A/N:
This fic's been a long time in the making – I stopped at chapter 27 a long time ago, and have only just gotten back. I was dying to write a fic about the L4D crew, as it was maddening not knowing what happened to them all (still is). Couple of disclaimers:
1. Any surname speculations are entirely my own (what I basically thought suited the characters I gave them to). Valve never designated surnames for some reason, perhaps for ambiguity, with the exception of Bill Overbeck.
2. For reasons I'm about to go into, the town of Rayford (for the purpose of this story) is set on the coast, south of Savannah. I realise that L4D Wiki states that it's technically in Griffin county, but, going from the dialogue from The Sacrifice, in my opinion, it makes much more sense if it's there (and still in Georgia).
3. Any relationships between characters are also based on my own judgement. I have tried to keep in character for them all the best I can. It's up to you to tell me whether I have succeeded in doing so.
4. I (still) apologise for how sporadic my chapter sizes are.
"Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Death, I will fear no evil..."
- Coach, Psalm 23:4
Glusbbshhhhsh...
Glubbbashsssh...
These noises, even in the haze.
They had made it to the island. It was all over.
They were finally safe.
The beach is warm and welcoming. Lying down, it feels like there is nobody else in the world. No fear, no tragedy – no more death.
(Cannot move)
(Why is it so hard to)
(Help)
(Oh God please help)
(I'm trapped)
Uhnnnn... Uhnnnnnn...
(Breathe)
(I'm choking I'm choking I can feel it in my lungs)
(Breathe you have to)
(BREATHE)
Moaning sounds echo in the distance, made by unspeakable creatures. There is, unbeknownst to them, a sort of hell on Earth. Those monsters are, in some ways, luckier than those who have to live. Nobody can help them. They are lost in their own little worlds: feeling pain, sure, but certainly no more than they are capable of inflicting, which, as demonstrated by the countless bodies strewn over the muddy Georgian ground, is a great deal and then some.
But they don't know, either. They have no fear, no conscience, no use of their higher brain functions and there is nobody who can help them.
The ones that do suffer are the ones that know.
Some short way out into the Atlantic Ocean, not far from the harbor, there is a gasping noise. Too quiet for the creatures to hear, with the main noises in their head being the respective grunts and squeals of their kind. A hand squabbles above water for a moment, reaching for something, anything – and, with some luck, clenches onto part of a boardwalk that had most likely washed ashore from the strong currents originating from the stormy weather currently shrouding most of the south. There are no seagulls in the harbor anymore, or other birds. No familiar noises for the person short of air to tread water closer to – only the grunts symbolizing the inevitable danger ashore.
A young woman's head emerges from the water. Her eyes are ringed red from exhaustion, but still colored a deep green that distinguished her from the rest. Human green: uncorrupted, unchanged, untouched. She is breathing, but shallowly – rapid gasps entering and leaving as sharply as the pain at her temple. Her escape had been but a dream. She touches her head gingerly and feels what she feared: viscous blood staining her slender, pianist's fingers. She looks at them and thinks of things to motivate her to stay alive, like how she had wasted their grace on videogames in her college dorm, alone.
Would she try and teach herself if she got through all this madness – this shit?
As she reaches full consciousness, closer and closer still, so does the pain increase. It burns inside her head, so much so that she sobs; the corners of her vision staining red. She feels in her pockets below the water for pain pills with her free hand – adrenaline, anything – and comes up with nothing. In despair, she realizes that the water must have claimed them. Taking them so that they would be useless, spent – like the way they had treated, almost, the old man's death at the bridge a day or so before. She feels a pang of guilt and a longing for the man of whom she had become so close to, nearly as a daughter, over the weeks they'd travelled south. Sure, they had been running away at the time – and she knows it was very human of her to block out feelings of emotional trauma with jokes or silence – but now the feelings are coming and they are vast.
She retches, swallowing the bile emerging in her gullet as she treads water.
Still a ways off from the shore, she drifts in her misery – a tiny island of fading hope in a vast sea where the odds were so against those who were still fighting. She knew nobody would come for her anymore. Why should they? They were safe, after all: they saw her fall in, head knocked to shit from where it struck the side of the boat as she fell –
She gasps a little as the memories flood back and zones out again for a little while; the world turning from red-tinted to black.
When she reawakens, arms still gripping the driftwood holding her afloat, she has come very close indeed to the shore, twenty meters or so, give or take. She knows that it's only a matter of time – soon, she knows that she will have to face them. Bleeding, weapons gunked up from polluted sea-water, and neither medicine nor company means that at that point, she is feeling very alone and very, very helpless.
What could she do?
Could she die here, after she had gotten so far?
Would she stand a chance at all?
(This one time, my buddy Keith repaired a combine harvester for his Pa to drive to cut his crops and, like, he didn't know that there was gonna be a zombie apocalypse and shit, so he used it instead of mowing corn, to mow down zombies. His Pa was dang prouda him, till he turned and it was blade-time. Made Keith sad and all but he said that it's what his Pa wouldda wanted: to go down like his Granddaddy did in the nineteen thirties...)
She smiles, thinking of the odd tales the strange young man on the bridge had yammered on about to his buddies in his thick Georgian accent and feels a piece of herself come back again. She most likely would die – a fact that she could not doubt. But she sure as hell's going to go out with a sense of humor about it.
As she drifts closer towards land – able now to put her feet on the sandy floor – she thinks wistfully of things she wishes she had said, and how now she never could. She could see them in the distance: eyes reflecting light even though there was little in the heavy rain, and hear their thick, labored breaths. In the north where they had come from, many had most likely starved to death by now – but down here, the spread is fresh and rampant amongst the citizens; the swampy place she had come through rife with disease and the stubborn, relentless lives of the damned –
An idea springs to her mind as she takes her first, shaky step – then a second – onto the beach. A crazy idea that she's just about nutty enough to try.
Could she maybe, just possibly... pretend to be them?
The visibility of the place is poor, her torch is broken, and it would be difficult to smell her in such stormy weather. They are more aggressive toward each other if they are provoked, but then and only then. If she just kept to the shadows, could she maybe make it back to the closest safehouse, with its heavy steel door? Her party had not spent long there – knowing that they were close to where they needed to be – so food 'ought' to be plentiful. She could exist there, curling up in her skin until the nightmare was over for her – by any means necessary.
She'd started studying for a degree in Film and Psychology before all of this. The Minor would be a pretty sure test to see if all that time and hard work was truly worth it. She stifles a hysterical laugh which comes out as a few, fairly convincing muffled snorts as she thinks of all the times she'd spent holed up in that dorm watching those stupid horror movies and takes a very deep breath. She spies tracks on the muddy ground, a tread pattern recognizable as her own and realizes that it would be less of a search than she first imagined to find the hideout along the shore, though it does very little as a means of consoling her fear.
(It's two miles just two miles just)
She closes her eyes for a brief moment – and lets her body go slack.
(Here goes)