Last Man Standing

by zipscool

As I lie here, bleeding to death, listening to those sorry SOBs clawing for my flesh outside this barn, I think back, and wonder how someone previously obsessed with thoughts of revenge against these creatures... Came to become a saviour..."

2. The Foe

Good god this is a looooong time coming.

Also, to the extremely nice guy who took the time to review the first chapter (Numbuh six-sixtysix): No, it's not Britain, but the main character is British. Hope you enjoy this one man.

Disclaimer: I don't own L4D or L4D2 etc. etc.

Last Man Standing Chapter One: The Foe

Dust... There's dust gathering everywhere now, doesn't matter what it is, where it is, or who used it before, the dust gets to everything eventually. I can see into to window of another apartment from my vantage point up here, a desk just sits by the window, almost like its waiting for its owner to return and sit at it, dust cakes the top almost like a grey frosting. There's not many zombies on the streets below, in the early days, they clustered around everywhere, hundreds of them filling the street, looking for things to kill. I remember I used to take my dog Toby for a run around this area, before he was killed, it was suicide to go out then, but they've cleared up since, dispersed, I remember hearing gunfire not too long ago, and spotting a helicopter heading towards that hospital, what's its name? Ugh, can't remember. I check my watch, yep, half-seven, about time I went out and did a bit of clean-up work.

Suited up, I feel like something out of a science-fiction film, Kevlar pads cover my body, providing protection from bites or blows from the zombies outside, I check my armoury: a closet with a fairly large array of firearms, and if I'm lucky, I'll add another one to my collection. Ammunition lies in a chest of drawers and has been divided depending on which gun it goes with, I'm feeling in a particularly bloodthirsty mood this evening so I grabbed a pump-action shotgun, a Police model Remington 870 if memory serves correct, and a bunch of 12 gauge shells. I slip the shells into several ammunition pouches in a set of combat webbing I 'borrowed' from a serviceman who was far too dead to care. I also took two pistols, one of which I always made sure was my grandfather's officer-grade service revolver, that gun was the sole remaining link to any of my now long-dead family, it had been passed on to my dad from my grandfather, and he had passed it on to me when I joined the Royal Commandos all those years ago. I also took a cord of det-tape (wire used for demolitions), some TNT, and two grenades that I'd also scavenged off dead army. To be perfectly honest, the thought of looting fellow soldiers (regardless of how long ago my service ended) made me sick to my stomach, but needs must, and from what the Church tells us, the dead have no need for hand grenades in heaven.

With that done, it was time to move out; I headed out of the Armoury, and made my way to what I liked to call 'The Gate', alright, it wasn't really a gate, well it was, but it was more like a trap door with a pulley system. I had the top two floors of the apartment sealed off and knocked down any pipes or grates the zombies can use – fuckers seemed fond of climbing the things to try and get at my innards, anyway I built this 'gate' to use as my main way out of the place, with a ladder on the fourth and fifth floors as well as the roof in case I needed another way out. A half-minute of navigating my way down and I was at the gate, I reached out for the lever and began cranking it back, surely enough, it began to pull upwards until eventually, I had a five-by-four foot hole I could ease my way through, but I didn't do that, no. If experience has taught me anything, it's that these zombies wander around like a kid in a toy store, they might gather near one place one day and the next; you won't see hide or head of them in that same spot. Of course that doesn't mean they aren't there... No, they're always there; it's just a case of luring them out so you can pick 'em off one by one, except I'm not going out today to kill just a few, I'm gonna kill a goddamn swarm of 'em, all I need is the right tools, I've got all but one of those right in my pockets.

I poke my head out first, with my shotgun not far behind – the riot helmet is clunky and makes moving my head difficult in confined spaces, but it provides some much-needed protection from bites, punches, or whatever shit comes out of them what infected them in the first place. Two of 'em, one of them in a pretty tattered and bloodied police uniform was lying down as if taking a nap, the other looking, no, staring at a slightly tilted picture on the wall, as if it recognises it, poor sap has no idea what's coming his way: The first shot would have deafened me were it not for the earmuffs I, ahem, built into the riot helmet, the recoil was massive, but when the target's only two metres away and you're carrying a shotgun loaded with spread shot, that doesn't tend to matter too much. Much of the thing's upper body was shredded by the shot; it tumbled away half a metre from its original position, the stump of its left arm squirting out blood as it continued to pump its way around the body for a little longer before it finally died. The one on the floor suddenly sat bolt upright, and was craning its head towards me, facial features turning from that of waking up from a deep slumber, to surprise, to feral anger. It began to rise, clambering to its feet just as I swung the barrel towards its ugly mug next, if I'd looked in a mirror, there'd probably have been a glint in my eyes as I squeezed the trigger and target number two's head vanished in a red mist. I waited a minute, then two, waiting to see if the noise would attract any more, eventually five minutes passed with no noise or anything, so I assumed it was safe to leave.

