Riverside First Church

"There's lights on in that church!"

- Zoey "I can't believe he bit me...I should have never let him in... it's been an hour... I must be immune. Better safe than sorry..."

- Church Guy

Riverside First Church is seen at the end of Chapter Three and at the beginning of Chapter Four in the Death Toll campaign of Left 4 Dead.

History
This small place of worship was evidently constructed in the 19th century and continues to serve a Protestant congregation drawn from the citizens of Riverside. Architecturally, it features a wooden construction by using a classic "American schoolhouse" design.

The nave is somewhat small and would accept no more than 20 or perhaps 30 worshipers at a devotional service. A number of pews are in evidence, now upended and blocked in place as window barricades. The church features a miniature apse, chancel, choir stall and an antique upright piano. A small presbytery occupies the space underneath the church's square-plan bell tower and contains two electronic audio amplifiers. This domain was converted into a safe room with weapons and supplies located in a second room overhead in the bell tower accessed via a built-in ladder.

At the rear of the church, a vestibule containing the parish office opens out to a fairly extensive graveyard that appears to reflect two phases of expansion or burials of deceased from differing denominations. One site is located immediately adjacent to the church while another exists lower down the hill and features a gateway opening onto the Riverside access road and a sexton's shed. This cemetery contains approximately 80 graves, making it a relatively small one. The absence of family or conjoint (Husband and wife) graves indicates the possibility that it's occupants were sole survivors of the church's early or founding congregations, perhaps co-dating to the establishment of Riverside itself.

Current Status
CEDA converted Riverside First Church into an evacuation center shortly after the Infection spread. After the military authorities retreated to Riverside, they barricaded and blew the town's access routes up and fortified selected key points in an effort to protect inhabitants, evacuees, refugees and their personnel from the Infection. On account of it dominating the town's high ground, the church was made into a defensive position fortified with sandbags and razor wire. It is apparent that, once the town's defenses are erected, the church also served as a primary access portal for stragglers and small groups of refugees who would have been directed up to the church through the graveyard from the blocked off main road. Numerous evacuees traveling this route took the opportunity to pause and write the names and dates of the deaths of the loved ones on one of the church's walls. Unfortunately, Bill is correct in surmising that all of the physical barriers in the world would not be enough since all of what it took was one infected person to bring the contagion into Riverside.

By the time that the Survivors arrived, Riverside is completely overrun with Infected and all surviving military personnel and civilians fled. An exception is the Church Guy who for whatever personal reasons stayed behind in the church's safe room. Evidently, the stress, mounting despair and cabin-fever loneliness began to work on his mind and in a moment of weakness, he opened the door to an infected refugee who attacked him, leaving him in an even more mentally unhinged state. He consequently spurns the Survivors' entreaties, threats and assurances and refuses them entry to the safe room even going so far to ring the church bell to attract a horde of Infected so it will free him from these troublesome interlopers. Since he says that he was bitten by his infected guest, the Church Guy ultimately mutates into a Special Infected.