Ch 3: Novel writing MANIA!
And now, the much anticipated 3rd chapter! 7900 words so far! Leef was going to help us and write a chapter or two. I don’t know if she or vlad should writ the next one. I guess Leef can write 4 this week and vlad can always do his over the weekend. vatever.
I proof read it this time, and you’ll probably be able to note the total lack of use that process was. Grammar Nazi, do your worst!
Extra points for everyone who identifies the cheep video game, movie, historical and literary references or stupid inside jokes!
For those that missed them:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Night of the Undead Cliches
Chapter 3
"Mr West"
By Zeth
Caley pointed her shotgun up the open front stairwell of the Parasol Corporation’s building. She took a look out the large plate glass window into the dieing city. The sun was just about to set and the street was dimly lit with red sunlight. She watched as a beaten up old van that looked like it had spent a little bit too long parked down by the river come screeching down the road in front of the Parasol building. Plastered to the front was a large cardboard box that looked like it had once been a homeless man’s home. Behind the van, what was left of the homeless man was being dragged behind the van.
A slight shudder went down Caley’s spine as she climbed the rest of the staircase and entered the second floor.
A quick glance around told her that the second floor was no place to stay the night. It was wide open floor with no sign of respectable defenses. Luckily, there was no sign of the undead, either. The entire floor was littered with debris that Caley had to be careful to avoid in order to stay silent. The place looked abandoned, but she didn’t want to draw any unnecessary attention to herself as she made her way over to the elevators.
Her heart sank as she got to the elevators. One door was half jammed open, and the other door shut tight. The “Up” button was still lit, indicating that the elevator had not been able to make its way down to the first floor for quite some time. She spotted the fire stairs behind the elevator. Before continuing, she took a look at the directory next to the elevator.
“Hmmm,” she thought out loud. “5 parking garage levels, offices on floors 4-38, labs on floors 39 - 58, and floors 58-71 are ‘Executive‘ rooms. Fancy schamcy bullshit” she muttered. She noticed a note at the bottom, “Floors above 37, including roof access, are restricted to authorized personnel only.”
Caley liked the idea of “restricted access”. That would mean it’s harder for the zombies to get in. Letting her shotgun hang across her chest, she drew the Desert Eagle she had looted off the dead body earlier. The Mark XIX had a tiger striped gold-titanium finish that seamed to glow in the dim light. More importantly, it had an attached flashlight that could light the stairwell if any emergency lights were out. So despite being clear over kill this early in the game, she hefted the magnum in one hand, and opened the stairwell door with the other.
She started slowly up the stairs, listening for any sound of movement. At the first few landings, she would pause, then quickly whirl around to point her magnum up the next flight. After a few surprise attacks on empty flights of stairs, Caley convinced herself that she was just being foolish, and took to jogging up the stairs.
After about 20 flights, Caley’s heart was pounding in her chest. She stopped for a moment halfway between two floors and gasped for breath. Leaning against the wall, she let her heart come back under control. Closing her eyes for a moment, she heard the rushing of blood through her ears lessen…
… and then she heard the soft scrap of metal on metal, a dull thud, and more scraping. Her heart stopped. All was silent for a half second, and she heard the scraping sound again. Her heart resumed racing out of control as adrenaline pumped into her veins. Raising the magnum with both hands, she started slowly ascending the flight to the next landing.
As she approached floor 21’s fire door, she noticed a faint glow come through the small window into the stairwell. It faded for a moment, with the sound of scraping metal, then remerged, pulsing slowly in time with the sounds she was hearing. She placed her ear against the door. She listened hard this time. She couldn’t decide what she was listening to, although it sounded familiar enough.
Ignoring her better judgment, she flexed her fingers around the magnum’s grip, and put her other hand on the stairwell door’s knob. Composing herself, she turned the knob. The sound of screeching hinges echoed up and down the stairwell, and she stepped into floor 21, her second hand coming up to support the pistol.
She scanned the immediate area with the pistol’s flashlight. There was no one visible from the little alcove that the stairwell opened into, but she didn’t have a very good view from here. All she saw was empty cubicles, with a few desk lamps glowing on the darkened floor.
She inched her way forward, towards the open floor. The metallic sound was right next to her now, loud as ever. As repetitive as ever. The reasonable section of her brain fought to figure out what the sound was, convinced there was no threat to it. The more primitive section of her brain, however, would not let her relax, almost freezing her in place, straining her ears as she inched into the open.
