Left 4 Dead 3 Dark Forest 4: The Rock Valley

Hauling Vincent to his feet, Griffen helped, more dragged, his friend over to the dark steel door of the cabin, Tommy and James following suite. It felt cold, a sense of "I could withstand a nuclear blast" radiating around it, and by the looks of things, so could the building. The metal fences that lined both left and right had blood painted on the barbed wire tips, making them feel strangely safer. Why they may never know.

Getting a grip of the brass handle of the door Griffen twisted the knob and pulled. Iron bolts creaked inside the foundations of the building, and a clicking noise gave the indication that he could pull, but he didn't have to. As soon as the bolts were in place the door burst open violently, revealing the figure of a man, his arm raised in front of him. In his hand nested a .357 Magnum, the cocking hammer on the end of the gun positioned to fire, this guy wasn't kidding around.

"Get in! Now!" he shouted, flicking the cocking hammer, merely so they would do as he asked.

He looked rough, like a survivalist just out of the jungle. He had a rough, "more than stubble but less than a beard" growth of hair on his face, and his hair was a messy dirty blonde. His commando khaki t-shirt and olive green trousers meant he was with the army, or was at least. The dog tags that dangled dimly around his neck confirmed this.

Three out of the four survivors were terrified, but Griffen was the exception. He stood stock still and steely eyed, staring out the man's threats.

"You heard me!" the man lightly pressed in the trigger of his Magnum, trying to entice fear in Griffen, but it wasn't working. "Get in or I'll kill you all!"

Griffen, noticing the seriousness of his adversary's threats towards him, not to mention his friends, dropped his glare and walked inside. The other three followed, now much more unnerved about being here that they were a few minutes ago.

The house smelt of warmth, the source of which was a log fire burning in the centre of the room they were standing in. It left an aura around each and every figure in the room, being the only source of light now that the sun had finally set, and there were many.

They all sat, some on couches and some one arm chairs, each minding their own business. There were five, not including the survivors, and six plus their greeter at the door. They didn't seem to be bothered about their new guests, choosing to continue their activities that they were doing previously, reading, writing and merely brooding.

The attention now was back on the man from the door, who still had the same look of "listen good, son" on his face. Slamming the door, he twisted the knob and the bolts moved back into place.

"How in God's name did you get here?" he asked, not trying to make it sound as though he cared.

Griffen answered, unfazed by the man's brash attitude. "We are survivors, and we are travelling to find a way out of here. It just so happens that we passed through here, looking for a place to stay."

Taking in what he had just heard, the man spoke again. "What about the service hut back over the field?"

"Empty."

"The Nature Reserve?" his voice seemed to soften.

"Exactly the same, the only thing in there was a couple of old reports." He unfastened his backpack, something which he hadn't done since he had put in the contents he was bringing out at the Nature Reserve, and produced the files on the "Special Infected".

Taking them out of his hand, the man flicked through the pages, nodding at the end of each one. Even his friends were now interested, dropping their things on a wooden coffee table in the middle of their circle and craning their necks to see what was going on.

After a silence, the man spoke. "Well, this is a new turn of events for us. We weren't aware of these new infected." His voice had now softened to that of a normal talking voice, he seemed in his element. "I apologise for the rough greeting, we don't see many people, and if we do they usually are infected. Recently they had been starting to crowd around us, as I'm sure you saw on your approach. I thank you for dispersing them."

Seemingly content with this explanation, Griffen dropped his tough presence, reverting back to his friendlier demeanour. "Don't mention it, but who are all of you? Why are you here?"

"We" a voice from the circle answered "are just a bunch of lucky travellers who managed to stick together and find this place. All of us know how to fire guns, and we have enough ammo to start a small war, so we think we are pretty safe."

"That's something we share in common then." Piped up Vincent, still visibly shaken, but calming down. "Except without the ammo."

That got a chuckle from the circle and the man at the door. The survivors chose to stay silent, not wanting to impose themselves too much. Smiling, their greeter began speaking once again.

"Well I see introductions are in order." He walked over to the circle of seats, standing over one of the men on the couch. "This is Chris, our Scots lad." The man he was referring to was the one that saved Vincent and had already conversed briefly with them, he seemed all right. His blond hair reflected off the firelight nicely. "We've also got Upham and Madrid" he indicated two more men, small and thin and tall and lanky respectively. "And finally we have Bourbon and Travis."

Griffen didn't know about Travis, but he knew something about Bourbon. Just from the look of him he could tell he was ex military. By the way of his uniform, he was in the Russian SpecOps, a shady branch that no other armed forces could really tell whose side they were on. He just sat silently, arms folded, while his "commanding officer" introduces them.

