Post by Slinky on Apr 26, 2005 16:48:10 GMT -5
I hold my 9mms up by my shoulders, standing to the right side of the office-building door. Lewis was in his heavy flak jacket- lifted off one of the dead- with his new toy: a "Hackhandy Deluxe" we found while raiding a gardening supply store. Overcommander said we couldn't spare the fuel to use it regularly, but this is just the sort of job we need that for. Lewis nearly shat himself when he heard he'd get to use it.
In the middle is Jacobson, the only one who's still licensed to use the L85 ammo. We just don't have enough for everyone these days.
"Ready?" Jacobson asks, lifting his foot to the door. I pull out an adrenol and pop it into my mouth. Lewis does the same.
"Ready."
Jacobson kicks the door in the center, and it bursts open, splitting and splintering almost comically, like balsa wood.
Somewhere about the three hundredth door, we got really good at this.
Jacobson's mounted flashlight's already on and targetting a group of feeding wretches. Christ knows where the dead bodies keep coming from, but the damn zombies never seem to run out of food. I guess they feed on each other if they run out. The more they eat, the bigger they get. You let a site fester too long, pretty soon a fleshpound is knocking down your safehouse. Happened to WL45 and EL12 last week. Two or three more will be wiped out by the end of this one. You just keep telling yourself that it's the sort of thing that happens to other people.
You just keep telling yourself that you'll make it out of this alive. Sometimes, you'll believe it.
We make short work of the group and get moving- we've got twelve floors to climb to make it to the insertion point. The regional overcommander is coming in. Don't know why, and don't know why he can't make his own damn way down like everybody else. Can't ask, either. The first rule is, no radio transmissions in the field. Radio attracts them. Escort the West London overcommander to safehouse WL23 to rendevous with Overcommander. Sure.
Just twelve more floors.
After awhile, you get used to the swaying movements, the simple but fatal tactics, and you can take down these small groups of clots and wretches without thinking. That's good, because after a few weeks, your mind doesn't work like it used to. Two weeks in hell feels like eternity- especially without sleep or sunlight to break up the days. The first groups into West London actually started going insane because the EMPs from the infection days took out all the clocks already down here, and no one thought to give the poor motherfuckers watches. Military report said last week, they found two guys holed up in an antique clock shop, all kinds of bats in their belfries.
They give us watches now.
On the fourth floor, we get surrounded by stalkers. Bad shit. One second, the hallway was clear, then the next thing we know, they're coming around bends in the hallway, in from windows, just wherever there's a gap, one comes out of it. Blurring hands with yellowed, once-painted nails taking swiped at us. I pump as much lead as I can into them, but they're so fucking fast. Lewis revs up and goes to town.
Somehow, we survived. We used to highfive and be all excited at our good fortune. Lewis would have been a hero for the next hour. Somewhere about the three hundredth cheated death, you stop caring.
Everything's a shadow of a shadow here. They don't let us sleep, because they don't have enough guys around to run watch. They just keep one group guarding the safehouse at all times, and the everyone else is either eating or raiding or something. One time, we sealed off a tunnel leading to another safehouse's area. Didn't help, though- there's still a million open ports, and they open faster than we can close them. To keep us around, they give us REM solutions every twelve hours, and we're supposed to take adrenols every 6 to keep combat fatigue from setting in. Sometimes we skip and feel almost normal for a little while, but it's not good to fight without adrenols. You either take them eventually or you die.
We make it to tenth okay, and seal the area behind us. Sometimes there's infected above the tenth, and sometimes there's not. I think there might have been infected when we were inserted, but my memory isn't so good lately. We've been up here a couple more times since then to do different things, and everything runs together here. Anyway, we keep our guns out, but the worst is over. Jacobson makes his way to the LZ control panel, monitors this and that- the controls say there's no infected, but that doesn't mean shit. He opens up the way to the top for us, and we head up to the roof. The helicopter's up there, it was up there when we got to the building. We open the door and we see....
Americans.
Some cheeky assholes in fatigues are lazing around a blackhawk- they fit all your stupid, cheezy war movie stereotypes: one of 'em has glasses and looks like he'd faint if he saw blood. One of 'em is stubbly and young, one of 'em is a hardened sergeant or colonel or some other stupid rank, and one of 'em looks anti-social and is polishing a gun. Is this a fucking joke?
A guy with too many medals on his uniform hops out of the helicopter and shouts, "You're two hours late!" Is this seriously the regional overcommander?
Lewis speaks up- "You're six months late. Couple it with five years or so for the world wars, and we'll call it even. Where the hell's the overcommander?"
