"For had I wished, I could have raised my hand against you and your people, and with a similar pestilence wiped you from the face of the earth."
- Exodus 9:15
Chapter 1: The Turnpike
Getting stuck at the end of an abandoned highway isn't my idea of fun outdoor night stroll. But heck, that's where we are now and I'm not in a position to make any complains here. No soon did we began, from along the highway, the forests to the left and the hills to the right, they started to swarm us. We fought till we reached a bridge that was up ahead. Well, there was a bridge anyway. "Of course, the bridge is out," I sarcastically let out a remark while we gunned down the last of our attackers. The only way is down into the gully. As we made our way down the slope, more of them await us. We rushed to the opposite ladder. This was not what I had expected on a night like this. I expected a lot worse. But hell, for the past 2 weeks it's been this same chaos all day long. In front of us we see a turnpike and then a tunnel that seemed endless. "That's the Riverside Tunnel," one of us exclaimed. The sign says "North to Riverside. Exit in ½ mile." We entered the tunnel without hesitation. Inside the tunnel was a huge mess. Burning cars, rubble everywhere, a freaking hole in the roof. You name it. A plus, the Horde were at every corner. About halfway through, we find that the tunnel's blocked. Barricaded on one side, filled with rubble and debris on the other. There was no other choice, we made a detour. A small passageway on the side was visible amongst the debris. We decided to try our luck there. It did lead us somewhere. However, as far as we learnt, everything came with a price. No sooner did we leave the tunnels, we were ambushed again by the Horde, front and back. Boomers appeared from the corners, Smokers came out of hiding from behind. We fought them off with our lives. With an opening in front, we broke for cover. The safe house was just up ahead. We appeared back in the forest again. From a distance, a lighted building can be seen. Though the exterior were in ruins, we saw that the doors were made of reinforced steel. That was it, the safe house. With the Horde hot on our tails, we made a mad dash towards the safe house, turning every once in a while to give surpressing fire.
Chapter 2: The Drains
A strong pungent smell coming from the the other side of the door tells me that we were inside a sewerage system. There was no point in going back towards the tunnels. We had no choice but to head through the sewers. Making matters worse, them Infected a crawling in these parts as well. The floors were slippery, slimy and well...smelly as far as the word smelly stretches to. The waterways and drainpipes were like mazes. Getting lost here wasn't certainly on my wishlist. As we get further in, we began to hear sobs. Right in front of us were floodgates. However, the sobs began to get louder as we get closer to the floodgates. A Witch was nearby. This certainly ain't gonna be easy. We need access to the floodgates but the Witch was in the way. The pipeway we were in was about 2 meters from the ground and the Witch was sitting right below our exit. I went first. I took a deep breath and ran towards the exit. Jumping as I reached the end of the pipeway. I landed in the water a few good feet from the Witch. Another 2 of my mates did the same thing. One guy to go. We kept watch while our final friend prepared for his jump. The klutz slipped right before he jumped and landed right on the Witch. She shrieked and started her made rampage towards the one who made her into a cushion. While my mate struggled to escape from the clutches of the Witch, myself together with the other 2 opened fire on her. Within seconds she was as good as dead, her corpse floating on the water. Our attention was then focused on the floodgates. We needed to lower them to create a bridge so that we'll be able to get to the other side. The controls were on a ledge above us. "Those gates will probably make hell lotta noise. Better get ready." We climbed the ledge and took position. As a mate flipped the switch, the floodgates decended every so slowly. The sound of the motors that lowered the gates made a racket that could very well wake the dead. Howls and roars could be heard echoing throughout the pipelines. With my hunting rifle in hand, I took aim. One down, two down, three down. One by one the oncoming Horde fell to hot lead. They swarmed the room from every opening. As the floodgates finished their decent, we moved cautiously across. Back to back, we towards the next pipeway. No sooner after we crossed the floodgate bridge, the floor started to shake. From the now accessible pipeway, a Tank was charging at us. I took aim and immediately unloaded one full cartridge at the behemoth. My mates fired their weapons as well. As the Tank entered the room, we scattered. I backed up against the wall while maintaining aim on the Tank's head. As my mates distracted it, I had all the time to aim and fire. Not long after, the hulking behemoth fell to the ground with a loud thud. We moved on. After a couple of rooms, we found ladders heading up and eventually out of the sewers. We were behind an old trainyard on the outskirts of Riverside. With the safehouse in sight, we rushed towards it. The safehouse was in a traincar. Reinforced and being to heavy, I doubt it'll ever move again. Well, at least it'll provide cover for us.
