A/N: A day late. I'll have to get the next one out as quickly as I can to make up for it.
Disclaimer: I do not own Left 4 Dead or the characters/world therein.
30 Day Challenge 9: Hanging Out With Friends
Quiet days were the biggest difference between life on the run and life defending an area. Both involved a lot of work and both had moments of sheer terror along with moments where things were actually pretty alright- at least, as alright as they could be with the living dead wandering around trying to eat everyone- but life on the run meant that any day doing nothing was a day their chances of survival dropped. Supplies were based off of what they could find, not what they could grow or maintain. Shelter wasn't build for loitering too long and would be easily compromised if too many infected, or a single tank, found them. In a defensible position, they had more control over their supplies. Tanks would still be a massive problem, but the survivors had an easy fix to that.
Whenever one was spotted in the distance, the survivors would hide. Keep quiet and out of sight, as far away from the gates as they could get without being seen. On occation, this meant being stuck at the top of a watch tower, laying flat and hoping that the massive zombies weren't able to smell them. It did wonders for them all spring and through summer and fall, when there were things to be done and it never felt like enough time to do them in with infected- especially the special ones- lurking around all the time.
Winter was an exception to the days of business and, really, that was where the difference between the two life styles was most apparent. There was no making sure the crops they had somehow managed to grow stayed alive and there were fewer and fewer zombies around the colder it got. By the time the cold had settled over everything with blankets of snow sheeting the ground, the survivors literally had nothing to do. No traveling from one place to the other in search of anywhere warm enough to stay. No stumbling upon half-frozen zombies still trying to eat them. Most surprisingly, no hoping and scraping for any small bit of food they could find. Supplies were stocked and the undead seemed to have lost all interest in traveling far enough away from the cities to reach the prison that they had been hiding in.
Times like that were usually spent in the warden's office- door closed and locked just in case, though it seemed superfluous- on the comfy couch and cushy chairs in there. Sometimes, they would hang out in the cafeteria instead. Rarely, they would all spend time in the library together. None of them were really readers, but it was an alright change of scenery for talking about what life had been like for them, or what they would do if things all went back to normal, or whatever else they decided to talk about. With as different as each of them had been in life, swapping stories never seemed to get old amongst the group.
It was on a particularly cold night that they had decided to build a fire to keep warm with. Instead of having it in the courtyard, they used the fire pit Francis and Louis had rigged together one day and lit one in the gym. The building had a high ceiling and the windows at the very tops of the walls were always partially opened, probably to keep the place from getting too hot whenever the convicts used it or something. Zoey didn't care why so long as it kept the building from filling with smoke.
They stayed around the fire and told ghost stories or played guessing games with each other. Louis and Zoey were banned from being on the same team for charades. Zoey had suggested camp-fire songs, but all she received were blank stares. She never suggested it again, though Francis would more often than not be hitting his thighs or knees absently, like make-shifts drums, whenever he wasn't talking. The act of killing time in the gym around a fire became the norm for the group in winter. It was really cool for them, until the night everything changed for the four survivors.