Disclaimer: I don't own Left 4 Dead
Among The Bodies: Fishy Behavior
The first thing that came to mind when I awoke was that I wasn't dead. The second was that I could be if that hunter is still out there. I picked back up my gun and aimed for the door again. It was so quiet. Now I seriously wondered if he was even out there anymore.
My stomach yelled at me for food and threatened to digest itself. I suppose I didn't have a choice but to check. I swear, if he's hasn't been out there, then I starved myself for nothing.
I remember indulging on tons of junk food and candy back in collage. Game nights would come and I would gain a few pounds or so. I used to be a little chubby before the first infection. Now, seeing myself in the bathroom mirror, I look like a little stick compared to what I should be.
Placing a hand on the door knob, it slowly turned. I swung the door open and held the gun up, searching the room. Completely empty. I gave a sigh of relief and put away the gun. I made a beeline for the kitchen, hoping that there was at least some sort of nutty bar or something in there.
I opened the cup bored and felt like crying. Whoever was here before me must be a fatty who really loved their food, because what a found surpassed any saferoom haul before this. It was all in cans, but everything things like canned peaches and things of the sort. Hell, they had canned fish.
Pulling out my gun, I gave it a good observation, thinking maybe I can shoot open a can. But that would just be wasting bullets and making too much noise anyway. I set it on the counter to focus on the task at hand.
Didn't even care to check the expiration dates, I grabbed the nearest can and hoped to god that they had working can opener around here. There as a can opener on the counter, but it as electric and needed electricity. Luckily, I found a can opener in a drawer, along with knives and forks and other silver ware.
Cracking open the can, I dug in. While I ate, I turned it around and check the expiration date. I was safe; it didn't expire until around next year. I'm just gonna go ahead and say that it was the same for the rest of the food in there.
Feeling food go down my throat was a feeling I cherished nowadays. Just having the mints was good enough, but eating and tasting real food made me feel like I could take on anything right now. I'm rested, filled ….but of course alone, and don't really have that many bullets left. Still, this city is pretty much empty and I can take on a couple of common infected unarmed.
I spotted the bed and smiled to myself. After spending the last two nights in a tree and on the hard tile floor, I would love to just lay back and rest for a little while. I mean, I know I need to start heading south, but I wanted to take advantage of right now.
I plopped myself on the bed, and my back and legs screamed with aching pain and I almost considered getting up again. But a minute passed and I was comfy enough to roll around. I put the can on the end table and just rolled like a pig, feeling the mattress underneath me.
Somewhere in the mist of my rolling, I felt something press on me on my back. I sat up, and looked at where my back was before. There was nothing there. I raised a brow to sheets and rolled over on my stomach.
Decided to take a chance, I leaned over. I peeked ever so slightly under the bed. I didn't see anything, just darkness. I was about to shrug and go back to my rolling. Then I heard a barely audible but frightening growl somewhere underneath the bed.
My heart thumped in my chest and I scrambled to the middle of the bed. This gave the whole 'monsters under the bed' a whole new meaning. My gun, I thought. I needed my gun. My hand flew to my waist, expecting to feel my pistol against my palm. Instead my hand felt air, and I remembered how I had left it in the kitchen, on the counter by a rusty can opener.
Options ran threw me and I stayed put in the middle of the bed. The growling had stopped, but I knew he was there. Maybe I could jump off and make a break for the kitchen. Will his claws amputate my legs before I even get close? Or maybe he'll try to tear one off by lunging out and latching on with his teeth.
I shuddered and listened for any sounds underneath me. It was dead silent. I made up my mind. My only chance at survival would be jumping and making a break for the kitchen. I took a deep breath, than slowly stood on the bed. I leaned forward, then lept.
Stumbling a bit, I hit the ground but I shot straight back up and grabbed my gun. At this point I would have just taken anything that could be used as a weapon. So when I grabbed the gun, I took the can opener too. It may sound stupid, but you never know when you could run out of ammo, and the sharp tip of the can opener was better than nothing.
I peered around the corner, the bed and everything else just the way it was before. Still, he was hiding. I approached the bed, keeping an eye on all four sides and careful of where my feet went as I circled it. Then, as fast as I could manage, I pulled up the end of the bed, gun out in front of me and observed what was underneath it.
Nothing. There was nothing but dust bunnies underneath. I sighed in both relief and something else. I really had to debate on whether or not my loss of sanity is going to be problem in my survival. Then again, insane people in the movies are always kick-ass and end up surviving to the sequel. So, that's a plus.
My stomach growled, as if to remind me of my abandoned can of delight I had left in my state of panic. I rubbed my sleepy eyes and sat on the end the bed, snatching up the half eaten food. The fork I had used earlier was nowhere to be found, but I didn't care.
I was leaning back, planning to enjoy the rest of my meal in peace. But something moved under the covers, and I lazily thought it my paranoia again and slowly turned to face behind me.
