John knew his chances of surviving in this zombie apocalypse would be greatly diminished if he didn't have his gun loaded and his kit stocked up for god knows what was laying in wait around the corner for him. So he wandered on down the platform and found a locked metal door stuffed in the corner at the end of the subway platform. Once he arrived in front of it, he banged on the locked door to see if there were any infected lurking on the other side. He stood there for a handful of seconds, cautiously scanning the surrounding underground, but nothing responded to his test.
Hmm, no response, huh… I guess whatever's on the other side of the door must be clear.
Convinced he was safe, John took his large, heavy pack off and dropped it on the floor with a thud before going to retrieve the lock pick set he had only had the joy of using once thus far. He dug around his pack, and the moment it entered his hands, he crouched in front of the door, stuck the pry bar in the lock, and started raking the lock. The year was 2009 in the Left 4 Dead world, hence the lock was rather simplistic in nature, ensuring John would have an easy time.
I was thinking I was gonna need to do a bit more fiddling around to defeat the lock, but I guess I was expecting too much.
Hoping whatever lay on the other side was a bit bigger than just a simple storage closet, he twisted the metal handle and flung the door wide open whilst simultaneously jumping away from it to confront any danger that may have been hiding inside. John was fully prepared and ready to throw down if anything was hiding inside, but all that came into view was a medium-sized maintenance room with all sorts of cleaning supplies within... And nothing else.
I wouldn't have minded a fight with a few extra coins to be earned, but this'll work too... Luckily the space isn't the size of nothing.
Glad he found a spot to stock up on ammo and supplies and repack his spent mags, John quickly moved into the room, flipped the light switch on the wall to the on position, and shut the door behind him once the fluorescent lights installed in the ceiling fluttered to life. Truly safe at last… Or as safe as he could be down here in this specific area of these infected-filled metro tunnels, John took stock of what he had and, most importantly, what he was missing.
Shit, I knew I burned through a ton of rounds but I'm nearly scratching the bottom at this point… No wonder my load felt so light.
John was running critically low on munitions and since he didn't know what he would meet on the remainder of his venture to the north side of the city, other than it being of undead origin, he started filling up his shopping cart with rounds by the hundreds... But after a certain point he realised something.
Shit, this resupply is ... Wait a minute, wouldn't it be cheaper if I just bought that Ammo Supply Box at this point? Yeah, it would be, wouldn't it. It's only a measly 50 coins compared to the 64 I'm already at. I mean, I don't need an extra 200 rounds, but I'd rather leave some rounds behind than spend more gold coins than I have to.
Having finally reached the level where he could start saving money on bulk ammo purchases, John removed his previous list of goods and replaced it with the new Ammo Supply Box.
[ -50 Gold Coins ]
As soon as his store balance changed, a large, thick, dark army-green metal crate phased into existence on the floor in front of him. Feeling a bit giddy, he hastily undid the latches and opened the ammo box, and what he found inside was a thousand rounds for his various weapons, all sitting neatly within.
It still feels like I'm pissing money into the wind, but I know it could be a hell of a lot worse, so I should just be grateful ammo is readily available and for a not too bad price.
The new purchase wasn't cheap by any means and still cost John a pretty penny, but thankfully he managed to eke out some savings in this purchase... Though those that followed right after this were a whole other matter. Our main character here had pretty much used every life-saving gadget he had, i.e. his bile bombs and pipe bombs, and he wasn't about to go wandering back out there without replacing them, especially after experiencing just how effective they were firsthand, hence another wad of cash left his account and in their place spawned 3 of each of device.
Welp, I better get packing... This is gonna suck.
...
Basically, all of John's high-capacity mags had been run dry, bone dry, so it took quite some time to load them all, but when the very last 100-round drum was loaded, he was finally ready to continue. A couple hundred rounds had gone unused, as expected.
Alright, that's the last of em now I can resume my journey to the north… Mmm, on second thought let me buy one more 100-round drum just in case shit gets hairy. I mean, the number of zombies I've been facing down here in the subway tunnels hasn't exactly been few. Hence, it'd be wise to have as many rounds ready to go as I can since I won't necessarily have the time nor a safe enough place to load my magazines again.
Although he wasn't looking forward to the extra burden he was about to take on, he knew he'd feel a whole lot safer if he had a whole nother 100 rounds sitting on his rig, ready to go. These hordes of infected were nothing to sniff at after all, so every additional measure implemented raised his chances of survival that much more. It took a handful of minutes to prepare everything, including its new pouch on his vest, but once it was fully stocked and sitting in its new spiffy pouch, along with the leftover rounds he couldn't resist the urge to take, John got up off the hard, bare floor and rubbed his ass.
Holy, I should've bought a cushion or something to sit on.
His ass was sore after sitting on the hard bare concrete for so long, but the pain mostly went away after several soothing rubs. And once it did, he threw on his heavy pack and gauged the new increased weight of it and the rest of his equipment brought. It was heavy, but it wasn't enough to make him immobile... though it would no doubt hamper his movement till some of his bullets got expended from the many magazines sitting on his rig.
I don't want to spend the coins after spending as much as I have, but I'm gonna be on my own, so staying relatively quick on my feet is imperative to my survival.
Even though John didn't want to spend anymore of his gold coins so he could save them up for a bunch of perks and other power ups later on, he knew he had to spend a bit more to really ensure he would make it to his destination. So after another 300 coins left his wallet and his carry strength jumped up 30 pounds to a solid 206, our protagonist took hold of his assault rifle that was more machine gun than rifle.
