It's good you came alone.
Just one is enough.
HER neck snapped under the pressure.
It took only a moment. A moment too long.
The elevator awoke. The floor rumbled beneath the Survivors feet with the descent and a horrible sinking feeling stirred in the pit of his stomach. He hated elevators, he hated the anxious wait before it jolted into action, how his mind struggled to adjust to the change in forces, and the motion sickness that stewed in the bottom of his gut. After the end of the world, when said elevators don't get maintenance in half a decade and the only ones that work seem to lead into forgotten XEDRA laboratories, motion sickness met crippling anxiety and it might as well be a descent into hell. But he'd rather climb down into hell than ride an elevator into it. Maybe he could have taken the maintenance ladder? No, too late for that now. The elevator picked up speed, and inspecting the little hatch in the ceiling, he wasn't sure if he could even pry it open. His anxiety was worsened by frustration.
The humming of the elevator filled the survivors ears and he found himself compulsively checking his watch, but it had only been fifteen seconds. He gripped his M4 tight in anticipation of what lay beyond the thick steel doors. Twenty seconds. Twenty five. Just how deep did this place go? To keep his mind off the anxiety, he wondered about the elevator, what kept it powered and functioning. So caught up in the excitement of finding a mythical laboratory, he didn't pay mind to the more mundane surprises of post-apocalypse scavenging, namely the powered electronics. There weren't any cables or power lines outside, the lab entrance was in the middle of a dense forest and likely off the power grid. The monitor on the ground floor, the elevator, the flickering light above him, he guessed they were all kept active by some sort of internal power system within the Lab itself. Automated? Although presuming power was automated presupposed that the Lab was uninhabited; the Survivor began to dread the opening of the doors.
Too many questions. Too many possibilities. The variables that awaited him were literally uncountable. Perhaps he'd find nothing but eerily deserted hallways and ransacked lab rooms, or maybe those halls would be filled to the brim with undead. What if the place is occupied by aliens, and he'd get cut into ribbons by a fucking Mi-Go the second the doors slide open? Or... could it be that the place was still staffed by actual people? And then he no longer wondered, because the movement of the elevator came to a jarring stop. The Survivor squashed all his fears and doubts, instinct and training took control, he raised his rifle in anticipation. Now it begins. With an ear-piercing ding that made him wince, the doors slowly slid open with the grinding of metal against concrete.
Empty. It was a large, eerie room with concrete walls and harsh white lamps, minimalist concrete pillars reached into a high ceiling. Right ahead of the elevator was a wood desk underlit by a flickering lamp, around the room were overturned couches and coffee tables. Sign of a struggle? No blood stains, no bullet casings on the ground either. He didn't move, he just listened intently. Nothing. The silence was deafening and as far as he knew it, he was alone. While he knew that he'd likely run into undead, he hoped deep down that it would be empty, scavenging would be a breeze, and he'd be done in no time, but now it appeared his wish was granted, and an instinctual paranoia arose in him. There wasn't much for it. He took his first anxious step beyond the elevator and walked, slow and precarious, with a death grip on his rifle.
His lips peeking out the mouth holes of the balaclava stung at the chilly air, he inhaled and scrunched his nose at the old, stale stench hanging in the room that left a dry taste on the insides of his mouth. With every anxious breath it was like dust was slowly clogging up his throat, and he balled his fist to his lips and let out muffled, hacking coughs. There was a filter mask back in his car and regret swelled in his chest just thinking about it. So much he forgot in the excitement. Whatever. He'll breathe light, scout out this floor and once he heads back up, he'll take it down with him. As he stood alone in the middle, his long shadow stretched under the light of the flickering lamps and then he noticed the door. Out the view of the elevator, a little distance away from the desk, was a laminated glass door, emblazoned with the symbol of an atom in a flask. The door was ajar. He peered into a winding hallway, until a screech filled the air.