I left the gate open; back in the early days, the undead massed around and charged at the slightest hint of human activity, they seemed unusually inquisitive, investigating every little sound, shine or crack, however once everyone was dead – or most of them were – they started wandering around like they were in a daze. Seeing as my 'gate' was a good few feet off the ground, unless they knew I was in there, they'd probably not bother trying to clamber in. I cleared the last four floors of the apartment building without much hassle; the ones who were here last night must have cleared off somewhere else, which I suppose was good, meant I'd use up less of my ammo. With home safe for now, I took to the streets, same policy as the Gate, head first, gun not far off, between fifteen and thirty of them, I frowned, I should've brought a silenced weapon, would've given me a chance to pick them off without giving away my own position. I fed five shells into the shotgun, now my weapon was fully reloaded at least, I contemplated what to do next, I could make a quick break for it, but that would've brought attention, I also couldn't move too quickly with all this protective gear on, and I'd inevitably have to take some of them out, which would bring more attention, and possibly force me back inside, which wasn't a good thing. Then again, it was getting pretty dark...

"Fuck it" I breathed to myself, trusting that their sluggish reflexes and the darkness would conceal me effectively enough for me to make my run and get back without taking too much damage, I bolted out, heading for a lorry which had collided head-on with a sports car. Five of them were in my way, and blessed be to the higher power that their reflexes are so sluggish to start with 'cause the first one didn't notice me until I slammed into it with my padded shoulder, bowling it over completely. Unfortunately, simply slamming into people, particularly zombies – does not kill them, and, while took it out of the party for a few precious seconds, also served to wake the dozy bastard up, I heard it snarling and scrabbling to get up as I continued sprinting towards the two vehicles, and the other closer creatures were starting to notice me, one made a start only to receive the butt of my shotgun to its face, the force of the blow shattered its skull, and dropped the thing, blood and cranial fluid oozing from its completely busted nose. I rounded the gun on the next one and squeezed the trigger; the spread-shot didn't give the thing a chance, leaving a shredded mess on the ground. I ducked low as my next opponent stepped up and swung at my face, with an opening in sight, I charged, continuing on for a few seconds until the thing completely lost its balance and fell to the floor in a frenzied heap. My final victim had lost its jaw to something; looked almost like it had been torn off by something, a dog maybe? Didn't do much for its looks, but then zombies weren't renowned for their aesthetics were they? I quite literally shoved my gun barrel down its throat and fired, well aware of the wet splat of blood on the concrete. All present threats eliminated, I leapt on top of the Ferrari (I think it was a Ferrari – never was very good with cars), and then made a dash for the roof of the truck, by now, things were in full swing and the entire mob that had collected outside my humble abode was now haring towards me like I was prime steak 'I could go for some Steak right about now actually' I thought to myself, before reloading my shotgun and assessing the situation.

All in all, a realist, or pessimist, would say that I am – without much doubt – completely screwed.

Well, I've proved so-called 'experts' wrong before.

I drew a mental perimeter around my temporary fort, anything that stepped into that would find itself torn apart by buckshot or .45 rounds if I had no time to reload. With that quickly mapped out, I set to work. First target: teen girl, silly thing dyed her shoulder-width hair purple – purple! With blue highlights! 'Teenagers' I sighed to myself, then squeezed the trigger, and her rather stupid hair – along with a good portion of her upper torso – vanished in a red mist. Next target: Y'know, despite what stereotypes will have you believe, not as many of these Yanks are as fat as you'd think, probably had a fitness fanatic here, tracksuit and all, quite a muscular chap too, he'd probably do me some harm if I let him get close, so I didn't – he fell with holes all through his stomach. Next target: Good god, I'm not even going to tell you about this one, save that shooting it only made an improvement, and not just because it would no longer try to claw my eyes out. Next: Middle aged woman, fair amount of baby-fat on her, she'd probably given birth not too long before this all happened, made me think of the kid – was it still alive? Probably not. Squeeze, say hi to your kid for me missus. Next: Cripes he's already hopping up the car to my current position; another squeeze of the trigger took care of that little problem. I feel the truck shake beneath me; I looked down, surprised, were they actually trying to throw me off? In short: Yes they were, but not intentionally, they'd all crowded around the truck, those that weren't able to get onto the car to have an easy way up were trying to simply haul their way on top of the truck, none of them were tall enough, but their combined efforts were bumping the truck around, which had the effect of putting my aim off a little, and if I wasn't careful – I'd likely end up toppling off into their waiting mouths.

