User:Nightmirage/story

Well, hello there, curious reader! You seem to have stumbled across my L4D fan fiction. It is not yet anywhere near completion, but I'll be adding to it as I go (college does take priority, sadly).
 * Disclaimer: I own nothing. Valve owns all. Please don't sue.


 * Author's Note: Pronunciation of Zoey's last name is "Ino-bee-nay". They were a wealthy family in the 1920's with many descendants now living in Pennsylvania. If it's your last name too, congratulations! You're totally related to Zoey (in my mind at least...)

1 1/2 Weeks After First Infection

Riverside was once a nice part of town. It was well known amongst locals for the reliable shops that lined it, all of which were owned and operated by honest people. For Zoey Inabinet it had always held a certain charm, and now her dreams were haunted by images of it she had seen earlier on the television as the barricade failed and infected spilled onto the street.

She awoke with a start and hit her head on her desk as she lurched forward in alarm.

"Smooth, Zoey," her roommate, Olivia, said from across the room. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah..." Zoey replied after a few seconds. "Just a bad dream." She rolled out of bed and looked over at Olivia. The sight was more frightening than it had been just a few hours previously. The tiny girl's frail arms were encircling the bucket on her lap that she had been throwing up in since running down the hall to the bathroom became too difficult. The dark circles under her eyes had grown more pronounced as her face grew paler.

"You look awful," Zoey said bluntly. "This is one hell of a flu." Olivia looked over at her with tired eyes.

"Let's stop lying to ourselves, Zoey. We both know this isn't the flu."

"What? What are you saying?"

"You know exactly what I'm saying."

"You're not infected, Olivia! We've all been quarantined in our rooms for the past week. No one's been outside except to use the bathroom..."

"That's not entirely true." Olivia heaved a raspy sigh. "While you were sleeping the other night, I had Tony come over for a while. I know it was stupid, but I didn't want to freak you out."

"So? Tony's not infected."

"I haven't heard from him since yesterday. I don't know what's wrong."

"You know cell phones aren't working really well since-"

"I appreciate what you're trying to do, Zoey. I really do, but Tony must've been exposed to it somehow and passed it on to me. We didn't wear face masks." Olivia stopped talking suddenly and leaned over into the bucket in her lap to throw up.

"But if Tony got you sick then I should be sick too," Zoey said, more to herself than to her vomiting roommate.

Bill Overbeck was confident enough in his current arrangement that he thought perhaps a share of his stock of food and a few hours of sleep was in order. He had holed himself up in a tiny gun store a few days ago and had spent most of the time since then making sure his new base was secure. He knew he'd have to move again soon enough; waiting this out was clearly not an option. The infection that made people become crazy, murderous shadows of their former selves had not waned, like the government had insisted it would, but exploded in the almost two weeks since the first case of whatever the hell this illness was had been confirmed.

Unfortunately, his knee was acting up again and staying on the run was simply not feasible. Bill was not getting any younger, nor was he in as good shape as he was 30 years ago. His green beret training had done him well in combatting the zombies as he found instantaneously lethal headshots easy to dole out, but this was no Vietnam. Not even donning his military jacket for the first time since his wife had died the year before could bring him back to his former glory.

Pleased with himself, nonetheless, Bill scrounged around in his food pile for a bit before finally settling on some boxed cereal. It was dry as hell, probably some whole grain healthy shit, but it was pretty delicious after nearly a week of cold canned tomato soup.

He quickly demolished half of the box and set aside the rest for later. He rose to his feet, knee screaming in protest, and hobbled over to the sleeping bag laid out near the entrance to his shelter. Carefully checking that the safety of the gun next to his sleeping bag was on, Bill eased himself back onto the ground. As he did so, an odd noise drifted in through the steel bars on the upper half of the door.

It was an eerie wailing, obviously that of a female. Bill immediately grabbed his pistol and stumbled again to his feet, cursing the whole time. He pressed his face against the cold, steel bars and surveyed the street outside. None of the street lamps were working anymore, and the complete darkness outside only made this woman's crying more frightening.

Bill grabbed his flashlight by the sleeping bag, flicked it on, and shined it through the bars. He swung the beam of light up and down the street outside until it finally happened upon a small figure sitting in the middle of the deserted road about twenty yards to the right.

"Hello?" Bill called out. "Ma'am?" The figure hunched over in an odd sort of way, her wailing suddenly stopped. "Listen, miss, if you can prove to me you're not infected, I'll let you in. There's no need to cry about..." He trailed off as the woman rose to her feet and extended her fingers. They were abnormally long with nails that looked like talons. Bill recoiled a bit at the sight of them. Was this lady some damn hippie?

"Ma'am, can you say something?" He shoved his flashlight up against the bar to focus its beam more directly on her. As soon as he did this, the woman let out a terrible screech before turning and bolting at him.