The Survivor panicked. He whirled around, rifle levelled, only to watch the elevator doors slowly slide shut with the agonising screech of metal against concrete. The elevator was going back up. For a few moments he listened to the gentle ding, muffled by steel doors and whirring of machinery. All his resolve built up from what Makayla said to him seemed to ebb away as the reality of the situation set in, the sheer reckless lunacy of raiding a mythical Lab, alone, and without backup for what could be days. He was stepping into a tomb.
The shadows lengthened in the corners, the stale air made his stomach churn. Just what the hell was he thinking. His eyes focused on the elevator button. Anxiety bubbled in his gut like a cauldron of acid and a tinny little voice in the back of his head urged him to just press the button, call the elevator back before it was too late, and it would be a lie if he didn't consider it. Instead, harnessing the discipline garnered from years of scavenging, he squashed all his doubt and his fears. The Survivor visualised his goals; he turned his mind to Concord. From just an hour spent sifting through the Lab, he knew for a fact he could get wealthier than he could have ever dreamed of and not that merch or dollar bullshit, real wealth. Chemicals, materials, scientific tools, electronics, data — forget living behind the Fence — he could easily buy his way into one of the Old Guards cruise liners or any walled city he liked. And from there on it's a life of safety, splendour and retirement alongside the wealthy and other scavengers that got lucky. This could be the most dangerous job he ever took, but afterwards, he'd never have to work another day again. The risks were unimaginable, but the reward was everything he could ever want. The Survivor turned from the elevator doors with steely determination. He'll make this quick.
The halls were empty, the only sound was his gentle footsteps and the buzzing of the harsh lights. He glanced at the rows of beam lamps that lit up his path and found himself once again wondering about what kept them powered. Blackouts were regular during the riots, the end of the world ensured that the streetlamps would never shine again. Unless it was connected to a reactivated power plant or had its own generators, buildings typically didn't have electricity, much less working elevators. It seemed likely that the Lab had its own power-source, but how could it last so long? He reached the end of the hallway and with the caution of a veteran scavenger, he silently slid the door open. Another hallway, but almost all the lights didn't work. Further from the door, the hall was shrouded in darkness, two distant lamps flickered and buzzed softly in the ceiling, little islands of light in a sea of black.
The lights weren't enough. He let his rifle hang around his shoulder, unclipped his heavy-duty flashlight from his belt, and the dark hallway was lit up. Empty. Steadily he moved further down. A paper poster hung on the wall and it was in tatters. It was some sort of memo but who knew what it said. A red, rusted sign read Always keep your badge on. His flashlight began to dim, he swore softly and fumbled with the old tool, and it glowed bright once more, illuminating a wall that gave way to thick steel doors, a panel of buttons. Another elevator. But the Survivor's attention was caught by the pockmarks, deep and speckled across the wall. And then he noticed the blood. Discoloured splotches of dried blood were smeared across the walls, a dried-up puddle seeped from under the shut doors and formed a shaky line of red further down the hallway. The Survivor crouched down to minimise noise as much as possible, and followed the trail. The trail of blood grew thicker and thicker, becoming red handprints and smears on the concrete floor, leading into a wide and hideous stain against a wall. So much blood, the floor was stained congealed black that no scrubbing could ever remove. The Survivor wasn't an idiot. So there was a blood trail and a stain, but where was the body?
Deeper in the unlit hallway, only now did he notice it. He sniffed, an acrid stench was faint in the stale air, like rotten chicken, so faint and distant, but for any seasoned scavenger it was recognisable from a mile away. A stench that provoked revulsion and dread and set off every alarm bells in his head. He lifted his head up and sniffed deeply in the air. Oh, he knew where the body was. The body had gotten up again. He could recognise the smell from a mile away, and with how faint it was, it feels like he just did. Further down the hallway, the blood trail continued, and it led to the dark end of the hallway. The door was smashed open, only a battered doorway remained, countless shards of glass glimmered across the linoleum tiled floor. The Survivor turned off his flashlight and gripped his rifle.