The talking-man says, "Took a nasty spill 'round WL05 a couple days ago. I'm the overcommander now. Now are we gonna stand 'round here yappin'? Or are you gonna take me to the rendezvous?" Taking that as their cue, his squad pick up their stupid, clean, well-stocked weapons and make their way into the complex. I pop an adrenol and follow them in.
In the middle is Jacobson, the only one who's still licensed to use the L85 ammo. We just don't have enough for everyone these days.
"Ready?" Jacobson asks, lifting his foot to the door. I pull out an adrenol and pop it into my mouth. Lewis does the same.
"Ready."
Jacobson kicks the door in the center, and it bursts open, splitting and splintering almost comically, like balsa wood.
Somewhere about the three hundredth door, we got really good at this.
Jacobson's mounted flashlight's already on and targetting a group of feeding wretches. Christ knows where the dead bodies keep coming from, but the damn zombies never seem to run out of food. I guess they feed on each other if they run out. The more they eat, the bigger they get. You let a site fester too long, pretty soon a fleshpound is knocking down your safehouse. Happened to WL45 and EL12 last week. Two or three more will be wiped out by the end of this one. You just keep telling yourself that it's the sort of thing that happens to other people.
You just keep telling yourself that you'll make it out of this alive. Sometimes, you'll believe it.
We make short work of the group and get moving- we've got twelve floors to climb to make it to the insertion point. The regional overcommander is coming in. Don't know why, and don't know why he can't make his own damn way down like everybody else. Can't ask, either. The first rule is, no radio transmissions in the field. Radio attracts them. Escort the West London overcommander to safehouse WL23 to rendevous with Overcommander. Sure.
Just twelve more floors.
After awhile, you get used to the swaying movements, the simple but fatal tactics, and you can take down these small groups of clots and wretches without thinking. That's good, because after a few weeks, your mind doesn't work like it used to. Two weeks in hell feels like eternity- especially without sleep or sunlight to break up the days. The first groups into West London actually started going insane because the EMPs from the infection days took out all the clocks already down here, and no one thought to give the poor motherfuckers watches. Military report said last week, they found two guys holed up in an antique clock shop, all kinds of bats in their belfries.
They give us watches now.
On the fourth floor, we get surrounded by stalkers. Bad shit. One second, the hallway was clear, then the next thing we know, they're coming around bends in the hallway, in from windows, just wherever there's a gap, one comes out of it. Blurring hands with yellowed, once-painted nails taking swiped at us. I pump as much lead as I can into them, but they're so fucking fast. Lewis revs up and goes to town.
Somehow, we survived. We used to highfive and be all excited at our good fortune. Lewis would have been a hero for the next hour. Somewhere about the three hundredth cheated death, you stop caring.
Everything's a shadow of a shadow here. They don't let us sleep, because they don't have enough guys around to run watch. They just keep one group guarding the safehouse at all times, and the everyone else is either eating or raiding or something. One time, we sealed off a tunnel leading to another safehouse's area. Didn't help, though- there's still a million open ports, and they open faster than we can close them. To keep us around, they give us REM solutions every twelve hours, and we're supposed to take adrenols every 6 to keep combat fatigue from setting in. Sometimes we skip and feel almost normal for a little while, but it's not good to fight without adrenols. You either take them eventually or you die.
We make it to tenth okay, and seal the area behind us. Sometimes there's infected above the tenth, and sometimes there's not. I think there might have been infected when we were inserted, but my memory isn't so good lately. We've been up here a couple more times since then to do different things, and everything runs together here. Anyway, we keep our guns out, but the worst is over. Jacobson makes his way to the LZ control panel, monitors this and that- the controls say there's no infected, but that doesn't mean shit. He opens up the way to the top for us, and we head up to the roof. The helicopter's up there, it was up there when we got to the building. We open the door and we see....
Americans.
Some cheeky assholes in fatigues are lazing around a blackhawk- they fit all your stupid, cheezy war movie stereotypes: one of 'em has glasses and looks like he'd faint if he saw blood. One of 'em is stubbly and young, one of 'em is a hardened sergeant or colonel or some other stupid rank, and one of 'em looks anti-social and is polishing a gun. Is this a fucking joke?
A guy with too many medals on his uniform hops out of the helicopter and shouts, "You're two hours late!" Is this seriously the regional overcommander?
Lewis speaks up- "You're six months late. Couple it with five years or so for the world wars, and we'll call it even. Where the hell's the overcommander?"
The talking-man says, "Took a nasty spill 'round WL05 a couple days ago. I'm the overcommander now. Now are we gonna stand 'round here yappin'? Or are you gonna take me to the rendezvous?" Taking that as their cue, his squad pick up their stupid, clean, well-stocked weapons and make their way into the complex. I pop an adrenol and follow them in.