And then she suddenly realized what she was listening too. She stepped around the corner, and looked at the elevator doors for floor 21. Grinning inwardly to herself, she lowered the magnum and evaluated the scene. A rolling janitor’s trash can had tipped over and blocked the sliding elevator doors. The doors kept closing on it, thumping into the obstruction, and sliding open again, with a faint metal on metal scraping sound.
“See Cal, scared yourself over nothing,” she laughed nervously at herself. “What? Is the elevator going to try to kill you or something?”
Pulling the trashcan out of the way of the door, she stepped into the elevator. Part of her mind wondered where the janitor had gone, but quickly abandoned the thought as outside the window a searchlight played over the building. Caley assumed the army must be operating helicopters in the area, but dismissed the idea of trying to contact them. They hadn’t been much use up until now. For all she knew, they were planning on firebombing the city soon.
The elevator doors slid closed, and Caley’s attention shifted to the button pad. All the buttons from 37 up until the roof had keyhole next to them. One floor, 69, had been unlocked, and the key had apparently broken off in the hole. In a fit of mischievousness, she decided to press the button for floor 45, to see what was in the labs.
The speakers in the elevator emitted a rude sounding electronic noise, and then the voice of a young British girl spoke up, “Level 45, restricted access,” and then fell silent.
“Fine”, Caley muttered to herself, and pressed the button for floor 69. Remembering a trick she had heard of once, she held down the “Close door” button and the level 69 button together. This was supposed to make the elevator bypass all the floors whose call buttons had been pressed and take her straight to her destination.
Much to her surprise, the elevator DID take her right to floor 69. As it slowed to a halt, she readied her magnum again. The doors slid open and she cautiously stepped out, pistol raised. She regarded the empty floor for a moment, and the elevator slid shut and rushed off to the other floors it had been trying to get to all day.
Floor 69 was indeed executive offices. Caley didn’t appreciate the rich carpeting or the ornate doors, though. The floor was only dimly lit by a few overhead lights left on for the night, but she was no mood to appreciate the exorbitance and luxury of Parasol executive offices today anyway.
A short distance from the elevator, two doors stood on opposite sides of the hall. One door was marked with the name “McKinley” in big gold letters. She tried this door first, but it was locked. She peered through the glass door, but could not discern much about the room in the darkness, except that it was big and executive-like. She turned to the other door. This one just said “Vice President” in substantially smaller gold embossed letters. She turned the knob to this door, and it clicked open.
Just then, the sound of heavy foot falls came out of the stairwell. Several people were running down the stairs. Caley froze for a minute, conflicted about what to do. It would be good to see living people, but her instinct told her that these people wouldn’t be glad to see her. Just as she ducked into the Vice President’s office and closed the door behind her, several heavily armed soldiers burst out of the stairwell onto the 69th floor.
“Bravo team will go to the president’s office to collect the documents. Alpha and Charlie teams will come with me to the 45th floor to collect the specimens from the labs.” ordered a gruff voice that was obviously in charge.
A chorus of “yes sirs” were heard, then foot falls descended down the stairs out of earshot.
The room Caley was in had windows in the wall looking out into the hall, but luckily the shades were drawn over them. She prayed the soldiers wouldn’t come into this room and find her. She crouched by the door.
“At least we don’t have to climb 20 flights of stairs like the rest of them,” one remaining voice remarked.
“Come on, the president’s office is over here.”
Caley figured there were about four of five people remaining on this floor. Their foot falls were unhurried, cautious, and getting closer. Circles of light from weapon mounted lights illuminated walls as they scanned for threats.
The foot falls stop in front of Caley’s door.
“Here we are. You two stay out here and cover the hall. God knows what’s roaming around in here. We’ll be out in a minute.”
Caley heard a door click open and was relieved to find it was NOT to the room she was hiding in. They must have opened the room labeled “McKinley”. The voices outside continued in an idle manner.
“So, the president’s dead, huh?”
“Yup.”
“Well shit.”
“The kicker is, he wasn’t even killed by any of this zombie bullshit. Apparently some anarchist asshole, convinced the world was ending, decided to shoot him yesterday afternoon during a press conference about emergency services deployment”
“Shot by an anarchist. What a fucking way to go”
“Yeah. I don’t even know why we came back for these ‘Black Mesa’ documents anyway. We should have nuked this whole gorram city by now.”
