Me: Well, at last, here's Chapter 28.
Zero: It has been a while.
Rendan: Good to see you're still writing.
Me: Well, life's been giving me nothing but shit for a while and my muse took a hell of a blow. So, for what it's worth, I'm sorry.
Zero: What's to apologize for? If you don't have the muse, you don't have the muse.
Rendan: Strange, I seem to recall you singing a different tune before.
Zero: ...Shut up...
Me: Well, I'll grab the disclaimer. I don't own Left 4 Dead or the types of infected. Those are owned by Valve. The only things I own are the plot, the characters and the Adaptor breed of infected. Now, without further ado, Chapter 28. Read and enjoy.
Chapter 28: Time to Leave
I awoke to the soothing sound of the rain drops pattering on the roof of the cabin. The drops had a sort of rhythm to them as the rain continued. After cracking my neck I slowly rose from my spot on the floor and looked outside. It was lighter than before, most likely meaning that it was a new day. The rain that had run down the window made it somewhat difficult to see what was beyond it though. Against my better judgement, which at this point was to go back to Erin and fall asleep again, I wandered outside into the rain alone.
The rain was barely a drizzle by this point, and the drops felt only like a mild spray, giving a pleasurable sensation to the parts of my body the drops would hit. It was more like I walked into a mist than into the rain, honestly. I stood in front of the cabin and inhaled deeply, catching the scent of the plants. The scent of flowers, grass and any plant just after it rained always smelled better for some reason. I used to think that it was because the rain would cleanse anything it hit, renewing everything the next day.
I chuckled to myself. If that were true all of us would probably be humans again. I couldn't help but glance to my hands, the only part of me that aesthetically changed at all, aside from my skin tone of course. They looked significantly less claw-like than when I first looked at them those few months ago. Time seemed to be finally catching up to me but there was one worry that remained prominent in my mind. Are we really becoming human again? Or, perhaps, are we becoming something else?
As I stood in the rain, a slight sound caught my attention. It was faint, like someone stepping on a rough piece of grass, but there nonetheless, and it wasn't coming from behind me. My eyes shot around, looking for the source but to no avail. Whatever it was had stopped.
I closed my eyes and listened closely again. The sound started once more and appeared to be getting closer. It wasn't very fast, meaning that whatever was causing that noise was moving either slowly or stealthily, maybe both. My body began to tense slightly as the noise came closer.
After a moment I was able to determine the direction the sound was coming from and immediately turned to my right. My eyes remained locked on the area as I slowly moved toward the approaching figure. I didn't know what it was but as long as I was still a hunter I could probably fight it off. The noises didn't increase in pace at all but didn't slow down or stop either. If whatever was making this noise was a predator, it would've stopped once I started approaching. I stopped in my tracks and looked carefully at the trees, looking for anything out of the ordinary.
After a moment, I saw it. A figure was walking toward me from out of the trees. For a while that was all I could see, a figure. A humanoid figure slowly making its way toward me. I leapt straight into one of the trees to get a kind of vantage point on the approaching silhouette. As I perched on a branch my breath caught in my throat. The figure coming toward us was a lesser infected. If there was one thing you could say about the lesser infected, they never travelled alone. Wherever one went about a hundred or so more were sure to follow.
If this one made its way this far out, more were surely close behind. The creature moved forward a few more steps before a light sound erupted from nowhere. In the next second, the infected's head was removed from his body. I turned back and saw someone on the roof of the cabin, sniper rifle in hand. Gramps! I jumped from the tree to my grandfather and landed next to him.
"Well, you certainly picked a good time to shoot," I said. Gramps chuckled lowly.
"I've got to protect my family, don't I?" He questioned. I let out a long drawn-out sigh.
"You realize what this means right?" I asked. He nodded his response.
"Better get a move on then." I was taken aback by his statement.
"Wait a second," I began, "what about you?" Gramps looked toward me and smiled.
"Your Grandma and I will make our own way to the human settlement. We can't keep up with you kids." No matter what he said, Gramps never lost the smile that always found a way to his face. He ruffled my hair slightly. "Get your friends up and get going. Grammy's already waiting for me at the settlement."
"You already moved?" I asked. Gramps nodded again.
"We left after you fell asleep last night. We've been planning on moving on for some time, now we've got an urgent need to do so. With those infected getting closer we need to get further away." I took a deep breath and nodded. I understood the need to leave. Hell, we all did. All I had to do was break the news to everyone. Perhaps Ash, Gimpy, Bear, Sarah, Razor and I were safe but Will and Erin were not. I dropped from the roof to the front of the cabin and walked inside to find everyone still blissfully asleep.
Knowing what I had to do I gently shook everyone awake. As they rubbed their eyes my attention turned to the window, watching for any silhouette that approached the cabin. Thankfully, there was nothing approaching just yet.
"Zero?" Ash questioned as he finally snapped his senses awake. "What's going on?"
"Yeah," Gimpy added. "I mean, I was having the best dream."
"Did it involve ramming people?" Bear joked.