With almost no time to react, all Bill managed to do was drop his flashlight in horror before this creature, clearly no woman, was up by the door. Groping for the flashlight in blind terror, he heard her throw herself against the door which gave an almighty shake as she continued to scream. And then she stuck her talons through the door and slashed him across his back.

Howling with pain, Bill fell onto his bad knee. As he threw his hands out to soften his fall, he felt the reassuring grip of his pistol. Filled with adrenaline, he spotted the flashlight flickering a few feet away from him. Grabbing both he stood back up and turned to face this horrible creature.

As the light hit her face, Bill stumbled back again in horror. Her eyes were slits of red, visible through the stringy, mangled hair that fell in front of her twisted face. He fired an entire round of ammo straight into that horrible face and with one final, gut-wrenching cry she fell.

Bill was not a particularly superstitious or religious man, not after some things he had seen in Vietnam, but the first thing he thought of as he stared down in horror through the bars at this creature's body was the stories of witches his older brothers had told him as a child to scare him. In these stories, the old witches always had red eyes and attacked children. Bill was no child, but he began to wonder if perhaps there had been some truth to the wild stories his siblings had made up many decades ago.

Zoey decided to take a shower (since the water was still running...for now) to let Olivia sleep in peace for a bit and calm her own nerves. Surely her roommate could not have fallen victim to the infection. The two of them, like everyone else who could not make it home, had been under strict orders to stay only in their hall. It was nearly impossible to enforce, since the campus security officers were dropping like flies, but even if Tony had come into the room, what harm could that do? The media had been arguing for a week as to how the virus was spread. Top virologists had a wide range of theories from airborne to waterborne to being spread via bite. Most places had taken precautions assuming it was airborne, and facemasks were required in public four days after the outbreak started.

Zoey threw on her robe after her shower and made her way back to her room. Most of the doors were left open, its inhabitants having left and security having searched their rooms for anything "suspicious". What help the college hoped the bottles of booze and condoms the officers were sure to find would be, Zoey did not know.

She pulled her keycard from her robe pocket and entered her room. She glanced over at Olivia's bed and was startled to find it empty. Alarmed, she quickly closed the door behind her and looked around the room. And then she saw her roommate crouched in the corner, banging her head against the mini-fridge.

"Olivia, what the hell?!" Zoey began to walk toward her roommate but stopped short when the girl's gaze snapped up to her. With vomit dripping from her mouth, Olivia let out a guttural growl as she caught sight of Zoey. She jumped to her feet and rushed toward her roommate.

Terrified, Zoey reacted without thinking by grabbing the television on Olivia's dresser and smashing it down onto the girl's head as she rushed at her. Olivia stumbled backwards, snarling. Zoey darted over to her own bed and frantically shoved books and assorted DVDs off of her desk in a scramble for anything she could use to defend herself. Her eyes caught sight of a pair of scissors. Sick at the thought of it, she picked them up and turned to face her friend.

Having recovered from her previous blow to the head, Olivia again rounded on Zoey and rushed at her, horrifyingly inhuman sounds escaping her lips. Reacting out of her instinct to survive, Zoey brought the scissors down into the soft flesh of Olivia's scalp. Screaming in pain, Olivia fell backwards and writhed on the floor as she clutched her head. Her frantic thrashings quickly slowed until she became completely still as a pool of blood formed around her head.

Zoey sank to the floor in horror. "Olivia...oh my God...oh my God...I'm so sorry...Olivia...holy shit...oh my God..." And as the pool of blood slowly began to stain Olivia's shag rug, Zoey began to cry.

Francis Palling was happier than he had been in a long time. For most people the spread of this infection meant the end of life as they knew it. For Francis it meant he had been released from prison 18 months earlier than expected, and he was now participating in the world's biggest bar fight without fear of consequence.

He was currently making his way down a beaten road with a diner, a haircuttery, and a gun shop about a block up on his left. He was immensely pleased with himself, having just knocked out exactly fourteen vampires (he'd counted the bodies) with his trusty shotgun and finding a ten dollar bill in one of their pockets. Granted, money didn't seem to carry much weight anymore, but he figured it could probably buy him a favor in the future. If worse came to worse, which he secretly hoped it did, he could always burn it for heat. Life was pretty damn good.

Taking care to step on a particularly large roach (he hated roaches), he made his way toward the gun shop. He wouldn't trade his shotgun for the world, but his latest fourteen victims had cost him more ammunition than he would have liked. Even invincible people had to restock now and then.

Francis was happy to find the body of a vampire crumpled at the very entrance to the door. He pressed the heel of his shoe to her ugly face and bore down, leaving a mark.