Chapter 3: The Church
The trainyard was massive. Right smack in the center was a watch tower. A good vantage point from my point of view. Being the one with the hunting rifle, that place served as a good lookout. However, we abandoned the plan. Better to get ambushed in the open with escape options than get stranded up there. We agreed and carefully walked towards the end of the trainyard. Infected lurk at every corner in the darkness. We try not to get their attention and risk getting a Horde storm on us. We entually made our way out of the trainyard and we found ourselves back on the road again. It was a rural area. Something you'd find at the edge of a forest. There were houses and little huts along the road. Not that none of them would house people anyway. However, they were a good source of supplies. We managed to find a good stock of ammo to keep our guns going. We managed to find a vacant house that still had electricity. As we approached the area, once again we heard sobs. Another Witch. This time under a tree. She was at the backyard. Taking the stealthy approach this time, we climbed out the house's side windows and back on to the main road. No sooner than we thought that we had escaped the Witch, the ground once again shook signifiying that there was a Tank in the vicinity. The Tank busted through the walls of the nearby graveyard and came charging towards us. Being the team's sniper, I was at the back of the group. Whoever that the Tank was after had to be in front of me. Having that advantage, I once again pressed myself against a nearby wall and took aim. While my other mates kept the Tank busy, I took my time and aimed for his head. Within seconds, the Tank was dead and we made ourway through the graveyard. The church on the hill was well lit and we could hear voices. We rushed towards the church to find a safehouse. But it was locked and some lunatic was in there. He kept mumbling "better safe than sorry" over and over. It was driving me nuts. One of my mate went up against the door and started to talk to the guy hoping that he would open the stupid door. "Let's see... I'm Francis and that's Grandpa Bill and THERE'S ZOMBIES OUT HERE, OPEN THE GOD DAMNED DOOR!" my mate screamed. "Only if you can prove you're immune a-a-and I know just how to do it," came the reply from the lunatic. Immediately the moron rang the churchbell and all hell broke lose. From every side, the Horde swarmed in on our location. If we weren't armed we would have been dead in less than 10 seconds. Soon the Horde died down and we proceeded to open the door. To our horror we found out that the lunatic was already mutated into a Boomer. I jumped back to get out of range of the bile he puked. My mate shot the Boomer straight in the stomach and the damn thing exploded sending guts and blood everywhere. We finally had access to the safehouse. However, things were just about to get a little more nastier as we're finally setting foot in smalltown Riverside.
Chapter 4: The Town
Climbing out of the church's belltower, I could see the abandoned town. Again, the belltower was as good a vantage point than I can ever hope for. I started to pick off the Infected one by one frm the streets. Slowly they dropped to the ground one after the other. When we saw that the coast was clear, we headed down the tower and proceeded to enter town. Our job here was to get to the edge of town and find a boat that'll get us to safety. With that said, we made our way towards the Riverside boathouse. Wrecked cars and oil tankers in town made it look like a maze. No sooner that we found ourselves in the center of town, a wrecked car came flying by us. "Shit, Tank!" one of my mates screamed. "Run! Get to open space!" I cried. I climbed a nearby car trying to get the height advatage and started to open fire. Eventhough being in open areas gave us an advatage against the tank in terms of maneuverability, that damn thing could still hurl rocks and debris towards us. One of my mates ran up towards the thing to get it's attention away from me. The Tank swung his arm is a 180° degree arc and slammed a nearby car into my mate. He flew across the road unconcious. The rest of us kept on pouring lead into the thing and eventually, he fell. We rushed to our mate's rescue. The damage wasn't as bad as it seemed and we hurriedly made our way towards the edge of town. We were lucky that there weren't any Witches to hinder our progress and we made it to the edge of town in record time. We rested and restocked at the final safehouse before we headed out to the boathouse.
