FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Disclaimer: Left 4 dead is the property of Valve, I own a copy but not the game, blah blah blah, everything copyright-wise is in the intro already, so go check that way for all that stuff. This particular chapter is the first level of the 'no mercy' campaign. * * *

Everything was silent on the roof, save for the howling wind of an incoming storm, as the four survivors grimly considered their options, or rather lack of options. They were stuck on a small roof with no food, and it was about to rain. They couldn't get away, because no matter where they went, thousand of infected would stand in their way. And the appearance of these new kinds of infected, to which they gave names to recognize them more easily, made everything a thousand times more complicated. Most of them had decided that now that the situation really was hopeless, perhaps suicide was the last painless way out of this hell... "...Hospital for evacuation..." All ears perked up at the sound of this unknown voice. All heads turned around to locate where it came from... Until helicopter sounds came to their ears. Before their eyes, the very helicopter Tyzon had tried to get the attention of passed right in front of the building they were on, the voice of the pilot heard loud thanks to its bullhorn. "To anyone who can hear this, proceed to Mercy Hospital for evacuation. Repeat; proceed to Mercy Hospital for evacuation." Everyone's head turned toward the gigantic building that was Mercy Hospital. It was known throughout the world as one of the most advanced hospital in terms of equipment and personnel. It was also the tallest building in the city, making it an impossible to miss landmark. And while everything was dark everywhere, the very building shone like a pillar of light, all of its searchlights open and the big neon sign with its name on top of it. For the four survivors, it had now become the tower of salvation. They looked at each other excitingly, but even though hope was back, there was still one little detail... It was awfully far, and the streets were far from safe. However, an idea came to Tyzon. "We could take the subway to go straight to Mercy. There's a redline station just... Down the street that way." The others nodded as Alex looked around the building for a way down. His stare stopped to a door probably leading to a staircase that led inside the building they were on top of. "Might not be a bad idea to get back to the street then. We'll probably find a way down there." The others nodded again, but Damien frowned as he thought of something. "There's the question of weapons though... Crystal dropped her extra pistol earlier, she can't go around with just one small handgun." Alex sighed as he threw his assault rifle to the ground. "And my gun's busted... Too much stress on it, I guess. Anyway, it doesn't work anymore." Crystal's voice came over from a table previously covered by a sheet. "I don't think its going to be a problem anymore..." The three other survivors looked at the dragoness quizzically, then looked at the table. Simultaneously, their jaws dropped at the site of what had been on it. Damien gave an impressed whistle, walking toward it. The table was covered in weapons and ammo. Tyzon frowned as he looked over it. "What's all that doing here?" Crystal shrugged as she shuffled through the weapons. Most of them were pump-action shotguns similar to Damien's, or submachine guns like Tyzon's. "Who knows? Maybe they are there after the failed result of an attempted resistance... Or some soldiers came over and wanted to use this roof as a place to meet up and recover. The important point is, they are here, and none of us are going to complain." Both Damien and Alex nodded, the latter grabbing himself a shotgun, the former handing an Uzi to Crystal with a smug grin. "You should stick to the smaller guns. It wouldn't do if you hurt yourself firing the big toys." Rolling her eyes, Crystal grabbed the gun nonetheless. She hadn't been planning on getting a shotgun anyway. Afterwards, she grabbed a handful of ammo cases and stuffed them in a bag on her belt. Finally, she took a red bag with a large cross on it. "Better have a few first aid kits... We might have been lucky enough to get only slightly hurt in that last... Skirmish, but we don't want to take unnecessary chances." The others didn't had any reasons to object, and all grabbed one kit, then checked if they were all ready to go. Alex was the first to speak afterwards. "Is everyone ready..? The longer we linger here, the more we risk getting ambushed by one of those things." The three other survivors all nodded on the affirmative. "Let's get going." "I'm ready." "Let's show 'em what hell really is." Alex nodded, and pushed the door open... The staircase ended on a broken door, and in the staircase itself, infected could be seen sitting down as if they were relaxing. For a second, they didn't show any reaction, then one turned his head toward the four survivors. He was met with a bullet directly in the forehead and stumbled down the stairs. The other infected looked up, and met a similar fate. Alex nodded satisfyingly. "Nice shooting, Crystal." The dragoness merely smiled, then started going downstairs, slowly, carefully. She peeked around the corner of the door, then signaled Damien to come over. "There's a bunch of them... Why don't you put that shotgun