"Bitch," he muttered before peering into the gun shop. The upper part of the door was covered in fitted iron bars. He had not expected a setback like this, but it didn't matter much to him. He reached out, grasped one and shook it to test their durability.

Immediately an older man was at the bars with a gun pointed in Francis's face. Francis whipped out his own shotgun as instinct and pointed it back.

"Say something!" the old man barked.

"Well, hey there, grandpa," Francis replied. "Mind lowering that gun?" The man's eyes lit up with relief at the realization that Francis was not infected, but he did not lower his weapon.

"Mind lowering yours? And you're sure as hell not young enough to be my grandson. Don't flatter yourself." Impressed with the old man's retort, Francis grinned.

"Then you got a name? Or should I just call you Pops?"

"It's Sergeant Overbeck to you."

"Whoa-hoa, forgive me, Sergeant," Francis responded, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Didn't realize I was speaking to a man in uniform. So you're a veteran of what...the Civil War?"

"You wanna stop being a smartass and tell me your name and your purpose?"

"Francis Palling. No sergeant in there. And I'd like some more ammo for ol' trusty here." He waved his shotgun. "Getting a bit low taking out these damn vampires. So you wanna be a gentleman, Sergeant, and let me have some of those rounds?"

"How do I know I can trust you?"

"You don't."

"Then leave."

"Oh, come on, gramps. What do I gotta do to prove my honor?"

"Bathing more than once a year would help." Francis opened his mouth to insult the man's age again when a collective shriek rose from nearby. Immediately both men turned their guns away from one another and out into the street. A group of brawling infected stumbled out onto the road.

"Don't move," Overbeck muttered.

"What, should I just stand here and look pretty until they spot me?"

"If you don't move, they may not see you."

"Why don't you just let me in there so if they do see me, I won't have to waste more ammo?" The old man sighed.

"Fine, but if you pull any bullshit-"

"Jesus Christ, you're paranoid. I'm not gonna steal all your stuff." Overbeck began to to unlock the multiple bolts in the door between them. As he undid the last one the door made a horrible scraping noise as it dragged against the frame in its attempt to open. Immediately, the infected were no longer interested in fighting. They had seen Francis.

Francis gladly unloaded a spray of bullets into the charging group of vampires. He chuckled as he watched them fall, until his gun suddenly clicked. He squeezed the trigger again out of desperation, and the same unthinkable thing happened.

"Holy shit, gramps, open the door!"

"You think I'm not trying?! I've wedged it in the frame real good here."

"For the love of-" Francis charged at the remaining two vampires, using the butt of his gun to smash both of their faces. They both stumbled backwards, one fell flat on her face. As they both took a few seconds to regain their standing, he struck them again, sending blood flying and both of them permanently onto the ground.

"Ha! No bullets? No problem! Its so good to be- OH SHIT!" Another group of infected, this one much bigger, rounded the corner, evidently having been attracted by the cries of the ones Francis had just destroyed. He bolted back toward the door which Overbeck was still struggling with.

"I'm gonna need you to open this door NOW!" Francis roared.

"I'm trying! I'm trying!" Afraid, though he would never admit it to himself, Francis raised a foot and kicked at the door. It flew open, knocking the old man square in the jaw. Francis scrambled inside and slammed the door shut behind him. His hands grabbed at the bolts and he did them out of order, missing several in his panic. When the group of infected slammed into the door, however, it held, and the old man unloaded his gun onto them until they all lay in a pile with what Francis's new partner had dubbed a witch.

There was a moment of silence between them after that, until Francis broke into a grin and yelled: "Hell yes! Thanks for that, gramps!"

"Just call me Bill, since Sergeant Overbeck is clearly too complicated for you."

"Well, I appreciate this. Although you may wanna learn how to open doors more efficiently for next time, Bill."

Bill mumbled an incoherent response and lit a cigarette.

Louis Woods sat in his recliner and stared at the television as he did every weekday at 6 PM. Only now, it was not an attempt to forget how much he hated his job, nor was the television even working. Everything had gone offline a few days ago.

He absentmindedly stroked the pistol he now kept with him at all times as he reflected on how fast everything had gone to hell. Louis had always been an outrageous optimist, often to the point of annoying others, but even he was hard-pressed to think of any silver lining in this situation. He hadn't seen outside of his house in almost a week. No natural light managed to penetrate the boards on his windows and doors. The darkness at night was so thick and terrifying that he had taken to sleeping with at least one light on.

He hadn't seen another human being in just as long. What was more frightening was that he had not heard anything to indicate the presence of any other survivors for days. It was only the snarls and the shrieks of the infected that now kept him company.

Louis had always been a people person, and he felt the isolation would eventually drive him mad. There were a host of people he would rather see now than be alone: his boss, his greedy coworkers, even his cheating ex-fiancee of a few years ago. Anything was better than being so alone.

