1: The Gang's All Here

        “H-hello?” I called out, my voice trembling.

        The reply I got came in the form of crying that came from somewhere off in the distance, something that I had heard ever since I entered this god forsaken woods. I was chased in here by those . . . things, and I was wishing I would have chosen a different direction to go. This place wasn't exactly my most favorite of places as a kid, and it definitely didn't make it any better that I was here at night, especially given the current situation. But I was too afraid of running into those things again if I turned back around, so I was stuck here in the woods—well, it was called a nature trail by the people who lived here.

        The feminine cry continued, echoing through the otherwise silent nature trail. I gingerly walked further down the gravel path, the dense trees and other flora surrounding me on the left and right. My weapon—a stick I had found on the ground—was clutched tightly in my right hand, held close to my chest as if it would protect me from those things. The government officials referred to them as the infected when the infection was first discovered, which had happened a week ago. Now, the majority of the nation's population – if not the world's – was reduced to nothing more than mindless zombies.

        Fortunately, I hadn't run into any of them in the nature trail ever since I was chased in here by a group of them. As I proceeded further into the sylvan area, the sobbing grew louder. It wasn't until a couple seconds later when I discovered the source. I reached a part of the trail where it branched off to the right. A young lady was sitting in the middle of the gravel path that continued forward. Due to the darkness, I was only able to get her basic frame. She was slender, and her back was turned on me and she was bent forward, her long hair cascading down her back.

        “H-hello?” I called out to her, my voice cracking from the fear that was welling inside me.

        She didn't hear me—either that or she was ignoring me.

        “Hey, a-are you okay?” I called out again.

        She still didn't respond aside from her weeping. I pulled out a flashlight from my pants' pocket, about to turn it on, before feeling a hand on my shoulder. My mouth dropped open, about to scream, but I was silenced by another hand that covered my mouth.

        “Don't do that,” a feminine voice told me from behind.

        My expressions lightened upon recognizing the voice. The hands fell away from my mouth and shoulder and I turned around, about to speak before she cut me off.

        “Let's get away from here.”

        “But what about her?” I asked.

        “She's infected just like the rest.”

        “Oh.” I glanced back at the lady, her sobbing relentless in the still of the night. It was a good thing she had stopped me when she had. It might not have turned out good otherwise—assuming she was just as dangerous as the rest of the infected I had seen, if not worse. “Okay.”

        I followed her down the path that went to the right, the cry gradually growing quiet as we got further away. We stopped a minute later and the teenaged girl turned around to face me, a smile appearing on my face—something that hadn't happened in the short time I had been here. I turned on my flashlight, mainly to get a better look at her. She was taller now than she was two years ago, but I still had the height advantage by a few inches. She had long brown hair and green eyes and wore gym shoes, jeans, and a T-shirt with a dolphin on it. Besides the height, something else was different. The usual smile that lightened her face was gone, replaced by a grimmer look—probably because of everything that had happened thus far. And in her right hand she was holding something I had never thought I would have seen her hold: an Uzi.

        “It's been a while, Lori,” I said, temporarily forgetting about our task at hand. I hadn't seen her ever since I went off to college, even if I've been in town a couple times during those two years. I probably wouldn't have been here if it wasn't for the fact that the university sent everyone home due to the spread of the infection.. “How's everything been?”

        “What do you think?” she said grimly.

        “Oh, right, never mind.”

        Silence settled between us after that as we were reminded of our current situation. We looked around at our surroundings.

        “Do you have a gun?” she asked.

        I looked back at her to see that she was looking at me. “No.”

        “Do you have any kind of a weapon?”

        “Just this.” I lifted my stick up to show her.

        “You'll need more than that,” she said. She reached down and pulled out a pistol from the holster on her waist, holding it out for me to take. “Here.”

        “Thanks, I guess,” I replied, taking the pistol from her and looking it over. Spotting the flashlight on it, I turned mine off and returned it to my pocket before turning the one on that belonged to the firearm. “Where did you get all these guns anyway?”

        “You were here when the military came to try to take care of the infected, right?” Lori asked.

        “Yeah.”

        “Some of their guns are laying around.”

        “Oh.” I smirked a little. “Can't believe you were actually brave enough to come out where all the infected are.” Despite our current situation, I couldn't help but to poke a little fun at her, even if I hadn't been acting in the most bravest of manners in the past few minutes.

        “I had to.” She only showed signs of seriousness as she spoke. “It was either that or be killed by the Hunter.”

        “Hunter?” I asked, confused about what she was talking about.

        “Yeah. One might pop up.” She switched to a sadder note. “One of them broke into my house during the night and killed my mom. I barely managed to get out of there without it attacking me. Now I'm stuck out here.”

        “Oh,” I said, sadness reflecting in my own voice after all. “What about your dad and sisters?”

        “My dad and Jessi are dead,” she said. “I'm not sure about Heather and Teressa. They're probably either dead or infected.”

        I nodded and became silent after that. I knew how she felt about her family being lost to the infection—either from being killed by an infected or from becoming one themselves. It was pretty much the same for me too. I woke up one morning to see Mom as an infected. She would have killed me if I didn't wake up any sooner. I managed to get away, fortunately without being forced to kill her, even though I sometimes wonder if I should've. Surely it wasn't any fun being infected.