"And I'm Miller, nice to meet you." He stuck out his hand, which Griffen took "We are not a military detachment, merely a collection of armed individuals. We think of ourselves as one, though." he winked.

"I'm Scott Griffen, this is Tommy, James and Vincent." He indicated to each respective member of his group. "We only want a way out of this place. You could call us Survivors."

"Aren't we all, son, aren't we all." Miller sighed. "Now, since you are here, we have a proposition for you all."

This intrigued all four of them; even Griffen couldn't contain all of his curiosity.

"We're listening" he half causally spoke, half anxiously shouted.

Miller took a breath, and then started to speak. "OK, here's the deal." happy tone off, this was serious stuff now. "You need guns and ammunition, we need to scout ahead. My deal is that if you accompany some of us over those mountains, we will give you the ammunition and guns to do so." he was short and too the point, very professional."You are going to the train line?"

"We are going to a train line?"

"Well, if you want to get over those mountains you are." Miller laughed, and then continued. "So what do you say, deal?"

It was a no brainer. "You got a deal, Miller." Griffen responded, a smile gracing his face.

"Good, I'm glad. Now, let me show you to our armoury." He winked again, pointing them in the direction of a door to the left of their sitting room.

And what an armoury it was. It was amazing that they hadn't smelt the gun polish or cordite from the top of the crest. Mercenaries, Freelancers, call them what ever you want, these people were professional.

It looked like a proper quartermaster's shop from his Army Barracks. The guns lined the wall in a neat, class based system. Pistols on the right, Assault Rifles next, and so on and so forth. The room was so packed Griffen didn't even know what the original colour of the walls were, but they looked brown, he thought anyway.

"Please, take what you want. Our gift." Miller smiled, waving his arm to signal they could tuck in to the weapons.

After an intensive few minutes of thought, each of the four men finally made their choice.

Griffen took the standard Army issue, An M-16 with a grenade launcher underbarrell. He picked it for the simple reason that he could work it, it was that easy. Never mind fancy weapons, the ones you knew were the most important. He could take apart and assemble this gun with his eyes closed, all the more reason to have it.

For good measure, he also helped himself to an M4 Carbine. He figured since he wasn't carrying any backpacks, he had disposed of his, there was nothing of importance in it since they had eaten all their food and used all their ammunition, so it would he a nice addition.

Vincent had been more eccentric in his choice of weaponry. Instead of thinking about the ammunition needed, the weight of the gun compared to his physical strength, he went for the "big guns, little problems" approach. Going for the SPAS 12 like a rocket, he had already loaded the shells he had hastily grabbed off of Chris, who turned up out of interest.

The other two kitted up with AKs. They didn't really know what to do. It was all over their heads on the technical parts, their only requirement was if it could shoot, it was fine. Their naivety was amusing to Griffen. They really knew not a lot about the world he came from.

Once they had spent time with their new toys, Miller called them back in. "All right gentlemen, you will be accompanied by Myself, Chris here" Chris waved, smiling at the chance to get out and about killing "and Bourbon."

That left a distaste in the soldier's mouth. He didn't particularly trust him, just from the military organization he was with. It was cheap, but he couldn't hide his gut feeling from himself.

"We are leaving at sunrise, so get prepared." he stood at attention. "dismissed!"

In only a few hours from them being dismissed, they were up and raring to go at the exit door to the cabin. It was a door directly opposite the entrance, on the other side of the sitting room. It made sense, some how. Three of the seven faces looked full of nerves, and it would be easy to guess which three. People are trained to tell guilty suspects based on their actions, and the three inexperienced survivors would of failed on the first interrogation.

The one called Travis, a "I've seen things" type of guy, opened the exit door, unlocking the bolts with a key. He had a pistol, a Glock 17, cocked and in his free hand. If he was expecting to need it in the task he had, there was no chance they would survive the trip.

"Good luck, don't die." was his simple parting phrase, putting the guys on even more of an edge.

As they stepped outside onto the grassy downward slope, leaving the safety of the cabin behind, Griffen was just glad to be back outside. Infected or not, it was TO safe in that cabin.

The sun was just rising over the mountains, high enough for them to see, but not enough for them to see well. It was a dusky, sort of cold feeling, even though it was quite the polar opposite. Tommy put it down to how near they were to the mountains and focused on the main threat to them. The rocks.