This was why when he heard what he could have sworn was a human voice say "Shit!" out near his front door he thought he'd finally lost his mind. Still, he could not pass up the opportunity that he might find another survivor. He bolted out of the recliner, nearly forgetting to bring along the pistol in his haste and pressed his ear up against the barricaded door.

"Hello?" he called. There was a long pause, and just as his hopes began to sink he heard it:

"Hello?!" It was a female's voice, and Louis thought it was the most glorious thing he'd heard in a long time.

"Are you infected?" he asked.

"No. I've got bites all over, and I feel fine. Are you?"

"No! I've got them too, and I haven't gotten sick. Here, wait just a sec." He reached up to the top board nailed across the door and pulled at it. It splintered violently as he tugged, but he was unfazed by the sharp points of wood as he continued to work his way down the door.

Finally, with the last board ripped off, he undid the deadbolt and the lock and threw open the door. Out in the trashed apartment hallway stood a young woman, clad in a red track jacket and dark washed jeans holding a baseball bat at the ready. He took a step back at the sight of her defensive stance.

"I'm not gonna hurt you," he said.

"No offense, but I don't know you or your intentions."

"Intentions? What you think...you think I'm gonna kill you or sumthin'?"

"Raping and maiming were on my list too." Louis was horrified.

"Hell no! I won't lay a finger on you if that's what you want." The genuine horror in his expression seemed to ease the girl's fears a bit. "Please, come in." He gestured into his apartment. She entered cautiously, and he shut the door behind her. He realized he's need to redo the barricade on it.

"What's your name?" he asked her.

"Zoey. And yours?"

"I'm Louis. I'm so glad to see another human being." Zoey cracked a smile.

"Me too."

Francis had never met someone as grumpy as Bill Overbeck, not even in prison. Bill had never met someone has rude as Francis Palling, not even in boot camp. Needless to say, the safe room they had occupied together for the past two days was generally silent.

Bill had spent the past hour obsessively cleaning out his gun, and Francis was unsure whether this was out of boredom or a future endeavor that would result in one of their murders. The old man didn't scare him; not in the least bit, but he took a mental note to perhaps lay off the sarcasm for a little while.

"We can't stay here forever," Bill spoke up. "We gotta get moving soon. The government's advice is bullshit."

"That I can agree with you on," Francis replied. "But where in hell would we go?"

"I don't know," Bill admitted. "There's gotta be a military outpost somewhere around here." Francis scoffed. "You got a problem with the military?"

"Yeah, I got a problem with the goddamn military."

"Then where do you suggest we go?"

"The countryside's bound to have less vampires since it's got less people out there to infect."

"So you're saying we're gonna hike all the way out Allegheny Park? That's about the closest to a 'countryside' we have out here, boy."

"Well, it was better than your suggestion." Bill rolled his eyes.

"Christ, you're impossible..." He went back to cleaning his gun.

"Oh come on, gramps, cheer up."

"What in the hell is there to be cheerful about? Name ONE thing, Francis. Jesus Christ...go back to the trailer park you came from"

"Go back to Vietnam, old man. It's the only place you're useful." A stony silence passed between them. Francis finally broke it.

"Tomorrow I'm headin' out to the country with or without you."

"Well, good luck to you, sir."

"I'll be going alone then, huh?"

"You bet your ass you'll..." Bill suddenly stopped talking and sighed. He set his gun down on the floor and glanced over at his fellow survivor. "Listen up, ass, 'cause I'm only saying this once. I don't want for us to go our separate ways. It ain't safe, and as obnoxious as you may be, you're still the first non-infected I've seen in a long time."

"Aw, geez, don't start crying, Bill." The older man glared at him. "Alright, gramps, we'll make a deal. We'll head for the countryside together-"

"But if along the way we come across a military outpost we're going with them. Got it? And I don't wanna hear you bitchin' and moaning the whole trip."

"Okay."

"Shake on it." Bill extended a hand. Francis took it awkwardly and gave his word, the first time he had ever sincerely done so in his life.

Louis had redone the barricade on his front door, checked the boards on all his windows at least six times and reread the last newspaper that had come out so often that he could recite the first paragraph from the headline story from memory. He did not know what to do with himself anymore. He wanted to ask Zoey everything: what she had seen, who she was, where she was from. To his dismay, however, she had fallen asleep on his couch nearly five hours ago and had not moved since. He didn't have the heart to wake her.

He settled himself in the lounge chair opposite her, erased the answers to the crossword puzzle in the last newspaper, and began to do it for the third time. His gaze kept finding its way over to the young woman curled up across from him. He would not allow himself to find her pretty; she had told him she was nineteen before passing out. She was seven years his junior and, end of the world or not, that would just be creepy.

