A bit shorter this one is, but that is just because I kind of have to split it in half to save the normal length. Also, there's been a small update on my profile, just so you know. Toodles~
Chapter 7: Cellar door
"What is it Francis?"
Zoey instinctively grabs an Assault Rifle at the feet of the bench as she saw her teammate's extremely worried looks. A part of her wanted it all to be a big prank from the biker, and he would just turn and laugh at her overreaction and everything would be fine. However, it was not like nothing had ever gone wrong for them before, so the chances were slim. Cindy appeared rather confused however, for she was not paying much attention. Before she could speak up to ask, a loud crack sounded from further off the front of the boat as the whole thing simply stopped, as if bumped into something along the way.
"There's a ship, Zoey." The biker ran quickly inside the room and grabbed a Chrome Shotgun, cocking it and readying himself for action. This alone put the other two at stress, seeing as this was obviously a serious problem, even though they do not know why just yet. "Come on out, I'll show you."
"Hey guys; never thought I'd see you out here." Louis' joke flew right over the others, but he was in no mood to get it to work either. His smile faded as his gaze divert towards the huge obstacle in front of them. As sweat ran down her face, Zoey could obviously see the problem. They were travelling on a channel leading to the open ocean, but the trench itself was far from large. Now they found themselves being blocked off by a huge yacht, blocking the way from end to end. It appeared to have been pushed her by the tides and caught within the small shores. "So, what do you think?"
"This is really bad." Zoey gritted her teeth, especially considering how she thought they would be just fine after that last battle, and now they had to deal with this too. There really was no opening for their sailboat to squeeze through, and the yacht appeared to be, extremely, dead. "This poses an obvious problem. We cannot get to the keys without this sailboat, and if we wanted to get it to the ocean we have to move that yacht."
"We would have to go into that thing and move it ourselves right?" Francis stated what they deemed to be the only solution at the moment. They could not just go around the obstacle, because it would take too long and their resources would run out soon. If they decided to get more, it would just forfeit the safety of their own vehicle, so it looked like one lose-lose situation. Zoey could say nothing but nod. "Yeah, that sounded really stupid, so that was how I know."
"I would hate to do that as well, really." Zoey sighed. It was not like she had much of a choice either. If it was up to her old defeatist attitude she would have been complying with just staying here until the food ran out, but that was obviously no longer the case. She leaded the team now, and it was her job to get them out of here safely, whatever the cost. "But there really is nothing else we can do Francis. I'm always open for new ideas."
"Fine," The biker scoffed at the notion, because he knew that there were no way back as well. They had come too far to be intimidated by this, although an entire yacht worth of infected would sound very bad. He could imagine it now, them crawling in from every corner, waiting to take a bite at his manly figure, just like that time at the airport. "So how are we going to do this?"
"Well, Louis obviously is not coming with us, and I do not think Cindy can either." Zoey sighed. They were actually short on personnel now that they had something to protect and had to get back to. That had never happened before, but there was a first time for everything, she supposed. "Well, you stay here and protect the boat, alright? Cindy, you help him if there was anything wrong, alright?"
"You got it." The IT manager had no problem with complying with the order, as his chances of being able to move effectively was few and far between, even though it had been almost a day since his injury. The wound was just not healing up quick enough, and he despised it.
"But I want to go with you…" The Witch let out an expressive whine, which was extremely effective on everyone else. Zoey knew he had to be firm however, as she approached her new friend, putting her hands on Cindy's shoulder and explained.
"You would be of more help here Cindy. Louis needs his back up, and I need a gunman." Zoey also lit up a smile in the mean time, hoping it would get everyone's spirits up. Cindy adverted away from the teenage girl, but Zoey held her loosely by the chin, as to force eye contact. "I am going to be fine out there Cindy, but I would not be if you fail to do your job here. You are a part of the team now, and I need you to act like it, alright?"
"I… yes," The Witch looked like she was tearing up and Zoey as well. Even though this was far from the hardest thing the teenager had done in the last few weeks, this was the first time she had to do this without her full team. It was daunting and worrying at the same time, but she knew she needed to have faith, because if she did not then no one else would. Seeing as Cindy finally conformed to her orders, Zoey at least had that much more off her shoulders.
"That's a good girl." She hugged the Witch tight, giving her that one last bit of push in order to motivate at least the two of them for what was about to come. Cindy simply cried off her shoulders, refusing to let go at the mean time. It almost seemed like their last goodbye, which actually made the two males held on to their sad smile. "Francis, give Louis something to work with."
