Left 4 Dead Fan Fiction
The Forgotten Survivors
by TheDark12
Chapter Nine - When It Rains, It Pours
The night was cold and wet. In the middle of the road connecting to the freeway exit ramp, a twisted flaming wreckage burned in defiance of heavy winds and sheets of rain. From the gutter on the side of that same road, a man in a long black coat dragged himself along the hard, coarse bitumen, toward the vehicle.
The whole right side of the man's body was torn and bloody. He had suffered severe grazes to his face, elbow and leg. Luckily, despite being thrown from the hurtling, crashing vehicle, Sarge was alive.
Pain was starting to set in, blood rose to the surface of the skin that wasn't scratched open. Elsewhere, blood soaked through his clothes and left red a smudge on the road, similar to that of a wet sponge.
Sarge's vision began to fade, he clenched his teeth together - hard. He was not willing to lapse into unconsciousness. After a moment, the harrowing sensation abated and Sarge rolled over onto his back.
Rain drops fell from the sky showering Sarge's features. Water trickled into his mouth, through his gray-white beard and down the sides of his face washing away gravel and blood from his scratched face. It was refreshing, it was serene. In a world of hell, this was heaven.
He laid for a long moment in the pouring rain. He could feel the burn of broken skin under the weight of his rain soaked clothes.
Sarge flexed his bleeding leg. It moved. As long as his legs worked, he could still run. As long as he could still run he could still fight. And that was exactly what he intended to do.
Suddenly, a sound of shattering glass woke him from his reverie. He rolled back to his stomach and slowly forced himself to his knees. More glass shattered. Sarge looked toward the Humvee and saw Charlie breaking the remains of the passenger side window so that he could crawl out.
"Sarge?" Charlie called out as he spotted him. "Holy shit Sarge, how'd you get all the way over there?"
It was only now that Sarge realized how far he had been thrown. A full eight meters from the vehicle, the major road that they were lying on was a four lane road, with two lanes for traffic to travel in each direction.
"Should've worn a seatbelt." Sarge replied. "Check the girl. Is she all right? She didn't have one either."
Charlie ducked back inside the vehicle - despite being somewhat disoriented, he appeared unharmed from Sarge's perspective.
As Sarge waited, he watched his blood begin to wash away with the rain, down to the gutter and into a nearby drain; a river of red.
Charlie returned, "She's alive, unconscious, but alive. Same goes for Vic. Neither look too seriously injured, but there's blood back there and I can't tell whose it is."
"Wake them up." Sarge said. "But be careful."
Without a moments hesitation, Charlie ducked back into the Humvee. Sarge crawled the rest of the way to the overturned vehicle then slumped against it, resting upright.
After a minute, Charlie returned dragging Victoria, who was slowly starting to wake now become reoriented. Charlie looked at Sarge with a solemn expression.
"The blood was the girl's. I didn't want to move or wake her yet just in case."
Sarge returned the concerned stare and gave Charlie a nod.
"It's all right," Victoria said as she slowly sat up, wincing and rubbing her head, "I was partially trained as a medic, if it's not too serious I might be able to help."
Charlie gave Victoria a sideways look. "You never told me that,"
"I never told anyone," Victoria said, not making eye contact and shaking her head. "I was never any good."
"Perhaps you could look at me too before we move too far." Sarge interrupted.
"I can tell you right now that you need stitches. Bleeding that much isn't right." She said, motioning to the pool of blood that surrounded Sarge's leg.
"I'll check our munitions then," Charlie said to Sarge, as Victoria made her way back into the now smoldering wreckage of the Humvee. "You still got your side arm?"
Sarge patted the holster on his least wounded leg. It was empty, his pistol lost in the chaos of the crash.
Charlie saw the puzzlement in his face and didn't wait for an answer.
"Take mine, I've still got my sub," he said patting the submachine gun that was slung around his neck. He tossed his pistol so that it landed in Sarge's lap. "Where's this radio station anyway?" he added, bringing Sarge's attention back to their temporarily forgotten goal.
"About two blocks that way." Sarge said, pointing.
"Damn, and we were so close too." Charlie said. "Lets do what we have to and get out of here, who knows when more of those things will show up."
As if on queue, a scream pierced the night.
Charlie and Sarge exchanged a look.
"Ha," Sarge scoffed in mild defeat, "You shouldn't have said anything."