He supposed it would be acceptable to find her oddly fascinating, which he certainly did. She was the first human he had seen in almost a week and had miraculously appeared in the apartment hallway just as he thought he was losing his mind. Her presence was most welcome.

Zoey began to stir as Louis finished the last section of the crossword, and a few minutes later she sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

"You're alive," Louis observed.

"Somehow," she replied. "Shit, how long was I out?"

"Nearly five hours. Didn't wanna wake you. Figured you needed that."

"I did. Thanks."

"You hungry?" Her eyes practically lit up.

"You have food?!"

"Um...depends on how you define food." She gave him a puzzled look. "Cereal?"

"I wouldn't say no to that." She made to get off the couch.

"No, no, you stay there! I've got it." He practically jumped up out of the lounge chair, happy to have something productive to do.

Zoey let out a short laugh when Louis returned a few minutes later with the cereal in a bowl.

"I didn't realize I was ordering off the gourmet menu. You're too nice." He gestured dismissively.

"I like having something to do. Especially now...keeps my mind off of all that shit out there."

"Yeah..." Zoey's face fell at the mention of the world outside the peaceful walls she and Louis were sheltered inside of. He realized he'd upset her.

"Hey. Smile when it hurts the most. That's my philosophy."

"I think I've forgotten how."

"Get up!" Francis realized he was being shaken roughly and did not appreciate it. He mumbled a string of incoherent swear words and tried to shake off this intrusion to his sleep. He'd been having a damn nice dream. It was a shame that all the scantily clad women from his past that had come into it were probably vampires now.

"GET UP!" He realized it was Bill who was shaking him into consciousness. He appreciated this even less.

"What the hell, Bill?" he growled angrily. "Don't fondle me in my sleep."

"We're setting out today, remember?" Bill responded, ignoring the insult.

"Jesus Christ, do we hafta do it at the ass crack of dawn?"

"Yes. It'll teach you some discipline."

"I am disciplined. I'm not strangling you right now." Bill "accidentally" kneed Francis in the face as he stood back up.

The two of them gathered the necessary supplies in silence. A rather heated discussion of who would carry the backpack first ensued shortly thereafter before Francis finally slung it across his own back, mumbling where Bill could stick it when he carried it.

Bill took several minutes to thoroughly scan the horizon beyond the steel bars of their shelter. Francis couldn't help but be impressed with the care the old man took to make sure their initial going would be safe. He felt respect for the veteran creeping up. He angrily shook it off.

"Looks clear. Let's go." Bill undid the bolts on the door and took care when wedging it open to do so as silently as possible. He was mostly successful, but even the slight scraping of the door did not attract any Infected.

"See? Even the damn vampires are asleep. Why the hell are we up?" Francis complained.

"They don't sleep!" Bill shot back. "They don't eat, they don't do anything but exist. It's bullshit."

"It was a joke, old man."

"Well, forgive me for not finding much humor in our current situation!"

"Whatever."

They traveled in silence for a good half hour, encountering a few Infected that they easily disposed of.

Bill tried not to remember how he'd watched the sun rise in silence a little over a year ago on the morning his wife had died. He'd have given anything for the person with him to be his college aged daughter, Anna, as it had been on that morning so like this one, rather than this biker who could use a healthy dose of ass-kicking. Bill had never been much of a sentimental man; 'Nam had taught him not to show his feelings. He now regretted how rarely he had hugged his daughter. Where was she now? Terrified? Alone? Dead? Or worse yet... Infected? Would he recognize her if he saw her, or would he shoot his own flesh and blood without ever knowing it?

His sorrowful reflection was broken when a blood-curdling screech split the quiet morning air. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a flash of darkness followed by a frightened yell from his companion. Bill turned on the spot to find...a man? No, this was no man...a monster pinning Francis to the ground and tearing at his flesh.

Instinctively, Bill lunged forward, smashing the face of the attacker with the butt of his gun. It gave an inhuman cry as it rolled back off of Francis who then proceeded to fire a spray of bullets directly into its face. It gave a final yelp and then fell silent.

Bill reached out, extending his hand to the biker sprawled on his back. Francis was spluttering in shock: "What the...what...what the hell was that?"

"I don't know, son. C'mon, get up." The biker grabbed Bill's wrist and hauled himself to his feet.

"Er...thanks." Bill shrugged off the thanks as he bent down to examine the monster that had attacked out of nowhere. It's skin was gray...definitely Infected. It was clad in a dark sweatshirt and brown pants, all battened down with duct tape. The hood of its sweatshirt had fallen back to reveal empty sockets where the eyes should have been. Bill had seen worse...seen whole faces blown off in Vietnam...but somehow this was more frightening. He and Francis exchanged a worried glance.