A snarl on my face, I pointed the shotgun at another zombie who thought he'd try the same route the last one had, pure bloodlust in its eyes. I didn't even dignify it with buckshot, instead bringing up the stock of my shotgun into its chin, knocking it off balance, a tap was all it took to push it off my throne and send a few of its buddies tumbling down with it. Not waiting for them to try the makeshift ramp again, I unloaded the last loaded shell into their filthy hides, the spread shot ripped through at least five of them, killing one and maiming the rest. Out of ammo, I threw the shotgun over my shoulder and drew one of the handguns I'd taken with me – a compact USP, and took aim at the closest zombie, sighting on its ugly mug. Squeeze. The thing dropped, a hole blown through its forehead. I swung around to my next victim, squeeze. Damn, didn't drop it, just winged it, though its arm wasn't looking too hot, and it looked for the moment that just hopping up and down in fury was all it could do for the time being. I turned back to the car, and unloaded three shots on one which was quite literally two seconds from leaping right on top of me, unfortunately, while doing the thing in, the shots didn't cancel the zombie's momentum, and it flew into me, knocking me off balance, seconds later, one of them had hopped up as well, and threw a punch which I couldn't defend against without having myself pitch off and into their open mouths.

So I took the blow... Not the smartest decision I've ever made.

Even behind my Kevlar suit, that hurt. I doubled up, winded, and tried to move back, to put space between me and my attacker, who now had friends on the way. I took a hook to the face, which was stopped by my modified riot helmet, while there wasn't any pain, I was shaken, and almost fell off the top of the truck, I brought the handgun up – which by some miracle, I hadn't dropped during the beat-up session – and practically spilled the rest of the magazine into the offending zombie. It pitched over and rolled off the truck with a gurgle as a bullet found its way through the fucker's jugular, serves it bleeding right. Unfortunately though, with my ammunition spent for all but one of my guns – with no time to draw the last I might add – and with more of those oversized monkeys on the way and all but on top of me, there wasn't much time for me to make a decision, at least, not one which would leave me in great shape. Knowing this, I decided to take a gamble, and if it didn't pay off – well I'd take a good odd number of the bastards with me.

I unhooked one of the fragmentation grenades from my webbing, dropping the handgun and punching the closest zombie to me in the gut, knocking it back into its friends, giving me a brief respite which I used in order to take out the TNT and slap it onto the truck's roof. With that done, I took the other frag with my free hand and flicked the pins off both grenades, dropping them next to the TNT. I had five seconds, I needed off the truck. I took off immediately, shoving the zombies in front of me aside, a few of them fell off the truck, all snarling, one of them broke its neck on the road when it hit dirt. One of them swiped at me, and almost made me lose my footing, I stumbled. Four seconds: one of them jumped on my back, clawing at my head and I felt a tug on my shoulder, the thing had sunk its jaws into the padding, man was I glad for that little find. Three seconds: I didn't bother stopping to shake it off, I kept going, I was now on top of the sports car and in front of a small mob of eight undead. Two seconds: I jumped off the boot of the car, tucking myself into a ball, I felt myself crash into one of them, which fell over, unable to stop the momentum of my jump, I landed on top of it, and began to get up, albeit unsteadily with the clingy bugger still on my back. One second: I began to take another running start, when another zombie landed on top of me, and another, and another, until a whole press of writing, snarling, frothing forms pinned me to the ground.

Zero.

I heard a roar, then nothing; the explosion was so loud, so close. Then the concussive force of the blast hit us, and bodies started flying everywhere. I was lifted off my feet and hurled into the air as the TNT detonated, which in turn, ignited the fuel in both the truck and the car it had collided with. I hit the dirt and rolled with it, trying my best to curl into a ball to prevent any limbs getting caught in things and tangled – or snapped. After a few seconds, I allowed myself to get up, my ears ringing and my head aching. I checked my surroundings, a few of the undead who had been scattered, but not killed by the explosion were getting up, and looking for prey. One of them was barely two metres away, and began to get to its feet, but the explosion must have done some internal damage, because the thing moved slowly, and wobbled quite a bit – didn't stop it from trying to reach me though. I took my shotgun from off my back and was about to load a shell in before I noticed that the pump was missing, and the barrel was bent a little. Scowling, I tossed the useless weapon aside and drew my grandfather's service revolver, walking over to the thing and executing the abominable thing with a round to the skull. The remainder of the mob followed suit, with only one providing me with any semblance of trouble. In the end though, I stood victorious, a good forty/fifty of the things were dead, most of those burning by the now completely destroyed vehicles. I felt... Jubilant. Not quite avenged my family yet, but I'd taken out a good chunk of them; hopefully it'd ease their souls. I also felt like crap, taking a few blows as well as being as close as I'd been to an explosion can take it out on you. Oh well, least I wasn't too far from home this time.

