H4LF-LIFE2 : THE RESISTANCE
-Chapter 1- -=Lit=-
It was a clear, quiet night in City 17, Tony pulled up a rusted chair from one of the desks and groaned as he sat down and went back to scoping with his sniper rifle. Tony looked at the corners, side to side, he sighed, “I need a fucking day of sleep…” He stopped and took out of his pockets a box of cigarettes, “Four left…” he looked in disappointment and stuck one in his mouth and slowly pulling out his lighter trying not to strain himself from the extensive work out he did since morning.
No matter how hard he tried, it still hurt to move his hands a lot. Tony was about to turn it on until suddenly, there were footsteps, far, but they were getting closer. He leaned back into the scope and turned it a little to the right, readjusting the scope range. The footsteps came closer, Tony felt the trigger and tapped impatiently. “Come on, show yourself,” Tony said quietly.
Out of the corner of a corporate building stuck out a rather strange looking gun, it wasn’t a submachine gun, or a shotgun, but a rather strangely shaped gun, with the end of it having a semi circle around it and had strangely larger hole too big for any grenade. The figure came out slowly and looked around, it was a Combine soldier. Tony waited for him to walk further into clear area, checking to see if there were any more Combines behind him. Giving the soldier 30 seconds in the open, thinking that there had certainly had been no soldiers following him. Tony aimed and waited, the Combine went to a door and kicked it down, searching for any resistance and checked the building from outside. Tony quickly aimed for his head and fired just before the soldier moved, the shot banged out throughout the block. The suit made a long beeping noise and notified his ID code and reported that he was dead. Tony smiled with his cigarette still in his mouth and sat back comfortably on his chair and picked up the lighter and pulled down the rusted gear and got it lit, it shone brightly and he placed it on the tip of his sweet cigarette and took a few puffs to get it burning but only half way done, there were footsteps from the left and right, quick and multiple. Without having time to notice his window was being shot at by what he estimated of 5 Combine soldiers. He was tricked, one was a decoy only put to check out where he was, they had known he was in the area before they came, the decoy was to figure out where he was hiding. Apparently, the shot had not given the soldiers enough to figure out the exact location but when they saw the small fire in the 8th floor, they knew. Bullets ran in from side to side, they were inaccurate but multiple, Tony jumped from the sniper rifle and away from the window, one bullet; yellow and bright, had a small blue aura around it and made a strange thunk sound when fired, had ran straight through the scope, had he stayed any sooner the bullet would have pierced his right eye. Tony dropped to the floor with the cigarette partly lit had begun to eat away at a stack of papers. He looked back and saw that the little red dot had become a gigantic red orange flame, he tried to kick it down and distinguish the fire but it was no good, the papers flew everywhere, many of the papers flew onto a wooden desk and began to catch flames and everything else around it.
Tony began to sweat, “Shit!”
He ran over and pulled the desk out before the entire thing caught on fire and pushed it to the window and then kicked it with everything he had. Feeling a thousand spikes of pain he fell down and crawled to the window and looked down. It fell down twirling and landed with a crack followed by a groan and another beeping sound. Tony looked closely and saw a hand holding a submachine gun, it had crushed a Combine. He laughed, then turned to see that the rest of the room was beginning to catch fire and there wasn’t much time left before it would stretch all over the building and collapse. Tony ran for the door, before he touched the doorknob he heard the sounds of the other 4 Combines running up the stairs. Tony was stuck between the burning room and 4 Combines, he looked back and forth and picked up the small lamp on one of the other desks and pushed the cabinets and a small metal desk against the door and stood back. The doorknob turned and turned, then pounding begun and then there was kicking, after several kicks the door made way, the cabinets fell over and they came in. Tony stood there waiting for them to come, while the flame continued to spread and climbed over the left side of his pants. He screamed and threw the lamp and shortly stunning the Combines and punched one of them hard enough for him to fall down the stairs and die. Flames still on his pants he made quick work of knocking all their guns out, down the stairs, and landing a high kick on one of them. With their guns far from reach they pulled out electric batons that made loud buzzing sounds that could kill even the strongest of antlion guards. Tony stepped back a little and ran at them in the small room he had, he kicked one of the soldiers arms holding the baton sideways and electrocuted the other Combine and kneed him in the head, breaking the glass on his mask. The electrocuted Combine fell down immediately after the baton was not touching him any longer and the other one still willing to get up, Tony, with the flames almost through his pants, slammed his leg on the Combine, giving him a blow to the face followed by the burning heat from his pants, the Combine gave way and burned to his death. Tony brushed off the burnt ashes from his pants that had made a rip in his left leg up to his knee. In a few seconds after he got up the floor gave way as the burning wood fell to the ground below and left Tony hanging on to the doorway.
“Shit! Those bastards stalled me too long!” Tony said, more worried about getting up than complaining.
He pulled himself up with whatever strength he had ignoring all the pain in his arms and ran down the stairs. The door out was blocked by the desk that he had thrown down and had burnt the entire doorway, the roof was falling with the weight of 7 floors of broken flaming wood and was already beginning to crack the roof of the last floor. Tony had to think quick, there was no way out except the windows and even those were extremely thin. He looked around for something sturdy that would be able to break the double layered glass, the chairs were all on wheels and were too big and the legs didn’t stand in one position when held, he could find nothing small enough and sturdy enough to break it. The only choice was to break the glass himself, he stepped back to the wall and ran as quick as he could and jumped up and kneed the hard glass to bits, glass fell all around him and tore a portion of the skin on his knee and no more thanks to the sturdiness that the clothing the Combine had supplied with. Tony got back up and carefully crawled out the window that still had pieces of glass hanging around everywhere and although being as careful as he could, he still had gotten his bicep area cut open. Tony screamed in agonize and limped away with the building collapsing on itself and slowly burned itself down. Tony walked away and stopped and torn off a clean piece of his pants and carefully but quickly swiped his knee to brush off all the dirt and glass in the huge wound feeling like it was beaten with a giant whip and almost fainting from it. He limped away and into the building the first Combine soldier had broken down and went to a desk. He moved off all the things on the desk and laid down slowly.
The constant use of his arms after a whole day of working out had torn his arms. When he looked at the cut on his arm it was oozing with blood, “How did one cut lose that much blood, that’s impossible,” Tony thought as he concealed the wound as best he could.
However, looking at his left arm, his biceps had also been filled with blood, however the skin was not cut, the blood was contained inside his skin and if it were to burst, he would slowly die of blood loss. The spikes of pain earlier had not been just merely muscle sores but he was ripping the protective layers up to his skin. “Fuck!! I didn’t realize it was this bad!!”
Tony groaned and yelled, feeling numb and sat down on the floor leaning to the desk and thought, “Well…at least I’m safe for now and I can get a good night’s sleep today…” Tony smiled and closed his eyes, only to open his ears to the worst thing to happen. The whirling, motor sounds of something fluttering by from above, he woke up in surprise and looked out only to see 4 Combine soldiers climbing down from ropes and looked up to what they were climbing down from. Tony smiled and laughed, “Well, at least I won't suffer this life anymore.” It was a Combine Gunship and it had already started to charge up its gun.
To be continued…
Right now.
The gunship hovered slowly above and charged up its beam to maximum, Tony sat there and pulled out a cigarette and lit it forgetting about everything.
“Well, it was fun.” Tony blew out a puff and waited.
“ID code 00591 identified and eliminating,” one of the Combines broadcasted.
The gunship let loose and fired, sounds of zooming and metal clanking, Tony closed his eyes from instinct knowing it was over. The gunship was immensely off aim and inaccurate but very fast. Tony could hear every single one of them clanking the metal just waiting for when one of them would suffice him.
With all his might, Nolan pushed another office desk in front of Tony and covered all the plasma bullets from the Combines.
Tony opend his eyes and saw the metallic desk that was pushed in front of him and all the dents from the bullet it was making, obviously it would pierce it sooner or later and he had to do something.
A radio static noise came from the left, “Alright I found him, it’s go time!” Nolan called his gang to ambush the Combine forces.
Within seconds Tony could hear the sounds of other people coming. “Whoa ho ho, guys we got some bad boys!” a voice came from a far near the north west.
“Dude, incoming guys,” a cool, mellow voice said on the radio that was now coming from behind Tony.
“Fuckin’ leave it to the Asians to take care of big ass shit, fuckin’ stoopid man,” another voice came from the radio and then came a sound of a rocket shot out.
Tony pushed away the desk in front of him to look.
“Get down!!” Nolan said from behind him and took out the basic MP-7 PDW submachine gun (SMG) and fired rapidly.
Tony ducked and moved to the side and watched, the Combine soldiers had been quickly wasted, one by Nolan and the other three had been shot from the left almost all at an instance as well as an unnecessary grenade explosion which sent the soldiers flying, making a long beeping sound altogether, showing that all of them had been killed. As for the gunship, the rocket was being guided in twisted unreadable movements, the gunship was trying to fight off the rocket itself but was quick to fail, the rocket had curved around quickly and managed to get inside a hole in the back of the gunship and destroyed it in only one rocket. He had never seen a gunship taken down by only one rocket, nor has he seen such speed and accuracy the team had moved, he was impressed by the performance that saved his life unquestionably. It reminded him of him and his old squad until they had gotten separated by a raid of headcrab filled rockets.
Tony slowly pulled himself up on a flipped desk. Some rather familiar looks came from the outside after they checked out the soldiers and switched their SMG’s with the soldiers’ Plasma Rifle which was the primary weapon for high leveled Combines and was very powerful. A tall, squarely shaped male walked to the office from the northwest with hair spiked professionally. Another one from the right held on to his SMG and was about the same height as Tony with a unreadable face that appeared to never have smiled or frowned but always mellow and careless. Another male jumped down from the roof of a 2 story building wearing a beanie type cap and had a Hispanic look to him with a smile on his face. Finally, he didn’t really look at the figures outside but rather just sat up on a desk, however, he looked to the back of him and saw the first guy who had probably saved his life. It was a dark figure fairly his height only shown by the moonlight and was leaning against the desk behind him and reloading a new clip on his SMG calmly. The one of the left was Dennis, the one with the rocket launcher was Alex, and the one on the right was Vincent.
“Yo, Tony, long time.” Nolan said looking at him calmly.
Tony looked for a moment confused as how he would have known his name and then chuckled. “Yeah, long time.”
-Chapter 2- -=History=-
Subject- Tony Nguyen
Age- 23
Height- 6’1”
Weight- 185 lb
Ethnicity- Vietnamese
Education- Middle School Graduate
Condition- Wounded, a Resistance, Dead 6 Member
Subject- Nolan Nishimura
Age- 24
Height- Unknown
Weight- Unknown
Ethnicity- Japanese
Education- Middle School Graduate
Condition- Good, Dead 6 Member
Subject- Vincent N.
Age- Unknown
Height- 6’
Weight- Unknown
Ethnicity- Unknown
Education- Middle School Graduate
Condition- Fair, Dead 6 Member
Subject- Dennis Joe
Age- Unknown
Height- 6’3”
Weight- 200
Ethnicity- Korean
Education- Middle School Graduate
Condition- Fair-Fairly poor, Dead 6 Member
Subject- Alex Casio
Age- 24
Height- 6’2”
Weight- Unknown
Ethnicity- Unknown
Education- Middle School Graduate
Condition- Good, Dead 6 Member
Subject- Andrew Le
Age- 24
Height- 5’11”
Weight- Unknown
Ethnicity- White
Education- Middle School Graduate
Condition- Deceased, Dead 6 Member
-Prologue-
1998 in New Mexico, a research facility called Black Mesa had been researching a way to produce endless energy that would be able to be made into any resource needed. Using a special organic material they found was tested and then used the finest sample in a test to see if it could make its own energy freely. However without extensive research on the crystal, once tried on a large scale item, it had created a portal large enough to engulf the entire Black Mesa area with strange creatures and monsters from a planet now marked as Xen. The crystal was apparently a compressed doorway to their world, once somehow opened would combine the worlds. Without warning or notion from anyone but just nervous scientists, a man by the name of Gordon Freeman was put in the test subject to test out the new idea. The worlds came together and the portal remained open for the Xen to pass through constantly. The Xen was a terrifying site that plagued the whole compound and killed many. They were dangerous and deadly, if no one did anything about these things it would overwhelm all of Earth. Within the day of incident, someone had reported to the military about what had gone wrong in Black Mesa for help. However when the military came they didn’t come to help the scientists. The US government had to keep the incident from reaching the public and cause panic, so they sent in thousands of troops to eliminate all Xen creatures and silence the scientists.