"Well," Bill said after several seconds of silence, "nothing to do but keep moving."

The nap and the cereal did wonders for Zoey who perked up considerably as the night wore on. Since she had caught up on some sleep she did not grow tired, and Louis was too exhilarated to be in the company of another human being to think of sleeping. They had no sense of natural time because Louis had very thoroughly boarded up his windows. Therefore, he was amazed to see how the time flew as they talked.

She didn't seem keen to open up to a stranger at first, so he just talked. He told her about the job he'd been working up the courage to quit, about how he wanted to go back and get a Master's degree in something that he actually gave a shit about-something other than computers and technology, about his family, about his ex-fiancee of three years ago, even about the one time his co-workers had talked him into eating wasabi and he thought he was going to die because of it. He just talked, pleased that there was someone there to listen. And slowly she began to talk too.

It was mostly about college, which, in reality, wasn't so long ago for Louis. She said her father had absolutely insisted she major in economics or business or he wouldn't pay for her tuition, when all she had ever wanted to do since the age of seven was be a film director. She said her grades were pretty terrible because she found it hard to motivate herself to go to classes when she didn't care about the subjects at all.

According to Louis's watch it was just after 4 AM when their laughter at the stupidity of his co-workers drew a unnerving noise from outside. They both stopped laughing simultaneously when they heard it.

"What is that?" Zoey whispered.

"I don't know...listen." It sounded as though something was...coughing? Louis's spirits lifted again-someone else was still alive! He glanced over at Zoey, expecting to see her reacting as gleefully as him. Instead, her face was twisted into an expression of wary confusion.

"What's wrong?" Louis asked. "Someone else is still alive!"

"Maybe...but they're coughing. What if they're Infected?"

"Is coughing a symptom?"

"My roommate, Olivia..." Zoey trailed off and her jaw tightened. "Never mind." Judging by her expression of pain, Louis decided not to press the issue.

"I'll just call out to them once or twice. If they don't respond, then we'll know they're Infected." He patted the boards over the window confidently. "Even if they aren't human we don't have to worry about them getting to us. Okay?" Zoey seemed to have gone suddenly mute, but she gave him a cursory nod in response.

Louis pressed the left side of his face up against the boards to make sure his voice was the closest it could get to the outside and called out a single "Hello?!" The coughing continued. He tried once again.

"Hello?" Still, no change. Louis shrugged, his joy deflating. "Well, I guess you were rig-" A gray hand shot through a single board, sending splintered pieces directly into Zoey's face. She gave a cry of pain and stumbled back; her hands flew up to shield her eyes.

Concerned for her condition, Louis completely forgot that a hand had just shot through his barricade. He stepped toward her and opened his mouth to express concern when suddenly he could not speak...he could not breathe as an unknown, long, and slimy object constricted his windpipe.

As his brain went into panic mode from the lack of oxygen, he was pulled off his feet and back toward the sharp pieces of wood that had been a sturdy barricade not four seconds ago. The back of his head slammed into a still intact board as the same gray hand swung through the air and collided painfully with his shoulder.

And then, he was released and his knees buckled under him. From the floor, he saw something flash through the air and heard a terrible thud as it collided with another unknown out of his current range of vision. He rolled over onto his back, coughing uncontrollably as his lungs filled with glorious air and watched in a sort of stupor as Zoey beat the attacker across the head with a lamp. On the third hit, it crumpled and a puff of green smoke inexplicably exploded from it, filling the area near it with a putrid odor.

Louis managed to stumble to his feet and darted away from the window to escape the foul smell with Zoey right behind him. As the smoke began to clear out, they gazed at one another incredulously.

"What...the...hell?" he managed to spit out, his voice weakened from his coughing fit. Zoey shook her head in horror to indicate she was as clueless as he.

"Are you okay?" she asked after several more seconds.

"Yeah...yeah...I'm alright. You okay?" She indicated the left side of her forehead.

"One of those splinters nicked me pretty good, but I'm not hurt. It'll make for a great bruise though." She flashed him a smile to indicate this was a joke. He would have laughed if he'd had the breath in him to do so.

They both made their way over to the unidentified Infected that lay in a heap amongst several broken boards.

"What did he use to grab me?" Louis asked. Zoey pointed, with obvious disgust, at a long tongue trailing from the zombie's mouth. "Oh. Sorry I asked."

"Do you think this is who was coughing?" she asked.

"I guess," he replied. "You think with the end of the world and all, he'd of quit smoking."

"I don't think so," Zoey said. "If it's the apocalypse it's all the more reason to have some way of relaxing. He had his cigarettes, and you have an inhuman amount of optimism." They both grinned at the exchange.

