Warnings: This story contains sexuality, violence, profanity, disturbing themes and suicide. Do NOT read it if that offends you. Also, while the story and characters contained herein are mine, I do not own Left4Dead or Left4Dead2 and am just exploiting them for creative purposes.
"So, do you?" she asks with a wry smile.
I can feel the gentle slope of her breasts as she presses against me, her emerald eyes twinkling mischievously. The faint scent of her perfume, a pleasant combination of jasmine and something else I can't quite place, seems to cloud my thoughts. Slowly, she starts to lean in towards me and... lets out a terrified scream...
...
I jerk awake with a start. Looking over at the clock I can see it's only 4:30 in the morning. Still far to early for me to be waking up. Damn. I was having a good dream, too. Something about this girl and that she... ah, forget it. It's already gone. Oh well, I'm up now and theres no use wasting the morning.
Letting out a low growl, I roll out of bed and pull on a pair of blue jeans. The room around me is still dark and I can feel the crisp chill of the early autumn morning clinging to the air. I flip on the television mostly just to have some background noise. The only thing on seems to be some zombie horror flick. I head into the shower as some chick pretending to be a reporter drones on about the 'outbreak' and the importance of staying in your home. What a laugh.
Don't get me wrong. It's not that I don't enjoy watching a decent horror flick every now and then, and the whole 'dead rising from the graves to feed on the flesh of the living' thing does have some interesting possibilities but I just have too much trouble taking zombies seriously. I mean, how dangerous could they really be? They're unarmed and mindless. You just put on some decent body armor to keep them from chewing on you and you become invincible. When the end of the world comes, I'd be much more afraid of something like a nuclear apocalypse, or food shortages or even just a complete collapse of our basic infrastructure. Of course, my own personal views could have left me a little bit jaded on the subject.
I lean towards being what you might call an urban survivalist. It's not that I'm some gun- crazed wackjob or anything. I just like taking a few small measures here and there to be prepared just in case anything actually ever does go wrong. Like having a well even though they run public water out where I live (all the chemicals they put in it are bad for you anyway), or having a small wind turbine for power (it's really more of an investment if you consider the money I save on my electric bill), or storing up food supplies incase of a famine (we all saw what happened with Katrina and it's not like I can't eat them later) or building my home out of six-inch-thick steel-reinforced concrete so that it will function as a fallout shelter in the event of a nuclear holocaust... Ok, so maybe I am a little bit of a wackjob, but it's better safe than sorry.
By the time I finish my shower, I'm actually feeling pretty good despite my lost sleep. I might even do my morning run early so I'll have time to go down to the cafe for breakfast. The food there isn't that great but there's a cute waitress working there, Katie something-or-other, who's always flirting with me when I see her. I really ought to just ask her out already.
Looking over at the TV I notice they're showing aerial footage of mobs of unarmed civilians attacking police barricades. I almost get worried before I remember what I'd left it on. Pretty decent work, it almost looks like a real news broadcast. Of course, the way the people are just running mindlessly into the gunfire is kinda a dead giveaway that it isn't real. I flip the channel over to the local news station.
"We now return to Sara Marshall live on the scene. Sara."
"Thank you, Jack. As you can see, police have erected barricades along the roads to try to contain the situation and prevent the looters from reaching other parts of town. Now I've just spoken to Sheriff Gordon. He says there is still no clue as to what started the rioting but that the situation is under control. He is still recommending that everyone remain indoors and urges anyone seeing suspicious activities to call police immediately. Do not try to-"
I flip the channel again. This time, its a press conference with some balding politician.
"Again, we are doing everything we can to handle the situation. The national guard and police departments are working non stop to contain the rioting and break up the crowds but until we have everything fully under control we would urge people to stay put and remain calm. The best thing we can do right now is just step back and let the professionals do their job. Yes, Michael..."
"Is there any word on what triggered this series of riots?"
"Not at this time. We expect-"
I flip the channel again. On the screen is a frightened looking young reporter surrounded by police in riot gear. In the background there a wall of what looks like some kind of white fog or smoke. Someone on a megaphone is giving order to 'disperse and return to your homes'.
"As you can see, police are trying to disperse the crowd using tear gas and rubber bullets. Now-"
Suddenly, a balding, middle-aged man with a potbelly comes sprinting out of the tear gas. He has blood running from his nose and mouth and his eyes are wild and bloodshot. Letting out a horrid, high-pitched scream he runs head first into the cameraman. The camera fall over and goes blank, then the anchorman comes back on screen.
"Susan? Susan, come in... I'm sorry, we seem to have lost our connection."
Outside, I hear someone scream.
...
It only takes me a few seconds to grab my bokken and rush down from my apartment on the second floor. I don't know who these people are or what kicked off the riots, but I do know that if they think they can come terrorize my neighborhood, they are seriously mistaken. Standing in at six foot even and weighing a good hundred-and-ninety-five pounds of solid muscle, I make a pretty imposing figure if I do say so myself. When you combine that with my years of martial arts training and physical conditioning, I quickly become one of the last people you would want to mess with.