In all attempts to keep the incident a secret, they had failed. Desperate to fix this, they launched nuclear weapons into the facility to eliminate everything. The US government officials shook hands and left the Black Mesa incident, but not very long. In 2005 the government wanted to rebuild and retry the Black Mesa research in terms of using the crystal to create a transporter that passed from Xen to another area on Earth. Since they had thought all the aliens had been wiped out completely the Xen world would be empty anyhow and was safe. As they entered through the main entrance they had found the walls secreted with a oozing living type substance that appeared to be growing throughout the facility no matter where they went. Those aliens that did survive in the explosion had not only been able to reproduce for 7 years but always were continuing to come in from the large machine which had been used in 1998. Upon reaching inside to the machine, they found themselves trapped, falling back to the machine they found that the so called Xen teleporter had been replace by a large building that was bright and blue, made of some sort of a metal never seen before that always continued to grow higher and larger. With nowhere else to turn the soldiers had to hide in the building and as they came in the door closed them inside. With nowhere else to turn, the soldiers set up a last defense with everything they had and waited, with this their last transmission was grave and horrifying,
“There are just too many of them, we’re running out of ammunition, and they just keep coming and coming! We have no choice; I’m falling back into this big metal thing! Men, keep the line, keep the line, we’re almost there! Get your sorry asses into that gate, move it, move it! Alright, we’ve made it into the structure, and lucky us, the door shut behind us. Those aliens obviously can’t get in here, now we’ll just have to scout around to see what this is all about… Johnson, set up a sentry gun or two, Butch, I want trip mines near the top of that wall. And Strathmore-where the hell is Strathmore? Hey, wait a minute, what in gods name is-” TRANSMISSION ENDED
With this last radio transmission to the military, they had no choice but to ultimately destroy the entire facility. One by one they sent task forces and constantly they all disappeared and soon they military gave up and set up a siege outside the Black Mesa area with everything they had. Within only a month there had suddenly appeared a large building exactly as described during the last transmission. It came up to at least 300 feet and divided its walls as thousands of human like figures came out. This was the first Combine structure to have been made on earth, the same ones that now infested cities all over the world. The human like figures had grey gas masks, blue-black suits, they weren’t human however, but merely another race that had been living since 200 billion years ago, with their homeworld depleted of the minerals and resources, they move forward constantly destroying every world they saw and depleted everything, leaving nothing to waste. With the Xen world invaded between 1998-2005, they reached a portal which was created from Earth and now came here to ruin this world. Had the teleporter not been made, perhaps Earth would have stood a chance against the Combine later in the future much easier than now. With thousands of the Combine rushing out, they continued to fight for weeks, although humans had the better advantage of everything and air support as well as artillery, they only had the advantage against them shortly, soon the Combine had their own air support and artillery, not only large and more technologic, but also stronger and faster than anything humans could have made. With the advanced technology, the Combine not only had an unlimited amount of men but whenever a man was down, they brought them back into the structure and hours later would see 10 copies of the same thing fighting against them. The battle was fought on until almost all military in the state ran out of men and in the end, the battlefield was nothing but bloodshed and an even taller Combine structure. The military gave up and ran for their own lives, they reported worldwide on national television to evacuate New Mexico and warned the world.
During the week a worldwide planned attack was prepared and every country sent all their missiles towards Black Mesa. All of them easily reflected by the Combine aircrafts, gunships, which could knock down any missile that came towards it except those that came from behind it. With all super weapons in the world lost, they knew it was useless and that they had been beaten. In as little as a few months the Combine had taken over nearly all of the east coast of America and had begun to invade everywhere, South America was slowly captured and soon Asia fell to its power as well. Using the missile silos from the United States they were able to understand the use of the super weapons and then with their own technology infected missiles with the ability to create a portal to the area of the missile landing. In turn came out the creatures of Xen that had been enslaved to the Combine. Then it would send Combine soldiers to uninfest the area that was taken over and claimed it to build another Combine structure and enslave humanity. They had taken over and launched missiles all over the American continents, all giving them names, the first missile being marked as City 1, the second City 2, the third City 3, and so forth. The 17th one, hit Southern California somewhere in Anaheim.
>
To be continued…
Right now.
-Chapter 3- -=Incurable=-
“Let the Mexican have one bitch,” Alex said trying to get a tatter tot.
“Fine, I guess you deserve one for not getting caught by the border patrol,” Tony said willingly handing him the tray for him to take one.
Alex takes one and flips him off and goes to see his other friends and Tony laughs and jumps down from the grassy hill to his friends that were sitting and stood rather than sit to get a clear view of everyone.
It was a sunny day in spring-summer, only 2 months left until summer vacation at Canyon High, news of the invasions haven’t exactly sprung up in the West coast yet, it was still taken lightly as everyone was so dependable on the American Army to surely defeat anything.
“Do, you think we’re gonna get drafted later on?” ask Riki
“Hmm,” Tony thought, “Ha, like we’re gonna last that long,” obviously not worried and was rather ignorant about the invasion and believed that this was all going to be over and not directly affect any of them.
“I want one of those crawling things, you know, as a pet, they look so cool, whenever Gallagher comes near I’ll just say go boy, and it’ll attack him and he’ll go ‘Ahh! Ahh!” Vincent said hysterically as always.
“Dude, I would, just one inch punch that thing and it’ll be dead so fast…oh yeah!” Andrew added in and smiled.
“…” everyone stopped talking and a abrupt silent filled the group as they all looked at him.
“…Shut up,” Tony remarked.
“If I’m gonna be drafted, I’ll just own all of them, ‘Bang bang’ and they’ll all die and we’ll win, yeah-hea!” Dennis said with his eyebrows up with an open smile on his face.
( <=-D)
“Who cares, Dennis you’re probably gonna be the first one to die alright so don’t think your ‘CS’ skills are gonna save you, these guys are tougher than even our military what makes you think you stand any chance against them!” Nolan exclaimed.
“Ahh, shut up all of you, can we just eat,” Tony barged in, “We all know that the best to survive is Lekh because he’ll dodge all those bullets and then Nolan because they’re so short.”
“Hey you’re not so fit yourself Tony,” Nolan explained.
“Yeah, that was a concern but according to you guys the world’s gonna end anyways so why bother now?” Tony asked.
“Well, gah, whatev-”
Before Nolan could finish everyone noticed a lot of people that were running towards the food benches near the lunch lines outside and in the middle was some rough movement that everyone could easily figure out as a fight. Everyone turned and looked.
“Catfight!” Nolan yelled and the group around Alex looked and everyone else happily and laughing.
With this suddenly came 4 police officers that pushed aside everyone and pulled the 2 kids back and took them to the office. With much resist the police grew impatient and pulled out the beating stick. They stopped resisting and quiet down and followed the officers. As they were half past the direction of Tony and his friends, suddenly there was a zooming sound much like a sonic boom from a jet, no one really cared because of the similar sound everyone thought it was just another jet. When suddenly a missile came close and fell in front of the huge metallic doors at the entrance of the library and office on the left and right side behind the doors. Everyone grew silent, the entire school said nothing and looked. The Missile opened up and divided its end into a path way and eventually made small metal bars that barely formed a circle and begun to spin faster and faster until electricity came out and a large static like sound and created a colorful portal.. The officers let the girls run, and pulled out their guns and a flashlight below it. One of the officers pulled out a radio.
“We got a missile landing at Canyon High, it’s making some strange type of movements, might be a dud since it didn’t blow up but it began to twist and some colors are coming out. Unidentified to the best of our knowledge, we are requesting immediate large police reinforcement and a SWAT team now!” The police officer said on the radio quickly and put it away as the thin metal bars stopped moving.
“Check it out,” said an older officer.
He moved forward and looked more closely toward the colorful ethereal ball with his gun out almost shaking. By now all the kids were almost crowding around it giving it all but 10 feet radius from the missile. For 15 seconds the police remained still and waited.
“Ok, it looks like this thing is alright for now,” he turned to the officers and put his gun away.
In a second after the officer put away his gun, a large screeching sound came out and a long legged fat yellow blob came out and attached itself to his head, it was a headcrab.
“Ahh, get it off me! Get it off me!!” the officer yelled and tried to pull it off.
He tried to pull it off as hard as he could but no matter what the thing stayed on his head as he was constantly screaming, it was eating his face to bits, the only thing pulled it did was rip the officers neck and started bleeding.
The other officers stood there not knowing what to do, they didn’t want to injury him and couldn’t shoot the headcrab or it would kill him too. They just stood there confused and not having any idea as to what to do. Within seconds the screaming stopped and he fell down as everyone backed away. Then more just continued to stream outward and the other officers fired at will. Large screams came from the crowd and everyone ran. There were too many, even the officers couldn’t kill them all nor hold them off, eventually all them got a headcrab that mated with their heads. A few from the crowd were quickly caught as well.
Chaos came upon the whole school, everyone ran wherever they could in any direction. There were the regular headcrabs that everyone knew, but there were new kinds now, a faster and brighter one and another type, much darker a blackish, was the fastest and could jump the furthest.
“Shit!! Let’s get the hell outta here now!!” Tony yelled knowing everyone was already running as it was.
They headed toward the right wing out back. They ran as fast as they could but it was an unlucky event that they had one of the fastest ones. It was gaining on them easily due its long legs and small body with the bone structure of its legs, it was easily for it to sprint quickly. One of them would’ve easily have been caught. However a tubby, short Asian kid had gotten in front of it. They stopped to look behind as if to expect him to easily take it out with a tennis racket. He was stubby and had a retarded haircut much like a bowl cut and sick greasy hair that would go flat down. Like most people accused he had eyes like the average Chinese that were small and slanted. He threw a bunch tennis balls at it and then as it came close swung the racket, it flung the headcrab back but it quickly stopped and came back, with much patheticness he swung it too early and the headcrab bit him but didn’t attach to him, just merely make 2 bite marks like a vampire. He fell hard and it stopped going for him as he turned more and more pale breathing harder.
“So much for that dumbass Andrew kid!” Tony yelled for him to hear.
The other Andrew stepped up and put his fists out, the headcrab turned to him as he was the closest, without notice it jumped for his head. With the strongest punch they’ve ever seen it flew up onto the sidewalk shader, Andrew breathed roughly. They all thought that they were safe for the moment and were about to continue but it came back, it made a low screeching sound and without enough attention or speed Andrew got bit on the face, he punched it again and it made a loud screech and fell face up showing its horrible insides and large circular mouth that had endless teeth like a sharks. Andrew slowly fell and leaned to the wall.
Everyone ran toward him to pick him up, they all noticed that the bite obviously was poisonous from the looks of the first Andrew and that it can paralyze as well from the looks of it.
Tony, rather than helping his friend, walked over to the first guy and picked up his racket and spat on him. “Serves you right, spoiled brat,” and using the handle swung it like a golf club on his face and kicked him and took the racket with him and left him to die. “Let’s go, maybe if we’re lucky we can get the other Andrew to a hospital.” Tony told everyone and advanced forward a little more than everyone else.
They ran for the side exit out to the visitor’s parking lot. Just when they were about to get out, at least 6 more headcrabs blocked their entrance, 1 normal one, 3 quick ones, and 2 poisonous ones. Tony stopped abruptly and held out the racket. In the background were hundreds of other kids running in chaos, blood everywhere and idiots who ran into the path of headcrabs that were chasing a different victim than themselves and idiotically saved the other victim while getting eaten themselves, then being toppled over by more and more headcrabs. Tony and the group stepped back,
“Any ideas?” Tony asked everyone, “Anyone??”
A quick headcrab jumped for his head and Tony knocked it out of the way with a swing, when he looked forward again one was already inches from his face, too close for him to swing it out of the way. He closed his eyes by instinct.
*Ripping sound*
To be continued…
Right now.
Tony shielded his face for a few seconds and then opened his eyes and calmed down. Vincent had jumped in front of him and had caught the headcrab in his backpack.
