A/N: Here it is, chapter 2. 2.27k words not including this A/N. I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
As always, feedback is appreciated and if you have any questions, PM me and I'll be glad to answer 'em.
River City Analysis offices and laboratory. 12 months, 24 days after First Infection (FI).
To most, sleeping inside a lab might seem odd, but this place appeals to me for several reasons.
Firstly, it has a good location. The hospital is just down the street, along with several supermarkets, convenience stores and corner shops nearby. Easy access to canned food, medical supplies, batteries and toilet paper (the toilets don't work, but hygiene is still important and TPing a Tank is fun). Secondly, it's familiar. Not as in I've been here before, but I did work in one for several years before the end of society as we know it happened. And thirdly, there's a small petrol generator out the back.
As nice as this place is, it's lonely. The infected overran River City rather quickly. Small pockets of normals resisted, but not for long. A few long-abandoned safehouses are all that's left.
Speaking of safehouses, I think I may have located another. My days are spent leaping around, searching for anything useful. I like to tell myself I'm being smart, preparing for if the Infected decide I'm not quite one of them. In reality, I'm bored. There's nothing for me to do here but wander aimlessly, and occasionally stock up on food.
This safehouse is located in the wealthier area of town. I would have taken a look yesterday, but a Tank was standing near it, almost as if it had been standing guard.
I've stopped questioning mindless acts of randomness from the Infected.
I opened a window and climbed out, using my claws to latch onto the windowsill and propelled myself through to land in a crouching position on all fours.
I sniffed the air. Nothing remarkable, except the faintest scent of a Spitter which had been making itself a nuisance for several weeks. Why would anyone vomit acid all over a perfectly good doormat?
I began to move down the street at a brisk pace. A few dopey commons wandered about, and I could hear a Smoker's hacking cough to my right, but the street was relatively quiet, and the cool morning air carried the scents of the city.
The corpses caused by the aftermath of the Green Flu outbreak have long since rotted away, and so the stench of death is now uncommon.
The Infected are still human beings, alive and sick. The corpses of Infected that recently were killed by the virus can be found, if they have not been picked clean by their hungry brethren.
It seems the infection slows non-essential body processes in commons, allowing them to continue living for longer without steady supplies of food. Over a year, the population has dropped, but is still at a formidable level.
I clambered onto the bonnet of a delivery truck, then went onto the roof and finally on top of it's large trailer. From there it was a simple leap to the roof of the building.
The great thing about this area is that the roofs are mostly at the same level. Instead of zigzagging through the streets, I can make a beeline over the rooftops, leaping the gaps and running across flat spaces with minimal obstructions.
The wind rushing past as I soar across the streets, the freedom of being able to go anywhere, anytime! Before the outbreak parkour was just a hobby, but now I live for it.
I'm stronger and faster than I was. I can land safely from a fall that should shatter my legs (although I wouldn't want to risk falling more than a few stories, which might indeed cripple me)
And so it did not take long for me to reach my destination. Thankfully, the Tank had wandered off overnight.
This safehouse seems to have been someone's garage. The doors were standard reinforced steel, closed and barred.
Child's play.
These doors have large windows, with steel rods to allow shooting but not climbing through.
It's not too hard to slip my arm in and grab the metal bar that prevents opening the door. There's a trick to it, but it takes only a few seconds to pull the bar that locks the door out of it's brace and toss it to the floor, then open the safehouse door normally.
Yeah, top-notch security. Taking a sledgehammer to the drywall would be another way in that most people seem to overlook. This "safehouse" won't do any good against anything except maybe a few commons.
Inside, a skeleton with a pistol lay on the floor. Dust covered everything and lethargically drifted through the air. The safehouse was dark, a lone bulb useless without electricity, and depressingly bare.
A table contained a large first aid kit, a shotgun and a box of shells. Because I knew zilch about guns other than 'point at bad guy, pull trigger', I ignored it. The pipe bomb next to it, on the other hand, might be useful for something. I clipped it to my belt.
And lastly, several sealed boxes of tinned food were under the table. Bingo.
I cut one of the boxes open with my claws, stashed a few cans of food into my small backpack and pried open some tinned peaches for breakfast.
They didn't taste the way I remembered them. Most fruits and vegetables have tasted odd ever since I was infected, and meat better as a result. But I make sure to eat some anyway, if I can get my hands on any. Maybe I should grow tomatoes or something.
A fond memory surfaced. Bacon, eggs, tomatoes, hash browns and strong black coffee, a ritual I performed almost religiously every saturday morning.
The thought of such a meal - an impossible luxury in my current situation - nearly had me salivating. I decided on an impulsive whim to open another precious tin of food (Spam!) and wolfed it down hungrily.
At this rate, planting something edible might not be a bad idea.
While I ate, I examined the faded grafitti on the walls. Apparently "Daryl da slaya" was here, and he had killed 18 'zombies'. The next guy said 'they ain't zombies, and I killed 23!'. "Bob, Emperor of River City" then killed 42 and a Witch. "9001" was scrawled underneath (I figured that number was exaggerated), then "I killed your mom!" and finally "My mom's right here, dumbass!"
Humans are strange.
