...

"We're living on the brink of the apocalypse, but the world is asleep." - Joel C. Rosenberg

...

Bill's eyes narrowed as he watched the sunlight filtering in through the boarded up door. A shadow slid across, before slowly moving back and staying dead center in the doorway. This had happened many times, but it always set Bill's teeth on edge. Infected often stumbled their way up to the boards, curious, as if they knew a survivor lurked within. Bill tightened his grip on the rifle perched in his lap, staring unblinkingly at the silhouette. They never stood there for that long.

And never that quietly.

"Overbeck!" boomed a voice, loud enough to jerk Bill out of his rickety metal chair in alarm. "Are you in there?"

Setting his rifle on his back, Bill reached into his ragged satchel and brandished his warm whiskey, taking a gentle, quiet swig as he considered his response. "Yeah, I'm here," he said, wiping his mouth.

"Well get out here," said the voice, snippily. "We're not waiting around."

Bill produced a half-chuckling, half-coughing sound before depositing his whiskey back in the satchel. He turned himself around, arching and stretching his back as he did so, and began fumbling around in the dim light on the small table beside his chair. After a few clatters and knocks, his fingers wrapped around the cold, rusted crowbar he was grasping for.

Cracking his fingers and praying to God that he wouldn't throw out his back, Bill gave a great swing at the door, lodging the crowbar firmly onto the top board and began yanking with several loud cracks as it came loose. He was quite proud of his still-rippling strength, and managed to make short work of the boards. He chuckled to himself, suddenly feeling very glad that the infected didn't use crowbars.

Once the door had been wrenched clear of boards, he undid the flimsy latch and pushed on the rickety metal and grimy glass door. The thick coat of grime on the glass had been shielding him from more light than he realised, as the room flooded with painfully strong sunlight. Bill squinted, scrunching up his face into a tight ball, as his eyes began to water. It was his first real sunlight in five days, since he'd sealed himself away.

As if suddenly remembering that there were people outside, Bill glanced around, his eyes still narrowed to slits, desperate to regain his clear sight. Everything still quite blurry and out of focus, Bill could make out about fifteen soldiers or so surrounding him. Some, it seemed, were pointing guns.

"Pfff," he scoffed, holding his hand against his forehead to block out the sun. "Hold your fire."

"So," said a coarse voice, cooing. "Overbeck. Lived through Vietnam to fight another day, eh?"

Bill turned to face the speaking soldier. He recognised the voice as the man he'd spoken to earlier. "Sure," said Bill, with a shrug. "I'm just keeping my shit together."

"Good," the man said, his features now coming into focus. He was a tall and rather gaunt looking man, his rough stubbly black beard coating his wide jaw and tickling his strangely sharp cheek bones. He watched Bill with narrowed eyes, scanning him up and down. "Put your guns down, everyone."

There was a quiet murmur amongst the group as they lowered their weapons. Bill gave the man a small, appreciative nod before glancing around, now able to make out a lot more of what he was looking at. The soldiers looked nothing like the image Bill had in his head. He would have sooner believed that they were a band of third-world rebels than a division of the United States army.

Their uniforms were scruffy and ripped, and that was only for the soldiers that were actually wearing uniforms. Some of them had been stripped down to undershirts, or threadbare overalls, others still wearing the ragged remains of their fatigues on their shoulders. A couple of them seemed to be wearing nothing that would indicate that they were soldiers, other than a few scraps of woodland-patterned clothing. A pattern which, had Bill spared a moment to think about it, would've confused him greatly about its usage in a city.

"Ames," said the gaunt man, nodding at a soldier across from him. "Check him for bites."

A large man with coffee skin and a neck as thick as a barrel lumbered his way towards Bill cautiously. Sharing an understanding moment of eye contact, Bill rolled up his left sleeve and held out his arm. A shining, blisteringly red semi-circular scar occupied most of the space on his forearm. It bore the unmistakable pock-marked pattern of human teeth.

"Day two, maybe three," said Bill, gesturing with his arm and shrugging. Ames held Bill's arm a few inches from his face as he leaned in to examine it. After a few seconds, during which Bill grew increasingly irritated as Ames' breath tickled his scar, Ames let go of his arm and lumbered back to where he was before.

