I'd like to thank Virus of Humanity for the review! It's really meant a lot to me!
Don't own l4d blah blah blah
I awoke the next morning feeling as rested as you can feel after falling asleep sitting against a brick wall, but it was still the most well rested I had felt in a long time. I was hungry too, ravenously. Not wanting to wake the kid, I picked up the protein bar from last night and began devouring it, not caring that it had been sitting on the ground all night.
Gregory woke up soon after I finished it. My side felt cold when he sat up to rub his eyes.
"Good morning," I said as he shifted and settled into a semi-cross legged sitting position. He looked up at me before looking down at his hands and began rubbing his knuckles together again. "Morning, um thanks... for last night," I sat up and stretched out my muscles.
"No problem, this zombie crap is hard on all of us." He stopped rubbing his knuckles and looked at me. "No, that's not why I was... um... crying," He looked down and hugged his knees. "That smoker that we buried yesterday..." I saw another tear roll down his cheek, "He was my father." He buried his head in his knees, and I saw light sobs rack his body.
I reached out and pulled him into a tight hug. Logically, we all knew our loved ones were probably dead, but when you lost what little hope still remained, something in you just broke. I knew what that felt like.
I guess I have something to live for again.
I sat back and wiped the tears from his cheeks. I took the necklace from my wrist and put it around his neck. "Everything's gunna be ok kid, We're gunna get through this," He looked down at the necklace around his neck and gently touched it with his fingers. "Didn't this belong to your friend? I can't take this," He sounded like he was feeling better.
"Sure you can, I just gave it to you," And I got to see one of his rare smiles.
It was strange that he reminded me of Zack; Other than their kind hearts, they were exact opposites. I think Zack would have liked him though. He would have enjoyed teasing the kid for his timid habits and low self-esteem. All in good fun, of course, it was just his way of making people feel at ease. He would have made it his mission to get the kid to loosen up, to bad he didn't have enough time to get to know him.
We heard a light knock at the door to the stairs and turned to watch Satoshi, the oldest member of our little group, come through the door. "We leave soon," He had a thick accent. I think he had only been here a short time before the infection. He never said, and I never asked.
Gregory and I got up and headed downstairs. Evan and Anna were gathering supplies and packing up anything useful that previous survivors had left. Gregory ran over to the bag that contained our food and grabbed a couple of the MREs we had found at one of the abandoned CEDA camps. He then came back over to me and handed me one before he sat down on top of a desk and ripped his open.
It amused me to see how happy he seemed now, but I settled in next to him on the desk and started to eat, not really caring that the others were doing all the work to get us ready to leave.
The sun was shining brightly as we left the safe-house, and based on the position of the sun, I guessed that it was close to noon. I worried that the late start could mean that my companions were starting to succumb to fatigue, but I guess we all were. I didn't even know how far we had traveled since the beginning of our journey.
Gregory seemed to have a bounce in his step though, as he walked at the head of our party talking with Evan.
At least the kid is happy.
I smiled in amusement at the thought.
"Hey, can I talk to you?" Well there goes my good mood. I looked at Anna with a small scowl on my face. "What?" I tried not to sound as irritated as I felt, I don't think it worked.
"Are you ok? Why did you give your necklace to Gregory?" Leave it to a girl to notice something like that. It was hardly any of her business though.
"I felt like it," She frowned. Apparently she didn't like that answer. I smirked, at least I wasn't the only one irritated by this conversation.
"Wasn't it important to you though, 'cause of your friend?" Don't pretend like you care, bitch. She had never liked Zack. They fought a lot about stupid stuff, and it pissed me off that she tried to act all understanding and shit now that he was gone. Of course, her not liking Zack in the first place didn't win her any favor either.
"Yes, it is, but I don't see how that's any of your business," I sped up to accentuate that I was done talking.
Thankfully we walked for a couple of hours before running into any trouble, and the first Horde that came was easily taken care of. It wasn't until the Tank got there that the troubles really started.
It came out of no where and chucked a car at us, forcing me to separate from the group. We all started shooting it as quickly as we could, but as the Tank started going after them, forcing them down a nearby alley, a charger came and swept me away, knocking my rifle from my hands.
Luckily I had a shotgun strapped to my back and I managed to pull it off and shoot him in the head before he started pummeling me. After I killed the charger I looked around to find my companions and discovered they were gone. This was bad, really bad. Lone survivors didn't last long. The first Hunter or Smoker to come along could easily take me out without even thinking about it.
I looked around for the signs pointing to the safe-house. I found one after a while and under it was a note written in black sharpie. "We'll wait for you. -Gregory," I read the sign out loud. Of course the kid would think I was still alive. Now I just had to make sure it stayed that way.
I looked around for my rifle, but it was nowhere to be found. Damn, I hate this shotgun, it takes too long to load, but I guess it will have to do. At least I had my axe as well. I started towards the safe-house, straining my eyes and ears for any sign of special infected.
I was running low on ammo when I came across an apartment building. Deciding that this would be as good a place as any to look for some, I headed for the smashed window next to the boarded up door that I assumed was the front entrance.
I went through the tedious task of going from room to room looking for ammo. I found a few 40mm shells in one room and brought them along just in case I found a weapon to go with them, but found nothing else of use on the first floor.