"Damn straight," Gimpy replied.
"This isn't the time," I stated, catching everyone off guard. They seemed to understand what was wrong and immediately jumped to their feet and started gathering the supplies we'd gotten before. Erin looked around slightly confused before Sarah whispered into her ear, at which point she jumped up and started getting some of the purchased weaponry.
I watched my friends move about like a well-oiled machine. It saddened me that we've gotten so used to living like this so quickly we can move like this. It seemed like this would always be the routine for us. With little to say we quickly hurried out of the cabin where Gramps was waiting for us.
"I guess this is it," Gramps sadly said. Will and I took deep breaths and hugged him. "Now you two take care. Watch out for each other, keep each other safe and come visit me and Grammy sometimes at the base. You know we miss you."
"We will," we promised. Gramps held us close for a moment before he hoisted his rifle and walked off, leaving the eight of us to head our own way. It was still raining, so I was not sure exactly we were going. If I had to guess, I'd say we headed East. As we walked around the trees to our next destination, Razor broke the silence.
"So what did you see?" He inquired.
"A member of the mindless horde," I responded. The group nodded in a silent agreement. If one of them showed up, it was definitely time to move on. As we usually did, we trekked through the forest in silence. It was the smartest thing to do honestly. If we made too much noise we'd attract the entire fucking horde to us. From there it would basically be a slaughter, one way or another. A horde attack would draw special infected, which would draw more horde and so on and so forth in a near never-ending cycle.
To avoid that, silent travel for a while was necessary. Nobody enjoyed it, but it had to be done. After a while, the boredom honestly started to get the better of us. It was pretty obvious too, we all had our tells. Bear would find it ridiculously difficult to keep his hands to himself... and at this point he was cuddling Sarah as if she were a damn teddy bear. Ash tended to breathe faster, as if the speed of his breathing would speed up time. At this point he was up to mach 3 breathing.
Razor had an eye twitch that usually happened when he was either bad or ridiculously bored and his eye was twitching very quickly. Gimpy would start tapping small beats on his body and he was pretty much tapping a Beethoven symphony by this point. Sarah, however, was not bored. She didn't mind being Bear's teddy bear. Her normal tick would be shaking her fingers or moving any part of her body rapidly.
Will's tick was by far the most odd. He would get so bored he'd randomly start swearing to the beat of one of his favorite songs. One time he did a full song of only shits, fucks and bastards. I didn't know what Erin's tell was, seeing as I didn't know her as well as everyone else, but at a glance, she seemed to be the one to completely shut out the world and go into her mind for refuge from the boredom... either that or she was too busy staring at my ass. Hard to tell.
Some time later we exited the forest and wandered into a large wasteland... or it might as well have been. The ground was dead, the plants old and withered. There were no standing trees for what seemed to be miles. I wondered if this was intentionally done or if the infection had hit this area hard.
From a first glance, that much seemed to be obvious. There were a few skeletons littered about, some in random places, others in what appeared to be a pattern. Could be some cult used to perform rites or something here.
"I was going to say that we can finally bullshit again, but this is just fucking weird," Ash said. He walked next to me and glanced around the area. "So many skulls..." He didn't know how to finish that statement. Nobody did.
"Looks like someone wanted to keep people away from here," Sarah mused.
"She does have a point," Gimpy agreed. "This does look like some kind of cultist shit."
"Let's keep moving," Will suggested. "I don't want to be in this place any longer than we have to." With the group muttering their agreement we carried on. As we walked the wasteland seemed to stretch beyond what seemed possible. Probably a mirage or something similar. We continued on until a sudden yelp snapped us out of our silence.
Razor had tripped over something and hit the ground, hard. When he tried to get up he found his foot caught in some kind of metal loop. A metal loop that seemed to be randomly sticking out of the ground.
"What the fuck?" Razor yelled. He quickly removed his foot from the loop and brushed away the dirt to find some kind of trap door underneath the dust. Apparently, he'd stumbled upon a base of some kind. "This is like some shit you see in the movies."
"What should we do?" Erin asked.
"I think it's obvious," I stated. I grabbed the loop and pulled the door upward. "We check it out."
"Wait a second," Bear started, "there might be some seriously fucked up cult shit in there. I don't care much for that stuff but do we really want to walk in on a virgin being sacrificed or some shit like that?"
"Look at it this way, either there's nothing there, or we save a person from being sacrificed." Looking at Ash, Razor and Gimpy I continued, "It may even be a pretty girl."
"Clique away!" Razor shouted as he and Gimpy rushed down the hidden stairs. Ash jumped in and crashed into both of them, making them all tumble down until they hit the bottom. The rest of us chuckled and descended into the darkness.
Me: And that'll do it.
Zero: Jesus Christ, where are we heading now?
Me: You'll have to wait and see.
Rendan: It is kinda good that you're always able to end these chapters with the readers guessing at one or two things.
Me: I find it helps keep them interested.
Zero: It definitely does that.
Me: Well, that's it for now. Be good and be safe, everyone! I'm outta here!