It was a lab room. Cabinets with doors left ajar and empty sample fridges, tables laden with chemicals in beakers and labelled bottles. Some were toppled over, their contents pooled across the floor and went mushy with age. The lamp was off, and when he trailed his hands across the wall he found the light switch. He kept it off. There was enough light coming in anyway from a glass window out into a branching corridor. He didn't even need to sniff deeply, the smell was now unignorable. The body hadn't wandered off far. The Survivor had a hunch, so he decided to test the waters - he was going to do something very dangerous. He raised his leg and kicked a cabinet door with an ugly THUMP.
The harsh thump echoed through the dark lab room and into the hallway beyond. For a few moments he hoped his hunch would remain just a hunch, but from far down came footsteps, unbalanced, unfocused. His hopes were destroyed as the footsteps grew and grew, and then on the other side of the laminated glass, a man stumbled unsteadily into view.
Not a man.
A decrepit, walking corpse. The remnants of a lab coat stained vile and dark clung to thin arms, exposed bones rotted and discoloured. The Survivor didn't say a word. His decision came to him so quick that it might as well have been instinct. While the corpse stumbled in the light, he crept across the dark lab room, the steel bayonet of his rifle gleaming in the dark, and kept out of sight behind cabinets and workbenches. The single-minded corpse shambled towards the open glass doors, but the Survivor was only a few feet away. They met eyes. He stared into the corpses oily black eyeholes.
All in a moment. He lunged forward with his rifle in one powerful controlled motion and pierced the corpse through the forehead. Yellowed skin burst, a sickening squelch went through the corridor, the bayonet stuck out the other end, and he twisted the rifle violently. He yanked the bayonet out, trailing black gore and congealed blood. One strike was all it took. The zombie went like a puppet with cut strings and collapsed by his feet with the sickening crack of old bone against concrete.
So, the Lab was inhabited after all. Atleast he knew how to deal with it. He stared down at the corpse, nothing but rotting meat, puppeted by the blob, dressed in a filthy lab-coat. He kicked the body to face up. Black gore slowly oozed from the gaping wound in its skull, across the zombies twisted face, he'd gag if he wasn't so used to the smell. He pressed his boot to the skull and nudged it, watching how the sludge stuck to his heel in black strings. It was definitely dead. Unbothered by the filth, he knelt down beside the corpse, because something caught his eye. Something long was bulging in the lab-coat, protruding from where the belly should be. He lifted the vile fabric and it was a dark hilt embedded deep into yellowed flesh. Exerting considerable effort, he pulled the hilt out and something steel glinted in the harsh lamplight. It was a machete. A rusty, filthy machete that had marinated in the belly of a zombie for four years. He inspected the weapon curiously. So that was how the scientist died; he was attacked by something clever enough to use weapons.
If it was what he suspected, it didn't faze him, because everyone knew the ferals all zombified years ago. That placed the scientists death almost five years ago, maybe even as far back as the riots. He was half expecting to find signs of blunt force trauma too. Ferals love throwing their stupid fucking rocks.
Under the balaclava, his expression darkened as he remembered an early scavenging trip, when he was once knocked out cold by a rock to the head, but he was torn away from reminiscing as something strange caught his eye. A thin black strip around the zombies neck. The fabric of a lanyard led away from its scrawny neck to the the sheen of a plastic coating sticking out from under the rags of a shirt. He snapped it off - it was an ID card with X.E.D.R.A across the top. Wiping off the blood revealed the photo of a balding man with accompanying information. So this was the corpse of Doctor Donovan, Medium Clearance, Senior Biologist. The Survivor stared blankly. Whoever the fuck that was, he won't need his ID card anymore.
The stench was overpowering. He pocketed the lanyard and held his breath as he searched the corpse for anything else. In the lab-coat pockets was the fossil of an old, blood-soaked notebook; pages ineligible, useless. An old lighter, still working. A few working pens. One packet of cigarettes. Could be sold as memorabilia. Nothing else. The survivor stomped its head in like a rotten watermelon and moved on. Doctor Donovan will stay dead.
Modern civilization is a memory but its wealth still remains.