“You are always so lucky…” said Tony as he wiped off the sweat.
“It’s a live one, I can feel it,” Vincent said in a natural way as if all of that had been as big of a deal as catching a ball.
“Fuck yoo Asians can’t remember shit, there are fuckin’ 4 more motha fuckas coming for us, run stoopids!” Exclaimed Alex and everyone ran to their left towards the outer portables.
They ran as another chase between them and a bunch of headcrabs begun and yet again were catching up to them.
“Over here, lets hide in one of the rooms!” Tony said, knowing that there was no way any of them could outrun those things.
They ran up a portable into the second one, room 220 and closed the door. They set Andrew down as he was breathing heavily and blocked the doors with the cabinets.
“Ok,” Tony said while he panted heavily, “I think we should be safe here for awhile ‘til they get another sucker.”
A deep, unhuman groan-breathing combination sound came from behind them but Tony didn’t hear anything past his heavy breathing.
“Dude, whoa that’s bad.” Dennis said in his strange happy voice.
“What? What is?” Tony looked at him.
Dennis pointed towards the teacher desk and everyone else shook nervously.
Tony looks over and drops his jaw in a pissed manner. It was Wilhelm the biggest, fat ass teacher in the whole school and now he was a huge fat ass body of poisonous headcrabs. The desk around him was sprayed with blood with papers everywhere and everything on the floor, there had obviously been a struggle. The thing’s upper body was complied entirely of poisonous headcrabs due to his size, because of the extra surface area more than one could fit on his face, because there was enough room, all the headcrabs wanted the second space, however some could not have it so it resorts to controlling the arms and body rather than the head. It was controlled by many headcrabs so it could barely walk correctly due to multiple control over a function. It slowly reached them and everyone split up slowly not know what to do. With the best of its effort, it pulled out one from one of its arm and threw it.
“Move!” exclaimed Nolan as everyone moved equally apart from each other as far as they could from the teachers desk in the corner.
“Dennis, grab it in your backpack!” Vincent yelled.
Dennis turned his backpack over to protect him from the throw then dumped out all his contents and trapped it in before it could turn around for another jump and zipped it up as it made useless struggles to get out of the bag. Everyone else dumped their things and opened up their backpacks.
“Don’t screw up or you’re dead guys.” Nolan said.
“Oh, how comforting.” Tony replied.
The figure threw the second one and Tony moved aside, it tried again and missed him inches away from his shoulder. He kicked his binder and knocked its head and it flew back and laid down making a small groaning sound as if a cricket had chirped and groaned at once. It threw yet another one high up at Nolan. Using his volleyball skills, he could pinpoint exactly where it would land and used his open backpack exactly where the headcrab was going to land.
“Nice.” Tony looked and told him.
It threw another one and seconds later a second one. One went for Andrew on the desk and the other went for Tony. Tony, being the closest to the desk, had to save himself and Andrew somehow within a few seconds time. He couldn’t decide what to do, his body moved to protect him from the swing by instinct and he trapped it on the ground and opened his eyes to see the other one already going to get Andrew.
“No!!” Tony yelled in agony.
With a quick whoosh the headcrab fell back with its under parts showing and it made a groan.
“Fuckin’ too good for the Mexicans huh bitch? Well, this little Mexican is better than all these Asians you dumbshit, some smartasses you are.” Alex said smiling.
The only headcrab left was the one still left on the figure’s head and was slowly advancing slowly accelerating as it practiced moving the entire body on its own. Everyone saw it had started coming and looked around and adrenaline rushing them. Nolan was near the middle and came to the front and pushed the cabinets and projector in front of it blocking it back and enclosing it between the wall and the desk.
“Throw whatever you find at it!” Nolan told everyone.
They all threw the stacks of boxes and papers and took out all the metal things and threw it at him as it made painful sounds and was crushed by the weight. Everyone stopped and rested as they waited until they all calmed down and were ready to move on.
“Oh, don’t forget,” Tony reminded them, “Don’t let ‘em get you after what we just went through.”
He jumped on his backpack making cracking sounds and his backpack got stained. Everyone else did the same except Vincent and left it in the room.
“You think it’s safe yet?” Tony asked any of them.
“Probably, we’ve been in here longer than we would think,” Nolan said looking at the clock, they had spent at least 5 minutes in there.
“Dennis, go ahead and do the honors,” Tony said while sitting down.
“No, you go Tony,” Dennis argued in a humorous way.
“Go, you’re the bravest here,” Tony explained.
“Fine, because I’m the best,” Dennis said and took the tennis racket from Tony.
He slowly opened the door and fluttered the racket as he opened the door.
“Holy crap!!” Dennis yelled.
Everyone looked up and got over to him.
Dennis laughed, “Just kidding, nothing like that would happen to me.”
Tony whacked him upside the head and took the racket, “Bitch.”
Dennis went back to help pick up Andrew and they walked outside looking both ways. Walking right towards the left wing, as they made the corner, everyone stopped, there were now about 15 headcrabs attached to people’s heads, they made several groaning sounds, higher than that of a zombies and sounded as if they was laughing when they were going to hit one of them. They all stepped back more and more, they zombies weren’t like the poisonous ones but the slow normal kinds, with stained of blood all over their shirts like flames. They ran back and further and further to where they had first encountered those several headcrabs and ran out the back way into the visitor’s parking lot area. They saw a bunch of kids running with some teachers and a few kids following Mr. Hoang to his car. They all ran over and caught up to Hoang.
“We need a ride Mr. Hoang, you have to get us out of this place.” Nolan said quickly.
“Sure,” Hoang nodded, “Come on hurry.”
They put Andrew in the back seat and Tony and Nolan sat in the back of the van with the back open on the ride. Mr. Hoang drove quickly and got on the 91 Freeway.
“Where’re we headed?” Tony yelled.
“Outta here!” Mr. Hoang said and drove faster knocking a wandering zombie on the freeway off the road and leaving a spray of blood on the glass.
“Well we got an injured person here, I think we should head to the hospital right away!” Tony told him and Hoang nodded.
They drove for half an hour and reached a hospital and looked to the backseat and got ready to carry him but they noticed something. Mr. Hoang put his hand near Andrew’s nose and tried to hear his heartbeat and try his pulse but there was nothing.
“He’s gone guys,” Hoang said in a sad manner.
“…” Tony stammered, “Let’s go.”
They drove out of the hospital and next to it was a cemetery.
“Stop,” Tony told Hoang.
They stopped and Tony got off and went to the tool shed that he spotted and took out a shovel and began to dug a hole where there was an open space. Everyone looked at him.
“Help me,” Tony told them calmly as he dug and everyone came to pick up a shovel and help out.
It was dusk by now and everyone finished and placed him in and filled the hole and Tony hammered a wooden cross made by 2 sticks and rope and said some prayers, took the shovel, and walked away.
They continued to drive onward, further from the school. When they reached a rundown area that was completely deserted, they came upon a gun shop that had been closed.
“Mr. Hoang stop,” Tony told him.
“Why?” Mr. Hoang asked but doing so anyways.
“Lets go in,” Tony motioned them.
They went in and looked in awe, guns of every kind and all the real stuff they wanted rather than those paintball or BB-guns that they had. Tony looked around and picked up an Colt Carbine M4a1 Maverick and 10 magazines of ammunition, he clicked one into place and cocked it back to secure and chain the clip in place and adjusted on a silencer on it. Nolan looked further in the back and firmly held up a golden handle Ak-47 that had real gold coating around the parts that were suppose to be red and inserted a clip and pulled back the cocking handle. Dennis held up different guns and tried them out and tried a Steyr Stg.77 AUG and had an interested look on his face, he knocked back the cock handle and inserted a magazine in and pushed it back into place and looked into the scope. Alex tried out the SIG-SG 551 but found a more interesting gun, a 12 Gauge Shotgun, and inserted the bullets and pumped it. Mr. Hoang choose a small gun that he could use while driving and picked out the smallest he could find and chose a Ingram Mac-10 but everyone noticed he was not so experienced with guns and switched it and gave him a Steyr TMP with a silencer adjusted on and a couple of magazines.
“Wait, in any case if something might happen, take a pistol or something small.” Tony said, “If anything happens, we’ll still have a last line defense.”
He threw everyone a USP Tactical .45 Pistol and took one for himself and took some masking tape and taped it on the inside part of his leg.
“If anyone confiscates us or anything, when they check us, they probably won’t notice and we’ll be able to make use of it, so strap it on, I don’t care if it looks stupid or not, stupid is what might save your life.” Tony said thinking that he said too much and just stocked up and headed out.
While Vincent looked around calmly and just kept walking and checking out things.
“Ok,” Tony said while he readjusts his magazine belt and put extras into his pockets, “Everyone ready?”
“Hold on, we’re still waiting for Vincent to finish up…” Nolan noticed.
“Vincent hurry up before we leave you here!” Mr. Hoang yelled.
Then everyone saw him walking out the shop, the weapon he had chosen, was a crowbar as well as an addition to it, straps and belt loads of navy seal knives used for throwing.
“Where to now?” Asked Nolan.
“To get as far away as possible and maybe fly away to safety.” Mr. Hoang answered.
He started the engine and stepped on the pedal, when suddenly a strange dark blue armored tank with a strange design and a automatic machine gun emplaced at the top covered by some strange clear glass or plating around it.
“Citizens, stop and get out of the vehicle, this is not a drill, there are many dangerous creatures loose, please remain calm and come with us peacefully, do not resist,” the voice said in a deep, rattled tone ask if it came from a horribly sick person that was coughing as he talked. “Do not resists, or we will be forced to open fire on you."
-Chapter 4- -=Against the New Authorities=-
To be continued…
Right now.
“…Dennis,” Tony called him and took aim with his Colt, “Do you think a couple of guys who lived billions of years before us invading us in our world can beat us?”
Dennis laughed, “No way.” With his usual gay (happy) look.
“Do not resist,” the figures said as it walked closer with their strange weapons.
Dennis was the first to fire, with the sound of a few bullets everyone opened fired on the 3 figures. The things fired back and missed a few of them by inches and hit the left mirror of the car. They stopped abruptly as the things fell to the ground as a loud radio sound from their suit transmitted.
“Unit down at -------, code 00-----”, said the suits, each being different.
“You think it’s calling for back up?” Nolan asked.
“They’re dead lets just cook ‘em,” Vincent said.
They all came forward and checked out the cold, dead bodies and Alex took a look in the tank.
“Fuck dude, these guys fuckin’ packed!” Alex said so everyone could hear.
The insides had navigation, communications, fuel and heat measurements, odometers; it was like a car rather than a tank from the inside. They all walked up and Alex took the seat and tried to move it but the tank wouldn’t respond. They had no idea that the Combine had programmed all their things to only respond to Combine suits, only once activated could it be used, except for their guns due to the large amount of resources needed to program it into everything the Combine used.
“Fuck dude, this thing is broken!” Alex exclaimed.
“Leave it then and lets get the hell outta here,” Tony reminded them.
“I dunno, we should go back,” Nolan interrupted, “Even though we managed to escape what about everyone else, do you think our families and friends have escaped too?”
Everyone stopped and looked at each other in silence. Mr. Hoang destroyed the silence with a loud honking.
“Guys, come on, those kids aren’t gonna save themselves you know,” said Mr. Hoang.
“Alright then, back to Canyon we go!” Tony jumped on the van holding his M4a1 wide open and fired at the sky.
They drove back to Canyon on the bumpy road. Within 10 minutes of driving the sky began to darken and more destruction and burning buildings around them as they drove on the freeway. It was only 4:15 PM but the sky had darkened with ash and smoke and sound of gunfire was heard in the distance. It had already been a little more than 3 hours since the landing, time passed by quickly. They drove over to Alex’s house which was the closest to the way to school and everyone ran out cocking their gun and broke the door down moving like a SWAT team. They checked the entire house but no living soul was there.
“There’s no one here,” Alex reported.
“Any signs of panic or blood?” Tony asked.
“Nothing, everything looks the same, like they disappeared,” Alex replied.
“That means your family has already left before this all got out of hand and are probably far away by now,” Mr. Hoang told them from behind, “Lets go and check out everyone else’s place.”
“Same here,” Nolan told them as he ran out of his house.
