Played a little bit of Killing Floor 2 over the last weekend, and this short story spontaneously popped into my head. Only going to be a few chapters long, and there's no plans for it.
Killing Floor: Stalked.
Zachary Taylor was not many things. Of the few things he was, "survivor" was one of them, being named after a US president was one of the others. Zach was an American backpacking through Europe when The Outbreak began in London. Being in France during the first month of the downfall of European civilization meant that he had a unique opportunity to flee East on his own two feet, but as the outbreak spread to the mainland over the next three months and the European Union collapsed, things became increasingly difficult. There were only really three options of escape from the urban hell that had become the former EU. Get to Russia, as they seemed to have their border secured. Get east of Istanbul, as Turkey had blown the bridges that led to Europe. Or thirdly, and most preferably hop a boat to one of the islands in the Mediterranean. Zach had heard that Sicily was nice. However, before any of that could be done, Zach had to get out of Prague.
CHAPTER 1
The zombies? Clones? Zeds, as the Brit he'd watched get eaten last week called them, seemed to be everywhere. Far too many for Zach to handle. Well not too many for Zach himself, rather, too many for Zach's limited supply of ammunition.
As Zach fled through Germany he had managed to swipe a suppressed handgun off the body of a GSG9 officer. A Glock 17. The sights were garbage, but the 9mm ammo seemed to be everywhere in the apocalypse, and for that Zach was grateful. It had saved his ass on 4 occasions, and as it was suppressed, didn't alert more Zeds than it needed to. His other saving grace was the knife he had. Nothing special really, just a Benchmade Adams fixed blade. The two combined made for a perfect balance of power and stealth.
Zach was better at stealth, naturally, as he'd traveled through Zed infested Europe he'd had to camp in rather inconvenient places without being eaten in his sleep. Unfortunately at the moment Zach had, as it were, alerted a horde, and had managed to hide in a building just out of view of the Zeds chasing him. Still, Zach took the precaution of at the very least barricading the doors to the stairs by tying a fire hose around the handles, before going up to the second floor. Feeling only marginally safer, Zach turned on his headlamp to navigate through the dark hallways of the building he'd found himself in. Not far from the wall, Zach found a fire escape plan that marked two other stairways to the apartment and office building.
With his Glock and knife ready, Zach quickly, but quietly made his way to the two other staircases, finding one to be collapsed, the rubble from the structure filling the first and half of the second story, and the first floor door of the other blacked off with a small mountain of disused furniture. The issue of unwelcome guests showing up being resolved, Zach began to search every room for Zeds, or more hopefully survivors.
As Zach made his way to the third floor, with two more to go, he heard what sounded like footsteps behind him. Turning, his headlamp created a shimmer of light on a "Stalker." Zack slashed at the shimmer after a solid second of hesitation, and had managed to slice it along its arm. The elusive cloaking zed, then did something Zach had never seen a Stalker (or any zed for that matter,) do. It dropped its cloaked form, the nude gray cloned body of a young woman appearing, (this was actually normal for Stalkers once they were sufficiently injured,) screamed in pain, and started running away from Zach, before it disappeared down the hallway. He could still hear it's footsteps as it ran, growing fainter as it traveled upstairs.
Zach stood deathly stiff for a second, pistol raised and knife ready, blood dripping onto the carpet from its edge. He tensely waited for the groaning of Zeds from within the building to rise in volume, the clones inside the complex alerted by all of the Stalker's noise, however it never came. Though calming significantly at the fact there was no horde locked in the building with him, Zach was now focusing on the fact there was a Stalker on the prowl. Bending at the knee, Zach found a trail of blood from where he'd cut the Stalker, and hummed to himself. "Bet she ain't smart enough to stop that bleeding." Zach muttered, before getting to his feet and following the trail to the only other intact staircase.
The blood trail went up to the 5th and final floor, which seemed to mostly be office spaces, half empty, though all abandoned. As Zach followed the droplets, his well preserved hearing (thank you suppressor,) picked up what sounded like crying. Unsure of if the source was friend or foe, Zach kept his pistol raised, as he peeked into the open doorway the trail led him too. There, in the corner cubicle of the room, in what looked to have been a nest made of bedding material, ripped sofa cushions, and half a sleeping bag, the Stalker that Zach had cut sat curled near the wall, holding a hand (elongated fingers tipped by razors for nails and all,) over her wounded arm, stemming the flow of blood.