Houses were robbed, supermarket shelves were emptied, gun stores were raided, but not everything could be taken in the initial chaos and rioting. Piled high in dockyards and behind barricaded warehouses, collecting dust in forgotten shipping containers, thousands of tons of consumer goods, clothes, electronics, all would have been sold and used by millions if not for the end of the world. Once ubiquitous and cheap, they now sell for a high, high price, and to get filthy old-world rich, all an enterprising scavenger needs to do is just reach forth and take it. The only problem was that between them and the wealth of the former USA were the untold millions of undead. Sometimes, even more. Fucking Mi-Gos loved plastic. But no matter what, the danger was always worth it.
Scavengers dreamt of police station armories, their treasures locked behind thick steel doors, stocked warehouses forgotten in the chaos of the riots, hospitals and military outposts still filled with the walking dead... And their guns. But above all were the Labs. After the secret was blown two years ago, everyone knew what XEDRA was and how they ended the world, and for a short while it sparked a gold rush. Just a short while, because it soon became apparent that finding a laboratory was like finding the holy grail. To this date, only one had been found, but that one Lab was what made elite scavenger groups like the Gold Squad the legends they are today. There wasn't a single scavenger in the entire former USA who wouldn't kill to be in his shoes.
It's been ten minutes since the first zombie. Throughout his exploration, the Survivor conducted himself like a professional scavenger. He kept track of his route and stuck to it. Every corridor and every blind spot, he checked. He didn't move on from a room until he inspected every nook and cranny. When at a corner, he'd always use a hand mirror to peek around. In everything, he moved as slowly and deliberately as he could, but for all his care, it didn't stop him from encountering more zombies. The Survivor snarled under his balaclava as he stared into his pocket mirror.
A zombie was motionless and alone in the middle of the hallway, and it likely hasn't moved since it first died. He watched it in the mirror. He needed to get past but there was no way to sneak around it, he'd have to fight it head on. That was an acceptable risk. The Survivor walked out from around the corner and faced the corpse from the other end of the hallway. Through a tangle of matted hair, it stared at him with oily black eyes, and it stumbled, frail broken arm dragging uselessly behind it. He approached, bayonet glimmering in the harsh light, and he dismantled the freak. The first stab left it bleeding out on the floor; the second went in the skull and put it down for good.
The corpse slumped in a puddle of rancid blood. A cursory inspection revealed another ID card; Doctor Lucy, Low Clearance, Junior Researcher. Chunks of the zombies neck were missing, and its chest was pockmarked with bulletholes. The Survivor's initial assumption was wrong; this wasn't the first time it died, and already he was constructing a scenario. There was a zombie outbreak, the inhabitants of the Lab tried and failed to fight back, they either fled or joined the billions lost, and their dead rose back in their old workplace.
As they deserve.
Searching the corpse revealed a filthy notebook kept hidden in the lab-coats deep pockets, but this notebook and its pages were laminated, shielded from filth and the rigors of time. He could make out the title; patient treatment records. He flipped it open and was greeted with pale white notebook pages, covered in handwritten notes and printed sheets. He flipped past diagrams and gory details, and the balaclava didn't hide his confusion. The Survivor never graduated high-school, he didn't even have a GED, the medical jargon didn't make a lick of sense but it didn't matter. The notebook was the handwritten notes of a X.E.D.R.A scientist and this was worth its weight in gold. This alone made exploring the Lab worth it. Comparably the rest of the loot was lacklustre, a few more pens and that was it. He put the notebook into his runner pack. Pulp before reanimation then move on.
The Survivor had been a scavenger, a mercenary, a caravan guard; dealing with zombies was his job, and you had to be good at it if you wanted to last more than a week as a scavenger. The Survivor idly wondered when Makayla would come while stomping the zombies head in. Just a few months ago he was in Manchester with Makayla's company, burning down buildings, killing hundreds of zombies, salvaging what they can. After almost five years of this, plenty of cities were nearly zombie-free, excluding Boston, which remained utterly untouched because the fucking Mi-Gos grew their tower just on its outskirts. Scavenging in Manchester was higher risk compared to other cities due to not just an abnormally high undead population, but the sheer amount of slime that infested the sewers and train lines. Worse, he's heard rumours about a Shoggoth that lives in the subway tunnels. The zombies were the least of their problems, but the most common one they faced, and really they preferred it the most.
