Chapter 7: The Sewers
"I hate the sewers."
"Shut up, Francis."
"Bite me, Louis. Aw, crap! I just stepped in something!"
"I'm going to take a wild guess here and say it was crap?"
"Keep talking. I'll cram this shotgun so far up your ass, you'll be shitting sideways."
"Uh, guys? Mixed company here?"
"Sorry, Zoey."
The cones of light from four flashlights pierced the darkness of the sewer tunnels, revealing a dreary brown and green world of moss, slime and dirty-looking water, which Zoey did her utmost to keep her shoes out of.
"We need to keep to any tunnels that head north," Bill said from somewhere up ahead.
"Damn, it stinks down here," Francis complained.
"Yeah, I noticed," Bill replied mockingly. "Is that you or the sewer?"
"Oh, hey. That is uncalled for," the burly biker said indignantly, while Zoey stifled a laugh.
The four travelled in a tight formation, keeping eye and ear out for danger. They walked without incident for an hour, keeping to the left wall of a tunnel. Zoey led the group for the moment, being sure to stop every time she thought she heard a sound. Fortunately, nothing leapt out of the darkness at them. Bill was keeping an eye on her, worried that she might break down and come apart on them, like she almost had back in the subway.
She won't, he told himself. Zoey's a strong girl. She knows how to handle herself.
Louis plodded along behind Bill, doing his best not to lag behind. However, the pain in his chest was starting to burn with increased ferocity. He clutched the pistol that Zoey had given him with one hand while he held his chest with the other, struggling not to pant with the pain. After all, any noise could attract the Infected...
What I wouldn't give for some more pain pills...
Meanwhile, Francis knew that the others had their attention focused on the monsters without – the danger that could come at them from the front or the sides. He concerned himself with the monsters within, and kept his shotgun trained on Louis the entire time. The young business man glanced over his shoulder occasionally to see Francis staring back at him, not even bothering to hide the fact that he was holding him at gunpoint. Whenever this happened, Louis just scowled and turned to face the front again.
The four survivors continued like this for some time, surrounded by the sound of dripping water. They passed by doors every now and then, but they were not interested in what could be behind them and ignored them. Suddenly, Louis stiffened, and stopped walking. What he had just heard was not dripping water.
"Shhhhhh!" he hissed.
The others promptly stopped and looked at him.
"What is it, son?" Bill whispered.
"I heard something..."
The survivors stood in silence for a moment, keeping their ears open for any noises.
"There it is again!" Louis hissed suddenly.
The others listened carefully to hear a strange scuffling noise nearby, echoing slightly in the tunnel. The sound was gone as soon as it came. Bill turned and aimed his flashlight back down in the direction that they had come from, but the light revealed nothing except the long, endless drain that seemed to go on forever.
"Something's following us, that's for sure," he whispered carefully.
"How can you be so sure?" Louis demanded.
Bill said nothing for a moment. The silence was absolute. "That's how. It only moves when we do."
The four survivors crept along the tunnel at an even slower crawl than before. Something was stalking them; smart enough to stay just out of sight to prevent them from using their guns. Bill frowned in frustration. It was just as bad as Charlie. The Viet Cong had employed smart tactics, staying out of sight, and ambushing US troops on their own terms –
Zoey cried out and fired a shot from her pistol, shattering the silence of the sewers. The muzzle-flash lit up the tunnel momentarily, illuminating a dark shadow further ahead leaping out of sight. It moved too fast for them tell whether Zoey had hit it or not.
"Well, our cover's blown," Francis said, scowling.
"It was blown already," Bill said. "We were being followed for a while now."
"Guys! Through here!" Zoey called out. They looked over to see her standing next to a door built into the wall of the sewer tunnel. "I think it leads to some water treatment plant."
"Better than standing out in the open," Bill remarked.
"RRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
A horrible scream exploded in everyone's ears. Louis looked back in shock to see a hooded figure fly out of the darkness behind them and slam into Francis in a violent dive. The biker was pinned to the dirty floor of the sewers under the shadow's weight.
"Oh, shit!" Louis yelled. "The Hunters caught up with us!"
His pistol exploded into action, the flame at the tip belching forth bullets, which struck the Hunter a couple of times in the torso. It screeched in pain and leapt back into the shadows, while Francis quickly clambered to his feet and retrieved his shotgun.
"That hooded son of a bitch – " he growled.
The unnatural scream echoed throughout the tunnel again as the Hunter leapt back out of the shadows, Francis barely able to roll out of harm's way. He recovered and fired off a round at the creature, his shotgun pellets tearing gouts of stone chips off the wall of the tunnel in a puff of dust and smoke. The creature dove back into the darkness, unharmed.
"Don't shoot at it!" Bill warned. "It's too fast, you're only going to waste your shells!"
Screeches echoed in the darkness as the grizzled biker continued to take pot-shots at the fleeting shadows of the two Hunters.