As the Stalker turned to face Zach and his bright light, the Stalker shielded its eyes, crying still, it's wound freely bleeding. The Stalker turned to face the wall, pressing into it's little nest, grabbing at the wound again, seeming to shy away from Zachary. Confused more than anything, Zach turned his headlamp's brightness down to save battery, and not oversaturate his vision. He'd never seen a Zed cower like this before, let alone show any form of self preservation, like running, or attempting to stem bleeding, and he'd never seen a Zed that could create anything, if the nest the Stalker sat in counted as creativity.
Zach knew Zeds were "smart," or rather intelligent, though ultimately single minded. The monsters uttering singular sentence repetitively in a few rare cases he'd seen, or rather heard, and using weapons was proof the cloned beings weren't stupid, but their every waking action being dedicated to nothing but slaughter meant that they often didn't do much thinking, even when it might help them live long enough to actually kill their prey. Yet, there sat a single Stalker, in a nest, trying to stop herself from bleeding out, while shying away from danger.
Against his better judgment, Zach lowered his weapon. Stalkers weren't that much of a threat, compared to the rest of the Zeds in Zachary's mind anyways. Their claws, while sharp, were only as strong as human nails, and their long fingers were ill suited for the task of slashing. Their teeth weren't sharp like the Cyst, Clot, or any other Zed. Their cloaking gave them the ability to get closer than most people would reasonably let a Zed get, but aside from the fact they could throw a decent kick, Stalker's were only about as strong as the woman they were presumably cloned from. In short, the Stalker Zach had cut wasn't a threat, especially if it was scared of him.
Zach slipped his pistol into it's holster on his hip, as he stared in perplexion at the Stalker, feeling an odd combination of pity and guilt. The pathetic thing was seemingly smart enough to know it's own weakness, and hold itself up in what it thought was a place safe from either other Zeds (they did on occasion kill their own out of what Zach assumed was rage and boredom,) or survivors, then Zach turned up on it's turf and hurt it. It didn't even take it's chance at slashing Zach, and he knew it could have in the 3rd floor hallway.
Zach sighed as he looked between the Stalker in its nest and his knife. Perhaps it really was smart, and was just curious about the human that had shown up, or perhaps Zach was giving it far too much sympathy, and assumed it had a proper human consciousness. Perhaps Zach was being soft on it since it locked vaguely like a distressed woman, and his primitive brain wanted to help her. Wiping the blood off his knife along his hoodie sleeve, Zachary stepped into the room slowly, his trail shoes gliding over the carpet. As he got closer, the Stalker turned to look at him, and shuffled on its butt and feet further into it's nest to get away, though only cornering itself, as it's breathing picked up sporadically.
"Afraid." She spoke, unsurprisingly in the same raspy quiet voice all Stalkers seemed to have.
Hearing this, Zack stopped moving, before he gently set the knife down and showed his empty hands. "What the fuck am I doing?" He asked himself, as the Stalker seemed to calm its breathing a little.
Reaching out, Zach approached slowly, his headlight illuminating the Stalker completely now. It looked like any other stalker, within their margin of creation. It had gray hair growing on the right half and top of it's scalp, and none of the expected combative scars most Zeds carried, likely as this one had avoided all forms of conflict. As Zach got a better look at it's face, he found that it was relatively pretty, though that might have just been thanks to the comparatively ugly mugs of the rest of the Zeds Zach had grown used to seeing. If Zach didn't know any better, (gray skin and nails aside) he'd have assumed such a specimen to have simply been an injured survivor. And this was where things went from odd to weird.
As Zach got into it's swiping range, and then well into the range that he could be bitten from, (though his hard knuckle gloves and thick hoodie made it unlikely the Stalker would do much,) the injured stalker sniffed at him, like a dog. Unsure of what else to do, Zach pulled his hand back. The stalker's eyes seemed to follow him, then it hissed in pain, and shifted its seat, as it clenched tighter to its wounded arm.