Typical protocol with the undead was to dig into defensible locations with explosives and anti-infantry weapons, make a hell of a lot of noise, and funnel approaching hordes into kill zones. The equipment and manpower requirements of this task meant that scavengers were universally heavily armed, the largest scavenging groups resembled small armies with armored vehicles, trucks, and a litany of bizarre makeshift weaponry. Hell, by some amazing stroke of luck, Makayla had a fucking construction mech. The Survivor couldn't help but let jealousy stew in his chest as he stomped the zombie's skull into paste. Soon he finished up, and checked around a corridor before advancing. Behind him, the flickering light licked at his blood-soaked boots and the corpse of the zombie, oozing gore across the concrete from the ruins of its skull. Doctor Lucy will stay dead.
It didn't take long for the cramped hallways, dark rooms and sudden turns to gave way to wider spaces. He slid open a door and walked into an expansive office room. Under flickering lights, his boots tracked viscera across the thin blue carpet. He peered over rows of cubicles and under his balaclava came a small greedy smile. Computers, intact computers, printers, papers spilled across the floor, cables and keyboards and USBs, even a tray of laptops in a corner of the room and apart from the age, they might as well have been in pristine condition. Jackpot. Electronics sold well. Very well. XEDRA electronics, who knows how much, especially if they have valuable data on them. In his excitement the Survivor moved towards a cubicle, he swung the little door open with a gentle creak and reached out to turn a computer on. His little smile became a grin as the monitor flickered, the gentle whirring of a fan filled the stale air, and the cubicle was bathed in light. And then from the hallway came footsteps.
His blood ran cold. He ducked out from the cubicle and hid behind its wall as the footsteps grew louder. They came from the way he entered, and he realised they were the footfalls of something very, very heavy. His throat ran dry, he swallowed reflexively as he kept a tight grip on his rifle, and then silence came. Pulling out his pocket mirror, he dared to peek the glimmering edge just around the cubicle wall. A vast shadow stretched across the blue carpet, and just beyond the doorway was the hunched shape of someone huge. With the tiny pocket mirror he couldn't see much, but he saw how it jarred motionless and then continued on past the door. It lumbered with the weight and raw brute strength of a gorilla.
The Survivor was 6,4. 220 pounds, and even before the apocalypse he had more fights than hot meals. All that meant nothing against undead. Getting into a close-quarters fight was out the question. Zombies that didn't even reach his chest were a struggle, fights were won by putting distance between them, and his current method of bayonetting them with a short carbine like the M4 wasn't ideal. Anything larger would overpower him, and that wasn't even going into the different mutations. A zombie hunter would tear his throat out, a brute would just squish his head like a rotten tomato, and that massive thing had to be a brute, a very large brute. Not large enough to be a hulk, and the Survivor hoped to God that wasn't the case. Unable to get a good shot and unwilling to attract the attention of whatever that was, the Survivor took the safer option. He slowly crawled away and took a turn down a different path, sliding the glass door and stalking out into a new hallway. Electronics were not worth dying for. There should be better stuff in a lab, anyway.
He didn't recognise where this was. But he reckoned if he took a left then he'd be able to circle back. It was around now that he began to notice the security cameras. Suspended from the ceiling were little black orbs in their white cases, so small and unremarkable. They never worked because when scavenging electricity was non-existent in most buildings, but they still sold well. The Tower Fortress liked to keep an eye on their people, more than even the Center. He didn't pay them mind at first, until when he passed one by, the camera rotated with him. He froze, watching the lens. Testing the waters, he moved to the side. It moved too. His suspicions were confirmed. What the fuck?
For a while the Survivor just stared into the black lens, and anxiety stewed in his chest. They were watching him. Who? Someone was alive, and someone was watching him. So he decided to communicate. Tearing down a poster about the importance of keeping your badge on, he flipped to its blank side and wrote in blocky permanent marker,
ARE YOU THERE?