 

        Suddenly, the sound of a twig cracking came from the trees to the left of the trail. Both Lori and I jumped and automatically aimed are guns in that vicinity, waiting for whatever was in there to show themselves. My finger was pressed against the trigger, ready to pull it if it was an infected, even if I had trouble keeping my hand from shaking. It was a few seconds later when something appeared at the tree line. I jumped in my skin a little and was about to press the trigger when I noticed that it was an uninfected human.

        “Whoa, don't shoot,” the man said, holding his hands up at chest level, trying to show us that he meant us no harm. He looked to be about a year older than me—I myself being nineteen—and was a good few inches taller than me. Long black hair cascaded down his shoulders and his skin was darkened, showing his Native American heritage. He wore a pair of black pants and a button-up shirt that was currently unbuttoned to reveal bare torso. In his right hand was a Beretta 92.

        I let my armed hand fall to my side. Lori lowered her gun so that it was non-threatening, but she kept it held so the flashlight on her Uzi was shining on the male. He looked at both of us, first Lori, then me.

        “Christopher, hello,” he greeted.

        I didn't say anything right away, at first confused at how he knew my name before realizing who he was. “Hey Jake. What are you doing here?”

        “I thought I'd come for a visit,” he said. “Guess it wasn't under the best of circumstances.”

        “You two know each other?” asked Lori.

        We looked at her.

        “Yeah,” I replied. “But that's not important right now. Jake, this is my cousin—”

        “Lori,” she interrupted, finishing my sentence.

        “Nice to meet you.”

        “Why is your shirt unbuttoned?” Lori asked.

        “I'm hot,” Jake replied.

        “Narcissist,” Lori muttered.

        Suddenly, a sound came forth from somewhere in the distance, sounding much like a donkey, yet much worse. Lori and I spun around to face the direction from where it came, our guns held up, ready to fire whatever came forth. My heart rate picked up as the faint sounds of thuds on earthen ground came within earshot. Next thing I knew an infected burst from the tree line and came charging right towards us. It was larger than a Common Infected. It wore overalls and the arms were noticeably different in size. The right arm was scabbed and huge while the left one was small and shriveled up as if it was void of all nutrients and muscle it would have normally possessed. The left leg also looked noticeably bigger than the right, but there wasn't an extreme difference between the two legs like there was for the arms. Its skull-shaped head was also not of proportional size, it being very small compared to its large body.

        As soon as the infected burst out into the clearing, it gave a roar as it came charging towards us. Startled, I fired a couple shots at it. Blood splattered out from its chest from where the bullets hit, but that wasn't nearly enough to drop it to the ground, let alone slow it down. The fire of the Uzi rang out as Lori and I backpedaled to keep out of range of its massive arm, stopping when we were standing on either side of Jake, who was also unloading a couple bullets from his own handgun. However, none of this seemed to be working too well. The infected continued advancing on us, letting out another roar. But then something happened. A large stick appeared from behind the charging infected and was swung right at the back of its head. The sound of bone cracking was heard as soon as the makeshift weapon collided with the back of the infected's head. The thing slowed, stumbling over its feet and falling to the ground in front of our feet with a thud, a minor shockwave being sent through the ground.

        “You're welcome.”

        We looked past the dead infected, seeing a teenaged boy standing there, tossing the stick he had just used to the side. He had short brown and brown eyes. Although he was a couple inches shorter than Lori, there was a kind of aura about him that made him seem older than what his height and slightly small frame suggested otherwise. He was wearing a pair of black, baggy athletic pants and a plain white shirt. Strapped to his back was a Benelli M4.

        “Looks like there's more survivors,” Jake stated.

        “What's your name?” asked Lori.

        “David,” replied the boy.

        “Nice to meet you,” Jake said. “I'm Jacob, but you can call me Jake.”

        “I'm Lori.”

        “And I'm Chris.”

        David nodded towards all of us in response.

        “That's enough of that,” Lori said. “We need to get out of here before anymore infected show up.”

        “Where should we go?” asked Jake.

        “If we continue down this path, we'll eventually come to an exit out of here,” I began. “We can go across the street and cut through the park and head to the state route. We'll follow it to the next town not far from here. It might not be the safest way to go, but we might be able to find rescue if we go that way.”

        “But can we be sure we can get rescued?” Jake asked.

        “No, but it's either that or stay here and fend off whatever comes after us,” I replied.

        “I guess it'll have to do,” said Jake.

        I nodded. “Let's get going then.”

 

Author's Note

I'm writing this for fun with me and a few friends as the survivors. There isn't supposed to be any knowledge of the game (what would be the fun in that?) in this, so all of the Special Infected and everything else is unknown. So, yeah, with that said, I'm not really looking for any reviews for this, but go ahead and say what you want.

Reviews

[Eidolon Michael]

LOVE IT!!! I'm interested to see where this goes :-) And can I be in it? Like as a "arrives on the scene just to die" kinda person?(I've just always wanted to be one of those kinds of characters lol). But you don't have to put me in if you don't want to lol It is your story lol I like how you've put L4D 2 enemies with the L4D 1 levels, very creative...now if only we could get some dlc that did that...