Monster

Yeah, sorry about the major cliffhanger. At least you have chapter already, instead of having to wait.

Lana: Get it right this time, okay? Ellis said frankenfurter.

Rochelle: Oh, poor baby. *laughing* Hey, don't you mean frankfurter?

Lana: Say it! They're waiting!

Rochelle: I can't, sweetie, I can't stop laughing now, I'm sorry. Frankenfurter!

Lana: Hopefully Coach or Nick can do this... Dammit, Rochelle! Ugh... I don't own the Left 4 Dead franchise. Oh, and Theo is an OC. He's not a Gary-Stu, don't worry. Is that the name for a male Mary-Sue?

Rochelle: Frankenfurter.

Also, there's strong gore description in this little chappie. You've been warned!

Eighteen

I woke up. I was in the back of a van, with the others around me, sitting in the low cabin. Ellis was laid on the floor, and Coach was nowhere to be seen. I could hear rain thundering against the van.

"What happened?" I asked, and Zoey turned to me. She smiled nervously.

"You passed out."

"I what?" I was shocked. "Why?"

"You had concussion, like Nick. You collapsed when you reached the road," Zoey answered. "We found Theo, the driver of this van, leaning over you, and we thought he was an Infected biting you when he was really checking your pulse. Nick tried to shoot him in the arm," she admitted.

"He what?" I was stunned again, and annoyed. "He's so trigger-happy!"

"Theo was nice about though, when Nick missed," Louis put in, having overheard our conversation. I wasn't surprised, considering the confined space we were a crammed in.

"Thank God he missed," Zoey muttered grimly.

"What then?" I was curious.

"He gave us food and let us use the van for transport. Coach is in the front with him, and-" Louis was cut off as there was a loud shattering of glass, then blinding light and we were flipping over. I got a strong feeling of déjà vu from earlier, when we'd been trapped by Nema and then the Tank had attacked. Then we crashed down to earth again, and rolled, down a long hill until the van settled to a stop on its side. I coughed in the settling dust, and rubbed my streaming eyes. I heard Zoey groaning beside me, her limbs tangled among Louis', and Francis had fallen off his seat onto the van's side. The back doors of the van were hanging off their hinges, and blood was streaked across the smooth steel surface. Some way away from the van, Ellis lay flat on the muddy ground, and Nick was in a heap a few meters further. I staggered out of the van into the lashing rain, and I heard Coach coughing from the front. I breathed a half-hearted sigh of relief.

"Is everybody okay?" Zoey called from inside the van. She extracted herself from Louis, who nodded blearily in reply, then stepped out of the van. She froze when she saw Nick and Ellis.

"Are there any bandages left?" I asked. She stayed rooted to the spot.

"I don't..." Her voice was soft, as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing. I grabbed her sodden shoulders and looked into her eyes.

"Snap out of it, Zo," I ordered. "We need you to be calm now, not hysterical." She blinked and looked at me, before nodding and rushing to Ellis' side. Once she was sure he was still breathing, she darted over to Nick. I stepped up and together we rolled him over, onto his back. Blood stained his soaked white blazer, and we pulled his shirt open to see the wound.

-Monster-Monster-Monster-Monster-

I gasped, and Zoey leaned sideways to throw up. Nick's stomach was a mess; his skin torn around a gaping hole, his intestines almost spilling from the gap. His ribs were in shards, poking through his skin, and we could see his heart beating inside the shattered bone cage. His left lung was punctured, and as we watched, water began filling his insides, and more blood streamed out of his inferior vena cava. He groaned slightly, and stirred miraculously. He tried to sit up. I pushed him down, and he looked at me with unfocused eyes.

"What's... wrong, Ro?" he mumbled. I shook my head, and put on a fake smile.

"Nothing, don't you worry. You're fine. Just stay lying for a second." Nick looked at me cynically, seeing straight through my lie. He craned his neck and looked down, his eyes rolling with horror when he saw his wound.

"What..." His eyes rolled up and he fell still, blood bubbling from his mouth. I gasped and shook his arm.

"Nick? Nick!" I cried desperately. Zoey wiped her mouth and turned back, shaky and pale. Her eyes widened when she saw Nick's body.

"He'll die," she stated dumbly, before jerking into action and issuing orders. "Rochelle, check everyone's okay. Louis, apply pressure onto Francis' neck." Louis nodded, and pushed the unconscious biker onto his side, and it was only now that I realized there was a deep scratch on his neck.

"Francis..." I murmured.

"I'll find a defibrillator. Coach, stay with Nick and make sure he doesn't have a seizure. Issue CPR if necessary!" Coach nodded and hurried over.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Theo?" Zoey called, and the young driver crawled from the van, cradling a broken wrist and holding a tissue against a cut on his forehead. His brown hair was matted with blood and rain.

"Yes?" he limped over. "Wh-" He was cut off as a slab of concrete smashed into him, his skull exploding into a million shards, detaching his head from his shoulders. His side disintegrated into a mass of bones and bloody flesh, and by the time the bloodstained concrete landed with a thud in the soft mud, all that was left of him was a torn mess. Blood filled the porous ground and he fell forwards, dead long before he even started to fall. Zoey screamed and covered her mouth.

"Theo!" she shrieked. I turned on the spot, mud spraying my boots, to see a silhouette standing on the road above the ditch we were in. It waved its huge arms, before tearing up another piece of the road and hurling it at us. It caved in the side of the van, small pieces of rock showering Louis, who was hidden behind in with Francis.

"A Tank!" Coach bellowed, stopping everyone in their tracks. We all stared upwards as the huge Infected began to make its destructive path towards us, helpless without any means of escape, several injured companions and a lack of proper guns.

"No," I whispered.