We made it to the roof. Francis, Louis, Zoey and I. Only two weeks had passed since the infection and the streets were already littered with the filth of flesh hungry corpses. But we’d noticed something else…the damn critters were mutating, a breed of new horrors awaited us and it wasn’t going to be easy getting where we needed to go. We loaded up our weapons…shotguns and ammo, steeled our hands and prepared to make our descent down into the decadent stench of decaying flesh waiting for us in the belly of a newfound hell (The building). Francis (Tunji) and Louis (Wale) were new to this game; a couple of trigger happy Halo junkies, they had absolutely no idea what fate (The game director) had in store for us. But I did. Zoey (Michael) and I were there at the beginning. I took lead, pulled open the door…a couple of stragglers bumped around at the bottom of the stairs…easy enough. We made our way down the staircase and peered round the corner. A couple a more stragglers jumped at us out of nowhere, nearly scaring the guns (gamepads) out of our hands. The newcomers were proving to be effective, but it wasn’t long before I realized we were going to be in serious trouble. The rule is simple…survive together…or die! Separate…and you’re as good as dead eyes. A lesson we would all come to learn the hard way. The Horde came at us! Panic set in and our fingers pressed down at lightning speed on our triggers. Blood spluttered into the air, bits of rancid flesh exploding all around us, undead after on undead, falling at our feet. A Hunter jumped on Louis as a Smoker grabbed a hold of Zoey; I ran after her and put a bullet in the rotten bastards decaying brain. Francis knocked the Hunter off Louis before emptying a load of shotgun shells in its belly. A few blocks down and someone accidentally set off a car alarm…if it wasn’t an accident, I woulda had to put that puppy down myself. The sound of the alarm drew every flesh eating vermin for two blocks to us in frantic flesh feeding frenzy. We survived…but the damage was done. I watched Zoey and Francis limp for the next few blocks to the safe house. We all got it bad…no one wanted to die; no one wanted to be left behind. We made it to the safe house and patched ourselves up. Finally! A real man’s weapon…M16’s, the best gaddamn friend a soldier ever had, not as good as an AK in my books, but still one hell of a gun. Our new weapons cut through the horde like a hot knife through butter…but the journey was getting more and more difficult as we got closer to Mercy hospital. Smokers came at us out of every corner; Boomers caused us no end of trouble with putrid vomit that brought the horde down on us in unending droves; Hunters pounced on us, tearing at our flesh with talon-like fingers as Tanks smashed us into the floor in depraved rage. Frantic auto-machine gun fire and a well placed pipe bomb saved our butts from certain death more than once. And then…there were those blasted Witches. Each time, we barely survived…paying in full for our negligence of the one unspoken rule…“Stay together…or die.” We struggled our way to the end, to the very top of Mercy hospital. All that was left now was for us to make the call and the chopper would be on its way to rescue us. All the blood and sweat, stench of rotten corpses, broken bones…soon we would be rescued and finally rewarded with a respite from this hellish world. Soon this old dog could breathe a deep sigh and give his tired old bones a well deserved rest. It had been a hard campaign. I looked towards Zoey…she’d been with me through it all…from the very beginning. We’d watched each other’s backs, fought through seemingly impossible masses of zombified flesh eaters, together. I couldn’t even count the number of times I’d saved her ass, but she’d saved me too on occasion and in this old dog’s books, that made us even. But it also made us comrades.
So we loaded up our guns, split into pairs of two and put our backs to the walls at the top and bottom of the stairwell, which ran up the back of the fortified building which was across from the helipad…and made the call. The Horde came in their numbers. Numbers of Hunters, numbers of Boomers, numbers of Smokers. Our strategy worked well, it was easy enough to defend ourselves against the undead knocking down our doors in the narrow space of the stairwell. That is…until the Tanks came into play. Half a ton of mutated rage-pumped human flesh knocked Louis into the ground like one of those steroid-junkie wrestlers beating down a three foot midget. I emptied three clips into the beast before it finally keeled over. And just then…I heard it…the sweetest words I’d ever heard…the sound of Zoey shouting out…“The chopper’s here!” and as luck would have it, the way was clear. We made a run for it, Zoey tagging close behind me, both assuming that Francis (Tunji) and Louis (Wale) would be following close behind us, watching each other’s backs. We were almost there, just a few more feet to safety, a few more steps to the chopper and we'd be safe. As I put my foot down on the ramp leading up to the helipad, I felt a strange tug and suddenly found myself flying backwards. A Smoker had gotten a hold of me…I cried out to Zoey as the Smoker’s wormlike tongue pulled me passed her. The abject horror I should have felt at being pulled into the jaws of certain death was replaced by bewilderment and the morbid realization of what was happening in front of me. With imminent rescue looming before her, Zoey (Michael) didn’t even look back. Not even a glance. The Smoker dragged me away, pulling me up alongside another one of my comrades, who was being mauled to death by a Hunter. Out of the corner of my eyes I could see it was Francis (Tunji), “Ambushed…” I guessed, as he was making his way out of the fortified building. In the distance I saw Zoey, as she finally made it to the safety of the chopper. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Louis (Wale) fighting off straggling undead as he made his way up the ramp to the chopper. It was then that I knew it was over; and as the horde came streaming towards me- the hunger for flesh evident in their blood red eyes- I looked to my side, but Louis was already dead. “Damn!” I thought. “…Should have had that last smoke.”
We had both been abandoned…both been betrayed by people we trusted, both been Left 4 dead. Sigh, but then, who was I to say I wouldn’t have done the same thing. As the chopper took off, a line from a gritty movie I once watched flashed across my mind....the words seeming wiser now than they had the first time I heard them: “An old man dies...a young girl lives….”
“…Fair trade.”
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