of yours to a good use?" The neko grinned, then boldly advanced inside. The rest of the group heard a few gunshots and a few groans of pain before Damien signaled for the others to follow. "All clear." The other survivors went inside, and saw the scene of the carnage. Many bodies had been nearly ripped apart by the shotgun's powerful shots, and there was blood everywhere... They had all seen this before though. The room was a small kitchen, and it looked like that whoever had lived here had been about to eat breakfast before... Well, before whatever happened that made them change their mind. There were so many possibilities as to what might have happened, there was no use trying to even guess it. The room was one of the very few still lighted. The next, however, was not. A living room, looking rather empty with just a couch and a TV. Alex went forward, going toward another staircase that led down. He shot a few times, taking care of a few infected by doing so, then started going down. Just then Tyzon heard something. "Hey, guys, did you hear that..? It sounds like... Somebody is sick or something." Indeed, gurgling and groaning noises could be heard, coming from downstairs. Damien advanced, shotgun raised and ready to fire. The groans became louder as the thing approached the room, then suddenly, a morbidly obese man walked in plain side. At first, Damien wasn't certain what to do, but he quickly understood that this man was another infected, considering his grey skin. He shot. The infected suddenly exploded, sending blood and some kind of slimy substance all around the room. A good bunch of it splashed over the neko, who backed up with a disgusted groan. "Ewww! That's... Disgusting! Its like that stuff you got over me, Alex. Its all over me eyes, I can't see a dammed thing." He was suddenly interrupted when aggressive groans of a few dozens of infected reached his ears. Suddenly, a group of infected rushed inside the staircase, and went directly for Damien. Crystal interposed herself between him and the mob and pressed the trigger of her gun, a storm of bullets keeping the mob at bay as Alex and Tyzon joined her, Damien still attempting to get the disgusting substance off of him. When things calmed down, there was a mountain of dead bodies lying at the bottom of the stairs as Damien managed to clean himself of most of the stuff, using some towels he had found in a nearby bathroom. The smell was pretty much all gone too. "Geez, what the hell was that thing? And why did this huge mob of zombies arrived right away?" Tyzon, who had been thinking about it all, ran his fingers over the substance, much like Alex had done earlier. "My guess is, this stuff attract zombies when a large amount of it comes into contact with skin or flesh... Some kind of chemical reaction, perhaps. You may not have noticed it, but that fat guy was just about to... Well, vomit on you." Damien grimaced in disgust again. "You serious? He was going to throw up this slimy stuff to do the exact same thing that happened just now?" Tyzon shrugged. "That's my guess. Considering we saw the exact same stuff earlier, its a fair guess to think that there are more of them out there. So here are the rules from now on, don't shoot the fat guy if he's close, or its going to be hell out here." Alex nodded while he was watching the surroundings. "Let's call them... 'Boomers', if we ever see another one. Feels better than calling them 'fat guys'. And since they seem to explode... For some reason, that name fits them well." Crystal chuckled a bit. "Somehow, it sure does. But we should get moving. That hospital isn't getting closer, and we've already lost plenty of time here." Damien joined up with the others. "Hey, no need to worry sweetheart. It hasn't even been five minutes." Crystal glared at the neko, but didn't reacted further, knowing that anyway, she'd get plenty of remarks like that from him. "Well, I'd still like to not be caught by the rain once that storm gets over here." The others nodded, but didn't commented. Alex looked down the staircase... It was blocked. Besides the infected, furniture of all kind had been placed to block the way. They couldn't get down, but there was another apartment. Crystal gave it a look, then another toward the furniture. "Well, let's check inside that apartment. There is no use in trying to move those things out of the way if there is another quicker way in there." Damien shook his head. "Yeah, I doubt that there is anything like that. The stairs are usually the only way down in those kind of buildings. But there might be more zombies in there, so we should handle them first." The tiger nodded approvingly as he pushed the door open. "Good thinking. Last thing we want is to get ambushed, especially while moving heavy stuff." The survivors entered the apartment, Alex in front. Once again, it was a corridor with a door on the left, and at the end of it, they could see the living room. Alex motioned for the door. "Let's check this room first. Cover me." Tyzon went forward to keep watch on the corridor ahead while Damien closed the door behind him so nobody could get in from that way. Soon, there were a few gunshots as Alex 'cleaned' the inside of the room, but Tyzon had his eyes on something else. Right there, in front of him, crouched like an animal... An infected just like the one that had attacked him earlier. The infected gave a loud scream and