John had no idea how long he was out, but he eventually awakened just as that inky black blob of space spat him unceremoniously onto a hard, sturdy surface.
"You could've been a little gentler, you know." He complained as he rubbed the set of ass cheeks he came crash landing in on.
The system was as unhelpful and nonvocal as ever, so after getting no response and seeing the blob of space blink out of existence, he quickly got up and took in the surroundings, ready to throw down and survive his initial entry. Luckily for him, he found himself right at the beginning of the No Mercy campaign with no zombies in sight and right on top of the rooftop of the apartment building.
He would've been ecstatic and cheering right about now if this were the normal start with guns, ammo, and other supplies spread about and ready to be taken. Unfortunately, that simply wasn't the case here because all that was left behind, presumably by the survivors, was a large cast iron pan.
"You have got to be shitting me; they didn't even leave a pistol." He complained whilst drops of rain fell from the sky and began to wet his only set of clothes.
Bill, Francis, Louis, and Zoey are nowhere to be seen too so the difficulty of this whole mission has just gone up several levels... Let me grab that cast iron pan and get that door closed before a zed climbs the stairs and I get my first encounter with one.
Although it was raining John still needed to take in the whole scene, have a look at the nearby buildings, and develop some sort of plan before he could really start making any moves, thus he first grabbed the pan sitting on top of some sort of air duct. The second he got it in his hands, he felt the weight of the kitchen implement and gave it a few practice swings as he imagined whacking a zombie's skull.
I would've preferred a machete or a fire axe, but this'll do for now.
With his first of many weapons to come secured, he crept up to the door under the cover of the raindrops hitting the flat rooftop of the apartment building. Most people's heart rates would've spiked as they approached an open doorway that might have a zombie sitting at the bottom of a set of stairs.
But John as he was now was the complete and utter opposite since he had just gotten out of the service, which he had to do a ton of tongue biting in... And well went through a bunch of rage inducing events all of which culminated in him ending up here, getting drenched on a roof in a zombie filled world with nothing, but an iron pan and his body to defend himself. So instead of being apprehensive, he was instead looking forward to encountering a willing punching bag for him to release this pent-up anger, aggression, and straight frustration he'd been accumulating throughout all this bullshit... Very much so.
Sadly, he was going to have to wait just a little while longer because once he crept up to the open doorway and peered down it, there was only a dark unfinished stairway with a pile of recently deceased bodies leaking deep crimson blood all over the wood floor at the bottom of it.
Rats, there goes my opportunity to get my first bit of gold... Well, maybe they didn't clear the entire building when they passed through.
Just as that thought ran through his mind, the sound of a chopper echoed in the distance along with a loud bullhorn. "To anyone who can hear this, proceed to Mercy Hospital for evacuation."
"Repeat, proceed to Mercy Hospital for evacuation... Repeat, pro-"
Hmm, do I want to fight through the hordes of undead and head there... I'll figure that out in a moment here; right now I need to come up with a solid plan first.
There were no zombies that required a swift bonk on the head, so he closed the door gently and, most importantly, quietly. From there, he wandered around the rooftop at a not so hurried pace as the rain continued to fall and wet his tank top further. John was experienced when it came to this sort of stuff and knew the importance of knowing your surroundings; hence, he took his time scanning the general area. What his scan unveiled was a cityscape that had long been overrun by undead, many of which were roaming the streets below aimlessly.
"Man, this city is beyond fucked." He voiced lowly, so as to not draw attention to himself.
When he moved his view from the zombie-filled streets and dying plumes of smoke dotting the city, he turned to the towering Mercy Hospital way off in the distance and stewed whilst he observed the powerful spotlights beaming the dark, angry looking rain clouds above.
It probably hasn't been that long since the four survivors left for the evac zone, and as much as I would like to join them in escaping this fallen city, I don't know how wise of an idea that would be. I mean, I don't know when they left, how far along they are, nor do I possess any current resistance to the green flu that they're carrying, and not to mention any decent means to defend myself with other than this pan. Which is really only suitable for taking down one common infected at a time and definitely not the unending hordes of undead that Left 4 Dead is legendarily known for.
Simply put, it's practically suicide to chase after them at this point given the equipment and circumstances I'm in, so I guess I will be running solo... At least for now.
When he had finally moved on from eyeing the lit Mercy Hospital sign near the very top of the towering structure, he walked over to a piece of tarp mounted as an improvised piece of roofing, and leaned up against the rough red brick wall.
All that said, I can't stay up here on this roof forever when I don't even know if I'm infected right now or when I'll turn if I am, so the faster I can secure the amount of gold coins necessary to at least keep the green flu at bay the better my chances of surviving and maybe just maybe making it out of the world of Left 4 Dead alive. As for how I should go about doing that, I'm limited to just this crappy, although solid pan right now, so I think slithering around from room to room and attempting to clear out the building should be the first thing I focus on. And hopefully by the end of it I've gathered enough funds to secure a better weapon.
The clock was ticking, so John didn't stay passive for another second and immediately headed to the door and opened it as quietly as he could.
The coast is clear.
Having spotted no changes at the bottom of the stairs, he descended the wooden steps slowly and kept those ears of his peeled. There wouldn't be any second chances for any fuck-ups, hence he took his time, and once he cleared the stairs and stepped into the pooling crimson blood, the smell of iron assaulted his nose.
Ahh, it's been a while since I smelled that stench.
Memories of John's tour in the Middle East flooded into his mind, but this wasn't the time to reminisce, so he pressed on and peered around the corner. What came into view was an old, cheap particleboard kitchen with a late-90s white fridge sitting wide open and dimly lighting the place up. And in front of the empty fridge were several bodies that had obviously been blasted by a shotgun.