Zach was again unsure of what to do. He could help the Stalker, but to what end? It was a Zed, and though it might not have been worth exerting the energy to kill, saving it from exsanguination would cost just as much, and then there would be a living Zed in the same building as him for who knew how long. Zack squatted down, and the Stalker made eye contact with him. Strangely, they had a color, blue, like his. So far every Zed that Zach got close enough to see the eyes of, they were all the same black or milky white glazed over soulless pits of death and hate, but not this Stalker's. Hers were… Vibrant, but pained. "I can't believe I'm doing this." Zach muttered, his emotions getting the better of him.
Zach took his backpack off and set it beside him, before digging around for a moment, finding a pressure dressing he'd stolen from a soldier's corpse. "Come here." Zach said, gesturing for the Stalker to move closer. It only eyed him curiously. Zach sighed, as he started unwrapping the dressing. Moving closer to the Stalker, he took the cotton pad of the dressing, pushed her hand away with a small amount of caution, expecting her to lash out, and went about wrapping the cut on her upper arm. The Stalker remained calm through the entire process, though hissed in pain when he'd set the pressure bar in place.
His work complete, Zach put his bag on his back again, stood, and stepped away, allowing the Stalker to inspect the dressing on her arm. She held her arm out and turned it over to see where the cut should be, and pulled at the elastic dressing twice, though seemed satisfied after sniffing it. "Well at least I'll be able to see the dressing if you try sneaking up on me again." Zach said, mostly to himself, though the Stalker took notice. She flinched a little as Zach picked his knife up, but otherwise stayed put in her nest. "Now just… Stay here." Zach said, before he left the room, resuming his search for threats, from the top of the building to the bottom this time, before settling on the second floor. The building being mostly made of apartments meant that he could find a nice and more importantly lockable room to sleep in on every floor but the fifth.
Zach locked himself inside of a small apartment room, then further into the only bedroom, and laid his sleeping bag out on top of someone else's empty mattress for the night, hoping that the next morning, the horde outside would pass.
Zach's digital watch beeped, waking him up at 6:30 exact. Turning off the alarm, Zach packed his bag, and then peeked out the window the room had. The street below was still full of Zeds. Cursing to himself, Zach figured he could at least make his stay more comfortable. Zach searched the apartment for anything remotely useful. Food was gone, either taken by the previous inhabitants when they fled, or eaten by other survivors already, if the full trash can in the kitchen was of any indication. There were no weapons, unsurprising, given they would also likely have been taken in an evacuation, or by other survivors. There were a few candles, which Zach could use to give the apartment some more light, but beside that, the former tenant's home was picked clean.
Deciding to search the rest of the building, Zach unlocked the door that led to the hallway, and stepped out, only to almost trip. Looking down at what he stumbled over, Zach found the Stalker from before, curled up on the carpeted floor. She made a surprised gasp, and Zach instinctively pulled his knife out of it's sheath. Though rather than attack, the Stalker just cloaked itself, and scurried off down the hall. Re-sheathing his knife, Zach sighed. "It's like feeding a stray dog." He muttered, before he started searching through the other apartments and office rooms of the building.
It seemed like the entire building had anything of value already raided, or at least the second and third floors, as food trash littered the place. There were no weapons. No good clothing. Pantries were mostly empty save a coupe of unmarked cans. What food was left in the fridges was spoiled, and made Zach gag, something he thought the Zed's had made him incapable of doing with smell alone. Worse, there wasn't much in the way of gear either. There were two tubs on the third floor that were full of what Zach figured was clean water. At the least he could take a much needed bath after his three month hike across Europe. Of course throughout the entire day of searching, Zach was constantly checking over his shoulder. Every few minutes he'd either hear, or catch a glimpse of the Stalker just out of view, hiding around the corner of a doorway, or taking off down the hall while cloaked, her feet pattering against the carpet as she made those whispers to herself. Zach knew the Stalker was more than likely just curious, but it was starting to become irritating, and in the back of his mind he was conscious of the possibility it was testing him, waiting until he let it come close enough for a lethal attack to be made.
Finally giving up his search for the day, Zach found a suitable apartment on the third floor, locked the doors, and laid his sleeping bag out on the sofa in the living room corner. Outside, he could hear the Stalker's feet pattering, like she was pacing just outside, before there was a single thump against the door, as if she'd layed down on the floor outside again. Zach groaned, before he dropped his gear and got into his sleeping bag for the night.