CAN WE TALK?
MOVE CAMERA
MY RIGHT = YES
MY LEFT = NO.
He held the poster up and just waited. The camera didn't move. Ten seconds. Twenty. Thirty. Did they not want to communicate? What, couldn't they read? His handwriting wasn't that bad. And then realisation struck; this probably was an automated surveillance system, probably controlled by some robot, and a creeping frustration arose in his gut. Kept powered by the Lab, it was just doing the same task it's done for the last five years; watch intruders. How stupid of him. Amid wonders about what intentions lay behind silicon screens and dark camera lenses, he moved on, and the security camera turned to follow him.
The Survivor's main concern was finding his old path, but cut off by whatever that was earlier, he needed to loop around. His plan was to go left until he found it once again. So, he moved stealthily through a network of dark rooms. Not many zombies around, but the rooms were looted. Cabinets opened, fridge doors ajar with the light on, workstations were empty and bookshelves had nothing but dust on them. It was only a short trip until he snuck into an expansive lab room, keeping crouched behind the counters. He peeked over the counter. Bullet casings littered the tiled floor. Sandbags piled high in one corner of the room around an ajar metal door, where the backlit shapes of undead stood. One particularly bulky one was in a hazmat suit - how the hell do you die to a zombie while in a hazmat suit? The smell was atrocious, he had to force himself not to gag. He turned to the farthest corner and there swayed the source of the smell.
They congregated in their own gore. There stood maybe fifteen, maybe sixteen zombies; Some in raggedy lab-coats with lanyards around their necks, others wore torn shirts and limply hanging Kevlar vests, holsters empty. He could make out the finer details in the dimly lit room. The walking corpses bore wounds that betrayed the cause of death; holes pockmarking their chests, deep bites around their neck and faces. Some corpses, too mangled and brutalised to ever be recognisable, just lay there. Other zombies were too mutilated to stand but had just enough flesh remaining to ensure reanimation, one of those things spasmed softly in a mess of blood. Best not forget about the Crawlers. They hadn't moved and they likely hadn't since their deaths. Which, he's guessing, was some sort of last holdout by the inhabitants of this floor before they fought amongst themselves or Zombies overwhelmed them or both. Nothing stirred within the Survivor. XEDRA deserved everything they got.
Zombies are creatures with no ability to act on their own, only able to react to stimuli such as noise or smell or sight. They have no grasp of object permeance and simply remain in a comatose state, only a rare few such as necromancers, hunters and predators. When working with Makayla's scavenging company in zombie-infested Manchester, it wasn't uncommon to encounter wreckage and the stinking remains of scavengers, too brutalised to be reanimated, surrounded by hordes that haven't moved an inch. They're only spurred into action when they see prey, or smell prey, or hear prey.
The Survivor peered over the counter to the door that led into the light. Potentially, that led down into his path, but how was he even going to get there? Was he really going to try and vault over those sandbags, walk into the light, and attract the attention of every zombie? There had to be a better way. His confidence in exploring the Lab was evaporating and now he started to have doubts. Zombie presence of varying mutations had been confirmed and they exponentially outnumbered him.
The Survivor was a risk-taker, everyone was after the apocalypse, but not suicidal, and this risk was intolerable. The mission was a bust; the new goal was to retreat. What the fuck was he thinking trying to scavenge from a Lab on his own? He let greed get to his head and look where it landed him, a dark cramped room filled with the undead. He needed to get back to the surface quickly and quietly, then sit tight in his car and wait it out until Makayla comes. It didn't matter because either way, he'll end up richer than he's ever dreamed of. This room was a deathtrap, and very carefully he turned back to the way he entered, but a zombie was in the way. It stared at him with wide, oozing eyes.
He froze in place. Perhaps it was a blind one. The room was dark anyway. But as the freak stumbled towards him, he remembered that zombies could still smell. He had his bayonet ready. A quick stab to the head would be all it takes. And then, the zombie jarred. Its decrepit leg caught on something sticking out from the shelf. Then the zombie tripped, and clattered down. And the freak brought the entire shelf down on top of it. Smash.
