To all those that read the prologue, thank you. You people are now officially AWESOME. To those who didn't, why are you reading this now, read the first chapter thingy first you wankers, and I mean that in the nicest way possible.
I decided to go ahead and post my next chapter in hopes that a longer story will draw in readers. Things should be ok though because within two days of posting the first chapter I had eighteen readers, kind of encouraging. I'll try to keep this chapter long, but I'm not doing much more than setting a personal background for my main character.
I also realized that I forgot my disclaimer in the prologue, so here it is:
(Insert British accent here) ahem… I do not own any of the characters, nor the monsters, or even the overall general idea of the game Left 4 Dead, you wankers!
Now that that's in order, on to the first official chapter of Left 4 Dead: Homegrown!
KA-BOOM!!!
Left 4 Dead: HOMEGROWN
Chapter one, Getting Down With The Sickness.
"Shit happens; you just gotta roll with it and wash it off later" Guardian Shotgun
'My name is Johnathan Baker. I live in Hubbard Texas, but I was in Corsicana during the city's outbreak. I had a fascination with the zombie culture ever since I started playing Resident Evil games years ago, but only now I can see why zombies are so utterly horrifying. It's not the fact that they look gross, or want to eat people. Nor is it that zombies were people we once knew and loved… it's that there fucking relentless.
'It is now day… hmm…maybe five... yeah… day five of my own little zombie apocalypse. After the zombies started attacking the city I tried to drive out away from the zombie hoard… no luck. Within three minutes of operation: FLEE my car was stolen, driven off the road, ran into a street light, swarmed by the undead, then it spontaneously combusted… in about twenty seconds. As I said, no luck there. So my next plan of action was to return to the classroom I just left and curl up in a little ball. So far it has kept me alive, and I'm starting to enjoy the simplicity of this plan. Four other students, whom I did not know, our teacher, and I together hid in his history classroom at Navarro College in Corsicana, Texas. After this long, Mr. Stacy Henderson (yes that's HIS name) and I are all that's left.
'The plan to live in this forty by twenty five foot room was foolproof until the third day. After the first few days of solitude: one student hung himself , another lost his mind and tore down a barricaded window and jumped into the arms of the waiting hoard of undead. We lost the other two unlucky ones in our desperate plan to break into the vending machine not forty five feet outside the door.
'When an unlucky survivor ran past our location, the zombies trying to tear down our barricade took chase. Realizing that we may not get another chance, we took this opportunity to break into the snack machines nearby for food. Armed with baseball bats that Henderson kept from his coaching days, we ventured outside. What we found was a world completely different from the one we left in panic not a few days earlier.
'The sky was cloudy, giving the world a surreal blue tint, and random fires smoldered in the distance helping the effect. Splatters and smears of blood covered fifty percent of the landscape. Sidewalks, walls, cars, and even trees were covered in the crimson liquid. Random vehicles were strewn around as if a child had just upturned a box of toy cars. In the distance we could see more infected shambling about absentmindedly, so we kept as quiet as we could, but it couldn't last long. I was recruited to man the barricade, in case a swift retreat was needed. Knowing the consequences and preparing for the worst, Mr. Henderson brought the bat down. The glass shattered instantly, but not without drawing the attention of all the infected nearby. With an inhuman roar, a dozen zombies charged our position.
'The only thing that passed through my mind was "They aren't supposed to run." I always believed zombies were supposed to stumble, shamble, and crawl. They weren't meant to run, jump, and tackle. This seemed to be running through the minds of my fellow survivors too. The moment that scream pierced the air we lost one man. He took one look at the infected racing towards him and ran. He never looked back as he climbed a nearby fence while four infected cleared it two seconds behind him.
'As the remaining eight pursuers closed in, Mr. Henderson and the other survivor grabbed what snacks they could and ran to the safe room. Henderson made it back first, he threw the food he collected into the room and went back to help. The remaining student was running with all with all the strength she had. All of the remaining zombies were focusing their attention on her, yet with her lead it looked like she would make it. Suddenly one of the infected dropped onto all fours, and with an inhuman leap it pinned her to the ground. It clawed desperately at her torso, but between her thrashing about and its current lack of claws it was only barely able to break the skin. Henderson charged out, with bat in hand, and tackled the creature off of her. With an animalistic roar he brought the club down on the infected's head.
'During this time, the other seven zombies had closed a considerable amount of distance between themselves and their meal. Henderson rushed over to his student who was still on the ground. He bent down and scooped her up, running as fast as he could into the class room.
'Standing ready, I prepared for any infected that would obviously be attacking us as we rebuilt the barricade. As Henderson charged into the safe room, I grabbed for the door handle. I was met with the hand of an infected student; his/her face was missing an eye, its top lip, and an ear and a half. I remember every facial feature, or lack there for of, as it bit into my arm. Surprised, I stumbled backward to try to escape the zombie's grasp. Consequentially, the creature was pulled into the room with me, but in the process its foot caught the door, thus closing it.
'With another roar, Mr. Henderson swung the bat at my attacker. The zombie's head was smeared onto the walls as its body collapsed on top of me. The sudden realization hit me, I had been bit. I was going to die the most horrible kind of death imaginable, a slow agonizing transformation into one of those… things.