lunged, but the dragon didn't let himself get caught by surprise. He gave a swift but surprisingly strong punch to the infected just as it came in range, knocking it the ground, then riddled it with bullets. The creature gave a gasp of pain, then went silent. Tyzon chuckled as the others looked over to him with surprise in their eyes. "I'm not letting myself get had by this thing again." Crystal approached him and looked at the body. "Those things... They are a lot stronger than those zombies we saw before. And look at how they chased us around. I bet more of them are gathered outside, ready to ambush us." Damien went thoughtful for a moment. "Real hunters, huh? Yeah, that sounds like a good name to give them. Hunters." Crystal frowned, but then nodded. "Yeah, it actually does. We'll have to watch our backs from now on. Keep your eyes open, and since they scream at us when they attack, we've got an extra warning." Alex quickly advanced forward again. "The bedroom is clear, let's keep going." And they did that, entering the empty living room. Looking around, they saw that a wall had been busted open. Damien gave a little growl at that. "Jeez... They're persistent when they attack. Better not stay here for too long." Tyzon, however, walked toward a nearby door. "Hold on a second. Let me check this room." He opened the door, looked around the door, but saw that it was empty of infected. It was a small bathroom, but unexpectedly, he looked inside the pharmacy and took... Painkillers? Crystal gave the dragon a confused look. "Why would you take that?" Alex gave a suggestion. "Back pains? Though I wouldn't have expected that from someone so young as you." Damien gave a little chuckle. "I suppose lifting pens was too much for him." Tyzon gave them an annoyed look before explaining. "We're bound to get hurt badly on our way. It would be better to have something to kill the pain until we get some real aid. Let's assume we needed to run, but you had a sprained ankle? Well, you wouldn't feel the pain with those." The dragoness gave a nod, understanding what he meant. "Not a bad idea at all in the end. I should have thought about it." The tiger also gave an appreciative nod. "Its good to see you were thoughtful enough for this." The neko, however, didn't made any remarks, but rather went toward the busted wall. "Let's just get going, okay?" After the busted wall, they came upon a busted floor. Somehow, a large portion of the kitchen's floor had gave in to lead to the room underneath, the bedroom of another apartment. Damien growled again. "That's... How did they even do that? Its not persistence, its... Man, it looks like they blew up the ceiling to climb here." Crystal ran her light underneath and located the bed. Without hesitation, she jumped on it, the mattress cushioning her fall. Unfortunately, she hadn't expected that room's walls to also be mostly busted... With a large number of infected suddenly in sight of her. They all turned toward her, and gave aggressive growls as they started rushing toward her. Crystal gave a fearful call to the others. "Guys?" Damien was the next to fall, but instead of aiming for the bed, he gracefully landed on the floor. He was soon followed by Alex and Tyzon, and just in time to shoot down the infected running after them with bloodshot eyes. It merely took a few seconds to take them all down. Crystal gave a sigh as she reloaded her empty Uzi. "That was close. Sorry for jumping down like this, I should have waited." Damien chuckled as he looked around the room to ensure no shadows were watching them. "No need to apologize. We're here to save the damsels in distress." Alex also gave a chuckle, and then pointed toward a downed wall. "We should go that way. If I'm not mistaken, its the direction leading outside. And now that we don't have any furniture in the way, we don't have any problems." Tyzon nodded and took a step forward. "That's right. Now, we just need to make our way to the subway... But the streets are probably very dangerous as well. If we can, let's try to stay indoors while we move. Less risky areas." Damien went a few steps ahead, looking around. It was the basement of the building, and there was a back door, leading outside. The neko took a peek outside. "Well, its looks like we're back into the alleys. Luckily, on the opposite way that big ugly thing died." Crystal went behind Damien, and looked at the wreckage of the fallen staircase. Right there, the giant infected had died... Or had he? "That thing... Is dead, isn't it? Its not going to pop out and kill us?" Damien shook his head as he approached the wreckage. It was large enough that he couldn't see at all under it. "I doubt it. If it was still alive, it would have got out of there by now. And frankly, even THAT can't survive this kind of thing." Alex nodded as he went beside Damien to examine the staircase as well. "Yep, that thing was a real tank, but even a tank can't survive being crushed by a few tons of metal. Tyzon suddenly gave a chuckle. "A tank, huh? Sounds like the perfect name we can give that thing. Its so big an powerful, its the perfect description." The others were silent for a second, then all nodded. Crystal was the first to speak. "Anyway, let's get moving. If it DOES pop out, I want to be as far as possible." Damien laughed as he looked down the alley, where he could see a few more figures stumbling about. "I'm telling