Author's Notes - Wow! Heh, didn't expect this story to become so popular so fast! Thanks to everyone who reviewed and I hope you all enjoy this chapter as much as you did the first! :)
Disclaimer - Left 4 Dead isn't, and never will be, mine.
Warning! Major overuse of the pronoun 'he'!
The human was close.
Another sniff in the air.
Very close.
Pretty soon the human would be close enough to pounce on. Once he was pinned, he would be ripped, torn apart, shredded, sliced into strips of human meat.
The feast was going to be good tonight. His coughing companion would be able to enjoy the meal as well...after he ate first of course.
He crept closer.
He could smell something burning. That meant the human was near a source of Fire and he would have to tread carefully. He had seen what happened to his bretheren when they were set ablaze. Pain. Lots of pain.
A familiar cough brought his attention back to the task at hand. His companion was close, probably hiding somewhere in the trees. Everything should go according to plan.
He crept even closer.
He could hear the human now. Humming something he no longer recognized. Unaware of the danger slowly coming up behind him.
He was close enough to attack...
Close enough to rip...
Close enough to-
The blood-curdling screech of a Hunter snapped the human out of his daydream as he stood and spun around to face his foe.
"Well, well, well," The man said with a growing smirk on his face, "What do we got here?"
He bent over to casually pick up his sawed-off shotgun and a beer, and staggered over to the Hunter.
"Looks like you got caught in my trap boy. Heh, I knew one of you freaks was gonna be prowling around here eventually. It was only a matter of time." He pointed the barrel of the gun at the Hunter's face and put his finger on the trigger.
When the Hunter heard the click of that dangerous boomstick, he stopped pawing at the trap and turned to meet the weapon mere inches from his face. This was it. His prey had won.
The barrel edged towards the rim of the creature's hood and flipped upwards, revealing the Hunter's face and shaggy appearance.
The Hunter immediately put its bloody hands to it's face in a pitiful attept to try and shield and hide himself from the growing danger before him.
The man took a large swig of his beer and moved the shotgun directly onto the Hunter's forehead.
"Boom, headshot."
That was all he said before pulling the gun away, backing up to his campFire, and chucking the now empty beer bottle into the Fire pit.
The Hunter removed his hands once he sensed the boomstick was gone and the human was no longer near him. His relief was short lived though, as the man untangled a thick rope and started towards him again.
After neary ten minutes of wrestling with the Hunter and avoiding sharp calws, the man stepped back to admire his work. He had managed to tie both its hands and feet together, before successfully binding all four limbs together in a hog-tied position. The Hunter continued to struggle, but the blood losss from its leg and the mini wrestling match had left it weary and much weaker than before.
"Ah great, you broke the trap's hinge." The man said, glancing over at the bloody and broken bear trap. "Oh well. Plenty more where that came from."
The human turned back towards his campFire once more, satisfied that the threat had been neutralized. When he bent down to put the knife he had used to cut the rope back in his bag though, a new sound caught his attention.
A cough in the distance.
"So, ya brought company huh?" The man, more or less, said to the Hunter. "Well come on then, they can play too." He purposely stayed crouched down next to his bag, pretending he hadn't heard the cough and waiting for just the right moment...
The rustle of the tree leaves gave the Smoker away and so as soon as it's tongue shot out to grab the crouching human, it was too late to retract as the man quickly rolled backwards out of the way and slashed at the appendage laying useless on the ground with the knife.
The Smoker, surprised by the human's dodge, had forgotten to bite its tongue off to regrow a new one. When the human slashed his tongue though, the sharp pain made him coherent enough to start trying to bite his tongue off.
"Oh no you don't!" The man said when he saw the Smoker chewing on its tongue, "You ain't gettin' away from me!" He then grabbed the slimy appendage and started yanking on it. Despite the Smokers good balance on the tree limb, one sharp tug was all it took to bring the Infected back down to ground level.
The man started pulling on the tongue some more, dragging the dazed Smoker towards him. When the Infected finally got his senses back, it was too late. The human grabbed the long tongue and started wrapping it around the barbed wire fence he had used to prevent common Infected from getting in.
The Smoker's tongue was starting to go numb with pain as he attempted to bite it off again.
"Well now, we can't let you bite your tongue off, now can we?" The man finished tying a knot around the fence with the tongue before picking up a decent sized rock and ramming down the Smoker's throat. "Try to bite it off now, poofball."
The rock not only prevented the Smoker from biting its tongue, but it also prevented a lot of air to be inhaled. Immediately, the usual coughing and wheezing became more violent and desperate. This of course was the perfect opportunity for the man to tie down the Smoker as well, and fulfill a lifelong dream.
"Y'know, I always wanted to be a surgeon. Never had the money to go to a fancy college though." The man held the knife in front of the Smoker's face. The Infected briefly stopped struggling to eye the sharp blade. "So how 'bout I remove these tumors for ya? Oh, I gotta tell ya; this is going to hurt you a LOT more than its gonna hurt me."
The Hunter could only watch as his companion's face was cut up and deformed by this mad man's blade.
Author's notes - Huh, the flashback chapter is a bit shorter than what I wanted it to be. Oh well.
If anyone can guess where the line "I always wanted to be a surgeon" came from, you get a nice big virtual cookie! Yummeh! :D
Chapter 3 will bring us back to the present day and how the survivors deal with two bloody and beaten Infected.