“Dude, there’s no one here,” said Dennis as he came out from his place.
Everyone found none of their family still at home and looked as if they just simply vanished rather than have resisted or fought or anything of that type.
“Ok, I’m thinking our parents have all gotten to safety already and are by now far, far away Lets go check out the school, maybe there are still some that are alive, just be careful not to get bit even though we have these babies to protect us, some of us are still a little retarded. Right, Dennis?” Tony concluded.
“Shut up, Tony, you’re probably gonna get bit first the minute you step out,” Dennis replied.
“Hold it right there citizens, heh heh heh,” another figure said holding out a more human like weapon in one hand and seemed to be calling for backup on the radio in the other.
When he was done he put the radio away and held the gun firmly, “Alright, drop your weapons and put your hands up against the vehicle.”
Everyone stood a moment to think about the situation and Tony smiled.
“Fuck you dick!” Tony yelled to him.
The Combine quickly moved his gun to him as they both faced each other about to shoot. Suddenly without any notice, a knife flew directly into the soldiers head from the right side. It fell quickly to the ground. Tony put down his weapon and everyone looked to their right. Vincent held his middle and pointer finger and blew on it like a gun. Everyone laughed and got in the car. They drove back to the school in hopes of rescuing some of their friends or someone at least.
“Those kids who were absent today, are some lucky bastards,” Tony said abruptly during the bumpy car ride.
“We got to see a cat fight,” said Vincent.
“Why do you always respond so indirectly?” asked Tony.
“Alright lets go guys.” Mr. Hoang told everyone and got out.
The school had smoke coming out from the cafeteria and blood smeared just about everywhere with bodies laying all over the school. Everyone walked together in a group and carefully stepped inch by inch. A faint groaning sound was heard from the left of them, someone was still alive. They all ran over to him, there was a headcrab stuck to him but it seemed he was still alive.
“Hey dude, are you ok?” Alex got down and looked at him.
The boy had already a ripped stomach and his arms became thin and long with blood soaking him, the stench was horrible like human waste with fish. They all looked at him still with their guns to their sides. It moved its arms a bit.
“He’s coming to,” Nolan said.
The right arm swiftly grabbed Alex’s face.
To be continued…
Right now.
“Holy shit dude!!!” Alex yelled.
The zombie made a strange sound as if it was laughing and got up, it raised its other long hands that reached down to near its knee with blood dripping from bony arms and its stomach moved as if nothing had been wrong, pumping and moving and doing all its functions, although the blood had dried and coagulated. It knocked over Tony as it got up and got ready to fling its arm at Alex.
Everyone fired rapidly at it but it didn’t seem to stop it, Alex took his shotgun in both hands and blew its intestines as blood spewed out, nothing stopped it from moving. Mr. Hoang closed his eyes from the flashes that were made from his TMP as it made large recoil and was uncontrolled, the bullets shot the zombie everywhere and then a few hit it’s head which had now been the headcrab and then it fell to its side. The headcrab made a defying sound and stopped, it detached itself from the host revealing his bloody face and enlarged mouth. Its grip loosen and let go of Alex as he breathed for air. From the looks of his mouth, they realized that not only did the headcrab attached to heads, but stuck a deadly virus that ripped open the host from the inside and replaced its own genes to mutate with the host slowly and kept the host alive and destroying the brain.
Marks of bloody handprints smeared all over Alex’s face as he wiped it off. Tony was still sitting down and looked at the dead body, he was shaking with blood poured all over his lower body it was everywhere in between his waist to half way between his knee and foot, he just looked and slowly at himself and tried to get up. His body shook more than it ever did, not even giving a speech in front of thousands of people could make him shake this much and this vigorously. He felt like he was in shock, he swerved back and forth as he walk and fell to the ground, everyone looked in confusion. He crawled over to the sewer in the middle of the grassy area and in a matter of seconds vomited, he was dazed from what had just happened. He spat and felt miserable as he slowly pulled himself to straighten his arms as his body still felt numb. He looked up a few inches as he heard small taps on the ground and a small growling sound. A headcrab was crawling towards him getting closer and closer. Tony was frightened by the sudden appearance of it, he opened his mouth as trying to let some yell out but he was too shocked, al that came out was a sound much like shivering and laughing in short bursts which had turned to a loud yell as the headcrab jumped for him. He pushed himself back as much as he could with his arms and brought out his gun and whack it to the left. The thing managed to bite the silencer on it and twirled around and flew off with the silencer, it spat it out as it realized it wasn’t a living organism and turned around. Tony pulled the trigger which had sprayed the bullets everywhere around it and some hitting 2 different bodies from the distance which then rose up. Everyone ran over to Tony and picked him up. He slowly regenerated from everything that happened as he was subconscious in his mind but still realized everything.
The 2 zombies that had been hit came closest. Everyone stepped closer together and they all were shoulder to shoulder in a small circle. Mr. Hoang slowly figured out how to reload and held his weapon tightly. They waited as they slowly got closer, then more appeared simultaneously, they each fired a whole clip, Mr. Hoang sprayed a whole clip as he never let go of the trigger towards the largest bunched zombies he could find in front of him as they made simultaneous sounds and fell to the ground however the headcrabs were still alive and detached itself and aimed for a new host. Mr. Hoang shot at 2 of the closest ones to him and the gun began clicking, he had to reload.
“They won’t die unless you aim for it not just the body!” yelled Nolan as he aimed for the headcrabs on the ground.
Dennis looked into his scope and aimed towards the heads, he fired in short bursts of 2 shots, rather short but effective as he managed to hit only the headcrabs in the process. Nolan had a more difficult time aiming for them due to the recoil of the AK-47, it was much more powerful however and slowed the victim down. Alex was more daring, he walked closer to the zombies and aimed for the necks knowing the spread fire would splash on the head and body flinging it back and slowing down the ones behind it and possibly hit some of them. He crouched down as he fired his first shot, a loud bang exploded out as the zombie flew about a foot from him and he pumped it again and took another aim. With the 3rd blow from his shotgun Tony came to and realized what was going on again and noticed a headcrab that was moving towards Nolan.
Nolan fired at the closest zombie and readjusted his aim to the headcrab crawling towards him and fired. ‘Click, click, click.’
“Shit!” yelled Nolan.
It jumped a few inches from the ground but a few bullets then quickly cut through its mouth and killed a zombie ahead. The gun clicked a few times, Nolan looked between his knees to find the end of an M4 sticking out that Tony had. Tony stood up and smiled, he quickly pulled off the clip and inserted a new magazine and pulled the cock mechanism hard and moved forward in between Nolan and Dennis and fired quickly since the M4s were very reliable and had little recoil, he could just turned the gun left to right and it would seem the gun did the rest. Vincent waited in the middle calmly and waited as if he expected something to happen. Dennis ducked down to reload and take aim again and Alex was still always crouching to shoot, immediately out of the blue, Vincent stood up on their backs, Tony and Nolan stood back since the zombies were closing in on them and saw Vincent up on top and looked back for a few seconds. Vincent closed his eyes and pulled out a knife in each hand and breathed out. He threw two in front of him and continued to pull one out firing in a semi circle with each hand and head shot every single shot as they fell sideways and made a little step way of bodies as a few tripped over and were easy for someone to shoot them. Tony and Nolan looked in amazement and returned to fighting them shortly.The zombies came closer and closer dispite all their efforts, when suddenly, a few small ticks came that no one could hear over the moaning of all the zombies. A large explosion came forth from the right side near the cars and killed off some zombies, sending some into the air. The zombies continued to close in on them and soon they were now touching the group and had them. Rapid gun fire was heard as it cut through all of the zombies and created an opening for all of them to run out a little as 3 grenades were thrown with a bright red light on the top where the trigger had been and ticked for a few moments, getting faster and then flew up and killed off the majority of the zombies and then the figures fired upon the rest of them and obliterated them. The sky was darker and the cold air filled the area, it was only a little more than 5 o’clock. Everyone reloaded by the time they had escaped and still had their backs facing the Combines.
“Citizens, we have saved you from those dangerous things, please, come with us for safety, we are here only to help you,” said a Combine.
“It’s Combines!” Mr. Hoang said loud enough only for the group to hear him.
“They’re what?” Tony asked but was interrupted.
“Drop your weapons and do not resist, we are here to protect you, please come quietly and lean against the vehicle,” another Combine told them.
It had apparently been another tank the same as the one they had saw before only it had a longer end. They all dropped their weapons slowly as they looked at each other silently.
“Dennis, you’re with me on this, you have the quickest reflexes and the best aim with that gun from this distance, when I tell you to, I want you to open fire on them with me, everyone else run for cover until you’re safe and fire on them,” Tony whispered to everyone and everyone stood up and raised their hands up and turned towards the Combines.
Their heartbeats became in sync and they could hear themselves beating, the Combines stepped forward, each step echoing on the cement, step step step, thump thump thump, they breathed heavier and heavier as they looked face forward. Sweat poured down Tony’s face as everyone else was ready to split and duck for cover, the Combines held down their weapons and continued to walk closer. Tony closed his eyes and listened to his heartbeat and the footsteps.
Thump thump, step, thump thump, step step step, thump thump,….step, thump!
The heartbeat became in perfect sync with his heartbeat and Tony opened his eyes and yelled, “Now!”
Everyone ran for cover and Vincent threw yet another knife and hit a Combine in the middle of its forehead in a stylish move and ran as well. The other Combines looked over to him as they saw the knife in his head and fell flat to the ground. Tony kicked the gun from the back of him a foot in front of him and fell back on the ground and grabbed his gun. Dennis did the same but kicked the end of his AUG up and caught the handle and zoomed in and fired in short bursts. Tony quickly aimed anywhere at the Combines and fired hitting the victim everywhere due to its low recoiling. The remaining Combines fired at them but everyone had cover and Tony had decreased his visibility and area by tenfold by laying down on the ground, whereas Dennis had just managed to be lucky and was not even touched despite him standing in an open area which was probably because they had aimed for everyone that ran for cover. The battle ended in a matter of 20 seconds or so with no human casualties. They all stood up closer together and looked calmly.
“What now?” asked Nolan.
The silence was quickly interrupted by raindrops that came slowly then began to pour instantly. The ground was hot with blood and the explosions, the cold rain fell and created a damp low mist that covered the smoke in the air.
“It cleans the evil away and brings new life like a butterfly escaping a cocoon,” Dennis said.
“Shut the fuck up you queer,” Tony interrupted.
“Shut up bitch! This ain’t poetry class fag!” Alex exclaimed.
Tony hits him upside the head and looks around for his silencer.
“Whatever but…guys, I think the rain was trying to tell those guys that we’re here,” said Nolan.
“Where? What guys?” Tony asked.
Everyone turned towards the gym and looked up at where Nolan pointed. Above the rooftop were about 7 larger zombies that had everything revealing, blood, muscle, bone, it was all revealed, they stood atop the roof high and yelled a strange and tough scream as each of them spread out and jumped from rooftop to rooftop to even the trees and leaping like kangaroos and further. It was the secondary headcrab victims, it wasn’t the poisonous ones but the quicker type of headcrabs, it outgrew every aspect the normal headcrab hosts had, their claws were much larger and longer, they had large muscles and bigger chests with longer and tougher legs. They ran shaking their heads like the insane and came slashing their arms towards them. From a distance estimated of about 10 meters away, all 7 jumped together at the scattered group. They all put the guns up and fired at will, they shot it constantly. Dennis didn’t zoom in but fired as fast as he could, a whole clip of 30 rounds wasted directly on one of them and only by aid of a few additional bullets from someone killed one. Tony fired consistently at a different one since 20 meters away and fired once or twice at a time waiting to get a better aim at it, and fired faster as it got closer, he ended his clip with a few bullets wasted from over killing it. Nolan fired in two tap bursts with his AK as he tried to have the second bullet land on the head, it managed to survive all the way to 10 meters despite every hit landed on it and he wasted the entire magazine to kill it. Alex had been firing from the start, his shots were slow but much more effective, by the time it reached 10 meters it fell hard on the ground and rolled down the hill dead and another flew back by a few spread bullets after Dennis’s round. Mr. Hoang fired his TMP rapidly but failed to take it down and only managed to slow it down by a couple of seconds. They had failed, the remaining 3 were about to land on them, they tried to reload but there was no time, they were getting closer and closer, they stepped back fast and barely got out of the way of the swing claws as they made another jump with both arms stretched out, it would knock all of them over at this rate. They covered themselves with their arms and closed their eyes by natural instinct.