Damn, they're not playing around.
Ignoring the mess, I turned my attention to the female zombie that came stumbling onto the scene.
My first victim, aye.
John could've just popped out from around the corner and clocked the zed in the head, but there was a big difference between performing the action in a video game and doing it in real life. So he leaned down and grabbed a spent 12-gauge shotgun shell and tossed it right next to the pile of bodies at the bottom of the stairs. The instant it met the wooded floorboards, it clattered against the hard surface and alerted the infected woman.
The female zed growled in a distinctly higher pitch and began approaching the origin of the sound as predicted. He knew all he had to do was wait around the corner, so he readied his cast iron pan, held it up above his head. As soon as her head cleared the threshold, John swung down with all the physical force his muscular arms could muster and slammed the solid metal kitchen implement down on her head. And once it made contact with her skull, it released a bonk sound before it caved in the zombie's head and caused blood and brain matter to splatter onto the floor, the walls, and John himself.
That's fucking gross, but I gotta do what I gotta do.
Whilst that thought was going through his mind, he caught the body before it could go limp and slam into the floor and draw more attention than his actions already had. He didn't know if more infected would be coming, so after laying the body down atop the others by the water heater, he stayed completely still as static played on a dated TV in the living room of the apartment. A dozen seconds went by as he stood there in silence, but eventually the sound of steps entered his ears.
Looks like I got another one.
John, although eager to collect funds as fast as possible, wasn't stupid enough to rush the process this early on, thus grabbed another spent shotgun shell and tossed it, repeating the same strategy. The zed gurgled and picked up the sound as expected and soon began to approach the direction the clattering noise originated from. Thankfully, he didn't have to wait long for the zombie to follow in the footsteps of his first kill, so when he had a clear shot, he took it and repeated his same set of actions from before with a marginal improvement from the first try.
Well, that was smoother than the first.
He thought as he deposited the corpse on the growing pile of bodies and assumed his position once more and awaited company. However, after standing there listening for a good couple dozen seconds, no newcomers came.
No takers, huh... Guess I'll have to go seek them out myself then, but before that, let me check how many gold coins I received for my two kills.
[ Gold Coins: 6 ]
I got 6 gold coins from the two of them, so that is 3 coins for each kill... Can I buy anything useful with that right now?
Curious, he opened up the store and scrolled through the pistol selection first before swapping to the melee selection since he was too broke to even afford a zip gun. Thankfully, things were different in the melee section.
[ -5 Gold Coins ]
The moment those coins disappeared from his nonexistent wallet, a nice sharp machete appeared in his left hand.
I was just a coin shy of a fire axe, but this will do nicely.
Excited like a kid receiving a new toy on Christmas morning, he gave his new weapon more than a few swings before swapping it to his dominant hand and the frying pan to his left. He then proceeded beyond the stairwell's threshold and into the kitchen. The scene there wasn't pleasant but at least there were no dead walking about, so he ignored the bodies and various home goods scattered about the counters and pressed on through the small dining room that was no more than 150 square feet and entered the living room.
What lay in there was a set of couches, a smallish, medium-sized glowing TV lighting up the room a fair bit, and 5 dead zombies lying about in pools of their own blood. He stood there and examined the room for a couple of moments when he heard the sound of multiple zombies coming from the other part of the floor as well as down below on the next level.
I better get that stairwell door closed and take care of the zombies on this floor first; otherwise, I can easily get pincered from two sides and torn apart.
He was well aware of what he had to prioritize first, so he shut the lit-up stairwell first before he advanced to the bedroom, but before he could, the wood floor creaked, alerting a zed that was hiding in the bathroom behind him and however many were awaiting him in the bedroom ahead.
Shit!
Cognizant of the fact that he needed to take care of the threat behind him before anything else, he turned around and slashed the male zombie that came running out of the bathroom. The machete's long metal blade sank right into the zombie's head and stopped when it reached right where the male's eyes began.
There were still more threats to deal with, so he kicked the standing body at the same time he ripped his machete from that one's split skull. And it was a good thing he was so quick about it because what came rounding the corner down the hall was two more zeds, and as soon as they laid eyes on John, they screeched and came sprinting at him aggressively.
Luckily, they weren't the smartest undead going, so one tripped mid charge on a corpse left behind by one of the survivors and the other kept coming at John's awaiting steel blade, which he chopped down with all his strength right as it entered within range of the weapon. The zed froze mid-stride but ultimately succumbed to that lethal attack; hence; he moved onto the second zombie that was getting back up. And just as it stood on its feet, he swiftly swung his blade and hacked its head off, sending it careening to the floor and causing blood to spew from the open neck.
He had already accumulated quite a bit of filth on both his clothes and his body already, but he wasn't looking to get drenched in blood if he could help it, so John kicked and launched the corpse 5 feet back with a bam.
Fuck, that was close.
Or at least it would've been if it had stopped there, but the bad situation soured further and became exponentially worse when the sound of several sets of feet came storming up the shut stairwell along with crazed, bloodthirsty roars of the undead.
*Bang-bang-bang-*
It's a good thing I shut that door when I did.
The banging of the door didn't last long and soon enough turned into pieces of wood being ripped off and holes being punched through. That crappy manufactured door was only going to last for so long, so before they inevitably broke through, John ran up on the door and started hacking any of the limbs that extended from the holes whilst occasionally stabbing his machete through the increasing number of openings. Sadly, his game of hack-a-mole didn't go on for even a minute before they broke through, and when they finally did, he made a wide horizontal swing with his sharp blade at neck height and removed two zombies' heads from their necks right from the get-go.
Oh, fuck, there's a lot of them.
Pushing right behind those headless zeds were 8 more ready to have a go at him and chow down on some fresh succulent human flesh.