Chapter 1: Till Death Do Us Part
The bridge stopped, the extremely loud creaking of the gears grinded to a halt as more zombies raced like mad towards it.
“Great, bridge stopped.”
“I knew it! I hate that generator!”
A long roar echoed, followed by three more.
“Oh, and there’s four tanks comin’ at us. Thanks, Louis.”
“WHAT?! What the hell did I do?” The horde grew larger as multiple infected were thrown aside by the incoming tanks.
“Optimism. You jinxed us.” A man behind him said, sarcastically.
Louis looked down at the infected horde with contempt.
“Guys, I got a bad feeling about this.” The aged Vietnam veteran behind him gritted his teeth in dismay. He knew what Louis intended to do.
“Wait, what?” The man in the biker attire holding a shotgun, Francis, said in surprise.
“Louis, come on we. We’ve been through worst than this, man. This is, this is nothing,” He muttered at the sight of the infected.
“You’re the one who should be sad, Francis,” Louis replied solemnly.
“We made it through this? I was gonna give your dumb ass a job.”
This time, the woman in a red sweater answered worriedly. “Okay, shut up with that kind of talk. We’ve got some ammo left, we just need… to… “ She stammered as Louis prepared to drop with his gun.
“God damn it! We’ve come this far! It can’t end like this!” Louis just looked back sadly.
“I love you, Zoey. I love all of you guys,” He sorrowfully said. “Listen. I want you to kill me before- Before Louis knew it, the soldier had jumped off the bridge without a single thought beforehand.
“Save it,” He said as the others watched in horror. “Cover me! I got this!” He landed and immediately clicked the trigger to his old M16 rifle, gutting most of the infected with bursts.
“BILL!”
“You heard the man! Cover him!” Francis said, his shotgun billowing flashes of orange. Eventually, Bill’s M16 ran out of ammo and the common infected had died off with the rounds. The tanks were now growling at him and rushed to confront him.
You’ll never stop comin’, do you?
He pulled out a Molotov and lit it up with his dying cigarette, hell-bent on sending the bastards back to hell.
Every time I think, “She’s finally safe…”
“I can finally rest…”
There you are again.
Like a bad nightmare. He stretched his arm far back to throw the Molotov.
And I have had.
Enough.
“Eat fire, you goddamn animals.” The Molotov went far and true and crashed down onto the asphalt, causing the tanks to light up like a campfire. Enraged, they changed their attention from the struggling survivors on the bridge to this gutsy old veteran.
Reloading his M16 rapidly, he aimed towards the crowd. “That got your attention.” The American weapon flared up as it sent rounds and rounds into the pissed off horde and the tanks that were now no longer on fire.
He quickly sprinted towards his right to get them away from them. From her. “This way, you sons of bitches…”
Meanwhile, the three survivors looked onwards in horror and sadness.
“What is he doing?” Louis asked as he lifted up his gun.
“He’s getting all the tanks to follow him, Louis!” Zoey shouted in response.
“He’s going to get killed!” A tank who had not been distracted by Bill’s pummeling advanced towards them along with all the other infected.
“Well, not all of ‘em followed him,” Francis said as they all lit up the crowd of zombies and the berserk tank. “This bridge ain’t high enough for that tank.”
“Yeah. Let’s just hope Bill finds that generator….”
Their rifles flared again in morbid symphony. “…Before the tank figures that out.”
Meanwhile, Bill was too busy fighting off the hordes, now closer to the inactive generator. Finding that he couldn’t hold them off with just his rifle, he pulled out his M1911 and fired them all at once at the infected which struggled to reach him.
Almost there.
Do it, you old useless bastard.
Get them out of here. Get them safe. He withdrew his pistol while still firing the M16 and reached out for the button on the bloodstained generator.
Don’t let her down.
His finger hit the button, sounding the click that will save her and everybody else.The generator rumbled and the sound of the bridge being ascended grinded alive.
“Yes! He did it!” Zoey shouted in happiness and yet still felt heartbroken. “Ha haaaa! He did it!” She said, her rifle pummeling the dying tank.
Bill looked out from the fence that was all that blocked his way back to them.
Somebody must’ve moved that bridge since I looked last. ‘Cause it looks like a million miles away. He cursed and gritted his teeth again.
No. Don’t think like that. You can still make it back. He primed his rifle for fire.
You can still make it ba- He was thrown into the air by a slam of a tank’s meaty fist, his ribcage breaking from the sheer force of it and blood flying everywhere.
Then he slammed into a room with wheels powering the bridge with a thoom. He dropped onto the ground and splattered blood on it.
He felt pain everywhere, the same pain he dealt to the Vietnamese. To the infected and to everyone he murdered.
He groaned in pain, but was determined to make one last stand before he died. Gripping his side of his stomach in pain, he let go and reloaded the M16 with a satisfying click. Bill looked onwards from the door, his beard bloodstained.