To be continued…
Right now.
The rain poured and showered over them, wind blew hard as the trees bent. The zombies stood their height even with their knees bent back, they had no ammo left.
The zombies had already swung their large, long, disgusting arms and them. They shielded their bodies and a sound of yelling.
They fell back, one of them losing an arm, another with a hole through the foot. Everyone looked up and saw them, the zombies groaned in agony and was quickly done away with by several more long needle like objects that were like sharp, yellow ovals lined with a blue aura around it. It zipped by them, inching away from their faces, and destroyed the zombies, spilling meat and blood all over behind them as they made small sounds of life that slowly evaporated. They all turned around and spotted the emplaced gun on top of the APC, armored personal carrier, moving with smoke coming out of the nozzle. Tony wiped away the water on his face and everyone tried to get a better view from where they stood. The hatch opened and a zooming sound was heard and a few feet in front of everyone landed a navy seal knife. They looked down and back up, it was Vincent, yet again to save their asses. He stood up and acted as a mighty figure and everyone smiled in relief.
“Alright everyone split up and meet back here, yell for help if you find you’re in a bad situation,” Mr. Hoang said.
Everyone reloaded and split up inside the school, they checked every room and Hoang checked his room, 500, he had been the Geometry teacher for 9th grade and had Tony, Nolan, Dennis, and Vincent in one of his classes and was always the casual Asian teacher. A small but fairly good enough room was the closet for the woodshop, big enough for about 8 student desks together from left to right and 20 front to back, not counting the chairs. He pocketed whatever things he felt he needed and walked back wondering if he would actually get to live the life he did, it felt much like it had become what his homeland was like.
“Die bitch!” exclaimed Alex, as he shot a zombie in a room nearby and pumped it again and blasted its head. “Fuck you and your gay ass class!”
“‘Ah choo!’ Man it’s cold, I would’ve had no idea it would rain today, it showed no signs of it at all today.” Tony thought and walked down the 100s aisle closest to the left wing entrance as the sounds of footsteps echoed silently along the way with rain quickly covering it up.
Tony held his gun crossing his opposite leg from the trigger hand and looked down the hall. He swerved to the left side to be more careful and make sure there wasn’t a zombie behind the corner lockers. He continued walking right on that corner to his locker and stopped. He stood there a moment and bent down to open it.
“Uhh, 21-13-5…no…hmm….damn it…” Tony was talking to himself and eventually got the combination. He put the lock away in his pocket for reasons even he didn’t know. He walked on and turned right again going back down the other hallway and towards the quad area and sighed. “Hungry.”
He walked right after he got to the quad and went to the snack machines. The trees shaded him momentarily with their huge barrage of branches and walked past a small fence about 15 feet tall made just like the metallic door at the entrance of the office and left and right wings, the fence was made the same way, with curved holes to see through but the edges were sharp, there was no real reason that it was necessary but always made it look fairly nice somehow. Tony lifted the bar that kept the fence door in place and walked over to one of the machines. He put his gun down vertically and looked for some money in his pockets but found nothing except the lock. He stepped back towards the fence and threw his lock at the glass of the machine but it didn’t break at all, he picked it up and threw it again but it failed and almost bounced back at him, he didn’t have enough room to throw hard enough for it to break. The gun fell down make made a thunk and Tony noticed the gun again. He picked it up and stood only a foot away from the glass and shot it once, it left a mark that broke the glass more making it look like a spider web and used the handle to bat away the remain glass and took something and poured it. He was extremely hungry after he had lost all of his lunch and breakfast and took huge intakes of whatever was there and then looked inside and felt for something. A small box, he felt around, sharp edges and a lot of dust but eventually he found something that lifted and pulled it up and reached in. Coins and bills, he pulled it out and inserted them into the Powerade machine since it was way to hard to open it up because it had no glass and it had a huge lock on the side. He drank one immediately and took another for later.
He wiped off the miniscule crumbs on his mouth with his thumb and middle of his index finger and grabbed another bag of chips from the machine and walked towards the iron fence. Still calming eating with his gun strapped around his bright red and white shirt, the blood and rain mixed and he was always shivering just not violently or that visibly.
A yell came from across the quad from above, not a human one, but a similar one, he feared to look up but he did slowly. Tony saw yet another one of those hopping zombies as he stepped back and then out came 2 more, and then a whole horde came with all different kinds of zombies, he swore he saw one or two of his other friends infected with those sick things and stepped back shaking, the fast one on top of the roof led them, it jumped down and ran towards him, he dropped the bag and quickly wiped on his shirt and pulled out the Maverick and shot at it. The thing moved back from the impact of the bullets out the iron fence. Tony had to do something before he was trapped in hell. He looked around the ground panting and making a panic and worried sound and pushed the iron door he had opened as hard as he could and the sharp gate squeezed itself into the zombie and it fell, making diamond shaped creases all over his body. The other zombies got closer and closer. He panicked and looked over on the ground quickly and spotted his wet lock that was sitting by tiny pieces of glass by the vendors and ran to it, he put his arms carefully but quickly out of the fence, feeling for the bar below for a hole that he could put his lock in to close the gate to the fence. The zombie he killed was still sitting by the gate cold and dead, oozing out blood. He closed his eyes and felt the disgusting arm and tried to find the hole. He could touch it with his left arm and then tried to get his right arm to place the lock in but it was too far, he threw it over to his other hand and missed, a metal clank as it hit the ground inches outside. The other zombies jumped and ran towards the gate. He was shaking harder now, why didn’t anyone of them see this when they were cleaning out the school? He had no time to think and stretched past the sick body and felt a layer of skin scratch off him as he got the lock. It was only the outer skin and only made his left arm a white mark like when he was scratched and reached for the hole again. The zombie was only a few feet away, he breathed harder and through the blood and managed to put the lock in place but he wasn’t able to lock it in place. The zombies jumped toward the fence as it yelled a little and jumped back, the sharpness of the fence kept the zombies off it. He washed his bloody hands in a dirty pile of water that had collected from the rain in a small dip in the cement. He sat down and panted and held his gun and poked at one of the slow, normal zombie’s head with his silencer.
“Not so tough now huh bitch?” Tony questioned it. It took a swing at the gate, blood spewed from its bony fingers and some going past the gate and splattered on Tony, “Ugh, sick shit…”
Tony was not in a position to relax however, the faster ones eventually climbed up and got on top of the immense fence and made a gorilla-like yell. Tony looked up in surprise, “Jeez! Help…help!!” He yelled for assistance.
He opened fire and one of them fell down and landed on several of the poisonous ones and knocked some of them off. Now he had the poisonous, fast little headcrabs and the huge, hopping zombies after him and the ones on the ground were banging on gate with fierce might. He hadn’t realized it yet but the lock was getting knocked out of place, but the bar was still driven deep into the ground. He fired at the other one and the gun clicked, he finished the clip already, 30 bullets seemed like 10 to him, there was hardly enough in a clip, he should have gotten a P90 SMG or some type of “Para” Machine Gun. He reloaded and cocked it, there was no way he could take all of them. He stepped back towards the corner where there was no vendor in between and bumped his head on something rather smooth and a bit hollow. Tony turned his head to find windows that had stretched from the corner of the snack area through the whole wall. It was the library’s window that shown the many chairs and tables and the row of computers on the right. He stepped back a little and shot at it with at least 10 bullets, a few to break the window and the rest to clear the sharp edges, he had no time to bat it out with his gun. The zombie and headcrabs fell down on his side and the normal zombies somehow batted at the gate so much it bent the bar up and opened it wide open, with the impact of the way it bounced back and the first zombie who laughed when it saw Tony was hit in the face and killed by the swinging door, the other continued past him, he turned quickly in surprise. He climbed through the window and fell on the ground. The zombie walked to the window and yelled for a few moments and soon figured out how to crawl over and got in. Tony wasn’t out of danger just yet, he ran, turning zigzag past the tables as the zombie merely jumped from table to table, the cheap wood gave way each time the zombie jumped from it. He got to the entrance door and pulled, it was locked and the zombie closed their distance. He had no time to shoot it down, he’d have to reload to finish it off, so he shoot the tiny key lock until he pierced the hole and tried the door again, it swung open and he ran to the right towards the iron gates that guarded the office and library. He ran out towards the middle of the grassy area past the tall palm trees. A high sounding spraying sound came from the right as he passed the tall trees and a lower sound, much slower came from the left as the zombie tripped forward and died. Tony turned to see what had just happened, Dennis and Nolan were on the sides of the wall and had shot down the zombie. The small, black headcrabs were still chasing him, he ran back and continued to fired the last of his clip as everyone did he tripped and he walked up a hill, most of the bullets missed, then a large bang came from behind him, then a dual reloading sound, it was Alex pumping his shotgun and took another shot, the spread knocked out three and another three, his gun angle against the little things was good and greatly increased the accuracy of the shotgun’s spread and he only wasted 3 bullets. He reloaded and made a funny smile as Tony looked up. Everyone walked towards the middle, Tony had been the last one around the school, the others had been waiting for him for at least 5 minutes.
Tony breathed and was glad he made it, “Why didn’t you go after me when I called?” he asked.
“Sure we’d help you, but we wouldn’t wanna die doing it,” Mr. Hoang chuckled.
Tony smiled and shook his head and pulled his hair back. A suddenly massive group of groaning came from the interior, everyone looked. The remaining ones figured out that he wasn’t still in vendor area and could smell him out.
“…”
“Run!” Mr. Hoang said.
Everyone ran after him to the van. “Wait,” Alex said.
They looked at him questionably. “Why?” Mr. Hoang asked.
Alex pulled out a keychain with 2 keys and a remote on it, “Took it from that old hag, it’s a sweet ride, an SUV,” he told him.
“Ok, I think I remember which one it is, I’ve seen it before,” Mr. Hoang took it from him and ran over to a clean white SUV. He pressed 1 on the remote and it made a unlock sound and everyone got in.
He placed the TMP in the compartment near the bottom of the door and revved up the engine. He pulled the stick back in reverse quickly and pressed hard on the gas and they were pulled out of the parking lot without even a scratch on it. Everyone put on their seat belt, Hoang knocked the stick back and it landed on D, he slammed his foot on the gas and it zoomed, the corner came and he shifted his legs in a strange manner and made a hard yank of the steering wheel, the left side of the road disappeared from their view, the bumper was centimeters away from the cars that parked along the side of the lane, and they saw the front window move sideways until it reached the exit road, Hoang had just did a outward 90 degree drift. Tony was sitting in the very middle with his jaw dropping, he always saw his cousin drift and do a lot of tricks when he watched him play and Tony even got to drive his car once and knew how hard it was just to drive normally, but to drift in such a narrow road, it was simply amazing. Everyone else was just as surprised that Hoang had pulled that off, they all thought that he had lost control and was going to crash into the tree rather than pull off a stunt only elite street racers could ever do. They zoomed on the road past wrecked, burnt, and abandoned cars. They drove for 15 minutes and got on the 51 Highway. A sudden fluttering sound came from their left side and two Combine tanks caught up to them from each side, a Gunship hovering above their left.
“Pull over citizen, and come with us, we shall take care of you,” the loudspeaker from the left Combine tank said. The straight road came to an intersection, a sharp 2 lane curve on the left. “Stop immediately citizen, or face dire consequences." They all looked at Hoang, he said nothing and did nothing, he just kept his eyes on the road and stepped harder on the gas.
To be continued…
Right now.
Everyone was talking to Hoang to stop or do something but he kept driving and looking straight at the road. He went up the left steep road, it extended higher and higher, it had been made to stand above over 5 different intersections and stood nearly 250 feet above the ground. The right tank slowed down and advanced towards the behind and the gunship lowered and went under the road, they started to yell at Hoang that he’d kill us all now.
“Prepare to face consequences citizens,” a voice from the left boomed out.
