This is my first L4D story. I've been playing the game nonstop for the past month or so, and have completely fell in love with everything about it. I absolutely gush at the pairing of Zoey and Francis, especially because they seem like such an unlikely couple. After reading some amazing stories on here of the pair, I decided to try and write my own. So here goes.

I've used most of this chapter from Valve's comic, The Sacrifice. I wanted to give the story an authentic back story, especially of where the characters came from, so I used their idea.

I look forward to your reviews. Enjoy!



This had to be a joke. This had to be some elaborate prank that someone was playing on her. There was absolutely no way that this was actually happening.

Zoey clutched her baseball bat tightly in her shaky hands. Her sweaty palms were making it nearly impossible for her to keep a steady grip on it, but she did her best. She had to. The only other option was death. And that was not an option she was all that fond of.

Prying one hand free from the bat, she pushed loose strands of hair out of her vision. Her wide eyes scanned the area frantically, searching for any type of movement. There was none.

Normally, she would deem that a good sign and move on. If there was nothing moving out there, that meant there were no zombies trying to gnaw her face off. Unfortunately, the eerie silence was also a bad thing. It meant there were no other survivors around.

I can't be the last one alive. There's no way.

She tried to reassure herself of others, but she wasn't doing a very good job of it. She had been on her own, struggling to survive in a city overrun by the undead, for two days now. And God damnit, she was doing a good job.

Yeah, who would've guessed all those horror movies would actually come in handy?

It was nothing short of a miracle that she was actually alive. Someone was definitely watching over her.

Instantly, she remembered her parents. Her heart got caught in her throat at the painful memory of their final moments.

It was a normal visit home from college. She was having dinner with her parents at her father's apartment. Her parents showed disappointment in her, as they always did when she failed to live up to their expectations. And they wouldn't stop constantly snipping at each other whenever they had the chance.

"She needs to focus more in school. Zoey, I thought you wanted to be a director. Why don't you spend more time learning about how to get there instead of skipping class to watch horror movies in your father's apartment?" The constant nagging from her mother was definitely not something Zoey missed when she was at school.

"Carolyn, leave her alone. If her hearts not in it, her hearts not in it." Zoey's father spoke up. She couldn't help but smile faintly. Her father always had her back.

"Well, then, she should have decided that her heat wasn't in it before we spent $6000 for a year she's flunking out of. Do you not care at all about the money we've just wasted, Wade?"

Zoey's father let out a heavy sigh. His eyes fell to the empty dinner plate before him. Every time his ex-wife came over for dinner, it always ended in an argument. "I don't believe money spent on our daughter is a waste, Carolyn. If you had just let her try out the force with me-"

Zoey's mom raised her hands and cut him off instantly. "I would never, ever let my little girl become a police officer." She spat. "Do you remember why we got divorced, Wade? Because I couldn't handle the stress of you going to work everyday getting shot at. Not to mention those horrible hours they give you."

Zoey sat in silence, her head hung low. All they ever did was fight when they got together. And it always seemed to be about the same subject. Her. Did they ever get along? Were they ever even in love? Or did their different opinions on raising their daughter really drive such a wedge between them?

The door suddenly burst open, startling the family of three as they sat at their dinner table.

Immediately, Zoey's father jumped up from his seat, reaching for the gun in his holster as a strange man staggered towards them. But his gun wasn't there. Carolyn had made him remove it before sitting down to dinner. She was never fond of guns.

"Damnit! Carolyn, Zoey, get back. Its one of those God damn infected!"

He turned his back on his family as Zoey pulled her mother away from the intruder. Wade reached for his gun on the table beside him and quickly spun around to defend his family.

He heard about this. He had even come across it while he was on duty. But the government was supposed to be getting it all under control. The number of the infected was supposed to be dwindling. So why the hell was this sick bastard suddenly inside his apartment?

"Mom! No!" Zoey cried out. Wade heard the sheer terror in his daughter's voice, and immediately knew he was too late.

He pulled the trigger of his standard issue handgun, and instantly the man dropped to the floor. Unfortunately, so did Carolyn.

Wade reached for his ex-wife, holding her body tightly in his arms. He glanced at his daughter, his fingers clinging onto the body he cradled close to his chest.

"Zoey, call 911."

Frantically, with warm tears streaming down her face, Zoey nodded and darted across the room. She heard her father's hushed whispers to her mother as he tried to keep her conscious and with him. Zoey swallowed the lump that had lodged itself in her throat as she listened to her mother's grunts and groans.

"It's busy, dad!"

"Keep trying!"

Zoey's entire body shook as she dialed 911 again. It was still busy. It was no use. Whatever was going on in the city had 911 completely busy. Her only hope was gone. Her heart sunk into her chest as she scrambled to think of something else.

"Oh God, no, Carolyn, what the hell are you doing?"

Zoey spun around. Her grip on the house phone became nonexistent as she watched her mother rip her father to shreds. He tried to fight her, but it was no use. Zoey watched in shock as the strongest man she had ever known was being easily overpowered.

"Mom! Stop! Mom!" Zoey pleaded. She screamed as loud as she could to try and get through to the woman. And she did.

Carolyn stood up, leaving Wade's bitten and cut up body on the ground below, as she turned to her daughter. Zoey covered her mouth at the sight. She had watched enough horror movies to know exactly what had just happened. But no, that's impossible. This wasn't a movie. This was real life. This kind of stuff just didn't happen in real life.

A good chunk of her mother's face was missing, from where the intruder had bit her. Blood oozed out of the open wound, dropping to the floor and gathering into a puddle of crimson. She staggered forward, her arms outstretched towards her daughter.

