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-bi-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 ten 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."