“Yeah, well the Army goobers decided to try to take in refugees rather then use their hardware. I heard Fort Pastor got completely over run. News casts were saying how that was the safest place to go. But they let in some infected people, and bam, spread like a wild fire. All those beautiful A-10s and hellfire missiles, surrounded by zombies, no use to anyone.”
Caley wasn’t sure what the hell they were talking about, but she realized that if Fort Pastor was over run, the army was completely out of commission in this area. She couldn’t guess what the conditions were in the rest of the country at this point.
“Shut up a second” a voice came from outside.
“Wha?”
“I said shut up!”
There was a muffled sound of automatic gun fire down the stairs.
“Hey, Sarged,” one of the soldiers standing outside the Vice President’s door yelled. “You almost done in there? It sounds like there might be trouble downstairs”
“The Lt can take care of himself. I think I found the Black Mesa documents anyway. I’ve got the McKinkley’s laptop too. That should please the Lt.”
All of a sudden, Caley heard the stairwell door burst open and heavy boot falls announced the entry of several more soldiers.
“IT’S LOOSE!!!” yelled one of the new comers, out of breath and clearly panicked. “IT GOT OUT! IT KILLED THEM! IT KILLED ALL OF THEM!”
“Whoa there, what the FUCK are you talking about” said a calmer voice. “You’re still here. What killed who now?”
“IT GOT OUT! WE GOTTA GET UP TO THE ROOF! WE GOTTA GET OUTTA HERE!”
“Now just calm down a mome…” but the reasonable voice was cut off by a burst of automatic fire from the stairwell that was cut off abruptly with a scream of agony. “uh… shit, I think you might be right” the owner of the reasonable voice changed his mind.
“Let’s get out of here! NOW!”
The soldier’s hurried footfalls headed towards the door, but when Caley heard the door open, the steps came to an abrupt halt.
“wh… what the fuck IS that thing?” a shaky voice asked.
The hysterical soldier replied immediately, “KILL IT!”
All other conversation was immediately drown out by the instant eruption of several fully automatic firearms onto some unknown terror. Bullets started whizzing all over the place, smashing the plate glass windows of the Vice president’s office, knocking paintings off the walls, sending paper’s flying. Animal grunts and human screams mixed into the confusion. Orders were being hastily yelled, but no one was able to obey.
Caley got up from her crouched position by the door and made a mad dash for the Vice president’s desk. The massive hardwood desk wouldn’t be much, but it was better then sitting under shattering glass.
However, the fight outside took less then a minute to resolve. The gun fire died down, the orders stopped, the running quieted. The last vestige of a fight Caley heard was a maddened scream accompanied by a soldier firing a side arm. The side arm went empty, but the soldier kept pulling the trigger. *click*click*click*click*click*click* He gave up and started whimpering the word “please” very softly over and over again. An animal’s heavy, growling breathing could be heard, then a sickening tearing of flesh and a splash of blood.
Caley crouched behind the desk, utterly terrified. Mindless zombies were one thing. She could handle those. But whatever was now outside this office had just taken on 3 full squads of heavily armed soldiers, and come out as the victor.
She peered around the desk and looked towards the door. Whatever was moving around out there was completely alien to her. Its footsteps sounded like wet suction cups as it padded down the hall. As it ambled down the hallway, she saw a bloody, hideous snout appear near a hole in the bottom of the Vice President’s door. It sniffed the air a little bit, and Caley look at horror at the bloody fangs she could see.
Oh shit, she though, silently. It can smell me. It smells me. A long tongue played over the creature’s fangs. It’s going to come in here and kill me like the rest of them. I won’t have a chance.
For a few tense seconds that seemed like an eternity, the beast outside the door sniffed. Then it lost interest, turned around, and padded away. Caley didn’t know where the hell it went, but she dared not move for a good long while.
For a good ten minutes, Caley sat next to the desk. The adrenaline drained from her system, but the terror didn’t. She leaned her head back against the side of the desk, and as the energy rush faded from her, she felt completely exhausted. Her eyes closed and against her will, her mind slipped into unconsciousness…
*DING*
Caley’s eyes snapped open. It sky outside the executive office window was completely dark. What normally would have been a breathtaking view of a glowing city skyline was totally dark.
Caley still sat slumped next to the Vice President’s desk where she had passed out. She didn’t have time to wonder how long she’d been there before she realized that the elevator door had just dinged. From her place on the floor, she could look down the hall towards the elevator through the openings in the wall that had recently held plate glass windows.