Hoang, without hesitation, shifted his feet and turned a hard left at the curve and continued to hold it left and would constantly jolt the steering wheel right for a moment, the large SUV filled up the narrow lanes and was barely touching the left wall, only centimeters away from it, the car continued to drift, move sideways, smoothly, this was the worst part for everyone except for Vincent who apparently said nothing and sat comfortably in his seat. The tanks had to slow down at the curve and began firing, sounds of metal clanging against each other. Rumble!! They looked back, one tank was still chasing them, the other disappeared but was replaced by rocks and black dust and a large head of some sort, followed by an explosion around the tip of the head. A large bang exploded followed by various other explosions within the gunship and tank and in the desolate area, an echo boomed throughout the region, Boom boom boom-oom….
The gunship and the other tank had collided with each other and ruined themselves, the bio-machines fell down as the gunship sputtered, falling, and breaking the other highways down to the floor. The tank still fired constantly at it, Hoang paid no attention to it and continued drifting and then it began to go out of control, the velocity of the vehicle had decreased too greatly to continue drift and would make 360’s if he continued to do it. He held onto the drift motion even as it ran out of control, it spun a little and Hoang pulled the lever down and stepped on the gas, it roared, the tires’ rubber had nearly completely been torn off from the extreme drifting he had done with that type of stock car. The car faced towards the tank and the window was hit by a barrage of bullets but not concentrated on one spot, the glass didn’t break, the SUV was raging towards the tank, however, with the SUV going uphill, it wouldn’t gain enough velocity to possibly push the tank back, so the vehicles drove head on towards each other, both looking as if neither would give way. Within seconds they were only meters away from each other, everyone was yelling at him, thinking this was complete suicide, whereas Vincent took out a knife and started to clean off the hair on his face and look at his reflection. Hoang made a hard brake as well as the emergency brake and a sharp left, the front veered to the wall but somehow managed to still not hit the wall, the back flung forward. The tank was batted by the back of the SUV, with the fierce speed and velocity, the vehicles thick backside had enough might to simple bat the tank backwards at its advancing speed. It was slapped back far and veered back to the cliff of the highway, it swerved, barely going to fall.
“Holy…shit! Where did he learn to drive like that?!?!” Tony exclaimed as he tried to catch his breath along with everyone else as they got out before Hoang pulled off some more crazy stunts.
The tank continued to fire blindly into the air.
“Fuck this you Asians can’t get any shit done,” Alex said.
He walked over to the tank and put the shotgun on the metal of the tank and fired, a multiple metal sound banged, he pumped it and shot again, after 4 bullets, it pierced the metal and a sound of a Combine soldier groaned through his mask but then began to shoot out trying to get him. Alex kicked the tank as high as he could, it slowly leaned closer to the cliff and then made a quick descent downward, the sound of the soldier was faintly heard as he made a soft groan as all the other Combines did when they died.
“Mr. Hoang where did you learn those crazy racer skills?” Nolan asked with his eyes widening near the last words.
“Hey, in Vietnam, I had to do something to pass the time for my boat ride,” Hoang replied in a comedic way.
“That was fun, lets do that again!” said Vincent not even excited.
“They had cars during the Vietnam War?” asked Tony.
“…”
Just then a hovering sound was heard from the air, they looked behind the car, a strange crab-like aircraft was flying towards them with some sort of box underneath its body held by its arms, the aircraft had white on the bottom and a sandy color to it on the top, much like the gunship, only larger, both looked as if they were living creatures and made sounds like a creature, however it was controlled by machinery even though the sound of it was creature-like. The bio-machinery aircraft hovered, straight, blue fire came out of circular holes under the aircraft began to decrease, and the aircraft descended, it landed on their side of the highway and then dropped the large box and then the blue light from the holes increased and it hovered higher into the air and disappeared.
They all got out from behind the car, and stood with their weapons by their side. They waited for something to happen, then suddenly, the dark blue, parallelogram-like box that had creases and markings all over it began to open on the back end opened like a box and then a Combine soldier stepped to the side and looked at them. They all held their guns up, alarmed and cautious. The soldier made faint words to the box and threw a grenade, it lit red at the tip like a laser pointer and rolled to them and he began to firing a strange new human like weapon that looked much like an SMG with a laser pointer crosshair.
“Grenade!” Mr. Hoang yelled and everyone ran towards the front of the box.
The sounds of numerous footsteps and jingling of metal in their pockets were heard through the box, apparently the aircraft was a transporter and had dropped in on them maybe more than 20 men from the looks of the size of the box. The first soldier still firing until he ran out of the clip and began to reload. Dennis looked over and quickly zoomed in for his head and shot before he could run behind the door of the box for cover, a quick, clean kill. Sounds of men running towards them got louder and more numerous.
“Split up, everyone on one side and me on the right!” said Dennis still with his jolly, little queer expression on his face.
Nolan, Dennis, and Mr. Hoang took the right side and Tony, Alex, and Vincent took the left.
To be continued…
Right now.
The footsteps of the soldiers were right around the corners, the groups turned and opened fired. A combination of all their weapons boomed as the bullets zoomed through soldier over soldier, a groan from several. They kept coming, all running in a line towards the other end of the box, everyone kept shooting. Alex had to reload often but his shots always pierced through numerous amounts at once with Vincent always getting the leftovers while he reloaded and Tony went from the side, fearing his bullets might hit them instead of the enemy, he went side strafing and took the chance of being more likely shot. On the other side, Dennis always took constant firing rate as he always took time to readjust for the head; mostly through the eye glass and sometimes the neck and tried not to waste a bullet on one that someone else has already shot. Nolan always took short bursts and would readjust every two or three bullets as the recoil of the AK was extremely jolty but pierced them easily, whereas Hoang was quick to spray a shower of bullets on anything that moved towards them, making a quick advance forward for them. Covering each other at reload as they got closer to the other end of the transport, a constant flow of men continued out, the box seemed longer than they had thought and still had a load of men waiting to get out, they met up and saw all of them now, the remaining few had guns as the rest were a close combat tactic. They very inner ones held clubs, metal clubs, some type of riot club, rounded with 4 rings of jolting, frizzing blue electricity. They ran out much faster as they had no large armor or pockets to weight them down, and quickly swarmed the group in a circle. Nolan and Dennis now let out a shower of bullets, they were close enough that even a child could have not missed. Hoang ran out of clips, he didn’t have the time to grab the ammunition as he was more worried about getting away. Tony soon ran out of magazines as well as he found out when he took out the magazine and found his pocket and ammo belt completely empty. Alex was still at a moderate amount of bullets and continued to keep the soldiers back but the pump took too long to reload per shot. Everyone ran low or ran out of bullets. The Combine moved closer behind each of them and jolted them in the back, they screamed, the pain of hundreds of volts of electricity seared through their bodies and then with the handle of their clubs, butted them on the head. They all fell to the ground, as they maintained a few moments of consciousness. Vincent was then enclosed in his own circle inside their own by a barrage of soldiers, the last they saw of him was him holding knives in his hands, one on his mouth and between his fingers slashing the soldiers who got close to him. Tony looked over from them before he passed out, the massive stains of Combine scum blood and cold bodies they had managed to kill, it was a good effort they had put up against the cold blooded creatures that were taking over the world, with a groan, his eyes gave in and his head fell down on the side.
They woke up, it was dark, pitch black, leaning against something cold and hard as once in awhile they felt bumps. Vincent woke up first, Dennis and Alex had gotten up moments before the rest, then Nolan, Hoang, and Tony regained consciousness afterwards.
“Where are we?” asked Nolan
The moving stopped, “Get out!” a voice hollered from the outside.
A slit open up, dim light shone through, street light, they were inside a Combine APC with a group of other civilians who looked beat and down, groaning silently. They could hardly see anything briefly as they had just regain consciousness, but managed to get out of the vehicle, some falling. People rubbed their eyes to fix their vision to be able to see, but it took awhile. A calmness during the time they waited for everyone to get off, then a sudden tight grip consumed Tony’s arm and he was pulled in a direction, he could bluntly see even with his glasses on. Everyone else were always pulled away as they could hear each other’s voices as some screamed or asked where and who was taking them as they were carried away. It seemed that it was the Combines and they had been pulling everyone in the same direction as Tony rather than scatter them. Tony felt the grip loosen as he felt the hard ground turned into hollow wood and felt his arm bump a wall and felt to the ground and then multiple other sounds of people falling on the ground.
It took a few minutes for them to regain clear sight again but they did, no damage was done to any of them. Tony soon crawled over to everyone else, past the other people that seemed to be about 300 of them all huddling in groups; Dennis, Alex, Nolan, and Hoang were nearby. Vincent wasn’t among them but rather disappeared, the last time they saw him; they all agreed, was him fighting off the bating soldiers. The advancing of footsteps came minutes after and the room quiet down and looked towards the two line of Combine soldiers from opposite sides outside the building join together with an opening at the door. In fact, the area was an invaded area where the Combine had chosen to settle at in City 17. The buildings had lost all the windows and doors, broken structures, the ones that did have doors or windows, were broken or knocked down. The streets were littered with paper and other various bottles and cartons, carts and other various things; but the street was completely empty in cars or any human material like such. A more brightly colored Combine figure walked into the room as the rest of the line stood outside with guns crossing their shoulder, the same plasma rifles they had seem before. The figure stood a bit taller than the rest and had a red cape wrapped around him with a golden chain keeping it around his neck, the cape was shiny and elegant with a golden outline around the cape. The Combine seemed a high rank person as he had a personal pistol or some type of weapon strapped on his belt.
“Citizens of City 17, you have been brought here under the extreme protection of our men as they have come to carry you to safety from the evil forces of this world that had planned to destroy you, in exchange, we kindly recommend all of you help us in building this wonderful structure as to protect mankind from destruction and save this world. You will work all day until you are given rations and you will return here to shut your eyes. There will be no break days and no excuses, no matter what age or appearance, you shall work. That is how you will spend the rest of your lives until we have securely eliminated the evil that works against you. For today, you will create your sleeping quarters by finding whatever you can in the premises and you shall use it for the rest of your life, and next day, you shall be assigned to work. While others of you, shall enlist in our army against the opposing force. That is all, you may commence now.” The Combine said in a demanding manner and walked off, the men following him.
The people muttered to each other in a mass of confusion, soon they went out around the gated area. Tony walked out and looked up and wondered, was this it, is this the end, what happens now, was this how he would spend the rest of his life?
-Chapter 5- -=Broken=-
To be continued…
Right now.
It was 9 o'clock, the sky was dark; like their hopes. Tony closed his cell phone as he walked out of the poorly candle lit room that he would have t share with hundreds of people for god knows how long. He opened the cell phone and turned it off, the little battery power he had left was going ot have to last him forever. The Combine had allowed them until midnight to find whatever they could to make their lives a bit less worthless as everyone spread to different paths, hoping to find something useful. The entire mile radius was covered by buildings and business offices, it was a metropolian area rather than urban. It was enclosed by the same strange, tall metal that made the Citadel's structure which was sprayed with the blood of earlier resistance and small spherical dents which were assumed as bullets from high above the Citadel as it always seemed to grow like a giant beanstalk and never stop. The walls were a but different, the metal overlapped each other vertically and grew slightly diagonal.
Tony caught up with his friends after searching around in the dim street lights. There was no Hoang or Vincent as they all noticed, the last they had recalled was before they were surrounded and taken out. They were glad, they must have escaped and would surely come for them.
With this, they were content and walked away, following Dennis as he claimed to know a Target or Bed, Bath, and Beyond store around; as he always seemed to enjoy shopping with his mother often.
"You really have no idea where you're going do you?" Tony asked him as he shook his leg from walking so long.
"I know everything," said Dennis with his gay, jolly expression.
"So I don't need to tell you that I'm your dad and I got a longer one than you Dennis?" Alex questioned him retorically.
"Ohhh," Nolan said.