I turned, about to head back, when a shot rang out. I heard the bullet ricochet off the ground barely an inch from my feet, and spun around, ready to tell the arsehole that I wasn't a zombie. I stopped, as I noticed two people about twenty metres down the road, one, an absolutely massive bastard, was clad in gear similar to mine – riot gear covering him from head to toe, only his didn't seem to have as many gaps as mine did around the joints, which told me he was either very stupid, or a civvie who had scrounged around. The guy next to him had no such armour, a fairly small bloke, 'bout five foot five, wearing nothing but a tattered wife beater, and equally shitty-looking jeans, he had no shoes. The guy was balding, with dirty, unkempt brown hair, which fell to the back of his neck. He looked at me, then to the man next to him, who leaned in towards him. He was probably whispering to the small man, judging by how he was nodding occasionally, until finally, the big man stood tall again, and the small man called out to me.

"Andy desires to know who you are and where your haven is." He had a reedy, pitiful, slightly high-pitched voice, the sort even an eight year old would laugh at would it try to order it about. I kept my revolver out of sight, there wasn't much indication at the moment that these two weren't considering trying to shoot me dead and strip me for my gear.

"Andy? That yours or his name?" I asked back, I had a feeling that it was the latter, but it paid to check.

"Andy is the name of the ruler of this blighted town." I was stunned. I had not expected anything like that.

"What? You some kind of self-proclaimed king or something? Big boy got a king complex or something huh?" I asked, more aggressively this time.

"Andy does no-" the small man started.

"Shut the fuck up dicksuck! I was talking to the seven-foot tin-can next to you!" These two were beginning to wear down my patience already; I had a nasty feeling that this was going to turn sour any moment now.

The small man cowered back slightly, while the big man, Andy I presumed, tilted his head slightly, as if amused by my call-out, he leaned in towards the small man, and then I lost it.

"Don't you fucking dare think you're so high-and-mighty that you have to use that scrawny bone sack to convey your every word! You mute or something huh? You got a weak voice? Or one what sounds like his?" I gestured to the lackey "Guess what Terminator! I don't give a shit! You want something? You tell it to my face, not your little boyfriend!" I finished ranting, taking some deep breaths, not quite able to remember the last time I'd been so pissed at another person. I looked at Andy, then to the small man, who seemed to be listening again, I put my hand to my face.

"Calm down Greg, don't get mad, don't get mad, mad people make mistakes and end up gutted on the pavement" I said to myself, several times for good measure. The big guy really thought he was above speaking to other people; the sheer arrogance astounded and frustrated me to no end. I silently resolved to take this guy down a peg or two, somehow, some time, he was not going to get away with this. Then there was the guy next to him, acted almost like a herald, no, a slave. Either he enjoyed this sort of role-play or Andy had done something to get him to act like that. The mere thought worried me to no end – what if there were more like these two? Had the last scraps of humanity left on earth all reverted to some form of perverted feudalism? The little man spoke up again, ending my train of thought.

"What?" I asked, still angry, the little man sighed, then tried again.

"I said, peasant, that Andy originally only intended to requisition half of your food and ammunition. However as you have slandered him and this unworthy servant, he now asks that you surrender all your items to him, and become his willing subject, or face the consequences." He let the last word hang, but I didn't care, I was astounded, I was actually unable to process what I'd just heard.

"You bleeding WHAT?" I roared, regaining my wits.

If the explosion didn't do it, that did. I heard it, so did they. The horde, all around us had awoken, and unleashed a collective howl that chilled me to my very core. It sounded wrong – a sound no human being should make. I turned around, they weren't here yet, but they would be, and I didn't have nearly enough ammunition (or weapons for that matter) to take them on, and – as well-armoured as he appeared to be – neither did Andy or his little goon, the latter of whom was looking around all jittery, truly afraid.

I cursed, this wasn't the time for feuds. I turned back to the pair.

"You know what my lord?" the title dripping with sarcasm "you help me through this and I'll -"

Then Andy shot me in the chest.

Aaand that's Chapter Two (or One). Anyways, I'm off to France for two and a bit weeks, so chances are I'm not going to be doing any writing/typing at all – not that I really did much of that anyway. So hopefully, this'll sustain those few of you who actually read this. Oh, and if what I've got on FF isn't enough? I've got an account of Fiction Press, so check that place out, if not to take a look at the 'original' stuff I've done, then to look at the work of some of the others, cause believe me, there are some absolutely cracking authors over there.

Oh also, very brief British-American dictionary for those of you who don't have any knowledge Britannia-wise.

Pavement – sidewalk

Ciao.