The door to the elevator opened up, and the light from inside flooded into the hallway, illuminating a mass of undead soldiers that were milling around in the hallway. Absent mindedly milling around a second before, their attentions suddenly shifted to the elevator, which expelled a tall figure in a long dark trench coat.
The man took two long, fluid strides right into the mingling zombies, pulled two revolvers from holsters slung low on his hips, and opened fire. His first two shots were aimed up under the chin of an undead soldier that was standing right in front of him. The soldier’s brains hit the ceiling, raising the ceiling tiles up an inch before they came back to rest, slightly askew.
With fluid, almost graceful motions, the man in the trench coat swung one revolver to his left, and pulled the trigger in a zombie’s face with out even looking, as he aimed forward and took a quick, precise shot between another’s eyes. He swept forward and brought both guns to bear on three more zombies moving in on his left. Lightning fast shots dispatched each one. He strode down the hallway, shooting this way and that, with out so much as a glance at what he was aiming at half the time, but hitting every mark.
He stopped right in front of the former window between the hall and the room Caley was now sitting in, dumbfounded. She could only see him from the wait up, and he aimed both revolvers at something on the floor. Two shots went off.
Then the man raised his left arm and pointed a gun into the Vice President’s room. He was still looking down at what he had just shot, but his one revolver was now aimed directly at Caley’s forehead. She could see right down the barrel. She could see the groves in the muzzle. He wasn’t looking at her, but she knew he wasn’t going to miss.
*CLICK*
The hammer fell on an empty chamber. Caley let out the slightest of gasps, and the man looked over at her. His penetrating eyes were visible despite the fact that most of his face was in shadows cast by his wide brim hat. Staring down the sights of his perfectly aimed revolver, the two regarded each other for a moment.
“Well” the man said, relaxing his aim slightly. Caley’s exhausted body had not yet had the opportunity to move. “Looks like we’ve got ourselves a live one”
“Yeah,” Caley croaked, surprising herself that she found her voice. “And I’d appreciate it if you’d look before you go and shoot me next time.”
The Man grinned at her. He lowered his revolver, pointing it at the ground. A name tag that had been obscured by his arm a moment ago was now visible on the breast of his slightly tattered coat. It read “Hello, my name is MR WEST”, the name written in thick black marker. He said nothing.
“So besides shooting at living women, what are you doing here, Mr West?” Caley was feeling a bit braver without an expert marksman aiming his gun at her forehead. She got to her feet.
“Well,” Mr West replied, flipping the cylinder of his revolvers open, dumping the empty cartridges onto the floor, “A helicopter landed on the roof of this building earlier this evening.” He removed new cartridges from his belt and loaded up his revolvers again. “I haven’t seen it take off yet, so I was hoping to catch a ride on it when it does.” Finishing the reloading operation, he spun the cylinder of his revolvers around, and with a flick of the wrist closed the guns against. With a smooth motion, he reholstered both pistols.
“I guess I should ask you the same thing, my dear…”
“Caley.”
“My dear Caley”
“Oh, you know, I was… doing the same…”
“Hmmm,” Mr West cocked one eye brow slightly. “A curious position you were in for one looking to catch a ride on a helicopter. Asleep in a room full of undead soldiers…”
Caley only managed to look embarrassed.
“Well, the elevator doesn’t go all the way to the roof without a key, so I suggest we take the stairs.”
“Right,” Caley replied, and made her way into the hall between the offices. “Right, there is something else in this building. Not a zombie, some sort of beast.”
“I see,” was all Mr West said.
Passing in front of the elevators again, Caley noticed a laptop bag lying on the ground. Some manila folders stuck out of the pocket. “Hold on a second. I think these might be able to shed some light on what happened in this city. These soldiers were after them before they got killed”
“Interesting,” Mr. West replied, apparently curious as to why she knew what they were doing before they were killed. But he refrained from asking. Instead he suggested, “Maybe we should look at those when we are a good safe distance away from here.”
“Oh, right.” Caley stuffed the folders back in the bag and slung the whole thing over her shoulder. She only paused briefly to pick an MP5 sub machinegun off a dead soldier. There wasn’t much ammo left for it, but something was better then nothing. She noted for the first time the Parasol Corp patch that was on the shoulders of all the dead soldiers. She didn’t have time to contemplate the implications of Parasol having a private army before following Mr West up the stairs to the roof.