"On it," The biker went into the inner cabins to fetch some more guns to prepare for the defense of the boat. He was not sure what the absolute plan was, but nothing was going to get itself done if he just waited around. Zoey remained still for a few minutes more, giving Cindy all the time she needed before Francis come back. It did not take long though. "So, what are we doing now?"
"There seems to be no way to get directly onto the ship, so we would need to find a big enough piece of wood or a hooking rope in order to climb onboard. Once in there, we can move the damn thing out of the way." As Zoey spoke, she slowly loosened the Witch's grip on her in order to more conveniently ease Cindy off and onto the bench of the front of the sailboat. "Louis, you get the boat moving as soon as you see the yacht does. Once it's out a sufficient distance, the two of us would jump off the ship and climb back here, and we need you to be ready. Only move from the shore when you see the yacht move however, as if something went wrong and we cannot reach the out deck we need the sailboat here to run back to, alright?"
"Whenever you're ready," Louis, Sniper Rifle in hand, flashed Zoey an ok sign, signaling the teenager to carry on with her plan whenever. The IT manager knew that his job was also a significant one. He knew that once Zoey and Francis drop themselves off from the ship, they would probably be exhausted, and the last thing they want would be someone to drown off a channel. He drove the boat towards the shore, as close as he could without actually touching the ground. The two members involved in the mobile party simply jumped a short distance onto firm land, and ready to roll out.
"Right, come on Francis." With that, the operation went into action. Francis wields a dual pistol and his personal favorite shot gun, along with a kit and a Molotov cocktail. While Zoey holds an M-16 Assault Rifle, a machete and a pipe bomb for good measures. That was the best equipment they could bring on two people, and they had to make it work.
"Hey Zoey." Francis slipped in some questions as they first make pace along side the coastline. They had to find something usable close enough in order to make a timely return to the ship should they run into too solid a line of infected. The surroundings were strange to the both of them, so they had to time their visits to the houses, hoping to find a decent rope of some sort. "Where did you get the idea of bringing Cindy with us?"
"What do you mean?" Zoey replied with the lowest possible voice. They did not want to make any loud noises that would trigger an unnecessary battle that they could have avoided. Most of every casualty of infected so far has been left to Zoey and her machete, in order to not draw attention from anything nearby. They had already checked out three consecutive buildings without any luck. Their sailboat has now disappeared from sight completely. "Don't you like Cindy?"
"No, nothing like that, I have no problems with her." Francis continued. He was at the front now, looking at various enemies from all sides, but they were not onto his movements just yet. He spotted a convenient store at the far side, and signaled his teammate to back him up, which she was already doing, just in case. "But, usually we would just leave a Witch alone or immediately kill her once we had the encounter. What made you hesitate about Cindy?"
"I don't know…" Zoey, her back to Francis, was holding her gun up and shooting up some of the strays that were getting too close for comfort. Her memories raced back to that fateful happenstance, and how far away it seemed now, even though that was no more than the same morning. It was now approaching midnight, but the moon was bright enough so they did not have to abuse their flashlights too much. Doing so would be disastrous should it attract too much attention. "It just seemed…wrong at the time to try and jump her. Then I heard she spoke, which I was too curious to let go of."
"It was a good thing it worked out huh?" The two of them were now in front of the store. It appeared to be rather in tact for somewhere full of supplies during the apocalypse, which only gave them the idea of just how fast this region was infected. Francis held up a finger, hinting that they should stop talking and be ready. Zoey knew what he was talking about. The lights were not on but the emergency system might still be working, and should they try to break in it would cause a huge problem for them. "You wanna do this?"
"Go ahead." With that, the biker smashed his boot and the door's handle, breaking the door inward. Just as suspected, a burglar alarm sounded, and Francis simply chuckled at the uncanny irony. He was almost arrested for robbing a convenient store before the infection broke out, and now he was back, right where he was. "Let's go and find what we need. Those things would be all over us soon."
"Right." Francis surged forward and into the store, flipping on his flash light, and so did Zoey. By the looks of things, this store was cleared out of personnel prior to the infected, because every reserve devices seemed to be quite in order. It was not long before Francis was able to find a light switch, and they were able to finally see things clearly. However, the sounding alarm had already managed to attract a horde heading for their location. "Oh damn, this again."
"Man the door Francis, I'm going to get what we need." A rope had to be here somewhere, Zoey thought. She never worked at a store before to get an idea of just exactly how they organize their merchandise, but this seemed to be a really bad way from her perspective. She could already here Francis' gun shots unleashing themselves on the incoming wave of infected. It was quite obvious that since the alarm would not go away for another few minutes, nor could they turn it off somehow. So, there plan was basically ticking against the clock. "How is it out there?"
