Oh hey! It’s what Mark was up to prior to the infection! Unfortunately it also tells the story of the first meeting of the original Four. Sorry, I just couldn’t stop so it kinda got away from Mark near the end...
“Finally!” The lanky young man said with a large smile. It’d taken hours but he’d finally gotten all of his things inside the apartment and arranged just right. He knew that it’d be into the ‘college zone’ in just a few weeks but for now it looked absolutely perfect to him despite the fact that most of his furniture was essentially trash that he’d picked up from relatives willing to donate it to him.
Glancing around he decided that he should get showered and dressed before going out to eat. It wasn’t often he felt like treating himself but when he did he certainly didn’t want to go out in running attire. Heading towards his bathroom, a rather small one as was dictated by his price range, he couldn’t shake the feeling that everything was gonna be perfect!
“New place, new town, new college… Well newer compared to the other places that didn’t accept me… But whatever, that’s not important! All that matters is that nothing could possibly ruin this moment!”
“OH GOD!” A woman shrieked from outside his apartment door. “Get off me! GET OFF ME!”
“What?” Mark was rather surprised by the screaming. So much so that he didn’t hesitate to dash to the door. Whatever was happening out there he knew he had to stop it. What he saw nearly got him killed.
A screaming woman was trying to fight off several sickly looking people who, to Mark’s great surprise, eating her alive.
Mark was unable to look away and unable to do anything but watch as her struggles slowly ceased. Then just as swiftly she began moving again. She wasn’t fighting off her attackers anymore for they weren’t attacking her. Instead they all slowly rose, almost in unison and began wandering around aimlessly. That is, the ones who hadn’t noticed Mark watching them. The ones that had, including the woman who was now missing several important looking chunks of flesh, charged him with a ferocity he had only seen on the “When Animals Besiege” show he had loved when younger.
It took him a little longer than it should have to slam the door, alerting the others to his presence, and lock it. “Oh shit man! Fuckin’… Zombies or some shit!” Mark had never really been a “zombie” guy. He preferred things more like “Modern Military Battles: 3” or the like to seeing a zombie movie. But he did know one thing. They weren’t supposed to be that fast.
The slamming of multiple fists on his flimsy door made him realize that time was of the essence and he really couldn’t afford to spend any more of it in here. Grabbing the best weapon he could find, a dull kitchen knife, he ran to one of the two windows in his apartment and wrenched it open. The sound of a city in chaos enveloped his ears. Cries of panic and rage sounded and he even saw men leaping from building to building just to crash through the windows with inhuman screams.
Hopping out of the window and onto the fire escape seemed like a good idea at the time. It really did. Unfortunately others on the upper floors seemed to agree as a small flood of people rushed past him shouting and attracting attention. One man, a particularly heavy set one dressed as a cop, seemed to tire or others in front of him and began firing shots at the slower people.
Mark didn’t stick around long enough to find out what happened as he leapt back into his apartment and dashed towards the bathroom. Zombies frightened him but the man with the gun did even more. He might be able to outrun a zombie, he reasoned, but a bullet was another story.
Mark waited for only a few moments as the sound of gun-fire stopped, from what he could gather the others had mobbed the man and tossed him from the fire-escape, and the pounding at his door ceased. Once the noises seemed slightly more distant, for he couldn’t afford to waste time trapped in his bathroom, he tried the fire-escape again. Mobs of people seemed to be rushing every way but up.
With an almost super-human, he would later say, burst of speed he made his way down the fire-escape and to the streets, pausing only briefly to relieve the officer of his pistol and ammo. He heard shoutings of a “Safe Building in the offices!” and followed the first group he could that seemed to be heading that way. It was insane how little he thought once mention of safety was uttered. He followed the people in an almost herd-like mentality.
They reached the office building with half the number they had started with though dozens of people seemed to join them just as quickly as they lost others. Mark began paying more attention to his surroundings as the building came into view and looking behind him, for a brief second, he realized that none of the people they had lost were gone. The running corpses, or at least he assumed as he didn’t know how this infection worked, were trailing them easily and even taking bloody bites out of some of the slower members.