"It's fine," said Ames, directly to the gaunt soldier. "It's old."

"Great," said the gaunt man, now turning his attention fully to Bill. "We're not hanging around here for much longer, or we'll become a target. Listen," he said, taking a few steps towards Bill as he rolled his sleeve back into place. "I'm Captain Monroe. I can't officially draft civilians in to help. So," he said, with a quick glance around the group. "If for any reason anyone asks, you're Sergeant Gary Davis. We lost him to a horde a few blocks back." As Monroe said this, he handed him a small hand-held radio and a set of cold metal dog tags, presumably Davis's.

"Can't draft civilians," said Bill, with a snort, stuffing the dog tags in his jacket pocket and briefly turning over the radio in his hands. "That's horseshit, but all right."

The city block around him was completely unrecognizable. Most of the road was obstructed with mounds of rubble and debris that once composed the towering buildings above. Every now and then, the city silence was peppered with distant gunshots and the occasional scream. The air was thick with the smell of smoke and what smelt like an unstomachable mix of gunpowder and feces. Can't draft civilians, Bill laughed to himself. As if they hadn't realized the world had already gone to hell in a hand basket.

"We agree," said Monroe, darkly. He pulled out a small radio and spoke into it. "This is Raven. No sign of Overbeck, continuing to Charlie Five." Monroe stowed the radio and turned back to Bill. "Anyway, I see you're armed, I'm trusting you not to discharge that weapon unless necessary, yes?"

"Yeah, yeah," said Bill, waving his hand around as if swiping away his comment. "I'm with you."

"Good, let's get moving." Captain Monroe gave a vague hand gesture and wheeled around, marching down the street, a heavy rifle clutched snuggly in his arms. "Oh, and," he added, craning his neck around, but not stopping. Bill was following along with the other soldiers, reaching into his satchel and producing a cigarette and his lighter. "Welcome to Raven Team."

...

"So, it's Bill, right?" said a ragged soldier, striding up to keep pace with Bill.

Bill, who'd been fumbling with his cigarette lighter, grunted a quick "yeah," before managing to light it. He was glad no one had anything to say about him smoking, supposing that they at least had the common sense to know that the infected wouldn't be able to correlate cigarette smoke and survivors.

They'd just met up with Bison Team a few blocks down from Tom's Grocers, but other than that brief disruption, they'd just been marching for a few minutes through the gruesome husk of Fairfield. The streets were littered not only with upturned cars, failed barricades and crumbling debris, but with dozens and dozens of rotting corpses. Bill narrowed his eyes as they marched past suspiciously clean looking corpses, lined up against a wall on the other side of the street. One of them was no more than a meter tall. And they certainly didn't look infected. Grimacing, he shook the thought from his mind.

At the front of the marching unit, soldiers were occasionally adding to the body count. There weren't many infected in the street - it looked as though a unit had been through and cleared it out recently - but there were enough in their way that the soldiers at the front of the unit were on high alert.

"Bill," said the same ragged soldier, still keeping pace with him. "What were you in 'Nam? Screaming Eagles?"

"More like Puking Pigeons," said Bill, through a cough of cigarette smoke. "I wasn't part of anything you'd have ever heard of, kid."

"Well it's good to have you here, sir," he said, his voice soaked with childish admiration.

"What's Raven Team, anyway?" said Bill, reticent. "That can't be the official name."

"It's not a real unit, sir," said the soldier, nodding. "It's just been formed."

"Not a real unit?" Bill echoed incredulously. "They're not even bothering to send in real units?"

The solider flushed white. "Not that, sir, it's-"

Bill waved his arm around, bristling. "Cut the sir horseshit."

"Right, sorry," said the soldier, stopping himself abruptly as if struggling not to slap 'sir' on the end. "We're Fairfield's last line of defence. We're an immune unit, it's a new thing."

"Because they're afraid of us," said another soldier, this time on Bill's left, and slightly less raggedy than the other one. "They think we're carriers. They're not deploying any 'infectables' to Fairfield any more," he said, watching Bill closely. He paused, before adding, "Hey, can I have one?"

Bill craned his neck to look at him. With a grunt and a shrug, he pulled out the crumpled cigarette packet and handed over a cigarette and his silvery lighter. "Help yourself."