"Mom, please, stop." Zoey begged. There was nothing else she could do. Her heart was racing dangerously in her chest. Her head spun and she was having trouble catching her breath. This wasn't real. None of this was real. It just couldn't be.

"Zoey, get back!" Wade yelled as Carolyn lunged forward.

Zoey tripped on her own feet and found herself on the ground as more gunshots rang out. She watched as her mother fell to her feet, her body no longer moving. Carolyn's dead eyes remained open and focused on Zoey as she covered her mouth and bit back a cry.

She heard her father coughing, fluid clearly gathering in his throat as he struggled to breathe. At that moment, nothing else seemed to matter but her injured father. Zoey got to her feet and scrambled to his side. He was still alive. And she had to keep him that way until she could get through to 911.

"Dad, are you alright?" Who was she kidding by asking such a stupid question? Half of his face was completely torn up. There was a deep bite in his neck that was causing him to lose far too much blood. How could he still even talk? "Just hang in there, dad. I'm going to go grab some first aid."

"Remember all those zombie movies I used to sneak you into as a kid?" He asked hoarsely, ignoring his daughter's words.

She knew where this was going. Her temples began to sting, the lump in her throat swelling to a point where she could barely breathe. "Yes."

"Do you remember how they always had to shoot the one guy before he turned?"

Tears streamed down Zoey's face as she shut her eyes tightly. "Yes. We always used to make fun of that part."

"I love you, kid."

Zoey reached for her father's handgun. She knew what she had to do. She took a step back from her father as she stood up and aimed the handgun at her father's head.

"I love you too, dad."

Zoey snapped out of the memory as a gunshot went off. She looked around and the feeling of panic that she had come to know all too well sunk in again. That gunshot wasn't her final memory of her father. No, it was a gun going off painfully close to her.

Zoey stumbled back as a horde of undead approached her. She gripped her bat and braced herself for death when more gunshots rang out from above. One by one, the zombies began to drop onto the floor, lying in a pool of their own blood.

"God damnit, girl, get back!" A voice roared from above.

Zoey glanced up to where the voice came from, her heart hammering in her chest. She wasn't alone! There was another survivor!

He was high up on the roof of a building behind her. A smirk on his face as he cocked his shotgun and shot into the crowd of the undead that came after her. Dirt was smeared on his face and on the white wife beater he wore underneath his leather vest.

Relief swam through her as she watched more men step forward, standing side by side to the strange man who spoke to her. They each fired off into the crowd, shouting obscenities at the zombies as they began to drop like flies.

"Haha, yeah! You vampires ain't so tough now, are ya!" The first man hollered, throwing his closed fist up in the air to declare victory.

Zoey turned back to the horde that had the intent of killing her only moments ago. They were piled up on top of one another, their bodies as still as the air around them. She turned back to the group of men standing on the roof, and saw them watching her carefully.

This was not a group of men that she would normally find herself with. She knew not to judge people before getting to know them. Her parents had reminded her of that throughout her childhood as they tried to raise an open minded and kind daughter. But the sight of these men still made her uneasy.

They were all clad in leather jackets, except for the one in the vest. They were high up on the building's roof, but Zoey could still see that they all had at least a foot of height over her. And they were built like tanks. Zoey swallowed nervously. Was she better off alone or these guys?

"Are you one of them?" The man in the vest shouted.

Annoyance swam through Zoey's veins. Was this guy serious? "Do I look like one of them?"

One of the men laughed and slapped the man in the vest on the arm. "Watch out, Francis, that one has bite!"

The men shared a laugh at Zoey's expense. Francis winked at her from above. "I like that in a woman. Well, this is your lucky day, doll." He told her before disappearing.

Her heart began to race again. Where did he go? Why were all the other men standing there, staring at her?

When the front door to the bar they had taken refuge in opened, Zoey instinctively took a step away from it. She watched Francis approach her and the feeling of sheer terror came back to her again. She was right. He was huge; towering over her like it was nothing.

He slung his shotgun on his shoulder and shot her a smirk. "Name's Francis. And who might you be, little lady?"

"Zoey." She responded nervously.

"Don't be looking so scared, little Zoey. I'm not about to hurt you. I ain't one of them." He said, his eyes trailing to the pile of zombies that lay behind her.

Zoey glanced up at the roof and saw that the men were no longer standing there. Were they coming down too? Her fingers twitched as she gripped her baseball bat as if her life depended on it.

"Why don't you come inside? It's safer in there." Francis turned and took a step towards the bar, but stopped when she spoke up from behind him.

"I…I don't know you guys." Her throat had closed in on her so much; she was surprised she could even get that much out.

He glanced back and cocked an eyebrow. "I understand that, darling. And if today were a normal day, I wouldn't object to that at all. But look around, Zoey. Today ain't a normal day. And we're the closest thing to safe you have right now." His eyes fell to the bat in her hand as a chuckled escaped his lips. "Especially if that's your only weapon."

He was right. She hated that he was right, but she knew it. Hell, they probably all did. How she managed to survive this long was something she would never be able to explain. All this time, the single thought that consumed her mind was, "where are the other survivors?" And now here they were, and she was actually debating accepting their help.

Francis turned around fully to face her and shifted his weight impatiently. "Now I'm not about to force you to stay with us, I believe that's a little something called kidnapping. And even though there aren't really any cops walking around to stop me, it's not really my style. So it's completely up to you, kid. Are you going to stay here or not?"

Zoey took in a deep breath and closed the space between her and the biker. She stood by his side and tilted her head back so she could stare into his eyes, determined to stand her ground. "Yes. I'll stay with you guys. But just one thing. Please don't ever call me a kid again."

Francis chuckled to himself as he watched Zoey head into the bar. He rubbed his chin, the stubble of his beard scraping against his fingertips. This apocalypse just got interesting.