The path ahead was pitch black without his gun's light lighting the way, but it was open so he took the first step and then a second. And just as he was about to take the third step into uncharted territory, a loud screeching alarm echoed through the bloody tunnels of the metro, followed by the thrum of some kind of large machinery from the levels above.
Hmm, the survivors must've started opening that door above just now… Welp, it's got nothing to do with me, good luck.
Choosing to ignore their plight, John was planning to advance deeper into the tunnel, but he detected numerous footsteps faintly in the distance. They grew louder and more distinct by the second, and before long a wave of undead, that covered the entire width of the tunnel, came into view.
On second thought, grouping up with the survivors doesn't sound so bad.
The horde of infected came packing the tunnel from wall to wall like a bunch of canned sardines and with seemingly limitless numbers... Or at least from what John could see with his limited vision. This obviously wasn't good because they would no doubt rip him to shreds before he climbed back over the piles of rock and rubble with his heavy pack. So seeing how he was left with very few options to survive this sudden onslaught, he reacted quickly and reached into his grenade sack, and a second later he had a bile bomb in hand.
This'll keep em occupied for a while.
Time was tight, so the relatively fragile container got tossed whilst he booked it for the rubble, and just as he began climbing it the cylinder shattered onto the foremost zed's noggin and released its potent contents held within. As soon as it did, the zeds started roaring and madly ripping apart their fellow undead in a berserk rage. This gave him a wide window to make some headway; hence, he rapidly ascended the pile of jagged rock. Luckily, he managed to get by that dangerous obstacle without taking a spill and seriously hurting himself.
Phew, I made it past that stage, but now I gotta book it to the next section or I'm gonna get overwhelmed by the coming waves of relentless undead.
Not even a second following that thought, the first member of the infected swarm climbed past the peak of the blockage and stared hungrily at John. Shit was about to hit the fan, but he nonetheless still took the time to put one right between that zed's eyes before he turned tail and ran for the doorway he ignored previously in favor of doing his own thing. The undead stumbled over the rock behind recklessly, killing a handful of themselves in the process, but he didn't pay the lost coins any mind, climbed onto the subway platform, ran over the torn-off door, and entered the hall.
From there he ran down the hall, flew up a flight of steps, and turned the corner at the top of the stairs. When he got around the corner up top, he found an environment similar to that area below the safe room he had passed through previously, with numerous pillars holding up the ceiling. The coast looked clear for the most part, and since the horde of undead weren't far behind, he didn't have the luxury to take his time and check every single corner, so John ran into the new space and whilst checking his sides and flanks as best he could. Thankfully, there were only a handful of zeds making their way towards the same place he was heading, and none lurking on his sides.
The gunshots ringing out ahead has them distracted, so I should be able to race over to the other side and join up with the survivors in the next level with little difficulty.
The hostiles in the room didn't notice him through all the gunfire taking place upstairs, so he took this welcome opportunity to sprint through the foundational pillars holding up the buildings and the streets above. He sprinted through the dark environment under the red light emitting from the industrial fixtures mounted on the ceiling and the dozens upon dozens of concrete columns, and soon enough he covered the distance in its entirety.
And when he did, he quickly dispatched the infected that were unknowingly impeding his way forward. They were completely unaware of his presence, so their heads were easy pickings for him, but not those who were chasing after him; those were a whole nother story. John knew he could've ignored them till he reached the survivors, but this was an open area, one which he could use to thin out their numbers.
Plus, there were a metric shit ton of them, meaning the bodies were for sure going to pile up when they inevitably got put down. Thus, it made sense to kill a few of them here, so their corpses wouldn't prevent him from returning to the tunnels below. The metro tunnels were hands down the safest way to travel through this zombie-filled city right now, and John wasn't about to give that up when he could actively do something about it.
Having made up his mind, he turned round, raised his Russian assault rifle, took aim at the foremost zed, and pulled the trigger when it reached just far enough away to not impede his return to the underground. Suppressed automatic fire echoed throughout the various levels of the area as John dumped round after round into the horde of zombies, no doubt alerting the survivors who were fending off their own waves of ravenous undead above to his presence.
They should've heard me by now with all the killing I've been doing down here, so hopefully they don't try to pop me when I go up, otherwise I'll have to kill em myself… That would certainly be a sad turn of events, my first run in with survivors ends up with me killing them.
Tossing those distracting thoughts aside, John focused up and kept laying fire at head height, absolutely demolishing any infected that entered his vision. He continued chugging along, slaughtering zombies by the handfuls whilst constantly checking his surroundings, so he wouldn't be on the receiving end of any surprises… At least until his gun clicked and nothing came out the other end.
Looks like that's it, time to run and move to the next stage… I hope things go well.
With his gun run dry, he reached around back, took out a pipe bomb from his grenade sack, activated it, and lobbed the chirping explosive into the crowd of hungry zombies. They took to the loud chirping like a moth to a flame, so while they were preoccupied with their awaiting demise, John loaded in a new drum magazine, turned the corner, and hoofed it up the stairs. What awaited him above once he cleared the steps was, as he predicted, the four survivors holding out against the unending waves of infected they attracted when they hit the button.
