Chapter 5: The Subway
The four survivors carefully made their way through the wrecked streets amid the rubble, wrecked and/or abandoned cars. The distant clatter of gunfire could be heard, which gave Zoey some small hope that there were other survivors out there. Maybe some of her friends were still alive...
"Just another night in Fairfield, huh?" Louis remarked lightly.
She and Bill kept silent, keeping a wary eye out for the Infected. Francis, however, turned and rounded on the former business man.
"Alright, just shut up."
"What the hell is your problem, man?"
The burly biker threw up his tattooed arms in frustration. "You! How can you be so... positive? You're injured, slowing the rest of us down – "
"Francis!" Zoey snapped shortly.
Louis pointed his Uzi ahead as he walked, ignoring the burning pain in his chest. Luckily, it was not a crippling sensation. "Guess where we're headed? Mercy Hospital. It's only a few blocks away, and I can get treatment once we're there."
"D'you really think there are still doctors around?" Francis scoffed.
"Alright, that's enough, you two!" Bill snapped, his eyes on the road ahead. "There's a subway station around the corner. If we follow the tunnels, we'll come out right near the hospital. Now cutthechatter. No more unnecessary noise."
His tone brooked no argument, and no more words were exchanged as his party followed the road for a couple more blocks. Everyone knew they had to play their part if they wanted to get through the streets safely, and they covered each other as they moved past dark alleyways, smashed windows and other possible points of ambush. An observer would have seen little more than dark shadows flitting silently through the street. After a short walk, they came to the crumbled subway entrance. The darkness at the bottom of the stairs made everyone feel uneasy.
"I'm not sure about this," Zoey said hesitantly. "Dark tunnels? That's always the place where the first guy dies."
Bill patted her shoulder. "I think you've been watching too many horror films, kid."
She chuckled. "For the past six months, that's all I did. I was studying how to make movies at college, but I hardly left my dorm room."
"Creative research?" the older man asked jokingly.
"Maybe," she murmured. "I never thought I'd be living a horror movie."
"Hey, Zoey," Francis butted in. "Enlighten us, who's always the first one to die in those movies?"
The pretty former college student glanced as Louis for a moment, drawing his attention.
"What?" he asked.
"Nothing," she said quickly, looking away.
The subway station looked as though a bomb had hit it. In actual fact, several trains had derailed in the events following the outbreak of the Green Flu. Bill led the group through the station, making his way around furiously-burning fires, climbing over several ticket gates and tip-toeing down a couple of flights of stairs.
"How are you feeling?" Zoey whispered carefully to Louis.
"Not too bad, surprisingly. I mean, don't get me wrong, it still bloody hurts. But since Bill wrapped up the wounds, they don't seem to hurt quite as much."
"And I suppose those pain pills had nothing to do with it," she said sarcastically.
Louis laughed. "I must've swallowed half the bottle."
"Just try not to OD on us."
"Through here," came Bill's voice from ahead.
The four survivors came onto the subway platform and surveyed the destruction. Several trains had crashed through the walls, leaving gaping holes, and certain parts of the roof had collapsed.
"I hate subways," Francis said suddenly.
Zoey and Louis shared a look.
"Come on," Bill said, motioning them toward a tunnel that appeared to head north. "We go north, we come to Mercy – OH SHIT!"
He swung his rifle around and gunned down an infected man that ran at him out of the shadows, peppering his body with countless holes of spurting blood. The others looked around in alarm to see several more Common Infected rushing at them from the edges of the room, screeching like banshees. They opened fire and took down several more, muzzle-flashes lighting up the dark place.
"Reloading!" Zoey cried, ejecting her spent clip and slamming a new one into the breech. She realigned her aim and shot an infected man in the face, sending greyish-pink brain matter arcing through the air.
"I'M OUT!" Louis yelled over the roaring gunfire.
The young woman quickly drew a second pistol from the holster at her hip and handed it to him. "Here!"
Francis blew away two Infected at once with a close-range blast from his shotgun, spraying a gratuitous amount of gore over the ground, while Bill fired off a long burst from his assault rifle, killing the last three. He grunted with dissatisfaction when he realised he was down to three clips.
"Ammo check!" he called.
"I've got plenty," came Francis' reply.
"We're down to pistols," Zoey said.
"You've always been using a pistol," the biker grunted.
"Okay, well I'm down to three M-16 clips, so we're going to have try and conserve ammunition," Bill cut in.
Francis snorted derisively. "Yeah. Tell that to the guys who keep trying to kill us. What should we say? 'Please don't attack us, we can't fight back!'"
"You've got plenty of ammo, right?" Bill asked, his brow furrowed in a perpetual frown.
"Yeah?"
"Thanks for volunteering to take point."
Francis swept through the dark subway tunnels ahead of the group, his gun sweeping from side-to-side as he searched for targets. Since the shootout back at the platform, they had encountered no more Infected.
"What the hell is this?" he grumbled. "It's the freaking Zombie Apocalypse and there ain't no zombies to shoot!"
"Don't say that!" Louis hissed at him.
"What?"
"That! 'Zombies'."
"Why not?" the large biker said over his shoulder.
"Because, it's ridiculous."
"Oh, I'm sorry, didn't mean to offend you," Francis said sarcastically. "Would you prefer it if I called them vampires?"
"RRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
The tunnel echoed with a loud, unnatural scream, causing Louis to jump with fright.
"What the hell was that?"
Zoey's mind turned. "It sounded familiar..."
"Let's keep moving people," Bill said, his voice a hoarse whisper. "Whatever that thing was, I'd rather not run into it."
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
Ten points to anyone who can spot the Shaun of the Dead reference.
Thanks for reading, please take the time to write a quick review, all that good stuff.