Left 4 Dead Fan Fiction
A Prelude to Left 4 Dead
by Element118
The door made no sound as it was slowly opened by Bill. He held the pistol he had found out before him, just as he was trained to do back when he was in basic training. He could feel Francis close behind him as he stepped through the doorway, and as he entered the room, he moved to the left so he could get a better look at the kitchen. The blood on the carpet led behind the counter that separated the kitchen from the main room of the apartment. Whatever was at the end of the trail was behind that counter...
Bill also noticed that the front door was smashed off of its hinges, and he stopped moving for a second to listen whether there was anyone outside in the hall. Satisfied there was no one coming, he began to slowly make his way across the main room to get a better look behind the counter. Francis had stayed close to the bedroom door that they entered from, and Bill didn't blame him. There wasn't much he could do with the small utility hammer he was carrying. But the old vet was still comforted having Francis there; he had no doubt that his larger companion would come to his aid if it came to that.
Almost up against the opposite wall as the one they had entered, Bill finally got a glimpse of what was behind the counter.
He saw a bloodied leg....
As he inched more and more for a better view, he soon realized that there was a bloodied body behind the counter.
"It's a body," he said to Francis in a whisper. The burly man winced and began to approach. Bill held up his hand to stop him, and signaled for him to wait a moment. Putting his back to the wall directly left of the broken front door, he scanned down the hallway to the right. There was no sign of life, but a couple doors were cracked open. The hall ended in an L, taking a ninety degree left turn about 30 feet down. To check the other direction, he poked his head out. The hall to the left was longer but ended in the same ninety degree turn leading to the South end of the building. And it was clear.
"Anything?" Francis asked from behind him. Bill shook his head as he came back into the apartment. His eyes went to the body on the kitchen floor. It was a woman probably between 25-40 years old. He couldn't really tell. She was all mangled and bruised. She appeared to have been beaten to death.
Francis walked up beside him and let out a sigh of disgust when he saw the body.
"The whole goddamn city's gone mad," he said. Bill didn't disagree. Francis went back into the bedroom to grab a sheet to cover the body as Bill searched the apartment for further useful items. It was difficult to find anything with the condition of the apartment. There were old dishes and food all over the main room as well, and the bathroom was absolutely grotesque. After five minutes, he gave up the search and again approached the front door.
"Which way?" Francis asked, again whispering, when he came up beside Bill. The older man shrugged.
"We have to find a stairway," Bill said. "It should lead us to the roof."
The two men exited the apartment and took a right. As they made their way slowly down the hallway, they stopped at every cracked open door to listen and make sure there was no one lurking behind it. They didn't bother opening any of them; neither wanted to find another body.
As they approached the L turn at the end of the hall, they inched with their backs against the wall at the corner. Bill popped his head out real fast to make sure the coast was clear.
He saw three bodies laying face down, scattered down the hall...
The hall only went another 30 feet back and ended there. More doors along the walls were opened or broken, but that was all Bill noticed. His eyes were glued to the bodies. He leaned back behind the corner and turned to Francis.
"More bodies," he said somberly. Francis sighed.
The two turned the corner and examined the bodies. They were beaten and bruised just like the woman in the apartment they had just left. Bill glanced into the two apartments whose doors had been ripped off or broken in. One of them was a mess, obviously had seen a struggle in its main room and kitchen, the other seemed untouched except for a broken window. He gingerly stepped up to the window and looked out of it towards the streets below. Sure enough, there were three bodies sprawled on the street. It appeared that panic had cause someone to leap out of their window...and two of their pursuers had followed blindly.
Bill emerged from the apartment to see Francis standing over one of the bodies. It was smaller, a child. The old man could see a tear stream slowly down the burly man's cheek. For all the bluster and physical appearance of Francis, he had a soft heart.
He walked up and put his hand on the burly man's shoulder. Francis did his best to wipe away the tear and clear his throat in the most masculine way possible.
"C'mon," he said. "We should get mo—"
Suddenly, a loud crash made them both jump. They turned towards the door that it came from, which was only 25 feet down the hall they had just come. Again, something slammed against that door from the inside, and the wood around the hinges began to splinter. Bill stepped forward, pulling his gun up before him. Francis clutched the hammer at his side. The door was slammed again.
