolished on the main road begin to crowd the truck. Their arms reach up to the doors, only just reaching the bottom of the frame. The door swings open, brushing their hands aside with a loud thud. The 30 year old man stands and grabs the roof, leaning out. He's wearing a white tuxedo that has gotten slightly coated in blood, but seems to still be washed from time to time.
"Find a place to hide!" He yells to me. I don't know why he says it but I do what he says, running around the side of the house to find the backyard. A zombie stands in my way between the fence and me, but it only being one isn't a challenge so I ram a cleaver into its skull and keep running. I'll come back for it later.

I leap into the back yard over the wooden fence. That's when I hear gunshots starting. Different intensities of gunshots keep cracking the air. They continue for about a minute before they begin to dissipate; only the occasional shot is fired now.

I hear two sets of footsteps coming around the side of the house, I ready my other cleaver. Two zombies isn't a challenge, I prepare to swing the gate open and jump them but then I hear the voices.
"Where'd that bloody kid go?" A voice said, it was the man in the white suit who told me to hide.
"I don't know but he wasn't in our line of fire, we would have seen him," A second voice said.
"Yeah I saw him ran around the corner, he should be around here," The white suit man said.
"Hey kid, you out here!?" The second voice yelled.

I swing the gate open, it creaks and I catch sight of them turning and aiming weapons at me, the white suit man has a rifle and the second man, who I notice to be a black man with shorts and a polo shirt, has a shotgun.

"Damn kid, you gave me a bloody heart attack," the black man said.
"So-Sorry," I stuttered, "I'm Aaron."
"I'm Nick," The white suit man said. He stepped forward, letting his left hand hold his rifle and embracing my hand with his right.
"And me, I'm his goddamn guardian angel," the black man said. Patting Nick on the back with his left hand, not too softly either.
"You're never gonna let me forget that, are you coach?" Nick laughed.
"You're a coach then," I asked, wiping a drop of blood of my hand that I had gotten from Nick, "a coach of what?"

I raised an eyebrow when the 'coach' began to grin.
"I was just a gym coach, my friends call me Coach," He told me.
"I bet my sister will be dying to meet you both," I yelled, remembering that I have two siblings inside the house.
"Alright, lead the way Aaron," Nick said, gesturing with his hand.

I walk forwards back around the side of the house to the front, retrieving my cleaver from the zombie as I go. I wipe the blood off it as I approach the garage door that had closed over Pete and Sarah, the foreboding barrier that sealed my doom. I crouched down and slid my fingers slowly under the door, then tensed up, trying to stand.

My arms were fully extended and I let out a grunt, it wouldn't budge though.
"Yo kid," Coach said, booting a zombie's head off as he walked past it, making a sound of an exploding watermelon, "I got this alright?"

I slid my hands out from under the door and stood back. Nick was watching as Coach took a step back from the door. I tried to amuse myself the same way Coach did, I aligned myself with the head of a dead zombie and lifted my leg behind me. I brought it down, slamming it into the side of the zombie's skull. It didn't break off like Coach's zombie; instead, it felt like my foot had broken on itself. I yelped, Nick supressed a laugh. However, Coach burst out laughing, before running full speed at the garage door and jumping at the last second.

He brought his legs up and aligned himself like a torpedo, crashing into the door right on a seam between two bits of the metal. It threw him backwards but he braced himself and quickly jumped off the ground, just in time for the door to collapse inward on itself. He dusted his hands together, signifying a job well done, and looking comical while doing it.

I walk inside, ignoring Coach's light punch on the arm. I start looking around the garage while stepping over the fallen metal sheets, looking for Sarah, but more importantly, Pete. They aren't anywhere that I can see, so I call out his name
"Pete!?" I call out in a tone of desperation, "Petey!?"

Nick walked in after me; a look of sadness crossed his face as I called for Pete.
"They can't be gone, they shut themselves in here," I cry out.

I walk through the door from the garage to what looks like a hallway. I scan all the rooms I can as I walk down the hall, keeping my eyes peeled for Sarah, Pete, or a zombie.

I get all the way to the kitchen without seeing anyone, I start to get frantic. I run out of the hallway, into the kitchen, its dark except for the light breaking through the boarded windows.

I see two figures by the kitchen bench.
"Sarah, Pete!" I scream, running forward.
"Aaron wait!" Nick yelled.

I ran towards the figures, I didn't have a doubt that it was Sarah and Pete, as I got closer I noticed that it was Sarah, holding Pete's arm.

"Guys!" I yell, Sarah doesn't turn but Pete looks at me, his face is full of tears. "I'm alive, it's ok!"

I walk up, Nick tells me to stop by putting his hand on my shoulder but I brush it off. It's only when I stand alongside Sarah that I realise what's wrong. I don't need her to tell me but she says it anyway, confirming the obvious. What she says makes Nick's jaw drop and makes Coach avert his eyes. Tears come to mine as soon as she says it.

"Petey's been bitten," Sarah said, her voice shaking as she does.