Chapter 4 by Leefy
I proof read it this time, and you’ll probably be able to note the total lack of use that process was. Grammar Nazi, do your worst!
Extra points for everyone who identifies the cheep video game, movie, historical and literary references or stupid inside jokes!
For those that missed them:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Night of the Undead Cliches
Chapter 3
"Mr West"
By Zeth
Caley pointed her shotgun up the open front stairwell of the Parasol Corporation’s building. She took a look out the large plate glass window into the dieing city. The sun was just about to set and the street was dimly lit with red sunlight. She watched as a beaten up old van that looked like it had spent a little bit too long parked down by the river come screeching down the road in front of the Parasol building. Plastered to the front was a large cardboard box that looked like it had once been a homeless man’s home. Behind the van, what was left of the homeless man was being dragged behind the van.
A slight shudder went down Caley’s spine as she climbed the rest of the staircase and entered the second floor.
A quick glance around told her that the second floor was no place to stay the night. It was wide open floor with no sign of respectable defenses. Luckily, there was no sign of the undead, either. The entire floor was littered with debris that Caley had to be careful to avoid in order to stay silent. The place looked abandoned, but she didn’t want to draw any unnecessary attention to herself as she made her way over to the elevators.
Her heart sank as she got to the elevators. One door was half jammed open, and the other door shut tight. The “Up” button was still lit, indicating that the elevator had not been able to make its way down to the first floor for quite some time. She spotted the fire stairs behind the elevator. Before continuing, she took a look at the directory next to the elevator.
“Hmmm,” she thought out loud. “5 parking garage levels, offices on floors 4-38, labs on floors 39 - 58, and floors 58-71 are ‘Executive‘ rooms. Fancy schamcy bullshit” she muttered. She noticed a note at the bottom, “Floors above 37, including roof access, are restricted to authorized personnel only.”
Caley liked the idea of “restricted access”. That would mean it’s harder for the zombies to get in. Letting her shotgun hang across her chest, she drew the Desert Eagle she had looted off the dead body earlier. The Mark XIX had a tiger striped gold-titanium finish that seamed to glow in the dim light. More importantly, it had an attached flashlight that could light the stairwell if any emergency lights were out. So despite being clear over kill this early in the game, she hefted the magnum in one hand, and opened the stairwell door with the other.
She started slowly up the stairs, listening for any sound of movement. At the first few landings, she would pause, then quickly whirl around to point her magnum up the next flight. After a few surprise attacks on empty flights of stairs, Caley convinced herself that she was just being foolish, and took to jogging up the stairs.
After about 20 flights, Caley’s heart was pounding in her chest. She stopped for a moment halfway between two floors and gasped for breath. Leaning against the wall, she let her heart come back under control. Closing her eyes for a moment, she heard the rushing of blood through her ears lessen…
… and then she heard the soft scrap of metal on metal, a dull thud, and more scraping. Her heart stopped. All was silent for a half second, and she heard the scraping sound again. Her heart resumed racing out of control as adrenaline pumped into her veins. Raising the magnum with both hands, she started slowly ascending the flight to the next landing.
As she approached floor 21’s fire door, she noticed a faint glow come through the small window into the stairwell. It faded for a moment, with the sound of scraping metal, then remerged, pulsing slowly in time with the sounds she was hearing. She placed her ear against the door. She listened hard this time. She couldn’t decide what she was listening to, although it sounded familiar enough.
Ignoring her better judgment, she flexed her fingers around the magnum’s grip, and put her other hand on the stairwell door’s knob. Composing herself, she turned the knob. The sound of screeching hinges echoed up and down the stairwell, and she stepped into floor 21, her second hand coming up to support the pistol.
She scanned the immediate area with the pistol’s flashlight. There was no one visible from the little alcove that the stairwell opened into, but she didn’t have a very good view from here. All she saw was empty cubicles, with a few desk lamps glowing on the darkened floor.
She inched her way forward, towards the open floor. The metallic sound was right next to her now, loud as ever. As repetitive as ever. The reasonable section of her brain fought to figure out what the sound was, convinced there was no threat to it. The more primitive section of her brain, however, would not let her relax, almost freezing her in place, straining her ears as she inched into the open.