That's them alright… Welp, I better help them out otherwise it'll be hard to reach them with how many zeds are packing into this space.
The undead were flooding the generator room like a swarm of bugs attracted to a lone light at night, meaning it would be pretty much impossible to reach them without another distraction, so he grabbed another tool from his grenade sack and tossed a bile bomb at a bunch of infected dropping in from the catwalks above. John's throw was strong, so a second later the gadget shattered and covered that group and the surrounding area in a vile green liquid. This immediately sent the surrounding horde of undead into a frenzy and redirected their ire in the opposite direction and onto the unfortunate undead who were covered in the Boomer's disgusting substance.
Time to move.
Seeing how all the attention had been removed from himself and the survivors, John took advantage of this window he opened for himself and started making his way over to the only other living beings here.
"Hey, I'm friendly, don't shoot!" John yelled over the gunfire attempting to announce his presence to the four who were still firing away at the temporarily distracted zeds.
"Yea, yea, we heard ya, bud. Just get over here and lend a hand before these damned infected tear ya apart, or we put a bullet in ya by accident." Bill, the old man of their squad, yelled back as he continued unloading onto the zeds with his signature M16A2 assault rifle.
No longer at risk of getting shot whilst trying to make his way over to them, John quickly looked around the facility and planned out how he would go about reaching them with all this crap in the way. There was a bunch of makeshift barriers obstructing his path to them, but it wasn't insurmountable. So the second he figured out which route would be the easiest and most expedient way of reaching their hold out location, he scaled a table that had been flipped on its side, so it could act as a barrier, and sprinted toward the locker room they were holding out in.
The survivors threw John's approaching armor covered figure a weary cursory glance in between their nonstop automatic fire but that was all since this was obviously not the time chit chat and find out who the hell rolled up on them when they had bigger fish to fry like the horde of ravenous undead that would soon be redirecting their ire in their direction when that Boomer bile effects inevitably ran its course. However, even though most of them redirected their full attention to the biggest threat here, John did notice Bill's eyes lingering on his equipment longer than the others, so he took note of that as he joined up with the four survivors.
He better not have any ideas about my equipment.
Finally, feeling somewhat secure, he peered at the big hole that Zoe was covering just fine for a second before turning back the other way to face the far more dangerous threat, the increasingly growing horde of zombies. The infected were streaming in from the windows surrounding the catwalk and the level up top, the metal rolling door the four wanted to use to reach Mercy Hospital, and from the stairs John just used to get here.
Yeah, we aren't gonna last if I don't start taking them out in swaths.
Feeling the danger this mass of zeds posed to his life plus the monstrous horde that would be joining this group from the tunnels below, his vision roamed over to the mounted minigun that was going unutilized.
That could fix our little issue we have here.
Seeing a solution to their current predicament, he started approaching the stationary weapon, but he was quickly stopped in his tracks.
"Dont bother, the damned thing ain't working."
Welp, there goes that idea… I suppose the GL spam will have to suffice. I just hope the structure can survive the punishment I'm about to deliver.
Unable to come up with any other ideas, at least not within this tight time frame, John fell back to his M320 Under Barrel Grenade Launcher and aimed it at the tightly packed cluster of the zeds, who were still clawing madly at their fellow undead. As soon as he lined up his shot on the center of them, he pulled the trigger and sent a 40mm high-explosive grenade flying through the air in their direction. A fraction of a second later, it met its target and exploded, ripping and shredding the soft human flesh of the infected to pieces and scattering it in every which way imaginable.
"Haha, that's what I'm talking about, hit' em again!"
"More shootin, less yappin, Francis!"
"Oh, pipe down, old man." The rowdy biker returned at the same time he ripped into the distracted infected with his AK-47.
"Yea, yea, save the yip yap for later."
Paying no mind to the sporadic arguing that Bill and Francis were known to get into, John found the 40mm HE did a number on the cluster. Nevertheless, it was going to take a lot more than that to truly put a stop to this horde, so he loaded up another shell and sent it sailing through the air once more. The booming of the 40mm grenade rocked the building and sent the settled dust up in the rafters falling, and what little glass that remained in the windows scattering.
The ruckus we've been causing has already stirred up quite a storm but those booming explosions will certainly cause more zeds to draw on this location in due time… I better ramp up my killing speed before a Tank or something on a similar level shows up and knowing my luck that will surely happen.
Fully aware the worst was probably coming for him and the rest of the survivors now that he decided to use his GL, John managed to get a few more shots before the effects of the Boomer bile wore off. And if that wasn't bad enough, it was made worse by the large numbers of new infected that came flooding in from the stairwell he had previously used to enter this new area.
"Guys, I need some help over here." Zoe screamed from behind as more and more zeds attempted to climb up through the hole she had been holding down in the locker room.
"I got it." John said without a second thought, ready to race over to the hole and dump his drum mag into the zeds attempting to climb up.
However, before he could, he felt a faint vibration coming from the ground that was distinctly different from the thrum of the nearby machinery... And what sounded like a heavy thumping from outside the facility.
God damn it, what the fuck is it now.