Chapter 5: Boathouse Finale
The boathouse was in sight. We quickened our pace while we made our way towards our destination. The route there was without trouble. A good sign ever since this started. However, I had a bad feeling that this was the calm before the storm. We entered the boathouse only to find a radio. I radioed in on all available frequencies. Fortunately a fishing boat not far off river took noticed. It'll take the guy 10 minutes to reach the boathouse. We just need to defend ourselves until he gets here. We took up defence up on the roof of the boathouse. As the clock started ticking, the Horde started to rush us. Front, sides, they came from everywhere. Soon, the boathouse was overwhelmed with Infected. To make matters worse, there were two Tanks in the vicinity. The first Tank went down with ease as it was stupid enough to rush into the boathouse and then struggle to escape through the windows. However when the second Tank started its assault, we were caught off guard. From behind the trees a big chunc of debris came flying towards the boathouse. The impact knocked me off my feet and I fell down the stairs nearby. My three other mates went and charged the Tank head on. I got up on my feet and joined the fray. The Tank once again threw a chunk of rubble toward us. Grandpa Bill dodged it in time but slipped and fell. The Tank took the apportunity to pummel him to death. We threw everything we had at the Tank but sadly, by the time we killed it, Grandpa was long gone. Fighting hard to hold back the tears, we rushed towards the docks. Out of nowhere, a Hunter suddenly pounced on my mate that was running beside me. I took a swing at it with the butt of my hunting rifle and whipped out my pistol and emptied half a clip on the poor bastard. I dragged my mate up adn we continued to rush towards the docks. By the time we had reached the docks, the boathouse was overwhelmed by the Horde. As we see the boat inching ever so closer, so too did the Horde. I climbed on board the boat with my mate and we started to covering fire. "C'mon Francis, get on!" I shouted. He was still on the docks fighting off the Horde. He was about an arms-reach away when they overwhelmed him. I was too late. The boat pulled out of the docks and made its way to safety.
Epilogue
I've lost two friends that day. Both of them died while trying to escape this mess. We thought that by getting to Riverside, we could sought protection from teh US Army. However it was overrun and lost by the time we made it to the outskirts. Maybe we were a little too late. Maybe if the military were still in Riverside, Francis and Bill could have survive. Maybe... Just maybe... May their souls rest in peace.
Getting stuck at the end of an abandoned highway isn't my idea of fun outdoor night stroll. But heck, that's where we are now and I'm not in a position to make any complains here. No soon did we began, from along the highway, the forests to the left and the hills to the right, they started to swarm us. We fought till we reached a bridge that was up ahead. Well, there was a bridge anyway. "Of course, the bridge is out," I sarcastically let out a remark while we gunned down the last of our attackers. The only way is down into the gully. As we made our way down the slope, more of them await us. We rushed to the opposite ladder. This was not what I had expected on a night like this. I expected a lot worse. But hell, for the past 2 weeks it's been this same chaos all day long. In front of us we see a turnpike and then a tunnel that seemed endless. "That's the Riverside Tunnel," one of us exclaimed. The sign says "North to Riverside. Exit in ½ mile." We entered the tunnel without hesitation. Inside the tunnel was a huge mess. Burning cars, rubble everywhere, a freaking hole in the roof. You name it. A plus, the Horde were at every corner. About halfway through, we find that the tunnel's blocked. Barricaded on one side, filled with rubble and debris on the other. There was no other choice, we made a detour. A small passageway on the side was visible amongst the debris. We decided to try our luck there. It did lead us somewhere. However, as far as we learnt, everything came with a price. No sooner did we leave the tunnels, we were ambushed again by the Horde, front and back. Boomers appeared from the corners, Smokers came out of hiding from behind. We fought them off with our lives. With an opening in front, we broke for cover. The safe house was just up ahead. We appeared back in the forest again. From a distance, a lighted building can be seen. Though the exterior were in ruins, we saw that the doors were made of reinforced steel. That was it, the safe house. With the Horde hot on our tails, we made a mad dash towards the safe house, turning every once in a while to give surpressing fire.