"So yeah," said the soldier, mumbling with the cigarette in his mouth as he lit it. "There's only a few units left operating in Fairfield, all immune. You ask me, they're trying to get rid of us."

"Jack, come on," said the other soldier, with an irritated tone, as if they'd had this exact conversation before. "They just don't want to send in people more vulnerable than us."

"Fellas," said Bill, attempting to cut off an argument before it surfaced and taking back his lighter. "What's the job here? Where're we going?"

"Aldrich College," said Jack, his face in a state of distinct pleasure as he exhaled the wisps of creamy smoke. "We go get that back, get it back up and running as a command center, and we can work on cleaning out the city from there. Quarantine's still up and running around the city outskirts, far as I know, although the infection's slipped through." Jack's eyes narrowed and turned his gaze to Captain Monroe at the front of the marching unit. "He thinks we'll do it," he said, gesturing with his cigarette-laden hand at the captain. "The last units in Fairfield are converging on Aldrich right now."

"Raven, Bison, Rhino and Eagle," jeered a third soldier, in a mockingly patriotic tone, his right hand held against his chest.

"Actually no," said Jack. "Rhino's MIA, remember? And who knows if Eagle'll show up."

"If only CEDA had just put us in charge."

Jack shrugged. "CEDA did what it could to..."

Bill stopped listening at that point, a few moments or so after he'd stopped caring. If taking Aldrich College from the infected was the goal, then that was all he needed to know.

If his memory of Fairfield served him well enough, they weren't far from Aldrich at all. As the soldiers continued to bicker around him, Bill flicked his dying cigarette out and popped his satchel open, plucking out his whiskey and taking a generous slug. Then he shoved another cigarette into his mouth. Nobody lives forever.

"...Then they blow the shit out of Fairfield."

Bill stirred out of his self-imposed lull. "What?"

The soldier who'd spoken glanced back at Bill. "They're bombing Fairfield if we fail," he shrugged, as if it wasn't a big deal. "When we fail."

...

After what seemed like an eternity of marching, they finally reached the College. The soldiers milled in and gathered around in a tight huddle in an alley just off the street, just outside large set of metal doors. Captain Monroe barked some orders that Bill didn't quite catch, and half of the unit marched back towards the street and around the corner, presumably to a different entrance around the other side. Bill supposed that they were the Bison Team soldiers they'd rendezvoused with earlier; he hadn't really paid attention when they joined.

"Let's get this done," said Monroe, calling loudly. He tugged out his radio. "Command, this is Raven. Initiating Operation Aldrich."

Without much warning, Monroe stowed his radio and gave a strange hand gesture, which apparently meant something to the rest of Raven Team, as they all assumed positions around the entrance. Bill lined up clumsily near a cluster of soldiers, but it didn't seem to matter too much.

With another flick of his hand, a gruff-looking soldier slammed on the door handle with the butt of his rifle, and it popped off cleanly, the door swinging open. There was a sudden burst and crackle of activity in everyone's radio as soldiers began chiming in. A strange burst of energy began stirring in the pit of Bill's stomach. Something which, quite frankly, he couldn't remember feeling since his time in the service.

"Eagle to all teams, we're en route with two birds in the sky. ETA two minutes, out."

Before Bill could complete his trail of thought, the entire team began pouring in through the doorway, the clattering of footsteps and the blasting of gunshots spilling back out into the alley. He savored the taste of adrenaline in his mouth as he tightened his grip on his rifle, and followed the last soldier through the doorway.

"Bison Four here, we're going to try and get the power back online."

They were in an open corridor, which was already laden with many infected bodies, and only a few soldiers at the front were still firing. Although it had more of a classroom feel, the corridor was scattered with medical gurneys and heavy-looking metal boxes marked with various military and government seals. The corridor opened up at the other end into what looked like some kind of lobby area.

"Raven, check your corners, encountering heavy resistance here."

As Bill glanced around, he noticed the plaques by the doors along the corridor. Geography A, Lecture Hall B, Study Hall 5D, Physics C. They seemed like a rather odd mix of classrooms, but Bill was satisfied that he had identified them as such - classrooms. He vaguely remembered one of the soldiers describing the college as having a large campus with teaching blocks surrounding a central courtyard.