At the door stood the killers, three large and angry tanks ready to pound him into blood dust. He weakly laughed at them before pulling out his lighter to light his last cigarette. “Heh…”
“Hold yer horses…” He raised his hand up, dropping his M16, which clattered loudly onto the floor.
“…I’ll be with ya in a minute,” the cigarette was lit up and all he saw after was blackness.
Eternal blackness, the moment he knew he succeeded.
The blackness, it consumes all light and yet Bill felt more comfortable with it. But now, he assumed he was waiting on the line to hell.
He couldn’t feel his limbs, and only made out his hands. Trying to speak, he emitted only a hoarse grunt. Now his head began to hurt like hell. How is that even possible when you’re dead?
Then he felt pain again as he fell onto something, hard. Groaning in pain, he tried to move again and found that he did. Feeling around, he could only make out objects made out of wood and… whisky bottles?
Then he heard the fluttering of insect wings, and the sounds of what seemed to be human screaming. He got up, and found that he no longer stank of blood. His M16 was nowhere to be found but what he felt was the cold metal of something…
“What in the hell…?” The shattering of glass distracted him as a wooden door was banged by something organic and he again smelt blood. Was he back at the bridge? Back to where he started?
He tried to look for the metal object again. Feeling a grip, he lifted it up into the air to find that it was a…. shotgun. What the hell? A shotgun? Where’s his M16?
“I thought I had a rifle for god’s sake!” he cursed under his breath as more screaming erupted from the outside of the door. As much as he wanted to breach and clear every single being from wherever he was, he chose to stay silent.
Dead was what he wanted to be, and this was the exact opposite.
“Help me!” a feminine voice broke through as he heard blood splattering everywhere. It reminded him of Zoey’s screams of pain too much.
He's had it, they were going down.
He broke through the door to find a freak of nature, a cockroach mixed with that of a pony clamping down on a dying multicolored pony. It was too damn wrong in many ways, too wrong.
It stopped biting on its prey and looked at him, hissing.
“First, the goddamn zombies and now that freak of nature?!” He shouted as he leveled the shotgun at the thing.
“Well, death amen!” He blew its head off with a blast of pellets, leaving its corpse limp and falling onto the ground, liquid green blood oozing out of its stump. After that, he slowly moved forwards, observing his surroundings as he went along. He was in a ruined town, eerily similar to Philadelphia when the outbreak started. Looking down, he found that he was in a bloodied store with the pony who laid there, taking short breathes.
“Help…me…” it muttered, shocking Bill for the first time. These beings can talk? Now he’d seen everything. No matter, it required aid and he would give it in any way possible.
Rushing over to the bloodied pony, he put his free hand on it. “You’re gonna be alright, kiddo! I’ve been through hell and back!” he said, not aware that there was no sign of first aid anywhere.
“Thank… you… but…too…” It expired, and left Bill distraught.
“No… SHIT!” He cursed under his breath, getting up and kicking the body of the being he shot earlier.
Now he had no plan, nowhere to run and no idea where he was. He heard more chittering and spun, seeing at least five more of the bloodthirsty hybrids.
They looked at each other before Bill put at least five metal pellets into the left one’s cranium. Looking back at the Vietnam veteran, they started to quiver.
“Son of a bitch! Here’s a quick death to be sure for all of you!” He pumped the shotgun and blasted the others to a pulp. After that, he looked around and spotted an alleyway next to him. Deciding it would be the best option to escape this hellhole, he sprinted along it. He then remembered that he only possessed at least twenty shells from his earlier death, and crusade to freedom.
“Damn! Need to find some ammo…” he grunted as he spotted more hybrids sinking their jaws into helpless ponies who could somehow talk.
Jesus, this was worst than Florida. It was then he laid eyes on a grand palace ahead, like some sort of a poorly written reality show.
“I held onto my horses and this is what I get?!” He heard multiple hisses and found not one, not five and not even ten but at least twenty creatures looking at him from the left. He chuckled and leveled his shotgun again.
But that probably was not the best option as his shotgun pummeled them. They weren’t common infected but they were dangerous and hell.
“How’d you like that, you mother hubbards- He felt searing pain jab into his back, and found that one of these things had latched onto him.
“Get offa me!” He tried to shake it off, and found that he was being smashed by one of them. Roaring in agony, he tried to fire his shotgun but only felt pain as his flesh was being torn apart.
“JESUS CHRIST- He was cut off as more of them approached and sunk their jaws into him. It was at most, three minutes before Bill died, feeling more ashamed at being beaten by a bunch of lousy bugs. Even getting killed by a tank was much better.
Well, he was dead again. Dead, dead and dead- Oh wait, he was back in the unforgiving void. No longer pained by the creatures, he felt his body return to its senses and fell down again.
“Motherfuckin’…” he cursed. Looking around and scanning the surroundings, he found that he was in the same damn room. But he wasn’t carrying a shotgun, no. He was carrying a friggin’ hunting rifle and what he saw on a wooden barrel was an intact Molotov, ready to light up some creatures of the night.
“Well, what a fuckin’ day!” Screams were heard from the outside again.
This was only going to get worse for him.