'Henderson could obviously see the panic in my features. As he rebuilt the barricade of desks and computers, he reminded me of the immune guy on the TV. He reassured me that I might be safe from the virus, and that we all could be. At this moment the other student found it a good time to throw up. A scared look crossed her face as she stared at the blood mixed in with her own bile. The poor girl crawled over to a corner of the room and cried, Henderson tried to comfort her but she only sobbed more. Because of the many cuts and gashes received during her attack, the virus spread much more quickly. She never stopped bleeding, even well after my bite had stopped. Any time we tried to help her she would beg us to leave her alone.
'She lasted five hours.
'When her cries of sorrow finally turned to growls, Henderson acted. He made his way over quietly with the same bat that had saved her. As he reared back she suddenly sprung. She pinned him to the wall, snapping at Henderson as he held her back with his bat. I grabbed my own weapon with newfound courage that I would not be infected. I swung my bat down on her unguarded back, and was rewarded with a sickening crunch as her spine was destroyed. Her body immediately fell limp against the teacher, showing no signs of life.
'Mr. Henderson lifted the body off of himself leaving behind the blood and bile from his previous student. Scratches littered his arms from where she had attacked him leaking crimson liquid, but otherwise he looked fine otherwise. I checked him over as much as I could; no fever, no shaking, and no signs of infection at all. As I smiled to him a relieved expression crossed his face, he and I were both immune.
'With this new knowledge survival seemed all the more possible. Between the newly acquired food and the weapons we had, he and I could escape the college and find a way out of the city. The pounding on the doors no seemed like a challenge, and although we had lost a few fellow survivors things now looked hopeful.'
John was roused from his thoughts. Eighteen years old, six foot nine and thin as a rail. He was slightly tan with large bushy brown hair. He had poor vision, leading to the glasses that had somehow survived the last five days. He wore a pair of baggy jeans, kept up by a simple brown belt, tennis shoes, and a simple white shirt adorned with different kinds of squiggly black art in the shape of a skating logo. Nothing about him was very attractive, mostly average, and John never was very athletic. The adrenaline and panic the situation caused had helped him survive this long, without that he could have died days ago.
Sleeping across the room was his fellow survivor now waking from his sleep. Mr. Stacy Henderson was thirty seven, six feet even, and he had an evenly proportioned physique. His coaching days had kept him muscular and lean. He was still wearing his teaching attire, a plain white collared shirt, dark brown slacks, and nice leather shoes. Henderson had probably been the reason John had survived these past days. Between fighting zombies and keeping the boy from going insane, the man had a lot on his plate but still remained hopeful.
The two survivors had been sleeping in shifts for two days now. The fear of the zombies outside eventually tearing down their barricade led them to being alert at all times. The plan to escape had been filed down to two options.
The first option was to charge out of our own barricade, bats swinging, and hope that they wouldn't be mauled to death. It was risky, but at least the duo would know where they were going. They also knew that the infected could go down pretty easily enough; destruction to the head, spine, or torso would stop its attacking.
Their other option was to escape through the air vents. This plan was much more subtle, which meant less infected to fight. The only downside was that they wouldn't know where they were going. They might follow the vents outside and land in an even bigger crowd of zombies.
Each plan had a chance of success, but each one might get them killed. In the end John and Henderson agreed to try the air vents. If things got too out of control, they could always turn back to the room, they couldn't retreat if they tore down their own barricade. Their next plan of action was to the nearest gun store or pawn shop. The idea of taking down a legion of undead with two baseball bats was not very likely. Hopefully they would make it out of the city and travel to the nearest evacuation site, if any were left.
John had the idea to escape to Alaska. The fact that zombies no longer had any body heat would cause them to freeze in arctic weather. Finally all those hours of reading the Zombie Survival Guide (1) would pay off. Too bad it focused on slow zombies, not these god awful running, jumping, and tackling ones now pounding at their door. He wasn't prepared for this, but who had been?
This led to the thoughts John had kept repressed for the last few days, what about his family? Cell phones and radios had gone down days ago, so when he took refuge in the classroom he had no way to contact his family. All of his family members living in Hubbard were at his parent's house since they live on the edge of town. Even his girlfriend's family was staying close and was planning to go there if the shit hit the fan. He hoped that word of the attack reached them quickly enough.
Hubbard was their first stop before searching out a possible evacuation zone. It was mostly to check on John's family to see if they had got away or not, but there were other reasons too. It had two grocery stores, quite a few restaurants, a police station, and other possible places to search for supplies. John also knew of a lot of families that kept guns and ammunition if they needed it.
So the full plan was to crawl out the air vents, find a car and drive thirty miles to Hubbard. Next they would search for survivors, look for a nearby evacuation site, and escape to Alaska. Once Henderson woke up they would gather up the remaining food into the salvaged backpacks and they would escape.
God help them.
Tada!
Wow another chapter, I know I promised a longer one but I felt this was a good place to leave off. I'm going to make the next few chapters a little different, as in people will actually talk between one another.
I'm probably going change the rating to M if the next few chapters continue how I picture them to. I'll slowly introduce the special infected into the story, you probably noticed the Hunter in this chapter. If anybody wants to beta for me that would be awesome.
Thank you for reading, but reviewing will help me out greatly PLEASE REVIEW!!!
With love… well maybe not LOVE, but… ah you understand.
Guardian Shotgun
(^(00)^) Evil Piggy!!!