"Well, you just have a way of bringing me a few more reasons for that optimism." He realized the awkwardness of this statement the second it had come out of his mouth. "Sorry."

Zoey shrugged it off, rose to her feet and inspected the few remaining boards of the failed barricade.

"Well, whatever your outlook, you can't deny this is bad. We can't stay here any longer."

Bill let out an excessively audible sigh when Francis decided to point out the umpteenth thing he hated in the past hour (this time it was yield signs-"I mean, what's the frickin' POINT?" Francis insisted). Their going had been very quiet since the attack of the eyeless monster, and Bill's nerves had finally calmed down.

He went back to reflecting on his life prior to the Infection-about his wife, Liza, and his beautiful and perfect daughter, Anna, who had been one of the few things in this world that brought him consistent joy. He wasn't entirely sure of the exact date anymore, but he knew it was still October. Anna would be turning 23 in early December, graduating college in the spring, and going on to do world-changing things...except he wasn't so sure anymore. He hoped with every fiber of his being that she had made it to one of the evac centers scattered across the area...that she was somewhere safe and warm and beautifully alive.

He thought of Liza too who he was glad had not lived to see the world as it was now. Their marriage had never been the happiest in the world-they'd met at a New Year's party shortly after he returned from Vietnam and were married by that summer, caught up in the honeymoon phase of the relationship. Passion had died, and they'd both had affairs. It was the unexpected arrival of Anna 13 years into their marriage that had really kept them together. Of course, he had still been devastated to see her go at the far too young age of 53, a victim of lung cancer caused by the cigarettes she and her husband had chain-smoked for decades.

He was surprised to find his face wet when he reached up to shield his eyes from the sun. Frantically, he wiped his cheeks and nose dry for fear the unintelligent biker would mock him mercilessly for showing weakness. Francis seemed too wrapped up in his own thoughts, which were about the guys in his old gang-the motherfuckers he'd gone to prison with for selling some smack to an undercover cop.

As stupid as he often found them, those guys were the only family Francis had ever really known. His mother didn't have the slightest inkling as to who his father was, and she'd run off with her 6th or 7th husband to Jamaica a few years ago anyways. Francis hadn't spoken to her in a while. If he hadn't know for sure that she had been wrinkling in the sun in the Caribbean before the Infection hit, he'd have thought the creature that Bill had killed and dubbed a "witch" was her. Ron, Carlos, and Phil were true family-his blood brothers in Hell's Legion that he'd been running around breaking the law with since his mid-twenties.

He'd watched all three of them succumb to the virus and be bludgeoned to death by the prison guards as they turned before he was released from prison 18 months early. He was the only prisoner who hadn't fallen ill, and the two remaining guards had given him a gun and then released him before barricading themselves inside the jail walls. The end of the world made people do strange things.

Francis had resolved to have a blast in honor of his brothers, killing vampires (that's clearly what they were since they bit people) in their memory. What he wouldn't do to be with one of them right now instead of this old Vietnam veteran who limped a little when he walked and, judging by his temperament, had a stick up his ass.

The screech of several Infected sailed through the air to the two nostalgic men. They both reached for their guns, Francis for his shotgun and Bill for his assault rifle, glanced at one another and exchanged slight, understanding smiles before beginning to fire at the incoming zombies.

The dirt road felt familiar under the tires, even driving in this unfamiliar car. Zoey looked over at Louis who had curled up in the passenger seat, insisting "No, really, I'm not tired!", and then promptly fallen asleep about 20 minutes ago. Having her companion be asleep had unnerved her at first; she was terrified that another slimy tongue would come smashing through the windshield and strangle her. But the ride in Louis's car (it was some foreign kind that she felt weird driving) had been entirely uneventful.

The bumpy road made Louis stir, but he did not wake up. Zoey was grateful for this-she wanted the first glimpse of her home to be entirely her own. With nowhere else to go after the newly-dubbed "Smoker" had destroyed the barricade into Louis's home, Zoey had suggested they go to her family's house. It was a little off the beaten trail. They would find help there. Zoey had never come across a problem that her mother couldn't help her solve. Surely, her parents were still alive. Immunity was probably genetic. And a world without them was unthinkable.

She sighed at the sight of her childhood home. Unlike the buildings near her college and in Riverside, it seemed untouched by the Infection. The red shutters near her bedroom window still swung in the wind (a repair job her father always promised to get around to and never did), her mother's silver BMW was still parked next to the tool shed, and Zoey's old tricycle, paint flaking off from years of love and use, remained on the spot on the porch it had occupied for years.

She reached over and gently shook Louis awake. He started almost violently and grabbed her arm in a viselike grip.

"Ouch, Louis, it's me!" He rubbed the sleep from his eye with his free hand and looked over at her. With the same genuine look of horror he had displayed when she spoke fears of raping and maiming he glanced down at their intertwined arms. He immediately let go.