you, we're completely out of danger. Those zombies don't fall unconscious to get back up la..." The neko was suddenly interrupted by the sound of creaking metal. The four survivors all turned toward the wreckage, where the sound had come from. Things were eerily calm for a few seconds, then the pieces of metal creaked again. Tyzon started taking a few steps back. "I... I think we should go now..." Alex was quick to follow. "I can't argue with that." Crystal and Damien both followed as well, throwing fearful looks toward the wreckage, which remained silent. Further in the alley, and a few killed infected later, they came upon a corner, and they saw that the street was just over there. It was easy to notice, with the police car with the still shining lights in the middle of it. The remain of a failed stand to protect citizens, probably. But just as they were about to go down the alley, the creaking sounds came to them again... They all turned toward the staircase just in time to see its pieces fly around as the huge muscled infected burst from it, roaring loudly. It growled softly for a few seconds, as if to recover from the physical exertion of having being crushed, then gave looks around. The survivors were seemingly paralyzed on the spot as they watched the behemoth turn toward them... And roar again as it charged in their direction. Startled, the four survivors ran into the street, hoping to overrun their seemingly invincible enemy, but their hopes were short-lived. Many infected turned toward them, and seeing potential meals, charged in their direction. They were about to turn back into the alley, but quickly thought better of it when they saw the tank throw a dumpster in their direction. All of them scattered, and were left to deal with some infected by themselves. Tyzon was quick to spray machinegun fire through the street as he rushed toward a side door and elbowed it open. Seeing that the room behind was empty, he entered it and turned to face the door to be able to take down any infected that would dare pass through and try to attack him. At least, they had only one way to attack him. Alex and Damien did things the bold way, and ran into the street, killing everything in front of them, hoping to outrun the tank. It seemed to work, the creature's grunts and growls not directed toward them anymore. But looking behind, they saw that it had another target than them in mind, and started chasing Crystal, who had ran into an alley. Both men cursed and ran after it before it crushed the dragoness to a bloody pulp. Crystal had taken the wrong decision of running blindly into the first alley she saw, because it led to a wall, and left her with nowhere to go. She turned around, and saw the tank charging her at full speed with a fist up and ready to smash her. Closing her eyes, she brought up her gun and started shooting. Surprisingly, the tank stopped right in front of her, then fell to a knee. Crystal opened her eyes, and seeing that it was about to fall dashed behind him as it fell face first right where she had been. Panting heavily, she looked at it for a few seconds, even as Damien and Alex, and soon after Tyzon, rushed to her side. Damien grabbed her to make her face him. "Are you all right?" If Crystal hadn't already been entirely white, she would probably have been extremely pale by now. "Y... Yes... But it was... Awfully close..." Alex sighed and approached the now definitely dead tank. "That was lucky... He wasn't dead, but very close to it. Your few bullets managed to put it down for good. Tyzon, having just arrived, looked in surprise toward Crystal and the tank. "Damn, you did that alone? That's very impressive, Crystal." Crystal sighed as she held herself against a wall. "That was the scariest shit I've ever seen in my life..." Alex nodded as he put an hand on her shoulder to comfort her. "No kidding. I would have shit myself if that had been me. You did well, Crys. But come on, we've gotta go, or they'll get us." Crystal slowly nodded and took deep breaths. "All right... I'm ready." Damien, who had walked some distance away to the police car, soon came back with a pistol and its holster in hand. "Hey guys, look what I found. An extra pistol in case we'd need it." Tyzon looked at the firearm, then nodded. "It will be useful in case we ran out of ammo for our other weapons. So here, take it Crystal." The dragoness looked at the wolf neko in surprise. "Huh? Me? Why is that?" Damien chuckled slightly. "Well, you're more prone to using up your ammo faster than any of us will. No offense, but... You don't have as much experience as us, and you don't aim as good as we do." Crystal blushed heavily and seemed like she was about to explode... But she merely gave a sigh. She knew it was useless to talk back. Besides, that probably wasn't what he was really thinking. He probably just wanted to have her being able to take care of herself in any situation... Probably. She took the pistol and put it in her belt along with her other pistol, then looked back at the others. "How far to the subway?" Tyzon looked at the streets, then pointed to another. "Its just around the corner. We should see it soon enough." Alex took the lead as the others followed. After the tank's appearance, it was a relief to see that the streets were empty of infected. It was a short walk to the subway, until Damien noticed shadows moving between the cars. He immediately