Getting bored, I made a mental note to return later to collect the rest of the supplies, and left the safehouse.
As a landmark, I tied what used to be a blue shirt (I figured the skeleton wouldn't miss it) to a nearby wind vane.
Having accomplished that I pondered where to go next for a few moments, then took a running leap towards a fire escape.
Another rooftop venture took me back to the laboratory to drop off the few tins that I had collected.
As I climbed down from the roof of a nearby 7/11, I barely avoided landing in a puddle of sizzling green goo.
That Spitter that usually hung around here must have caused it. I looked inside to see a saggy, half-corroded corpse on the floor.
I examined it from the edge of the puddle. It was male, thin dark hair, the very same Spitter that raided my food supply a few weeks back, then vomited acid all over it when I tried to take it back. Petty bastard. And now with a very nasty bullet hole between the eyes. Either a high-caliber bullet or a hollow point, I guessed. Who'd have thought Call of Duty would teach me something with a real-life application?!
Unfortunately, this means a normal is nearby. And normals have a habit of getting themselves killed here.
I'd better try and chase them away. I crossed the street to the laboratory building, and entered through the now-broken glass font door. Gee, thanks, normal. Now the commons don't have an invisible barrier to confuse them until they give up.
I closed doors quietly behind me as I searched. I make it to my makeshift bedroom in one of the smaller lab rooms without incident, and gather some essentials.
The building is split into two parts. The offices take about a fifth of the building, and I have little need for those. The much more controlled environment of the three laboratories (Pathology, water quality, and the third seems to be for another type of analysis I haven't identified) take up the rest, and a chemical storage shed is separate to the main building (for good reason).
I rifle through the cupboards to see if I can find anything useful.
Most of the chemicals have expired. A stock solution of 6M Sodium hydroxide (according to the label) had it's glass stopper fused to the neck of the glass bottle. I shake my head at the user's idiocy.
Sodium hydroxide has several uses, and a lab like this would have used it to perform a procedure known as a titration (Simply, adding it bit by bit to a sample until something happens) or perhaps neutralizing waste acid.
It reacts with glass. Nothing major, but if you want to store it in a glass bottle, use a rubber stopper if you plan to open it again.
But unfortunately there was not very much that could still be put to some use, so I walked into the largest lab preceded by the sounds of glass shattering and Infected screeching.
And here's where my peaceful life was shattered.
As I walk in, I hear two loud gunshots and some cussing. Uh-oh.
I unlatch a window, and push it open. Behind me a tall, muscular normal enters the room, slipping a clip into his pistol.
"Marce, I got a freak in here! Say goodbye, motherf-"
I scrambled to pull my self through the window. Claws dug into wood and the backpack caught on the windowframe for a moment and I was halfway out and-
A searing pain in my leg made me scream out. I fell through and landed painfully on my front.
I weakly scrabbled forward, not comprehending what was happening.
I dragged myself to the chemical storage and hid behind it. When I determined I was safe, I took a look at my leg.
The sight of the raw wound was sickening. A deep graze in the flesh of my calf. Rivulets of blood flowed from the wound, streaming down my leg and onto the overgrown grass.
I need to think. My right leg is in some serious pain. Hospital down the road. Should find a way to stop leaking blood.
The pain is sharp, which is distracting me, and I need to stop the bleeding. I could lower the blood flow and apply pressure, right?
I tear a strip of my shirt off, tie off a makeshift tourniquet above the wound and wad up the rest of the shirt and use it to apply pressure.
I take deep breaths. Focus, Matt (Is that my name?), focus. Breathe. Just calm down and then get to that hospital.
I step up carefully. Bending down a bit so I can keep pressing the wound in, I hobble a couple hundred metres to the hospital parking lot. The glass doors are broken, and I nearly stumble over a brick that likely caused that. I don't know exactly where I'm going (but the ER seems like a good place to start), or what I'm actually looking for.
It doesn't take me long to find medical supplies (it is, after all, a hospital).
I don't know exactly what to do, but I start with a cloth and iodine disinfectant. I brace myself and begin to clean the wound with the disinfectant.
Iodine is great at this, but has a searing sting. This makes me scream out, but that means it's working, right?
I'm not looking forward to this next part. I am not in any way qualified to do this kind of thing, but I think I need to stitch the wound, then bandage it.
Luckily for me, the bullet nearly missed. It tore a deep gash in the flesh on the back of my calf. So there's one wound, not two bullet holes, that needs stitching.
With the needle and thread (or whatever they call it), I took a moment to calm myself. I was sweating, and my heart pounding. I tightened the strip of cloth on my leg to stop too much blood becoming a problem.
The first time, the needle was agony. I had to stop halfway, and stuck a wad of cloth in my mouth to prevent me from biting off apart of my tongue. I continued, knowing that this will only get worse if I don't treat it now. But the pain!
It takes me nearly half an hour to get it finished. By the end of it I'm exhausted, both physically and mentally, but the stitches, while messy, seem to have worked. The last step I take is to apply more disinfectant, and bandage the wound. This, I know how to do. Some vague memory of an injured relative that needed my help with changing their bandages comes to mind, but I'm too busy to worry about the past.
Once I'm satisfied I have done enough, I collapse onto the floor and am out within moments.