The flat, dewy grass came to a complete halt, petering out into a dusty stretch, only a meter or so, which then rose up at almost a ninety degree angle. It loomed, completely blocking out the sunlight, immersing them in near enough pitch black darkness.

Fumbling around for solid rock, Griffen eventually found his footing. What his foot made contact with was certainly rock, and it wasn't slippery. Good, that made things easier. At least his death by falling couldn't be blamed on bad conditions.

He had done this before, well he had been rock climbing anyway. It was the simple process of putting your left foot in a grove, pushing yourself up and placing the right foot in a higher groove then rinse and repeat. Too bad that was with a harness on, where safety was guaranteed and the likelihood of dead by falling was slim to none. Out in the wilderness, all you had was hope that the groves were big enough and your hands didn't sweat too much.

Putting his left foot in between two rocks, he pushed himself up onto the next level of stone. This was the simple case of repeating what you were doing, never having a different move set from the one you had just used. Repetition is the key to climbing. He done the same movement, finding the appropriate groove and hoisting himself up. Chancing a look back, he saw Tommy, directly bellow him. Only two pulls up and he looked exhausted, as if the constant days of running from infected hadn't tired him out.

"How you holding up there, Tommy?" he asked, pulling himself up against the ridge onto the next layer of rocks, then doing the same again, so much so that Tommy's exasperated voice was almost too faint for him to pick up on.

"...Just... Just great... Thanks for asking." behind his struggling breath there was sarcasm.

Griffen wasn't sure where the rest of his "team" was, but he sure did know where Bourbon was. The Russian was about two layers in front of him, three meters to the left. He hadn't noticed, but he was wearing a dark red boonie hat, much the same colour as Tommy's beret. He probably hadn't noticed because he didn't care, or that it was too dark before; the sun just being able to creep over the top of the rock face to meet them, casting an eerie grey tone over them.

Further they went, the gaps between all seven of them becoming larger as time took its toll. Even Bourbon had started to slow down, coming even with Griffen, followed closely by Chris and Miller. Griffen's friends were lacking by comparison, who had all drifted away, just see-able in the dawn.

The two rifles on his back were starting to weigh Griffen down. In hindsight, it wasn't a good idea to have two at one time when climbing, the butt of both guns sticking into his neck. It was painful, but it had started to dull over time. It was only one more level of ledges, then he was fine.

Making one final push from a very precarious groove in the rocks, Griffen threw himself upwards, his hands making a grasp for the gravely surface. His hands were dripping with sweat, which stung his hands as the stones rubbed against them, making him recoil, just enough for his mind to think he was falling. Frantically kicking off of the rock face, he scrambled up.

Blind relief was the only thought running through his head at that moment in time, his pulse going from overdrive to just insane, which was a good sign. Inhaling deeply, then exhaling in the same manner, the first thing he had to do was check if everyone had made it.

He saw Bourbon, who was already set up in a covering fire position, weapon aiming into the distance, one knee on the ground. Periodically he would lower his rifle from his aim and check chamber, then went back into studying the arcs of the flat are. He was professional, it was as simple as that.

Chris soon clambered up behind the Russian, Bourbon dropping his guard to hoist him onto the flatlands. Miller and James soon followed, the latter out of breath so much that his heavy breathing could be heard from where Griffen was standing, about four meters away. Lastly came Tommy and Vincent, who collapsed on the stone chipped ground, sweating like pigs.

Giving them absolutely no time to rest, Bourbon was on his feet, taking charge from a tired looking Miller "OK, here's the plan." his accent was clean, crisp and harsh, like he was emphasising the end of each word. "We head forward, to the Train Station where we will rest. Then we work on the controls to get whatever train we can find there operative again."

"How do you know a train will be there?" Vincent breathed, still sucking in the air frantically.

"I don't" Bourbon replied, turning and beginning to walk "now come one!"

All standing up, they began to march onwards. It was funny how none of them had noticed the train station. It was a large, red bricked structure with a flat, navy blue roof. Somewhat blending in with the red walls, but still visible by the steel bars, the Safe House Door beckoned them once more.

On approaching the safe room door, Bourbon, who was leading the group, unclipped the bar and hastened them inside. Griffen was last to enter, but before he could enter the safety of the station, Bourbon stopped him. His voice was low, as if no one wanted to hear it.

"You" he growled "Are helping me defend Miller while he fixes the controls."

Griffen not knowing how to react, merely nodded.

"I mean to harm to you, you must know. My badge shows nothing about my true personality."

Griffen nodded again, and shaking off the Russian, went inside. They were safe, but their final challenge awaits them on the other side of the station yard.