"Think it's a survivor?" Francis said, but his voice showed he wasn't convinced. Bill didn't say anything, just kept his gun trained on the door. With another slam, the door finally gave way and hung crooked in its frame.
And out of the apartment came one of the infected...
It snarled as it whipped its head to the right, then the left, drool flying every which way. As its eyes settled on the two men, it let out a blood curdling roar and exploded into motion. It leaped over one of the bodies and landed on all fours. It stared up at the two men and let out another roar...
BLAM!
A small hole appeared between its bloodshot, pupil-less eyes. It stayed perched on its hands and knees for a moment before slumping to the ground with a pool of its own blood forming around its head.
Bill kept his gun trained on the corpse. He hadn't shot a gun for years, and anyone could've made that shot from that distance, but he still felt a little exhilarated.
Probably just the adrenaline...
"My God, Bill," Francis whispered behind him. "Good shot."
The older man stood straight, bringing the pistol up to his shoulder. Francis approached the body.
"It doesn't even look human anymore...," he said, staying at the dead infected.
"But they still die like us," Bill replied rather coldly. Francis turned to look at him.
After a moment, they both went to the door labeled "Stairwell" towards the end of the hall. Francis opened it and looked up.
"Looks like we'll be able to make it up to the roof," he said. But Bill wasn't looking up with him. He had heard something below them.
"Shh," he demanded of Francis as the burly man began to ask him what he was looking for. He strained his hearing to try and pick up the sound again.
And then they heard the door below them burst open.
The familiar yet horrifying growls and screams echoed up the stairwell, and both men realized they must've given away their presence when they had fired the pistol.
Shit, shit...
Bill pushed past Francis back out into the hall, but stopped as soon as he got through the doorway.
More were coming from around the corner they had just come from.
"Up!" he cried. "Get up to the roof, now!"
Francis was already taking the stairs two at a time.
The roars of their pursuers gave them strength to take the flights of stairs at a fast pace, but the infected were still gaining. Bill prayed to God that these stairs did indeed make it to the roof, or else he wasn't sure what they could do.
He wasn't even sure if getting to the roof would do them any good.
"There!" Francis cried from a few stairs ahead of him. "I see the door to the roof!"
Bill glanced over the railing of the stairwell and saw fleeting shadows of infected making their way up a couple flights below them. They weren't tiring...
Francis crashed through the door labeled "Roof Access" with Bill right on his heels. The two men turned as one and slammed the door closed. There was nothing to barricade the door with except for a small chain with no padlock. Bill wrapped the chain around the door handle and a loop next to the door that was made for it. But he knew it wouldn't hold.
"We gotta find a way out of here!" he said to Francis.
"What?! How? We're on a roof!"
Bill jogged to the edge of the rooftop and glance over the edge.
There was another building's rooftop next to theirs, and it was only a couple stories shorter than their building. It was still a risky leap though.
But they had no choice...
"Francis, we gotta jump!" he cried over his shoulder. He didn't notice the incredulous look that his big friend gave him at that moment. Just then, the rooftop access door was slammed into from the other side.
The mob had caught up...
Bill took a few steps back from the lip of the rooftop and gauged how much speed he could gather before taking the jump. He figured he'd make it. Francis came to his side and looked to the edge of the roof they were about to jump.
"I don't think it'll work, Bill," he said.
"It's either this or them," Bill replied. To accentuate his point, the door was slammed again, and the chain holding it closed slackened a bit. The infected behind his were able to stick their arms through and began flailing them around as if their prey were just out of reach. Francis growled and began sprinting towards the edge of the roof. Bill took off only a few seconds after, and as they passed the door holding their pursuers back, it finally gave in and the infected began pouring out of it, right on the two mens' heels.
A few feet from the edge, Francis leapt, reaching with his arms out straight ahead of him. Bill saw the larger man crash into the roof below just as he took his final step before leaping himself
And then he was grabbed from behind...
Bill attempted his leap anyway, but his hope faltered as whoever had grabbed him came along with him. He reached out for the other roof's edge, straining every muscle in his arms and shoulders.
But it wasn't enough...