Chapter 2: The Drains
A strong pungent smell coming from the the other side of the door tells me that we were inside a sewerage system. There was no point in going back towards the tunnels. We had no choice but to head through the sewers. Making matters worse, them Infected a crawling in these parts as well. The floors were slippery, slimy and well...smelly as far as the word smelly stretches to. The waterways and drainpipes were like mazes. Getting lost here wasn't certainly on my wishlist. As we get further in, we began to hear sobs. Right in front of us were floodgates. However, the sobs began to get louder as we get closer to the floodgates. A Witch was nearby. This certainly ain't gonna be easy. We need access to the floodgates but the Witch was in the way. The pipeway we were in was about 2 meters from the ground and the Witch was sitting right below our exit. I went first. I took a deep breath and ran towards the exit. Jumping as I reached the end of the pipeway. I landed in the water a few good feet from the Witch. Another 2 of my mates did the same thing. One guy to go. We kept watch while our final friend prepared for his jump. The klutz slipped right before he jumped and landed right on the Witch. She shrieked and started her made rampage towards the one who made her into a cushion. While my mate struggled to escape from the clutches of the Witch, myself together with the other 2 opened fire on her. Within seconds she was as good as dead, her corpse floating on the water. Our attention was then focused on the floodgates. We needed to lower them to create a bridge so that we'll be able to get to the other side. The controls were on a ledge above us. "Those gates will probably make hell lotta noise. Better get ready." We climbed the ledge and took position. As a mate flipped the switch, the floodgates decended every so slowly. The sound of the motors that lowered the gates made a racket that could very well wake the dead. Howls and roars could be heard echoing throughout the pipelines. With my hunting rifle in hand, I took aim. One down, two down, three down. One by one the oncoming Horde fell to hot lead. They swarmed the room from every opening. As the floodgates finished their decent, we moved cautiously across. Back to back, we towards the next pipeway. No sooner after we crossed the floodgate bridge, the floor started to shake. From the now accessible pipeway, a Tank was charging at us. I took aim and immediately unloaded one full cartridge at the behemoth. My mates fired their weapons as well. As the Tank entered the room, we scattered. I backed up against the wall while maintaining aim on the Tank's head. As my mates distracted it, I had all the time to aim and fire. Not long after, the hulking behemoth fell to the ground with a loud thud. We moved on. After a couple of rooms, we found ladders heading up and eventually out of the sewers. We were behind an old trainyard on the outskirts of Riverside. With the safehouse in sight, we rushed towards it. The safehouse was in a traincar. Reinforced and being to heavy, I doubt it'll ever move again. Well, at least it'll provide cover for us.
Chapter 3: The Church
The trainyard was massive. Right smack in the center was a watch tower. A good vantage point from my point of view. Being the one with the hunting rifle, that place served as a good lookout. However, we abandoned the plan. Better to get ambushed in the open with escape options than get stranded up there. We agreed and carefully walked towards the end of the trainyard. Infected lurk at every corner in the darkness. We try not to get their attention and risk getting a Horde storm on us. We entually made our way out of the trainyard and we found ourselves back on the road again. It was a rural area. Something you'd find at the edge of a forest. There were houses and little huts along the road. Not that none of them would house people anyway. However, they were a good source of supplies. We managed to find a good stock of ammo to keep our guns going. We managed to find a vacant house that still had electricity. As we approached the area, once again we heard sobs. Another Witch. This time under a tree. She was at the backyard. Taking the stealthy approach this time, we climbed out the house's side windows and back on to the main road. No sooner than we thought that we had escaped the Witch, the ground once again shook signifiying that there was a Tank in the vicinity. The Tank busted through the walls of the nearby graveyard and came charging towards us. Being the team's sniper, I was at the back of the group. Whoever that the Tank was after had to be in front of me. Having that advantage, I once again pressed myself against a nearby wall and took aim. While my other mates kept the Tank busy, I took my time and aimed for his head. Within seconds, the Tank was dead and we made ourway through the graveyard. The church on the hill was well lit and we could hear voices. We rushed towards the church to find a safehouse. But it was locked and some lunatic was in there. He kept mumbling "better safe than sorry" over and over. It was driving me nuts. One of my mate went up against the door and started to talk to the guy hoping that he would open the stupid door. "Let's see... I'm Francis and that's Grandpa Bill and THERE'S ZOMBIES OUT HERE, OPEN THE GOD DAMNED DOOR!" my mate screamed. "Only if you can prove you're immune a-a-and I know just how to do it," came the reply from the lunatic. Immediately the moron rang the churchbell and all hell broke lose. From every side, the Horde swarmed in on our location. If we weren't armed we would have been dead in less than 10 seconds. Soon the Horde died down and we proceeded to open the door. To our horror we found out that the lunatic was already mutated into a Boomer. I jumped back to get out of range of the bile he puked. My mate shot the Boomer straight in the stomach and the damn thing exploded sending guts and blood everywhere. We finally had access to the safehouse. However, things were just about to get a little more nastier as we're finally setting foot in smalltown Riverside.
