Left 4 Dead Fan Fiction
The Forgotten Survivors
by TheDark12
Chapter Four - Onslaught
Private Victoria Chase watched in horror as the wave of zombies crashed against the side of the Humvee and splayed out in all directions like flowing water. They surrounded Charlie at the Humvee that he was trying to use for cover. She gripped her roof-mounted machine gun a little tighter, her finger hovered over the trigger. She couldn't shoot until Charlie and his new partner were either in the Humvee, behind the Humvee or dead.
Infected were still clawing at the cement wall of the library, moaning and shrieking in primal rage. Victoria ignored them, tried to stay focused on her targets. If she had a clean shot, she would need to take it, there were no second chances. She watched with cold hard determination, trying to find an opening. Victoria saw the infected scratch and bite desperately at Charlie. She saw him raise his arms and swing his gun in defense, but it was utterly futile in the overwhelming swarm.
Echoes of shotgun blasts rung out from the roof of the Humvee, after seven shots, the tall man in the black trench coat went dry, his shotgun empty. An infected child leapt up onto the bonnet of the vehicle and the man pelted it away with the butt of his shotgun. Victoria then saw Charlie fall down and zombies crowd in all around him.
The man on top of the Humvee leapt off the roof and smashed a zombie in the head, hurling it upward and outward, away from Charlie who was lying on his back. The infected man slammed into some of the oncoming infected on its way down, sending them knocking each other over like bowling pins. The man looked toward the rooftop and waved his arm, a second before grabbing Charlie's vest and using it to pull him around the back of the Humvee, out of view of the rooftop. Victoria knew what the wave had meant. She heaved a deep breath, then pulled the trigger of the machine gun.
* * *
Ex-Senior Sargent Gregory Wilks, better known by the locals as 'Sarge', sat crouched behind the Humvee calmly and casually. Bullets rained down all around the Humvee; a white hot hail of steel. Bullets tore the infected to shreds all around the Humvee, hurling chunks of flesh in all directions, they splattered against the Humvee and over it too, and stuck to everything they landed on - including Charlie and Sarge. Sarge looked at the Marine on the ground at his feet, he was on his back, clutching his arm, breathing heavily. A zombie had bitten his left arm, hard, right through his uniform.
Sarge set down his shotgun and pulled down the Marine’s sleeve, exposing the bite mark on his arm. The bite had left clear teeth marks that were blood red just under the surface of the skin, bleeding and blistering. Around the bite was beginning to turn a dark shade of pink, meaning that soon enough it would become a purple colored bruise. Sarge frowned, there wasn't much he could do, it wasn't openly bleeding.
"Can you move?" Sarge asked.
The Marine looked up at him "Yeah." The Marine said through gritted teeth. "We need to get in through the driver’s door."
Sarge nodded and took a quick peek around the side of the Humvee, but maintained his cover from the friendly bullets. At that same moment, a teenage infected ran around the corner, straight toward Sarge's face! Sarge ducked backward, but didn't have his gun ready - a potentially fatal mistake. Before Sarge could grab his gun, the boy’s head exploded, spraying the road with a cone shaped smear of blood, courtesy of a machine gun shot.
Sarge turned back to the Marine. "When she stops shooting I'll get in the side and open this back door for you." He said, patting the Humvee back door with his hand. Charlie nodded.
Sarge pressed his back up against the Humvee and picked up his shotgun from the ground next to the Marine, then drew a handful of shells out of his pocket and began loading them into the gun. The machine gun fire was starting to die down now, obviously, their attackers were dwindling in numbers.
Sarge loaded the last shell into the shotgun and cocked it, loading the first shell, ready for action. He looked through the back window of the Humvee to try to get a gauge of the battlefield, but it was of no use - the entire windshield was covered in a wash of bloody red entrails.
Sarge waited patiently and as suddenly as it had started, the machine gun fire finally stopped. He stood up and gave a wave to the Marine on the rooftop, she waved back. All around the vehicle were piles of dead bodies. Not bad. Sarge thought. Blood pooled like red puddles of rain around the parking lot.
Sarge ran around the side of the Humvee and opened the driver’s door. He climbed in and through the cramped driver’s seat - closing the door behind him of course - then into the back, where he unlatched the rear door and helped the injured Marine inside. When the Marine was in, he locked the back door sealing them in the armored vehicle. For now, they were safe.
* * *
Charlie clutched his arm, wincing in pain as he sat up in the Humvee and the blood ran back into it. It felt swollen and throbbed like it had a pulse.
Charlie tightened his jaw against the searing pain, then asked "What's your name?"
His new partner glanced over his shoulder from the front seat, "I thought you would recognize me? I'm pretty well known around here."
"I'm only here for the curfew security detail." Charlie answered. "I'm not from around here."
"Ah, that explains it." The man said. "The locals call me Sarge."
"Sarge?"
"Yeah, ex-Nam. Kept up my skills after the war, you know, in case something like this happened. You're Charlie Tucker right?" Sarge asked, knowingly.
"How do you know my na-?" Charlie trailed off, his eyes falling to the name on his dog tags. Right. "Why are you so well known?"
Sarge smiled and chuckled to himself. "Because people thought I was crazy; that I was paranoid."
Charlie and Sarge laughed. They laughed for a long moment until tears welled in their eyes. Charlie couldn't really pick what exactly made it so funny. Whether it was that Sarge's paranoia was the only thing that had saved them, whether it was that they'd just killed dozens of people, people that could have been their own friends and family members; whether it was that they'd just survived it, despite their obvious disadvantages; or whether it was that they were helplessly and utterly fucked. Any which way, paranoid had a new meaning and it felt good to laugh with a fellow doomed person.
Sarge finally found the switch that he was looking for and switched on the windshield wipers. They smeared the blood and chunks from side to side hopelessly at first. Sarge activated the water jets, they helped rinse away more of the blood, but there were still smears of red across the window.
Charlie looked over Sarge's shoulder out of the front window. In the distance he could see Victoria on the rooftop, alone. More infected people crowded around the library, luckily, they couldn't get in.
Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye he saw the flash of movement again, a dark figure flying through the air. It rebounded off of a building high up into the air and landed on the other side of the rooftop, out of Charlie's view.
Charlie turned to Sarge "Did you see that?"
"I think so, looked like a huge bird or something, what do you think it was?" Said Sarge.
"I don't know! I saw it earlier as well, it's like a bird, but I'm not so sure that it is."
"What else could it be?"
"I don't know. Do you think she can see it?" Charlie asked desperately.
Sarge shook his head. "No, it landed behind her. She won't see it coming."
Charlie's mind raced. Oh no.