"Reynolds, Paton, Bains, Davis," called the captain as the gunfire died down. "Search this corridor. The rest of you, with me."

Bill narrowed his eyes, trying to figure out what he was supposed to do, before realizing that he was Davis. The other three, Paton, Bains and Reynolds, had already split off and started choosing separate rooms to investigate. Nodding to himself and moving forwards, his cigarette still hanging on the corner of his mouth, Bill headed for the door marked Geography A.

"This is Bison Two, generator's been sabotaged. Aborting power restoration for now."

As he attempted to open the door, he struggled with the handle, tugging and pushing to try and unjam it. He stepped back, prayed to God that he wasn't about to misalign his spine, and forced an almighty slam with the butt of his rifle at the door. He succeeded to crack through the flimsy wooden door after a few smashes, and managed to reach in and push away whatever was blocking the door from the inside.

"Eagle to all teams, we're coming in overhead. Dropping through to the central courtyard."

Bill shoved the door open and burst through, quickly raising his rifle, squinting and sweating, eager for his first combat in a while. But there were no infected. In fact, the room consisted of nothing more than piles of storage boxes and hastily boarded up windows.

He grumbled to himself and puffed on his dying cigarette. As he was about to return to the corridor, a small female voice squeaked below him.

"Don't shoot!" she said weakly, her voice trembling. Her hands were held clearly over her head. "I'm not infected!"

He inched closer to her, still aiming his gun. He stepped around her slowly and crouched, wincing slightly as the all too familiarly sharp pain in his bad knee resurfaced. The woman was breathing heavily, and she couldn't have been much older than twenty. She wore a rather faded red jacket and slightly ripped jeans. Her once-white runners were now a bleak grey. She had straight, dark brown hair tied back in a ponytail.

"You okay, kid?" said Bill, low enough to be a whisper but gravelly enough to be intimidating.

She laid still on the ground but raised her head slightly to glance at Bill. Her bloodshot green eyes were filled with what Bill registered as a mix of relief mingled with fear.

Her voice was hoarse and feeble. "I'm… okay."

Bill paused as he remembered what Monroe had said to him. Can't draft civilians. His mind flashed forwards to what he'd seen of the uninfected individuals, who'd been lined up and executed on the street. And Monroe had simply reported in that they hadn't been able to find Bill. They don't kill survivors, do they? Am I supposed to...? Bill physically shook his head, as if to shake the thought loose. If he was expected to kill survivors, someone would have told him.

And if he was wrong about that, this was no longer a world he wanted to live in.

"Don't worry, I'm here to get you to safety," he said, and held out his hand, still clutching his rifle with the other. "No need to lie down anymore, kid, come on." The woman hesitated, before gingerly grabbing his hand and pulling herself to her feet, woozily.

"Oh," she said, stumbling slightly as she let go of Bill's hand and clutched her head. She fluttered her eyelids, squinting around groggily as if she'd just woken up. "I feel ill."

"You probably need some food in you," he said, gently grabbing her shoulder to hold her steady. "But right now I need you to focus."

"This is Bison Team, we've got survivors in this sector. Stay sharp."

The thought that this woman was destined to be executed re-entered Bill's mind. He considered for a moment asking over the radio, but realized that if he did so and they wanted survivors to be executed, that would seal this young woman's fate. With a stern grimace, he reached into his satchel and brandished an M1911 pistol. He held it out for her to take. At least this way she can defend herself, be it against infected or otherwise.

"Name's Bill," he grunted, now paranoid and glancing over his shoulder at the doorway for lurking soldiers. "Can you shoot?"

"I can shoot," said the woman, nodding and slowly taking the pistol from him. She glanced at the pistol as she took it, then smiled at him feebly, her face drained of any color it may have once possessed. "Thanks Bill. I'm Zoey."

Thanks for making it to Chapter 2, team! I'm aiming to keep these chapters relatively short, around the 3,000 - 2,000 word mark. Looks like we've already overshot the limit and it's only Chapter Two... whoops!

Please let me know what you think, and thanks again for reading. :)

Side Note: Francis and Louis are still coming, we're just establishing the meeting between Bill and Zoey first.