They continued to discuss and laugh about the conversation the rest of the way. After some given time, they came upon a block, a section of the area that had various different stores. They all agreed to meet back at the middle when they were done searching out the places they saw would be good. Tony went left towards a Target in hopes of finding some regular things he would need. The store no longer had sliding doors or anything, it was just a simple entrance without any doors or anything; the doors were knocked onto the floor, with nothing but trails of blood sweeped on the floor in every direction and thousands of bits of glass. He walked into the dark, a little nervous, he looked around for something to shine light with as he walked in with sounds of cracking glass under his shoes. Luckily, the store had a sale on some waterproof flashlights and was placed on the shelves near the entrance, which even came with a small solar panel on one of the sides for emergency use. He tore the wrapping cover and flicked it on, dim yellow-orange light shone barely into the darkness, the solar panels haven't gotten much light and there were no batteries in it. The moonlight still lit into the store lightly and Tony was quick to step away from the pitch black, but the batteries were just behind the bend by the cashiers and felt his hand around the hooks and managed to find various wrappings of different sizes hanging from them,thin and like cardboard, witha wrap of plastic near the middle with equally dividing bumps and felt hard to push in. It was a plastic wrapping of batteries hanging on the hooks, he assumed as he could only feel the sides and texture in the little light that shone. He felt carefully around the other hooks and took a bag from a variety of different hooks to get a lot of different types of batteries, he didn't want to have to go back to get the right battery type in the dark again. He ran back to the shelf and opened the bag and flashlight and tried some different batteries on. After a few tries with the Double D batteries, the square ones, AAA, and other ones, he finally got the AA batteries which fit. He opened a 18 bag of AA batteries quickly as several fell to the ground, he didn't knwo if he was shaking from fear or cold but finally fit 4 AA's in the flashlight and turned it on, it shone brightly and revealed everything in its path. He took some batteries from the wrapping and stuffed it in his pockets; he always had this itching about the energy from electronics to run out of power quickly and conserved it as much as he could.
Infront of him were women's underwear and a long jewelery counter and to the far right were men's clothing and a small hotdog restaurant. The things he would find of any use were far into the store, which made him uncomfortable as he walked to the left to the other end of the store. He passed the jewelery cases and casiers, what good would diamonds and money do for them now that they were completely stripped of their freedom and lives?
The store was difficult to explore in such a small amount of light and found himself needing to use the maps on the telephone poles that was used to call the Target employees to assist someone in the store. He walked in more and ended up at the other end of the store, diagonal from the entrance and led to the gardening area. He checked out the patio furniture inside the store before going in and sat down for a rest facing the shelves. The white plastic chair was uncomfortable but looked nice with the clear glass, white rimmed table with a large umbrella sticking from the middle. He sat up and leaned forward and stopped shaking and sighed, he covered his eyes and pulled down on his face, he was tired. Tony remembered, after all this time, none of them knew where their families were and if they were alright, if they were somewhere nearby or maybe even living among the slaves like him, or had they gotten away to somewhere still safe, before all this had happened. Tony was already tired, only half past 9:00, much sooner than his usual sleeping pattern back then, which consisted of Doom 3 all day after school and falling asleep at midnight.
A sudden low, gurgling moan came from the left corner that was unexplored. His skin spiked up and he lost concentration as if something were to disrupt the nerves, nothing touched him but the shock sent an uncomfortable condition to his body. He looked up and grabbed for the flashlight he put ont he table, it fell over and made a loud noise in the huge store and he picked it up quickly and shone it at the left side. More of moaning continued but he saw nothing move towards him. Searching the corner, sitting tightly on the chair, and looked carefully for anything that moved. The shelf appeared to have nothing there except several rows of transparent red, blue, yellow, green, or purple vases randomly placed on the corner shelf. Vase, vase, vase, vase, he thought as he looked, there didn't appear to be anything there until he shone exactly inbetween a slit between the shelf wall and the vase closest to it, the slit was at least 5cm wide. The unidentifiable object swerved and long bloody red stick like things moved up and down in a smooth motion. His light shone exactly on the sticks, it walked outward more, it showed its head, white and yellow on the sides with 4 legs on it. It laughed, just like a zombie, and walked out to reveal exactly half of its body, bloody red, even on its red clothes that said in the middle, 'Welcome to Target, my name is DARYLL, how may I help you?'. Even the blood made itself visible on the shirt as it made it much darker. Its other half knocked a whole row of vases towards the ground and one towards Tony. The blood spread itself down to his long blue jeans, and the vase was highly projected and fell meters behind him, apparently those things were strong but uncoordinated. Tony stepped back slowly and tripped over the chair he was sitting in and fell back and got up behind the tables and chairs and made a barricade and ran towards the plant house as the zombie took little time to figure out how to get by.
The room smelled horrible like manuer, urine, and daisies combined but he ran as fast as he could before the thing learned to run. It had a strange warm feeling to it as well, much warmer than any greenhouse, and the further he ran in the more foul it smelled, but he continued to run no matter what. The tables crashed aside and the chairs knocked away, the noise made Tony look back but continue to run, the adrenaline and fear increased. He turned around to look forward, a long thin grey rope like thing hanged infront of him. He was about to bat it aside and continue had it not been for a warm, wet fealing of red saliva that dripped on his right shoe and to the ground, he looked up by natural instinct. He was already scared enough as it was, but when he saw the horrifying sight of the thing above, he would have fell to the floor and fainted but his body just didn't move at all. It was a horrific sight, that no one would ever hope to see, it was still digesting a human arm. The thing was hanging from the ceiling about 2 feet long and cone shaped to the mouth and had bubbling veins which kept its suction to the ceiling, it was like an octopus without arms and a long tongue. The mouth was circular all the way in and had 6 main fangs around the rims of the mouth and countless shorter, smaller teeth going inward like a shark and it was even vaguely showing its intestines. It contained no face; no eyes, nose, ears, or anything except the mouth and the tongue which seemed to make up for feeling around it.
Tony stopped and stepped back quietly and slowly, he let out a breath slowly as he tried to back away. The moist, warm feeling on his breath in the air was felt by the creature somewhere 5'5" from the bottom of its tongue. It grew tense and swerved its tongue around softly, it tapped the ground to find anything unusual that had come across its path and then randomly hit Tony's shoe where it had drooled. It turned excited and opened its mouth, the tongue must have grown well over an extra foot and wrapped it around his foot and pulling him up. He tried to get himself up and tried to pull off the tongue's grip but its muscles seemed to have locked on his foot forever, there was no way out, his stomach ached from bending up and he let himself hang upside-down, just slowly being pulled in, as if the thing was eating its own tongue, it brought Tony inches closer by each slurp. Tony groaned, his face turned flush red from the blood and sweat covered his body, while he spun he saw the avancing zombies, more had awaken from all the noise and were now coming towards him, many of them however, got caught in the same creature he was being captured by. Apparently there were at least 10 of them hanging around the whole way back where Tony had came from, it was surprising that he didn't even feel these things when he came out, but they were now devouring zombies. One of the zombies that got caught was trapped between two of them, one tongue on its leg and another on its neck, the two creatures sucked it to their mouths, each one wanted the whole thing for its meal and pulled against each other, the zombie screamed out some strange sounds and was ripped into half and was devoured quickly and spat whatever they couldn't eat, the stomach and spinal cord fell out and the intestines dangled to the ground. They let their tongues hang again for their next victim. The same thing was going to happen to him.
To be continued…
Right now.
It sucked its tongue in inch by inch as it closed the gap between its body and Tony. The only thing he had that was even close to a weapon was the simple flashlight, he didn't even have time to think of anything, the grip of its tongue felt like it ripped him apart from his foot, blood just keep rushing to his head. The thing got even more excited as it lured him closer and wiggled its outer teeth.
His shoe slipped a little and he came to his senses and noticed his small movement. It reached its mouth and opened wide, Tony forced the poor amount of strength he had left and got up and untied his shoe and fell to the ground sending spikes up his back from the hard cement floor. He sat up, the creature ate his shoe and the zombies had gotten right next to him, raised both hands into the air and was about to slap him to the floor again.
Tony couldn't move hastly enough even if he wated, it hurt too much and his mind was still trying straighten up. All he could do was stand up slowly and shift his body, amazingly, the zombie's hands missed him on both sides by centimeters. He got up and dragged himself forward before the zombie could try again. The thing on the ceiling spat out his shoe and put its tongue down again after it realized the shoe wasn't organic nor good to eat, the zombie chasing Tony was caught on the head and pulled up, it got him quicker this time, thinking it was the same victim. Tony ran to the exit that was only so far away, he looked carefully this time, up on the ceiling where he could see the creatures so he could safely manuever around them to get safely to the exit.
He finally reached the outside, fear still pumping adrenaline into his blood and he fell to his knees and panted heavily.
"God," Tony said with sweat still pouring out in the cold night.
He wondered if anyone else was having this problem and decided to try another store after awhile, besides, he hadn't heard anything from his friends, perhaps he was the only unlucky one. He decided to try another store, maybe a more opened, lit area. That was when he came upon a huge store that was always lit even after hours. Just another Costco, nice place with so many things that come in huge packs. He took 5 minutes to get over there and went in, the place was barely damaged except for some parts of the roof that fell to the bottom but nonetheless decent, it was clean of any ceiling creatures and zombies, but some blood stains on the floor. He walked around the pharmacy area and the glasses department and looked around, there had to be something here he could use, after all the abuse his own glasses went through it finally broke away and cracked. He searched around and eventually came upon a case with eye contacts, he looked at it and wondered, he had never actually used one and heard it was suppose to itch a lot, he just took a pack and looked at it. These were all a bunch of prescribed one for people who were going to come pick them up but never did. He scavenged around the place and found a pack of clear contacts, about 5 pairs that lasted a year each and were one of those good kinds that were shown on the commericials every some often that lets your eyes breathe and it could be kept on all the time, these things must have costed a fortune, he thought. Tony removed his glasses and opened the box and tried one on, he had a hard time getting it in but he fixed it, it felt fine and didn't even bother him, it was somehow luckily the exact type his eyes needed, it fit perfectly, he stuffed the pack in his pocket and realized that he been wearing only one shoe since he was at Target, now that he remembered, it did hurt a lot on his walk on the streets to Costco but he never notice from the fear and exhaustion.
He walked around and reached the shoe department, the place was partly intact still but was almost empty from all the looting before the incident. He took any size 10 1/2 shoe and slipped it on and put on a new white shirt and comfortable shorts, just his casual wear, it never really came to him the importance of clothes except to keep warmth or cover your body rather than to show off and look good.
He finished up putting new clothes on him and realized it'd been awhile since they split up, he had no idea if they were waiting for him alone or what time it was, he flipped his cell up, it lit a battery with a slash across it; low battery. Luckily the place was packed with just about everything, Tony walked over to a glass counter with a display of Verizon™ cell phones. He threw a small rack and broke through the glass and knocked away a few models, it was only then that he realized the real models and batteries were on the shelf behind it, "Son ofa-," Tony cursed and replaced the battery.
After all that time all he had really gotten from all that was a whole new set of clothing and a nightlight; the flashlight. Tony looked at the time now on his cell, 10:30 PM, he'd rather not take the chance of taking longer or else they would have just left him to get back by himself.
"Ehh...what the hell are they doing?" Nolan asked getting frusterated.
"Maybe they're having some fun with each other," Dennis said with a ridiculous face.
(Dennis's face ==> =8^D )
"..." Nolan looked, "Just go back to playing with your perfume and make-up Dennis."
Tony comes up from the side, his head showing at first and down to his feet as he walked closer, Alex came from almost the opposite side came up walking more slick and head high with his distigushing sunglasses, always looking kick ass. So they hadn't been there for too long, they had all finished up only a few moments before.
They all met up, Nolan and Dennis stood up, and they walked back, all of them except Tony seemed to have something at least to bring back. Dennis held covered toothbrushes, towels, shampoo, and other hygenic needs which surprized everyone since they had no idea Dennis was capable of thinking that much in depth. Nolan brought back snacks all whatever food stuff he could find. Finally, Alex, carried a bunch of pillows which were completely flat due to the store sucking out all the air out of the pillow for it to be easy to store, other than that they were still good pillows, he carried about 5 or 6 of them in one bag and although no one could see it, he was carrying over 5 grand in his pocket and about 3 grand worth of gold and jewelery in his other one. Everyone kept wondering why he was so happy over just some cotton pancakes in a bag, that he would have used all for himself if he didnt remember he was suppose to share with everyone.