"Francis!" Bill roared from the doorway. "Get your ass in here now!"
He begrudgingly obliged, and the older man quickly slammed the door shut.
"Out of the way!" Zoey called from the side.
She pushed a table in front of the door, and then began to stack boxes and any other heavy-looking objects on top of it.
"Nice work, kid!" Bill exclaimed. "Now let's move! Double-time, people!"
The group advanced cautiously through the water treatment facility, guns held out in front. Francis had elected to take point, while Zoey watched the rear. Since they had managed to lose the Hunters a while back, the tense silence surrounded them once again. They made their way past abandoned machinery and water tanks, casting their eyes to various metal catwalks suspended above them that could harbour danger.
"Brilliant plan coming down here, Louis," Francis said presently over his shoulder. The sarcasm in his tone was more than obvious.
As he and Louis bickered quietly, Zoey stopped dead.
"Guys, I think I heard something," she whispered.
She aimed her flashlight behind them, without realising that the others had not noticed, and had continued walking ahead. Zoey carefully slid the safety off on her M1911, unaware that she was being watched from the side.
Bill walked on ahead with Francis and Louis, paying no attention to them. Suddenly, he looked back and stopped dead, an icy ball materialising in his stomach.
"Where's Zoey?" he hissed.
Zoey crouched down by a large machine, keeping watch in the direction that they had just come from. Then, to her horror, she realised that she felt... something's presence off to her side. Her breath caught in her throat as she switched off the flashlight, plunging the area into total darkness. She slowly exhaled as she listened to her surroundings. The silence was absolute.
Zoey slowly turned the flashlight to the direction in question and readied her pistol. In one fluid movement, she turned the flashlight back on, and her finger squeezed the tigge –
She stopped herself dead. The cone from her flashlight revealed nothing, except for a dirty brick wall.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
A terrible scream came from right behind Zoey, and she was knocked to the cold, cement floor of the room. Her flashlight and pistol fell from her grip, and she felt a pair of cold, clammy hands throwing her roughly up against the machinery. Zoey struggled with her attacker, but she could not see what she was doing in the dark. The hands closed in around her throat and started to squeeze, as she gasped desperately for breath.
Bill feared the worst when he heard the loud scream of an infected woman nearby.
Zoey, he thought desperately as he, Louis and Francis ran back to the last place that they remembered seeing her. How could we let you down like that!
"Where the hell is she – " Francis started to say. "OH, SHIT! INFECTED BEHIND US!"
Bill and Louis ignored the sounds of Francis' shotgun blasts and continued their desperate run to reach Zoey. He could hear the sounds of struggling nearby, and they ran around a corner of a particularly large piece of machinery to find Zoey being held up against the machine. She was in the process of being throttled and struck by several Common Infected. It was like the scene of a dark and twisted mugging.
"You take your filthy hands off her!" Bill roared, raising his M-16.
However, Louis' hand came up and pushed the gun back down. "Don't! You might hit her!"
Without another word, Bill threw down the rifle, a combat knife taking its place. He launched himself at the nearest Infected and stabbed it through the neck. As it crumpled to the floor, Bill did not slow in his stride, slashing the next infected man across the throat, a spray of blood flying through the air. Louis aimed his pistol at heads and carefully squeezed off rounds, taking care to aim so as to not hit any of his compatriots.
Bill, however, was on the war path. How dare they assault her like that! He reached an infected woman, grabbed her head and violently twisted it sideways, feeling the neck snap. Her body had not even hit the floor when Bill grabbed a nearby man's shoulder and spun him around, stabbing him repeatedly through the chest.
Zoey spied flashes of light and blurs of movement from the corner of her eye. She tried in vain to suck air into her lungs, and her vision was starting to tunnel. She teetered on the brink of consciousness when she heard a loud THWACK! The hands around her throat loosened immediately, and Zoey stumbled to one knee, sucking air into her lungs gratefully. She looked up to see Bill standing above her, his face covered in blood. He offered his hand and helped her to her feet.
"Th – thank you..." she rasped.
"Don't mention it – " Bill started to say, when he was tackled from the side.
Zoey looked up worriedly to see that another infected woman had leapt from the shadows and pinned Bill to the ground, raising her hands to strike. Without hesitating, Zoey retrieved her fallen pistol and took aim. She squeezed the trigger, and the muzzle-flash illuminated a spray of red mist that burst from the woman's chest. Bill managed to throw her off.
As he climbed to his feet, Zoey picked up her fallen flashlight and walked over to the infected woman she had just shot. The woman in question was lying on the ground, panting laboriously, blood dribbling from her mouth. She looked up to see Zoey standing overhead, aiming a pistol down at her, and opened her mouth in a savage hiss. She was shot dead a moment later.
"I'm sorry," Zoey uttered in a shaky voice. She glanced up to see Louis looking at her, and quickly cast her eyes downward in embarrassment.