raised his gun and was about to press the trigger, when suddenly, Alex shouted and knocked it down. "Don't shoot!" Damien gave a confused, then angry look. "Why the hell not? It would be better to take them down from here." Alex glared at the neko, then pointed at the cars. "And do you really think it would do us any good if you activated a car alarm? Remember what happened last time? Want it to happen again?" These words seemed to reach Damien, who remained silent for a few seconds before sighing. "Ugh... Fine then. Don't come crying if they beat us to death afterwards though." Alex snorted, but everyone was soon advancing again, but a lot more slowly than before, to not get too much attention directed to them. Going through the shadows, the group slowly made their way across the street, staying out of sight of the infected. They heard growls, coughs and other sounds, but nothing threatening directed toward them. Only Alex seemed more worried than the others. His sharp hearing had detected something... A harsher coughing sound, very unlike all the other weak coughs they were hearing all the time. He couldn't help but think that he had heard that sound before... He kept looking around, attempting to locate this sound from all the other sounds, but to no avail. His eyes did catch something different though. There was a smoke cloud rising close by... Not smoke from a fire, but rather... Smoke coming from a bunch of people smoking cigarettes. And thinking about it, the smell was very alike this too. It seemed to come from a single infected. It took Alex several second to notice that it was this one coughing differently from the others. Those several second were too much, as he suddenly heard some kind of spitting noise, and suddenly, a long tentacle was shot toward him and wrapped itself around his body. Too surprised to do anything, he was suddenly pulled to the ground and dragged away as he suddenly gave a shout to get the other's attention. "NO!" Everyone turned around just in time to see him disappear between the cars. Damien immediately took action and went in pursuit. Seeing the tentacle around his body, he followed it with his eyes to see where it was coming from, and met the coughing creature's eyes... If he could even see them through that face. The infected's face was horribly swollen, and its mouth took much of the place. A mouth from which the tentacle came from. Damien understood that this 'tentacle' was actually a tongue. He remembered that scene. One such creature had done the same thing earlier. So he knew how to deal with that one as well. He aimed, and shot. The creature was ripped to shreds, and suddenly was thrown away in an explosion of smoke, followed by a last cough. But the infected wasn't the only thing that had been hit by the shotgun's blast. The car behind it as well. Its alarm went off, and all four survivors immediately knew what this meant. Tyzon quickly reacted as he heard the wails of hundreds of infected now rushing their position. "To the subway! We can hold them off more easily if we are in an enclosed area." Alex, Damien and Crystal all followed the dragon who ran toward an entrance to the subway and ran down the stairs, even as they heard grunts and growls approaching dangerously close behind them. Looking behind, Crystal could see a scene looking a lot like the one they had experienced not so long ago. Infected running through the streets, jumping over cars, climbing security fences installed in the middle of the street... It was all too familiar. Looking back in front, she saw the entrance to subway's security cabin. A simple, but probably very sturdy, metal door. And it was open. "Get in there, they won't be able to follow us!" She didn't even need to say that, the others were already running at full speed, and Tyzon was already inside, holding the door open and ready to slam it shut. "Come on, come on, come on!" Damien was next to get in, and looked back at the others. Alex was third, but Crystal was lagging behind. Unfortunately for her, she wasn't as fit as she had been before long ago, and it was obvious as she gave a panicked look behind, seeing infected running after her. Faster than her. She pushed herself harder than she ever did before, and barely reached inside the room as Tyzon slammed the door shut, knocking more than one infected back as Damien caught a terrified Crystal into his arms and Alex helped the dragon keep the door closed. He turned back to shout to Damien. "Get some furniture to block the door before they smash it open!" The neko nodded, then gently led Crystal to a couch to let her sit down. He approached a heavy desk and pulled it with difficulty toward the door. Alex let Tyzon hold it down for a few seconds as he helped Damien move the desk, then push it against the door, keeping it shut for good. Tyzon gave a relieved sigh as he stepped back, panting from the effort they had just went through. "Jeez... I won't need to exercise for a year now." Damien gave a soft chuckle as he leaned against a wall. "Yeah, well you're going to be exercising plenty more before this is over." The dragon looked up at Damien, frowning a bit. As an only answer, he pointed the next door leading into the subway itself. Looking at it, Tyzon's relieved look was replaced by one of despair as Alex cursed loudly, then said what everyone had see by now. "Ah fuck, the whole subway is full of zombies too."