And then she suddenly realized what she was listening too. She stepped around the corner, and looked at the elevator doors for floor 21. Grinning inwardly to herself, she lowered the magnum and evaluated the scene. A rolling janitor’s trash can had tipped over and blocked the sliding elevator doors. The doors kept closing on it, thumping into the obstruction, and sliding open again, with a faint metal on metal scraping sound.
“See Cal, scared yourself over nothing,” she laughed nervously at herself. “What? Is the elevator going to try to kill you or something?”
Pulling the trashcan out of the way of the door, she stepped into the elevator. Part of her mind wondered where the janitor had gone, but quickly abandoned the thought as outside the window a searchlight played over the building. Caley assumed the army must be operating helicopters in the area, but dismissed the idea of trying to contact them. They hadn’t been much use up until now. For all she knew, they were planning on firebombing the city soon.
The elevator doors slid closed, and Caley’s attention shifted to the button pad. All the buttons from 37 up until the roof had keyhole next to them. One floor, 69, had been unlocked, and the key had apparently broken off in the hole. In a fit of mischievousness, she decided to press the button for floor 45, to see what was in the labs.
The speakers in the elevator emitted a rude sounding electronic noise, and then the voice of a young British girl spoke up, “Level 45, restricted access,” and then fell silent.
“Fine”, Caley muttered to herself, and pressed the button for floor 69. Remembering a trick she had heard of once, she held down the “Close door” button and the level 69 button together. This was supposed to make the elevator bypass all the floors whose call buttons had been pressed and take her straight to her destination.
Much to her surprise, the elevator DID take her right to floor 69. As it slowed to a halt, she readied her magnum again. The doors slid open and she cautiously stepped out, pistol raised. She regarded the empty floor for a moment, and the elevator slid shut and rushed off to the other floors it had been trying to get to all day.
Floor 69 was indeed executive offices. Caley didn’t appreciate the rich carpeting or the ornate doors, though. The floor was only dimly lit by a few overhead lights left on for the night, but she was no mood to appreciate the exorbitance and luxury of Parasol executive offices today anyway.
A short distance from the elevator, two doors stood on opposite sides of the hall. One door was marked with the name “McKinley” in big gold letters. She tried this door first, but it was locked. She peered through the glass door, but could not discern much about the room in the darkness, except that it was big and executive-like. She turned to the other door. This one just said “Vice President” in substantially smaller gold embossed letters. She turned the knob to this door, and it clicked open.
Just then, the sound of heavy foot falls came out of the stairwell. Several people were running down the stairs. Caley froze for a minute, conflicted about what to do. It would be good to see living people, but her instinct told her that these people wouldn’t be glad to see her. Just as she ducked into the Vice President’s office and closed the door behind her, several heavily armed soldiers burst out of the stairwell onto the 69th floor.
“Bravo team will go to the president’s office to collect the documents. Alpha and Charlie teams will come with me to the 45th floor to collect the specimens from the labs.” ordered a gruff voice that was obviously in charge.
A chorus of “yes sirs” were heard, then foot falls descended down the stairs out of earshot.
The room Caley was in had windows in the wall looking out into the hall, but luckily the shades were drawn over them. She prayed the soldiers wouldn’t come into this room and find her. She crouched by the door.
“At least we don’t have to climb 20 flights of stairs like the rest of them,” one remaining voice remarked.
“Come on, the president’s office is over here.”
Caley figured there were about four of five people remaining on this floor. Their foot falls were unhurried, cautious, and getting closer. Circles of light from weapon mounted lights illuminated walls as they scanned for threats.
The foot falls stop in front of Caley’s door.
“Here we are. You two stay out here and cover the hall. God knows what’s roaming around in here. We’ll be out in a minute.”
Caley heard a door click open and was relieved to find it was NOT to the room she was hiding in. They must have opened the room labeled “McKinley”. The voices outside continued in an idle manner.
“So, the president’s dead, huh?”
“Yup.”
“Well shit.”
“The kicker is, he wasn’t even killed by any of this zombie bullshit. Apparently some anarchist asshole, convinced the world was ending, decided to shoot him yesterday afternoon during a press conference about emergency services deployment”
“Shot by an anarchist. What a fucking way to go”
“Yeah. I don’t even know why we came back for these ‘Black Mesa’ documents anyway. We should have nuked this whole gorram city by now.”