"Just focus on finding the damn thing, Zoey. Holding on to this is a piece of cake." Francis seemed to be handling himself well. Using the broken door as a choke point, he was easily able to hold off the tides of infected with well-timed shot gun blasts and dual pistol sniping off the far side Smoker. The store's glasses were also triple layered, significantly slowing down the effort of the commons trying to break through it. However, his ears rung as a distinct gurgling sound was heard among the carnage. No one really needed to tell him it was a Boomer, and he knew his time was running out. "Okay, maybe not."
Zoey took that as a sign obviously stating that she needed to hurry up and get this done. After all, nothing good would come of this if Francis ever got caught out without her cover. Soon enough, she heard a loud explosion, obviously that of a Boomer bursting, and nothing good ever come out of a Boomer being shot by a shot gun. However, she had gotten what she came for.
"Francis, fall back, I got it." Tucking the grappling rope to her waist, Zoey had her gun on hand again. She jumped off to the halls to get a clear shot, and she could see just what was expected. The biker was swarmed by a large horde, having been covered by a spray of Boomer Bile. Having heard the teenage girl's signal, Francis pushed off those he can and sprayed his shells onto the upcoming wave. Zoey provide cover fire with her rifle while he tried to get the spray off of him. "There is a safe room deeper in the store, come on!"
The two of them raced towards where seemed to be the warehouse, with waves of infected right on their blazing trail. The distance needed to be ran was not too terribly long, however, as they see themselves closing the safe room door soon enough. Heavy objects around them were quickly moved in order to block off the path they just came through. Another minute passed before the alarm finally stopped, and the two of them knew they just locked themselves out of their shortest escape route.
"That was rough, really." Zoey smiled as she wiped off her sweat of exhaustion. Even though she really did not enjoy running, it was highly advantageous that she was able to train herself to at least have the speed to run away from hordes like that. They did not encounter any Tanks on the main street, so their current position was relatively safe. "At least we got what we came for."
"How are we getting out now though?" Francis was reloading his shot gun with the ammo pile placed inside the safe room. It was a relatively safe encounter. There were some scratches and bruise on him, but nothing too serious that a first aid kit cannot fix. There were spares lying around, after all. He was opting to switch weapons, but decided against so. "The entrance would be crawling with those things right now. Can we break through them?"
"We can, but that would only make a big fuss and draw even more of them chasing us back to the ship, and we want none of that." Zoey, after preparing her weapons up for the next run, checked out the other end of the safe room. From what she was able to see, it led to an emergency exit on the other end of the walk. "Hopefully that place I spotted would open up to a back valley or something, so we can get out. Are you ready?"
"Yeah." Cocking his gun was probably the easiest way to get his message across. The biker lifted the bar off the safe room door and pushed it open closely. As far as he could see, there was no infected in sight, so this store prior to the breakout must have been already cleared out quite good, as not even a single guard could be seen here. Zoey was right behind him, watching the back, just in case something was to jump out at them. However, none of it happened, and they approached the exit door quite easily. The two flung the thing open and stepped out, guns blazing, but everything appeared to be rather stale. It was strange to say the least. However, they recalled Louis' saying "Zombies are like piranhas. They ain't too choosy about their attacks. So when there's a lack of piranhas, this must mean there's a shark around." Exactly on queue, a loud, earth shaking even, growl ripped through the air. It exploded on top of them, causing the two to look up. "I think I know what happened to the guard."
As the tank dropped down from the roof and onto the land just where they were standing a few seconds a go, they were grateful that they moved just enough so their bodies were not simply crushed under the massive weight. However, they now have a tank on their hands.
"Fire in the hole!" Francis was ready to throw the Molotov at the door as they were falling back to the safe room.
"Wait!" However, Zoey stopped him in his track. "If you throw it now, the tank can corner us in here and incapacitate us both! He would die but we would not be able to get out of here alive either!"
"Damn it." Francis had no choice but to surrender to that logic and tucked his fire cocktail away. "So what now?"
"The Tank would take a long time to break down that small space so it could follow us." Zoey had already begun to run, which signaled Francis to follow her. It was a good thing that this hall was not a two-end way, as there were some stairs at the back end. This was relatively simple to their running away at the Mercy hospital, but now they knew that there was nothing else saving them except for themselves. "Hopefully we would be able to get down before it reaches us."