It wasn't my paranoia, it was that hunter. The one with the bandage on his leg. He gazed at me boringly, chewing on whatever was in his mouth, which I realized was part of the food I was trying to eat. He looked at me uninterested before swallowing the rest of the salted fish. MY salted fish.
It was a good full five seconds until I came to my senses and I flung whatever was in my hand in his direction, which happened to be the can. He dodged with ease, just with a simple move of his shoulders and it hit the wall behind him. It rolled out on the bed and he picked it up and started picking at the remains of the food with his razor sharp claws.
I as halfway across the room when I threw the can opener next, and he didn't even flinch. The handle bopped him on the arm, but that was about it. It was at that moment that I realized that I had a gun. I whipped it out and aimed for his head. He looked up to see the barrel lined up with him.
Now, it was a showdown. I held the gun, limited ammo, and scared. He was a hunter with deadly claws, which were still inside the can, poking around trying to scrape out what he could. I thought of our waiting game in the bathroom yesterday. Maybe, if I can lure him outside, I could trap him out there. I trapped him outside the bathroom, I can trap him outside the window, and I would just need to outsmart him.
I couldn't tell if he was threatened by my weapon or not, but by assuming how he was so scared of it in the woods, it was my best tool to chase him out. Now the real challenge was that I would somehow have to do that without firing a single shot, because I'm not going to have my little hiding place be invaded by a horde when they hear the gun shot.
Creeping closer and ever so slowly he began to ease backwards. My pistol was help out in front of me and I felt my heart pounding in my ribcage and had a small thought of him suddenly leaping forward to rip it out. I focused on the hunter so I didn't have to listen to myself think.
I positioned the gun and moved to the opposite side of the room facing the window, which he was now already crawling over. He growled once, twice. Warnings, I thought. I kept getting closer, clutching my pistol so hard my knuckles went white. I wanted to make it clear that I was not afraid to shoot him if he decided to attack.
He stopped, at the pane of the window, and I had to think of a way to scare him so he would jump out. I put up a tough guy stance, the kind I've seen Francis pull whenever Bill was teasing him again or he was trying not to show weakness from a painful wound.
One hand on the pistol, still pointing at the fish stealing hunter, I grabbed a pillow behind me with my other hand. I hung it over the barrel of gun and pulled the trigger.
The shot was muffled, but I bet his keen ears still heard it and it drove his own survival instincts into drive and he was gone out the window with a surprised screech before I clear away most of the feather floating in the air. Hesitating, I ran for the window, slamming it shut and pulling the torn curtains over it. The curtains won't really keep me hidden, but I still felt better with them covering.
I breathed in deeply, and then out. My lungs appreciated the air. My eyes wandered to the abused tin can of salted fish lying on the floor. Although most of it as gone, there was still a good bit amount of goodies left at the bottom, but I wouldn't even think of eating it now.
God only knows where those hunter's claws have been and I wasn't about to eat something that he's been touching. It was such a shame too; they weren't even that bad tasting.
Sighing, I plopped on the bed. My eyes felt heavy and I agreed with my sore body that I needed some rest. Just as I was about to doze off, a small annoying tapping sound made me sit up in alarm.
The window I thought. It was closed. I pulled back the curtains slowly, then all the way. It was just that ridiculous hunter again. I rolled my eyes. I was starting to not even see him as a threat anymore.
He was crouching again, but was resting on his heels. One of his claws was tapping on the glass and it was driving me crazy. There was no way in hell that I was going to get any sleep with him tapping on my window. I thought of options to make him leave.
I could try the pillow trick again, but that would just be wasting another bullet, and wasn't worth it, since he isn't in the same room as me.
Out of pure curiosity, I started tapping in the same rhythm that he was doing, hoping he would he as annoyed as I was and leap frog off. Instead, he stopped tapped. I was relieved, until he started again, but this time harder, like the glass was about to crack.
Glass cracking was not good. I scanned the room for options and my vision landed on the can of fish. A plan hatched itself inside my mind and I grabbed it and held it behind my back so the hunter wouldn't see.
I raised a fist, banged on the window once. The hunter jumped back in surprise and watched me carefully. Opening the window as little as I could manage, I slipped the can out, and shut it again. All while he watched. He eyed the can, then glared at me, then the can again before digging through whatever was left.
After watching him eat for a good minute, and I officially declared him harmless and pulled the curtains back over the dark sky. I stumbled back to the bed, and dug myself a barrow in the covers and waited for sleep to overtake me. This was way better than sleeping in a tree, or on hard tile.
It started raining, I could hear the pitter patter of the water on the patio. It was relaxing and I enjoyed the sounds as it was a refreshing change from the noises of moans and puking from infected.
I thought I heard a tap on the window for a second, but I drifted off before I could think about it.