“Yeah, well the Army goobers decided to try to take in refugees rather then use their hardware. I heard Fort Pastor got completely over run. News casts were saying how that was the safest place to go. But they let in some infected people, and bam, spread like a wild fire. All those beautiful A-10s and hellfire missiles, surrounded by zombies, no use to anyone.”
Caley wasn’t sure what the hell they were talking about, but she realized that if Fort Pastor was over run, the army was completely out of commission in this area. She couldn’t guess what the conditions were in the rest of the country at this point.
“Shut up a second” a voice came from outside.
“Wha?”
“I said shut up!”
There was a muffled sound of automatic gun fire down the stairs.
“Hey, Sarged,” one of the soldiers standing outside the Vice President’s door yelled. “You almost done in there? It sounds like there might be trouble downstairs”
“The Lt can take care of himself. I think I found the Black Mesa documents anyway. I’ve got the McKinkley’s laptop too. That should please the Lt.”
All of a sudden, Caley heard the stairwell door burst open and heavy boot falls announced the entry of several more soldiers.
“IT’S LOOSE!!!” yelled one of the new comers, out of breath and clearly panicked. “IT GOT OUT! IT KILLED THEM! IT KILLED ALL OF THEM!”
“Whoa there, what the FUCK are you talking about” said a calmer voice. “You’re still here. What killed who now?”
“IT GOT OUT! WE GOTTA GET UP TO THE ROOF! WE GOTTA GET OUTTA HERE!”
“Now just calm down a mome…” but the reasonable voice was cut off by a burst of automatic fire from the stairwell that was cut off abruptly with a scream of agony. “uh… shit, I think you might be right” the owner of the reasonable voice changed his mind.
“Let’s get out of here! NOW!”
The soldier’s hurried footfalls headed towards the door, but when Caley heard the door open, the steps came to an abrupt halt.
“wh… what the fuck IS that thing?” a shaky voice asked.
The hysterical soldier replied immediately, “KILL IT!”
All other conversation was immediately drown out by the instant eruption of several fully automatic firearms onto some unknown terror. Bullets started whizzing all over the place, smashing the plate glass windows of the Vice president’s office, knocking paintings off the walls, sending paper’s flying. Animal grunts and human screams mixed into the confusion. Orders were being hastily yelled, but no one was able to obey.
Caley got up from her crouched position by the door and made a mad dash for the Vice president’s desk. The massive hardwood desk wouldn’t be much, but it was better then sitting under shattering glass.
However, the fight outside took less then a minute to resolve. The gun fire died down, the orders stopped, the running quieted. The last vestige of a fight Caley heard was a maddened scream accompanied by a soldier firing a side arm. The side arm went empty, but the soldier kept pulling the trigger. *click*click*click*click*click*click* He gave up and started whimpering the word “please” very softly over and over again. An animal’s heavy, growling breathing could be heard, then a sickening tearing of flesh and a splash of blood.
Caley crouched behind the desk, utterly terrified. Mindless zombies were one thing. She could handle those. But whatever was now outside this office had just taken on 3 full squads of heavily armed soldiers, and come out as the victor.
She peered around the desk and looked towards the door. Whatever was moving around out there was completely alien to her. Its footsteps sounded like wet suction cups as it padded down the hall. As it ambled down the hallway, she saw a bloody, hideous snout appear near a hole in the bottom of the Vice President’s door. It sniffed the air a little bit, and Caley look at horror at the bloody fangs she could see.
Oh shit, she though, silently. It can smell me. It smells me. A long tongue played over the creature’s fangs. It’s going to come in here and kill me like the rest of them. I won’t have a chance.
For a few tense seconds that seemed like an eternity, the beast outside the door sniffed. Then it lost interest, turned around, and padded away. Caley didn’t know where the hell it went, but she dared not move for a good long while.
For a good ten minutes, Caley sat next to the desk. The adrenaline drained from her system, but the terror didn’t. She leaned her head back against the side of the desk, and as the energy rush faded from her, she felt completely exhausted. Her eyes closed and against her will, her mind slipped into unconsciousness…
*DING*
Caley’s eyes snapped open. It sky outside the executive office window was completely dark. What normally would have been a breathtaking view of a glowing city skyline was totally dark.
Caley still sat slumped next to the Vice President’s desk where she had passed out. She didn’t have time to wonder how long she’d been there before she realized that the elevator door had just dinged. From her place on the floor, she could look down the hall towards the elevator through the openings in the wall that had recently held plate glass windows.