Feeling slightly discouraged I went up the stairs to continue my search. The first room I checked proved just as useless as the first floor, but I finally managed to find some shotgun shells in the second. There were only five, but I wasn't about to complain, ammo was ammo. I also found a length of rope, which I attached to my belt, and a good sized hunting knife. Deciding there was nothing else useful in this room I moved out into the hall to continue my search.
I turned into the next room and heard a Hunter's screech as I saw a blue blur fly towards me. I quickly lifted my shotgun and fired, only managing to sever the hunter's right leg from his torso. It was enough to distract him long enough to deflect his pounce and send him flying back into the middle of the room.
The Hunter and I stared at each other and I was shocked to see fear and pain in his eyes under all the hatred that seemed to seep from his very being. I relished in it. The Hunter posed little threat without his leg, and I wanted to see more of that twisted fear that shouldn't be there. So I grabbed the rope off of my belt and moved toward the Hunter slowly, careful to make sure I didn't give him an opportunity to pin me. He put up a good fight, even without his leg, but I eventually managed to tie his arms behind his back. Not wanting the Hunter to bleed to death, I took off my belt and used a piece of a broken chair to make a tourniquet.
Then I sat down on the ripped up couch and watched the Hunter struggle to stand up.
What am I doing? This was crazy. What, was I going to torturer this creature? He's HUMAN. The fear I could see on his face was proof. I put my head in my hands. The Hunter was terrified of me, wasn't that proof that there was still humanity in him? What made me want to see more of his fear?
The Hunter growled as he shifted around and scratched the floor with his foot. I looked up at him and realized that I wouldn't be able to go through with it. I got up and pulled out the hunting knife so that I could cut the Hunter loose. Stupid, I know, but at that point I wasn't exactly thinking. I was ashamed of myself and I just wanted to make it better. As I bent down to cut his ropes, the Hunter lunged forward and sunk his teeth into my shoulder.
"FUCK," It hurt like Hell. I shoved the knife into the Hunter's neck and he let go and fell back, choking and bleeding to death. I sat on the floor looking at my wound. I was screwed, so screwed. Gregory. I didn't trust those disloyal idiots to protect him, and I had promised him that we were going to make it. I had to go back. But what if I attacked him? No, I had to go back. The kid was waiting for me, I couldn't disappoint him.
I stood up and took off my shirt. If they saw I was bitten they would surely shoot me. I headed into the bedroom and grabbed the sheet from the bed to try to stop the bleeding. Once most of it had stopped I went to the closet to look for something that fit me. I found a long sleeve plaid button up shirt that fit pretty well. Plaid wouldn't be my first choice, but it was the only thing that fit at all.
I decided it wasn't worth it to check the rest of the building so I went downstairs and left the building and never looked back. I ran into a few zombies, which I was actually thankful for, it would have been suspicious if I had shown up with a clean shirt on.
When I got to the safe-house I didn't tell my companions what had happened or what I had done to the Hunter. Gregory look at me with admiration, walking over to me hoping for comfort like the night before.
Don't look at me that way kid. I'm a bad person, I thought, but let him snuggle up to my side nonetheless. He either didn't notice, or didn't care about the new shirt.
The others gave us weird looks, but I really couldn't care less what they thought, and started running my fingers through the kid's greasy hair, just to see their reactions. I wasn't disappointed. Watching Anna's shock turn to disgust was priceless. Ha ha frikin' bitch.
Gregory gave a contented sigh and I was happy that he remained unaware of our companion's shallow "morals." I didn't want them making him feel bad about doing anything he could to keep himself sane, Even if that meant sharing body heat with someone much older, and the same gender.
I was beginning to think that Anna thought I should be sharing my body heat with her, like that was going to happen. Not if she was the last woman on Earth, but then again she very well might be.
The kid had fallen asleep against my side by then, and I welcomed the warmth he provided as I thought about the possible repercussions of alienating my companions, for they once again sat in a tight circle, away from me, and talked in quite whispers. But what did I care? They wouldn't let me die so long as their lives depended on me just as much as my life depended on them. But then again, maybe they would.
I woke up in the middle of the night because Gregory had shifted in his sleep and hit my wound. I hissed in pain and gripped my shoulder, which caused him to wake up too. He rubbed his eyes in confusion, then realized I was gripping my shoulder.
"Your hurt! Let me get a first aid kit," I didn't have time to object before he was already on his feet heading towards where we kept our stuff. He returned not long after with the red bag in hand and sat down on his knees before he started opening it. "Take off your shirt," He opened a bottle of disinfectant and poured some onto a cotton pad.
I didn't really have much choice, so I complied with his request and started unbuttoning my shirt. He started wiping the dried blood from the wound. About half way through he just stopped. "This... is a bite wound..." He sounded shocked and sad at the same time. I looked at the ground and put my hand over my face but said nothing. We sat in silence for a while before he said anything.
"I won't tell them," He sounded defeated. I didn't know what to say. I didn't necessarily want him to keep it a secret, but at the same time I was glad. I wasn't ready to die.
He buried his head in my chest again and I ran my fingers through his hair. "Everything's gunna be ok, I promise," He moved back and picked up the gauze. "How can you say that? You've been bitten, you'll become an infected eventually," He continued dressing my wound, but he wouldn't look me in the eye.
"Honestly, I don't know, But I'm going to protect you no matter what."
Just a few quick things about liberties I took that maybe people might not understand. 1) The infection spreads though bites, like in most Zombies movies and such. (I know that's not how it works in the game, but ehh) 2) The infection has a really long incubation period. Because I need it too.