“Fuck!” Mark yelled as he began running as fast as he could up the stairs leading into the building. He hoped he had the right one as he knew he wouldn’t have a second chance. Running up the stairs to avoid the crowded elevators Mark wasn’t even aware of his tired legs or the shrieks of the infected behind him.
Finally sanctuary revealed itself in the form of a sturdy red door with the words “Safe-room” printed on it. The ugliest man Mark had ever seen yanked the door open “GET IN!” He shouted as he slammed the door behind Mark who had already entered.
“Oh god… Are they… Am I it?”
“It looks like it.” The Ugly Man said “I don’t think anyone else could make it through that many of them without getting bit.”
“Is that how you turn?”
The Ugly Man sighed “I don’t know…”
“Is it just us?”
“No. There’s that girl in the corner.” Gesturing briefly to a crying woman in the corner muttering to herself. “Do you have a g-gun?” The Ugly Man asked with obvious discomfort at the idea of a fire-arm.
“Yeah. Got one off a cop. A pistol…”
“Okay. Good. There were… Too many guns in here. I threw them in the corner over there.” The Ugly Man, an obvious brute, seemed somewhat… Timid to Mark.
“Hey man… It’s okay. Whatever you had to do.”
“I didn’t… Not yet. I think… No…” The Ugly Man “I don’t know anyone sane who could possib-“
Several loud gun-shots and laughter were heard down the hall as several of the infected dashed away from the door.
“Is that… The Army?” Mark perked up. The Army could protect them!
“No. That sounds like a pistol. Plus who in the army laughs at killing civilians. We better hide just in case.”
The three survivors, including the quieted woman, hid in the corner as they listened to more gleeful laughter and bullets.
“I never knew it’d be this fun to fire this thing! Dumb bastard shot himself? All the better for me!”
“Oh god, it’s a psychopath!” Mark muttered only to be shushed by the Ugly Man.
“Oooh, a safe-room? Hey! Anyone in there?”
Looking at eachother the three survivors couldn’t hide their fear. It was Ugly Jim who spoke.
“Yes. Just me. What do you want?”
“Safety. Or Meatloaf!”
“I don’t have any meatloaf and can’t open the door. I’m sorry. You’ll have to go somewhere else.” The Ugly Man patted Mark’s shoulder in a reassuring gesture. Mark was certain he was doing the same for the girl.
“Oh…” The voice, a female voice it seemed, paused for a few moments before saying “Hm? Okay I’ll ask. Can you really not open the door or were you put off by the laughing?”
“Are there others with you?”
“Hey now,” The voice’s tone seemed to shift “I asked you a question first!”
The Ugly Man grumbled something that Mark couldn’t quite hear “I can’t open it. How many of you are there? How many with guns?”
“Just one gun. There’s Clair, Uriel, Sue, and Amy. Amy’s hiding gone now. She was the one laughing.”
“Who am I talking to?”
“Uriel if you must know. But since you can’t-“
“We can open the door!” the girl shouted.
“What?”
“Just come over I’ll let you in. Just don’t let the other one… The laugher.”
“Well-“
With a speed that put Mark’s to shame the woman opened the door allowing for a red-headed woman to enter.
“So… Where are the others?” Mark asked examining the straight jacket on the girl.
“We’re all here… Not that it matters I guess… I’m Clair. I was at the asylum… I miss Nurse Joyfields…”
Mark wasn’t sure but he felt like travelling with these three, especially the mad woman, would be his only option so he defaulted to his only real idea: Humor “So… Zombies huh? This kinda bites.”
The small chuckle that went through Clair was enough to convince him that she wasn’t going to kill them. As long as Amy was kept far away… He actually had a good feeling with the bruiser at his side.
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Topic: Left 4 Dead: Back 4 More [Highway to Hell: Chapter 4/5] [Normal] (Read 74312 times)