The door to the elevator opened up, and the light from inside flooded into the hallway, illuminating a mass of undead soldiers that were milling around in the hallway. Absent mindedly milling around a second before, their attentions suddenly shifted to the elevator, which expelled a tall figure in a long dark trench coat.
The man took two long, fluid strides right into the mingling zombies, pulled two revolvers from holsters slung low on his hips, and opened fire. His first two shots were aimed up under the chin of an undead soldier that was standing right in front of him. The soldier’s brains hit the ceiling, raising the ceiling tiles up an inch before they came back to rest, slightly askew.
With fluid, almost graceful motions, the man in the trench coat swung one revolver to his left, and pulled the trigger in a zombie’s face with out even looking, as he aimed forward and took a quick, precise shot between another’s eyes. He swept forward and brought both guns to bear on three more zombies moving in on his left. Lightning fast shots dispatched each one. He strode down the hallway, shooting this way and that, with out so much as a glance at what he was aiming at half the time, but hitting every mark.
He stopped right in front of the former window between the hall and the room Caley was now sitting in, dumbfounded. She could only see him from the wait up, and he aimed both revolvers at something on the floor. Two shots went off.
Then the man raised his left arm and pointed a gun into the Vice President’s room. He was still looking down at what he had just shot, but his one revolver was now aimed directly at Caley’s forehead. She could see right down the barrel. She could see the groves in the muzzle. He wasn’t looking at her, but she knew he wasn’t going to miss.
*CLICK*
The hammer fell on an empty chamber. Caley let out the slightest of gasps, and the man looked over at her. His penetrating eyes were visible despite the fact that most of his face was in shadows cast by his wide brim hat. Staring down the sights of his perfectly aimed revolver, the two regarded each other for a moment.
“Well” the man said, relaxing his aim slightly. Caley’s exhausted body had not yet had the opportunity to move. “Looks like we’ve got ourselves a live one”
“Yeah,” Caley croaked, surprising herself that she found her voice. “And I’d appreciate it if you’d look before you go and shoot me next time.”
The Man grinned at her. He lowered his revolver, pointing it at the ground. A name tag that had been obscured by his arm a moment ago was now visible on the breast of his slightly tattered coat. It read “Hello, my name is MR WEST”, the name written in thick black marker. He said nothing.
“So besides shooting at living women, what are you doing here, Mr West?” Caley was feeling a bit braver without an expert marksman aiming his gun at her forehead. She got to her feet.
“Well,” Mr West replied, flipping the cylinder of his revolvers open, dumping the empty cartridges onto the floor, “A helicopter landed on the roof of this building earlier this evening.” He removed new cartridges from his belt and loaded up his revolvers again. “I haven’t seen it take off yet, so I was hoping to catch a ride on it when it does.” Finishing the reloading operation, he spun the cylinder of his revolvers around, and with a flick of the wrist closed the guns against. With a smooth motion, he reholstered both pistols.
“I guess I should ask you the same thing, my dear…”
“Caley.”
“My dear Caley”
“Oh, you know, I was… doing the same…”
“Hmmm,” Mr West cocked one eye brow slightly. “A curious position you were in for one looking to catch a ride on a helicopter. Asleep in a room full of undead soldiers…”
Caley only managed to look embarrassed.
“Well, the elevator doesn’t go all the way to the roof without a key, so I suggest we take the stairs.”
“Right,” Caley replied, and made her way into the hall between the offices. “Right, there is something else in this building. Not a zombie, some sort of beast.”
“I see,” was all Mr West said.
Passing in front of the elevators again, Caley noticed a laptop bag lying on the ground. Some manila folders stuck out of the pocket. “Hold on a second. I think these might be able to shed some light on what happened in this city. These soldiers were after them before they got killed”
“Interesting,” Mr. West replied, apparently curious as to why she knew what they were doing before they were killed. But he refrained from asking. Instead he suggested, “Maybe we should look at those when we are a good safe distance away from here.”
“Oh, right.” Caley stuffed the folders back in the bag and slung the whole thing over her shoulder. She only paused briefly to pick an MP5 sub machinegun off a dead soldier. There wasn’t much ammo left for it, but something was better then nothing. She noted for the first time the Parasol Corp patch that was on the shoulders of all the dead soldiers. She didn’t have time to contemplate the implications of Parasol having a private army before following Mr West up the stairs to the roof.
Chapter 4 by Leefy