Shit.
The room was in uproar. The small horde spurred into motion, zombie scientists and zombie guards were tripping over themselves, surging towards the noise. Walking corpses shambled around counters and past shelves on all sides, rustling and thumping as they moved, and it became a feedback loop as more and more undead were drawn to the sound, in the textbook example of how a horde accumulates in the outside world. The Survivor immediately ducked behind a desk and scuttled in the darkness, his plan had gone out of the window. He couldn't go back now. Footsteps and the smell of rotting flesh was gagging as walking corpses swarmed where he just was a moment ago.
In close combat, a zombie always had the advantage. With no pain receptors and in a constant state of adrenaline, the constraints on their true strength are lifted. Even the most decrepit, maggot-ridden zombie oozing gore out from its eyeholes has in its bony fingers all the strength of a fit man. Even with a bayonet, fighting any zombie in close quarters is a calculated risk and unless you're a mutant or more machine than man, fighting more than one at a time is a death sentence. Mankind's greatest advantage against the creatures of the new World was its ability to strike from afar. With the M4 against his chest he could clear the room in seconds. But there was the problem of noise. In a desperate move to keep the zombies away from him, the Survivor picked up an empty glass jar from within a cabinet and hurled it to a far corner of the room. The zombies gathered, blindly. Stupid fucking creatures. But that was nothing but a temporary solution to an immediate problem. It granted some breathing room, but now more undead had come, tripping and stumbling into the room. He peeked over the counter with his mirror; ten zombies in that corner. Two behind him. Five in front and shambling towards the corner. A decision had to be made. Now.
He could get to a safer corner of the room, then throw another jar at the horde, then make his way back on the retreat.
The Survivor moved from around the desk and glanced behind himself. That move saved his life, for he crawler had seen him and was now following behind. Go away. He was close to the door which he entered, now cleared of zombies, but the corpse had dragged itself in-between him and his escape. No. The Survivor searched for a way around the crawler, frustration clouding his head. Go fuck yourself.
But he didn't panic, despite the little voice in his head screaming alarm bells and begging him to get up and run. His conscience spoke to him.
Don't do that, dummy. That crawler could grab your leg and make you trip. Or you'll run straight into a whole gang of zombies with your big-body ass and then it's over.
The Survivor couldn't move past the crawler, and as it approached he was forced to back away. The situation went from bad to unmanageable when two zombies standing within the smashed doorway saw him in the dark. Where the fuck did they come from? Oh, right. The noise must have attracted them. They sniffed, beheld him with oily black eyeholes, one skinny freak stumbled and walked stiffly forward, decrepit arms outstretched for him. And then the Survivor knew it was over. One zombie was a risk. Two was out the question. Two and a crawler was his death, When one gets their hand on you, they grip tight, and the cold grip of a zombie was nigh inescapable. He had witnessed when just one zombie managed to grab a scavenger. Just one overpowered him, biting and mauling like an animal, him screaming and trying to worm free, and when the other freaks join in, the scavenger joined the billions lost. By the time the Survivor got to him, it was too late. He carried the corpse back with him and now his ashes sit in an old urn in the Tacoma Gravehouse. That won't be him. Because unlike him, the Survivor won't let them get close.
Crawler beside him, zombies infront of him, zombies behind him. A bayonet lunge would open him up to attack from the crawler and the other zombie behind him. The Survivor was cornered. That was it, they pushed his hand, and now the rifle against his chest was the only way out. Understanding that there was no way out of this that wasn't going to bring every zombie in the Lab down on his head. The Survivor swore under his breath. The freak staggered towards him, jaw hanging open, mouth filled with rows of rotted teeth. He no longer used the bayonet. He held the rifle higher, staring down the iron sights. He took aim, took a deep breath, and pulled the trigger.
BOOM
The muzzle flashed in the dark, his ears rang with the deafening noise. One shot was all that was needed. Skull gushing, the zombie collapsed and fell against the wall with a sickening thump. The other freak was next.