"Oh, man, I'm so sorry! Are you okay?" She couldn't help but grin at his complete overreaction.

"I'm fine. Did you think I was an Infected or something?"

"I dunno...hey, are we here?"

"Oh, yeah!" She cleared her throat and gestured flamboyantly at the house. "Ta-da! La casa de Zoey!" They smiled at each other.

She was ready to storm the house and run into the arms of her mother when Louis shoved a pistol at her.

"Just take it. Something could have gotten in." She took it reluctantly as she fished her house key out of her jacket pocket.

To her alarm the key was not needed, and the front door swung open as soon as she laid a hand on the doorknob. Fear spread through her like a poison when the open door showed a darkened living room with overturned furniture strewn across the dusty hardwood floor.

Louis came up the porch steps and stood by her side. They both peered in the dark and eerily silent front room.

"You okay?" he asked.

"This isn't right," Zoey replied. "My dad has always been a neat person. He would never let the house get like this."

"Maybe they left in a hurry," Louis suggested. "I think there was an evac center not too far from here." He was lying, of course, they both knew it. The nearest evac center was Mercy Hospital which was half an hour away on a good day. With an endless stream of panicked citizens flowing toward it...what were the chances?

Sensing her unease, Louis stepped in first. He called out a few half-hearted greetings. The only response was the frantic skittering of a mouse across the floor which caused both of them to yell out in fright.

Once his heart rate finally slowed back to normal Louis took a few more cautious steps into the dining room. The sight that greeted him caused horror to rise in his throat like vomit.

"Oh no..."

"What? What is it?!" Before he could say anything else, Zoey had bolted forward to stand beside him. Her strangled cry confirmed his suspicions.

A man with hair the exact same color and texture as Zoey's was propped against the wall, dead. A hunting rifle lay by his side. The petite figure of a woman sat curled up in front of him, her grayish face resting on his chest. Her arm was blown clean away. Her features clearly showed that she was Infected when she died. The man, however, showed no signs of the Green Flu. His swollen and blackened tongue indicated suicide by poison. He must have shot the woman, his wife and Zoey's mother, when she tried to attack him and then killed himself...not before wrapping his arms around the body of his wife. The sight would have been sweet if they were alive...

Zoey fell to her knees, screaming like a wounded animal. Louis could only look at her-he had never heard a human being make such grief-stricken noises. What would he have done, though, if the sight before them was of his parents instead?

He stooped down and placed a hand on her back to test her reaction. She angrily shook it off and through her wails he discerned two words:

"Go away!"

The sun was setting on a devastated Pennsylvania and for two exhausted men it signaled the onset of the terrifying darkness that nighttime meant. Bill was panting from a steep uphill climb and clutching at a stitch in his side. His bad knee was getting progressively wobblier as the sun sank lower in the sky.

Francis heaved a great sigh as he surveyed the sight below them. The paved road they had been following for the majority of the day now gave way to a dirt road. Through the trees he could see the tips of a few roofs.

"Great, we're headed into the boonies now. I hate rednecks."

"Shut up for once, Francis," Bill said between sharp inhales. "We need to figure out where to get some rest tonight." Francis reloaded his shotgun to avoid giving suggestions. The steady click-clack-click-clack of the shells as they slid into the chamber was reassuring to the both of them. Sensing his companion was going to be of no help Bill pressed onward.

"I think the relative isolation of those farmhouses will do us some good. There are less people to infect, and, therefore-"

"Less vampires. Good thinkin', Bill." The veteran scanned the horizon.

"What about that one?" he asked, pointing to the closest farmhouse roof. "It doesn't look too far from here." Francis nodded at him.

"You need me to carry you, gramps? Yer lookin' a little tired." Francis heard the old man's response as he started down the hill.

"Shut up."

Louis was awakened suddenly by nearby movement. Blindly, he groped for his pistol. His finger touched the comforting, cold metal, but his eyesight adjusted well enough to see the moving figure was wearing a familiar reddish pink track jacket.

"You're awake," Zoey said coldly.

"I don't even remember falling asleep..." He sat up and caught sight of the few remaining rays of sunlight that came through the window. They were strangely elongated as they illuminated the thin layer of dust on the hardwood floor. "Shit, I was really out."

"Yep." The events of earlier came rushing back to his mind. The force of these recollections nearly gave him a headache.

"Zoey..." She sat down and leaned against him; her petite figure molding into his understanding hug.

They sat in silence for a long time. She did not cry. He supposed she had had the entirety of the day alone with her thoughts. He did not want to be the first to speak, so he simply allowed himself to enjoy the feel of her heartbeat on his side: its steady flutter the only thing that differentiated them from the Infected prowling outside.