Chapter 4: The Town
Climbing out of the church's belltower, I could see the abandoned town. Again, the belltower was as good a vantage point than I can ever hope for. I started to pick off the Infected one by one frm the streets. Slowly they dropped to the ground one after the other. When we saw that the coast was clear, we headed down the tower and proceeded to enter town. Our job here was to get to the edge of town and find a boat that'll get us to safety. With that said, we made our way towards the Riverside boathouse. Wrecked cars and oil tankers in town made it look like a maze. No sooner that we found ourselves in the center of town, a wrecked car came flying by us. "Shit, Tank!" one of my mates screamed. "Run! Get to open space!" I cried. I climbed a nearby car trying to get the height advatage and started to open fire. Eventhough being in open areas gave us an advatage against the tank in terms of maneuverability, that damn thing could still hurl rocks and debris towards us. One of my mates ran up towards the thing to get it's attention away from me. The Tank swung his arm is a 180° degree arc and slammed a nearby car into my mate. He flew across the road unconcious. The rest of us kept on pouring lead into the thing and eventually, he fell. We rushed to our mate's rescue. The damage wasn't as bad as it seemed and we hurriedly made our way towards the edge of town. We were lucky that there weren't any Witches to hinder our progress and we made it to the edge of town in record time. We rested and restocked at the final safehouse before we headed out to the boathouse.
Chapter 5: Boathouse Finale
The boathouse was in sight. We quickened our pace while we made our way towards our destination. The route there was without trouble. A good sign ever since this started. However, I had a bad feeling that this was the calm before the storm. We entered the boathouse only to find a radio. I radioed in on all available frequencies. Fortunately a fishing boat not far off river took noticed. It'll take the guy 10 minutes to reach the boathouse. We just need to defend ourselves until he gets here. We took up defence up on the roof of the boathouse. As the clock started ticking, the Horde started to rush us. Front, sides, they came from everywhere. Soon, the boathouse was overwhelmed with Infected. To make matters worse, there were two Tanks in the vicinity. The first Tank went down with ease as it was stupid enough to rush into the boathouse and then struggle to escape through the windows. However when the second Tank started its assault, we were caught off guard. From behind the trees a big chunc of debris came flying towards the boathouse. The impact knocked me off my feet and I fell down the stairs nearby. My three other mates went and charged the Tank head on. I got up on my feet and joined the fray. The Tank once again threw a chunk of rubble toward us. Grandpa Bill dodged it in time but slipped and fell. The Tank took the apportunity to pummel him to death. We threw everything we had at the Tank but sadly, by the time we killed it, Grandpa was long gone. Fighting hard to hold back the tears, we rushed towards the docks. Out of nowhere, a Hunter suddenly pounced on my mate that was running beside me. I took a swing at it with the butt of my hunting rifle and whipped out my pistol and emptied half a clip on the poor bastard. I dragged my mate up adn we continued to rush towards the docks. By the time we had reached the docks, the boathouse was overwhelmed by the Horde. As we see the boat inching ever so closer, so too did the Horde. I climbed on board the boat with my mate and we started to covering fire. "C'mon Francis, get on!" I shouted. He was still on the docks fighting off the Horde. He was about an arms-reach away when they overwhelmed him. I was too late. The boat pulled out of the docks and made its way to safety.
Epilogue
I've lost two friends that day. Both of them died while trying to escape this mess. We thought that by getting to Riverside, we could sought protection from teh US Army. However it was overrun and lost by the time we made it to the outskirts. Maybe we were a little too late. Maybe if the military were still in Riverside, Francis and Bill could have survive. Maybe... Just maybe... May their souls rest in peace.
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