They finally got back to their inevitable hellhole. A line had been formed to check the civilians' things. More than a third of them shaken and near pale, frightened by something. Scattered every hundred meter were serveral bodies laying on the ground along with a couple of Combine soldiers checking for movement, some kicking them and chattering on the radio. Some were normal people, others were the same zombie infested, bloody bodies they had encountered since it all began. It all seemed like a concidental incident to those who didn't encounter them, there were zombies in the area and the Combine couldn't get them in time. Tony, like others who did survive, realized that this wasn't to help improve their lives here, that was just an addon to make them explore their area; to become bait to lure out the remaining zombies. It was a cruel, sick way to maintain safety for themselves; the Combine sacrificed the people to get rid of the zombies, Tony thought, but then again...had it been anyone else, any human would have done the same.
They moved through the line quickly, the inspector, in front of two other gaurds, basically checked for if the items was dangerous or electronic and threw them into a barrel next to them. Tony and his friends got to keep everything they held and was pushed along to mind their own business. People gathered together talking about various things, nervous, worried, confused. An officer with a dark blue mask and glowing yellow eye glasses shot into the sky to get everyone's attention. The crowd grew silent.
"Citizens! Today is a wonderous day, we have been able to save many lives by eliminating all of our enemies and protecting the lives of our many soldiers. Now to the task at hand, all of you are to now build your home which you shall shelter, lay once your moon is collades with our great Citadel and rise with the bright star to begin work everyday. That is all, we have graciously supplied you with these to use." The Officer boomed out and left, dissapparing into the grand Citadel.
The remaining Combine wheeled tons of wood, metal, dirt, nails, cloth, plastic, glass, cardboard, newspaper, and other such miscellaneous items that they believed would work for them. They had no understanding of the human world and of its resources, they just compiled a large quanity of trash into wheelbarrows and expected them to somehow construct a home.
"Come receive your tools or be forced to use your bare self to do the work," a Combine soldier yelled. As another Combine brought a cabinet of screwdrivers, power tools, hammers, nails, screws, and other such tools and threw the toolbox to the group to have it all fall out, but the people bent down to pick something up and help out. 300 inexperienced prisoners expected to build a home to support shelter over all of them for the rest of their lives.
To be continued…
Right now.
-Chapter 6- -=Obscured Paths=-
Tony held up a wood plank the size of his hand and thin as a stack of 3 quarters, he threw it back into the pile of junk. Serveral couples sat around the curbs and huddled together for comfort, many of them worried about what was going to happen next, anyone would, Tony would have likewise cowered from fear, but what was the point; it wouldn't get anywhere now, it would only lead to more suffering here than there already was. Several other people all huddled around the pile and tried to formulate a plan as to how to construct the home and soon over 50 people got supplies and began a foundation, people held the walls as others put things around it to keep it from tipping over and put a wood roof over the top. It was horrible, even if everyone was crammed in, only 10 people would fit at most and afterwards, the structure toppled over to a side by a small breeze brushing away a stress point that held the side. This definitely wasn't going to work out, it was around 1 AM, the street lights flustered, it was barely enough vision. Then suddenly a stubby man of middle age, standing 5'9" with a beard and a little chubby standing by the pile boomed his voice, "Look everyone, this isn't going to work with the amount of supplies we have now, we need to use a base foundation that is already here and work on that to make our home, what I am suggesting is that we choose that building," he pointed to the same building they had been when they arrived here, "and cover the roofs and openings and clear out the debris and clean it so we lay on it."
"Who are you to tell us what to do, Tim Allen?" a young man in his early twenties questioned him, as everyone pondered about that themselves.
"I'm an architect, I build houses...rrarrr," the chubby man said and partly joking around, "Unless anyone has a better idea, let's give this a try."
Everyone seemingly agreed and picked up whatever supplies they got their hands on and went into the building and worked wherever they could. Some knocked over the glass on the windows and covered it with cardboard and plasters of wood and nails. Others swept and removed the debris caused from a battle on the left side of the building.
=======================================================
>| Click here to view Citadel Area. |
This is a vague description of the area, it is highly inaccurately scaled, theres is much rubble due to extreme warfare and raising of the Citadel and Citadel Walls from the ground up. All areas will be described better further into the story.
========================================================
The architect and serveral older men worked to cover the roof from a corner that still had a chunk of its structure left. The women and several younger men swept the floor clean and others covered the huge hole on the left wing that must have been broken by a vehicle and the rising of the enormous Citadel.
They finished and stepped out to look, the place looked decently rebuilt and they were satisfied, but then realizing, this definitely wasn't enough room for over 300 of them. They reached the conclusion shortly after realizing everyone couldn't even have enough room to sit in that building. They realized now they had to build their own foundation, but there were hardly enough supplies left to just make the floor or even a single wall. Then suddenly several Combine officers appeared walking together, about 5, the middle one spoke, "Well done humans, you have done well, now step aside." The other four stepped forward making a noise much like scraps of metal hitting a hard leather handbag or the sounds of multiple army boots hitting the cement all at once. They each pulled out some type of electric clear cylinder with claws on one end facing the crowd, with a bright blue orb sparking all around it. The people stepped back, some braced for impact, others stood in front of their loved ones and held their hands extended to the sides. The Combine officers didn't take notice and each went over to a corner of the building and set them down. The people stopped and looked at them confused and still huddled. An officer pushed a button on his remote. The beacons gripped the ground tightly on its claws and formed an ethereal rectangular prism around it and then returned to its normal self and its claws relaxed itself. They set it to the exact distance apart from each other to the right side of their new home and set it down again, they repeated the process, an ethereal figure of the building appeared in bright blue, vague and slowly taking form as it waved around like static and took better form and color, it then became an exact figure of the building they had worked on, soon the figure took complete form and the beacons released itself and the ethereal figure stood there now real material, no longer just an image but earthly; it was real. The Combine did it twice more and laughed at the humans' amazement. The basis of the technology was to copy all things inside the beacons, which was done by setting the adjusted width and length by setting the beacons at their desired distance and using the remote to measure the height, and took the image with electric memory and ethereal vacuum in space and hold in inside the beacons and then at the desired moment bring back the image in ethereal image of it and using electricity to suck all things inside the beacons into the vacuum of space and use the ethereal force in space compressed with eletricity inside the beacons and somewhere in space to become an earthly matter within seconds of the exact thing it had taken memory of. To anyone, it would appear as just something that cloned itself. The officers laughed and the one holding the remote spoke after they retrieved their things, "This will be enough, you shall rise on your feet as...OUR bright star rises." They walked back to the Citadel, the door open and they walked past a watery ethereal force field that hummed until the metal doors covered it. Already 2 o'clock.
Everyone brought their things in, Alex was good enough to hand a pillow to his friends and they took the right corner closest to the opening where the door should be in the original building. They said nothing and slept after working for about an hour in dim light trying to build their own home.
Dawn broke around half past five, the soldiers scurried out of the Citadel going about their business, two of them stepped into the doorway of the homes, banging the walls with their batons. "Rise humans, the star has risen, get to the gathering now, you will then be assigned your tasks!" said the soldier.
The people got up moaning, still tired, some comlpaining about their aching backs and neck. The soldiers walked to each of the homes and woke them up, several of them still laid in their area coughing and sneezing.
The Combine went back to the gather and noticed a man still in House 1, a soldier kicked him, "Human you shall awaken NOW!" He held a baton in one hand taking aim. Everyone turned around to see the commotion back there.
"Please, stop, he is sick! Don't hurt him, he needs his rest or he will become worse and possibly die!" A lenient woman spoke behind them as she sat above his head. "He has a cold, please..."
"Contagious unit found in Human's rank at primary building," the other soldier spoke into his mask.
They moved on, to the others, three had gotten sick in the second house, two in the third, and another one in the last. Seconds later, several beds were rolled out from the Citadel, two Combine units on each, carried them on and went back into the Citadel with the screaming patients whose last moments were of the soldiers knocking them out and strapping them to the beds. The crowd grew nervous and scared, but said nothing. They were gathered to the side of the Citadel where a large digital image screen the size of a flipped two car garage door 50 meters above them, lined with many walk ways around the whole Citadel and a large stand and podium below decorated with red robes and flag with a mighty gold symbol in the middle. The group chattered among themselves, curious about what was going on, others noticed on their right, a group of about a hundred running in formation behind a Combine driving a gold cart type vehicle and three Combines carrying guns on the sides and back. The cart boomed with propaganda and brain wash, "...'e Combine fight for your purpose and to save mankind, do not listen to those humans who've betrayed us all, they have been concived and side with the very creatures who have destoryed your homes and your lives. Unite and fight with your beloved Combine for we are..." The cart passed by and the crowd turned their heads as they heard the foolishness the Combine were using against them.
The Citadel hissed open and four Combine soldiers walked out slowly followed by an old, middle aged man with white hair all over and pale skinned, he must've been an Albino, he appeared joyful and happy as he walked gracifully to the podium followed by another four soldiers. The crowd grew silent and more confused. He wore a bright tan suit and pants, confident and fearless. The people wondered, was he brainwashed, had he gone mad, why is he like that?
The human soldiers stopped to the right of the crowd of people in an orderly fashion, all of them wearing blue-green hoods and stripped Combine suits; completely identical to the suits the Combine officers used but emptied and completely useless except for the weight. They all looked alike, carrying guns, not the alien ones but a normal SMG type gun. They appeared lean and strict, broken in like a dog. The people turned to them shortly and were drawn back by the man's voice.
"Greetings fellow citizens, I am Dr. Breen, the ruler of the great Combine who has saved you all from the invasion on this world. This world is no longer safe anymore, renegade humans much like all of us have been turned against you by the very thing that invaded us. Now, we must join our brethrens in battle against them by helping to do anything the Combine so please. All in the name of keeping the future safe and secure my fellow citizens, it is my greatest hope that all of you---
"God damn, I can't listen to this bullshit that mother fucker is pissin' me off," Tony whispered.
They stood around the back close to the small human army. They soldiers cheered merrily as Dr. Breen spoke, holding their guns up high, he looked towards them waving, the people looking at them angry, disappointed, confused.
"W'at the fuck is wrong with those fuckers, they been smokin' too much or some shit like that," Alex commented.
The 4 looked at the soldiers scanning each of them, "...Fuck!! Guys, Hoang and Vincent are right there!" Nolan exclaimed quietly.
Everyone looked at them surprizingly and disappointed; they had infact- not escaped and countinued resisting, instead they were now against them. "What the fuck, I can't believe this is happening, they are...here, they got caught too...what..." Tony stammered.
"Dude, hey Vincent... and Mr. Hoang," Dennis whispered to get their attention, along with several angry soldiers.
They all moved a few steps and were only a short distance apart from Hoang and Vincent who had stepped towards them as well. They stood facing each other lined up, Hoang and Vincent on the right, Tony, Dennis, Nolan, and Alex on the left, the bright, complex Citadel laid in the background of their showdown; a shining glare ran across the Citadel.
To be continued…
Right now.
They stood there looking at each other, not knowing what to say.
"Yo!" Dennis said.
"Get back to your post slaves," Vincent replied.
They looked at his abruptly and surpized, "W'at the fuck Vincent dude? Gone whack man?" Alex asked.
"Back off and get to work," Vincent replied in semi-monotone.
Tony started to get annoyed by his arrogance and ignorance, he stepped towards him and grabbed his gun, USP .45 Tactical; they all still had their pistol since the Combine got them, they never frisked them for weapons and assumed they were completely unarmed once they had been taken out. He pulled out his USP from behind him and grabbed a piece of the armor by Vincent's neck, pointing at his head from the right side, "Stop fucking around Vincent, I know you're not stupid enough to get brainwashed by that stupid shit, now stop fucking around, don't tell me you're gonna just follow up and end up killin' us and everyone against these assholes?!?" Tony exclaimed almost too loud.
Vincent held up his gun and pointed it upward from Tony's throat, "You asshole Vincent..." Tony spoke once again.
Stop you're gonna get us killed, Tony back off and Vincent...is this really how it is...?" Nolan interrupted.
"Tony settle down," Mr. Hoang interfered, "We are just trying to get them to believe we are cooperating with them, they can't just break us that easily. We have to continue to hide from them, if we are caught unloyal to them they'll kill us, for now we all just have to play along, no matter how bad it is, besides, there is no way a few people can break out of here."
It was partly wrong, most of the recruits had indeed become broken, like mindless slaves bent on destroying their own.