BOOM
And then he got moving, because every zombie in the whole floor had been whipped into a frenzy by the noise. With urgency and adrenaline, they surged towards where he was, gnashing vile teeth, stumbling and tripping over eachother to tear him apart. It was time to make a tactical retreat. Stepping over the corpses of downed zombies, there was no time to prevent their reanimation when the priority was retreating before he's buried under a wave of corpses. He ran out the dark room, following a path he didn't recognise as zombies streamed down the hallway, arms flailing, adrenaline rushing. He still ran, rifle levelled, he fired with the flash of the muzzle under the flickering light and one zombie collapsed into a heap. Another muzzle flash and boom, the next zombie doubled over inches away from his boots. When he turned his head for a brief moment and was greeted with the sight and deafening crashes of a teeming horde of filthy corpses stampeding down the hallway, teeth bared, gnarly hands outstretched, he didn't care where he was going as long as it was somewhere defensible.
He sprinted down the hallway, burst into a deserted lab room, dropping its undead occupants, and violently threw an empty cabinet in the way of the door. Then another. Then with considerable effort, pushed a bookshelf into the door with a deafening smash. From behind came harsh banging and crashing, and filthy hands tore at the barricades, reaching through the gaps as his pursuers frantically clawed and tried to force their way in. He used the opportunity to run further.
Shutting the door behind him, he rounded a corner and moved down an unlit office room, rifle levelled. With the darkness, his vision was limited to only a few feet, and when a zombie suddenly shambled from around a cubicle, arms outstretched. Too close to shoot, too close to stab with his bayonet. The Survivor reached for his belt and unsheathed his machete, with one deadly swoop he hacked at the freaks skull. It recoiled, stumbling from the gash on its head, weeping gore across matted hair. He struck twice, then three times, then four times, hacking at the zombie until it slumped against the cubicle and no longer moved. He breathed heavily, rancid blood splattered across his gloves. All this noise was attracting more and more of the zombies, and soon came rapid footsteps. One freak in a tattered labcoat came from behind, bloodshot eyes wide, mouth filled with gore and horse teeth, and jaw hinged open until its chin touched its swollen yellowed neck. It scrambled towards him with all the ferocity that it's decrepit muscles could propel it with. The Survivor lifted his leg and a brutal front kick to the face turned the zombie into an oversized paperweight and sent it tumbling across the floor. A shot to the head kept it down for good.
No longer was he firing. Now, he just ran. He ran from room to room, footfalls echoing. Throwing down furniture and bookshelves in his way, making passage as difficult as possible for his undead pursuers. All that mattered was getting to safety, and now he began to recognise this path. The dark rooms, the slumped corpse of the zombies he killed earlier. Relief revitalised the survivors efforts, he knew he was close to the elevator. This was the path he took to avoid what he saw in the storage rooms. He was going to live through this, for sure. Just a little more. The lightbulb shone through the glass door. He recognised this room! The office room with the working electronics! He ran quicker, and then a vast shape blotted the light out. The Survivor began to backpedal, almost tripping over his feet.
The move saved his life. The glass door shattered apart as something vast and black barrelled through. Purely instinctual, he recoiled and raised his arm to shield his face from glass shards, peppering harmlessly against his arm guards. The moment cost him everything.
Its vast body filled the doorway. Standing in the splinters of glass, deformed feet bleeding discoloured blood. The freak lumbered tall, taller than him, a thick festering slab of mutated muscle, fused with a black Kevlar uniform, but the Blob did not stop. Wet tumours and Leisionous bleeding skin grew around and interwove with the Kevlar, until the freaks chest fused with his vest and his fingers fused together, becoming fleshy clubs of disfigured bone and weeping tumours and thick Kevlar. A mauled, stretched-out face, like it was fashioned in clay, twisted in a nightmarish rage, it twitched, and stared with with bulging oozing black eyes. A throbbing vein on its giant neck burst with thick blood.
And the brute started to run.
Constructive criticism is always welcome
Compulsory viewing:
https/youtu.be/P9oTCzWRuvQ