As soon as I step outside the door I locate the source of the screaming. Some scumbag has cornered a little girl of nine or ten while a young woman who is most likely her mother tries desperately to fight him off. Seeing him attacking an unarmed woman and child like that sets me into a blind fury. I rush at the man and hit him in the side hard enough that I hear a few of his ribs breaking and catch him again in the side of the head, forcing him off of the woman as he stumbles back and falls. I figure that should be enough to keep him down for awhile. It isn't.
Almost as soon as he hits the ground he rolls back onto his feet and starts growling at me like some kind of rabid animal. He doesn't even seem to notice that he's bleeding profusely from his head or the pink foam frothing from his mouth when he breathes. Ignoring my warnings to stay back, he rushes me with a blind fury. Pulling back, I catch him in the side of the head again, and than once more when he drops to the ground. This time, he stays down.
"What the fuck was wrong with h-"
Before I can finish, someone has slammed into me from behind and bites down hard on the side of my neck. Only momentarily stunned by the blow, I manage to get a grip on one of their arms and wrench them off of me. As I try to pin her down, I can see it's Wendy, a checkout girl I know from the grocery store down the street. She's still dressed in her uniform, although the entire left side is soaked in blood from where something bit a large chunk out of her face. All the while, she keeps slathering and shrieking like some mad animal, trying desperately to claw at me.
"Wendy, stop! I don't want to hurt you." she barely seems to register that I spoke at all.
"Wendy, you need to calm down. I'm not going to hur-" I hear the sharp crack of a small pistol being fired and suddenly she goes completely limp, blood starting to trickle from a small hole in the side of her head.
"Why the fuck did you do that!" I rise and turn towards the woman "I had her under control. You didn't have to go and shoot her like that."
She doesn't seem to hear me at first. Honestly, I think she must be in shock over the ordeal. She has a blank look on her face and the .22 in her hand is just dangling loosely. I start to take a step in her direction.
"Are you ok? They didn't hurt you did they?"
"Just stay back" she snaps out of it when she sees me move.
"What?"
"Just stay back. You're infected now. She bit you, you're infected." she's on the verge of hysteria as she says this.
"What do you mean? Infected how?"
"Infected. Like Them."
"Ok, just calm down."
"Stay BACK!" she raises the gun, pointing it directly at my head.
I take a few steps back. The last I want to do is scare her and get killed.
"Look, I'm ok. I'm not crazy and I'm not going to hurt you, alright? I just want to make sure you're not hurt.
"We're fine." she lets out a sigh "I'm sorry. I know you were just trying to help us, and we'd probably be dead if you hadn't, but I can't take any chances. I'm not really sure what's going on, but I do know that everyone I've seen get bit goes mad. Fast."
As much as I'd like to believe she's just some nut, something tells me that she's telling the truth. Looking over at the bodies of Wendy and the man, I can't help but grimace. It would explain why they were acting like that. Some pathogen transmitted through bodily fluids, affects the brain causing confusion, irritably, madness... Sounds alot like rabies, although I've never heard of it affecting people on this scale before.
In a way, it's almost kinda funny. I spend my whole life preparing for the end of the world, and when it finally get here I get myself killed in the first twenty minutes. Well, no use crying about it. I don't know how long I've got, but I do know I need to get moving. Time is definitely not on my side.
...
I quickly run inside and grab a pump action 12 gauge shotgun and a 9mm glock for the mother, a pair of .22 semi-automatic pistols for the girl, a couple boxes of ammo, some MREs, a case of bottled water and a first aid kit. I run a small military surplus store out of the floor below my apartment, so it doesn't take me to long to find everything. After I finish loading everything up in the back of my truck, I give her the key.
"You need to get as far away from here as you can. Avoid the main roads, they'll already be packed. The truck should have a full tank of gas and if you run out there is a gas can in the back. Good luck."
She doesn't say anything as they leave, but than again there really isn't anything to say. I'm already dead and they know it. I stand there for a moment watching them drive off before I take off running. I don't really know where I'm going, I just need to get away. Away from what happened, away from the sounds of pandemonium starting to fill the city, away from the look in that woman's eyes and the dead bodies. Most of all, I need to get away from what I know is coming. So I run. I run until and legs burn and my lungs feel like they're lead sacks.
By the time I finally have to stop, I'm at the old truss bridge. I stumble over to the edge and look down on the river below. It's a good fifty foot drop to the water and about another ten to the bottom. I close my eyes. Already, I can feel the infection spreading. The bite is burning like a piece of hot steel has been shoved into my flesh, I feel flushed and my vision is swimming. Keeling over, I heave up what little I had in my stomach from the night before, although whether this is because of the bite or the overexertion of the run I cannot say. I don't have much longer now.
Pulling myself to my feet, I move to the ledge. As I look down at the frozen river below me, I can't helping feeling a certain sense of poetry to this end. To be able to choose your own fate, your own ending, in a world where so much is out of our hands... In the end, I don't regret it. They'll live, and that is all I need. Smiling, I plunge into the icy depths below.
*A bokken is a practice sword used in martial arts, typically shaped like a katana, which is made of wood or polymers.