From there, he reentered his combat state and approached the door cautiously before one-handing his modern looking AK styled rifle with his right and twisting the door handle with his left. The instant he opened the metal door, he was intending to scan the surroundings before heading off down the tunnels once more, but instead he found a Hunter crawling towards him on all fours no more than a dozen feet away.
Oh, shit!
The special infected had already picked up his scent long before, so the second John entered its view, it launched off the floor and propelled itself with speed beyond what a normal human would have been capable of producing from such a low position and attempted to ram into John's chest and take him to the ground. Unfortunately for it, he had become increasingly paranoid throughout his short stint here in this unforgiving undead world, thus he greeted the incoming infected with an unwieldy burst of 7.62 rounds straight to the chest. The heavy 7.62 rounds pierced the special infected's chest to no one's surprise, shredded most of its critical organs to bits, before then shooting out its back and sailing through the air and embedding themselves in the concrete wall that lay just behind the subway tiles.
Damn, I wasn't expecting that to work. I was honest to God, thinking I was gonna be brought to the floor and be forced into a fight for my life situation...
Once again, glad that he picked out such a controllable weapon, he began to consider a normally wild, if not outright insane, idea.
That was surprisingly controllable and accurate for one-handing an assault rifle, that is pretty much a f'ing machine gun… Hmm, maybe I should look into putting some serious effort into practicing shooting this one-handed. I mean, I know it won't carry over to other weapons, given the reduced recoil design of this firearm. However, I can easily envision this sort of ability coming in clutch in all kinds of scenarios, especially where having a free hand is preferable... Or, God forbid, the only option.
John stood over the corpse of the Hunter he had just dropped like a bag of potatoes, pondering that random idea before pushing it to the back of his mind and stepping over the fresh kill.
Yeah, as cool as that would be, this isn't really the time to be thinking about such far-away stuff when I've yet to even leave the metro, let alone find a safe house to spend the night on the north side of Fairfield. So until I've actually survived and made it to that point, it's kind of a waste of time and brainpower coming up with more ideas and plans for the future when I don't even know if I'll make it past my first day.
Refocused on surviving day number one here in the Left 4 Dead world and reaching a safe location where he could begin to bolster his strength and collect the necessary resources to survive, John looked ahead to the dimly lit, unexplored tunnel. It was dark, dreary, and no doubt full of dangers, but that wasn't going to hold him back from accomplishing what he wished, so he jumped down from the platform where he dumped the three survivors and one asshole and continued his stride northward, ready to slaughter any and all who obstructed his path and the fiery ambition he was slowly stoking within himself.
…
The remainder of his trip through the tunnel was long and arduous, with him having to fight tooth and nail through these infected-filled metro tunnels, which were more often than not barely lit or even pitch black in some cases. So it wasn't surprising that he was beginning to feel the effects these physically demanding and mentally draining activities had on his body and energy levels. Nevertheless, he remained firm in the face of extreme adversity and just as motivated to reach his destination and slowly but surely accomplish those few goals he set out for himself… And those the system wanted him to complete. Fortunately for John, the stop he had been trudging towards ever since his journey through these dark tunnels was no more than a block away.
Man, that last fight was brutal, but I gotta keep it up. Only a short stretch remains between me and the path to the surface.
Unwilling to succumb to the building tiredness of his body that was slowly growing into soreness, John kept advancing down this section of tunnel, which was surprisingly lit. He kept placing one foot in front of the next, and after silently taking down a dozen common infected with his machete and even a Jockey with a forceful hack to the dome, the subway platform for the northernmost station finally came within view.
I'm getting closer.
And that he was, though he would first have to get through all the undead that were inhabiting the station here. Needing to deal with the infected casually roaming the platform before all else, John observed the infected wandering around first and searched for any special infected in their midst. Fortunately, all he found was a resting Charger, a Spitter, and a few Jockeys hanging around. He thought that was all the major threats they had at first, but when his eyes went over to the stairs that led upward he spotted another special infected, one that he could use to draw all the infected out of hiding and to this very location.
Ahh, turns out my luck isn't that bad after all because this Boomer here will serve as a free bile bomb.
Always happy to save a few gold coins no matter where, John looked around for a wee bit longer just in case before eventually raising his KORD assault rifle and placing the scope's reticle on the Boomer's head. The instant he had his shot, he took it and placed one 7.62 bullet straight through the fat bastard's skull. Having earned himself twice the amount of coin for its death, he did not hesitate to follow up his headshot kill with another round aimed right at its bloated gut.
As soon as the shot pierced the falling corpse, it blew and sent guts, bile, and all sorts of gore in every direction, painting a large section of the station platform. The stomach was under such pressure that it even coated a fair number of the surrounding zombies in its unique bile. And when those surrounding infected got a whiff of the stuff, they went absolutely ballistic and started swarming the area, and those that got even a hint of the stuff on them.
Pure chaos ensued amongst the crowds of common infected following that, and this pandemonium was made even more hectic when more reinforcements came from the other spaces. On the other hand, the special infected were unaffected by the Boomer bile, so John prioritized their elimination above all else and immediately started collecting heads. The Charger and the Spitter were the most urgent, so they fell first under his automatic fire and when they were taken out in a matter of seconds, he switched to the multiple Jockeys he spotted earlier.
John's short venture through this fucked up world, although brief, had managed to quickly forge him into a zombie exterminator extraordinaire. So when they too fell under the onslaught of his unfeeling FMJ bullets, he turned his attention to the normal run-of-the-mill zeds next and continued his ruthless killing spree all whilst scanning the newcomers for the more dangerous variety and handling them in kind.
There's a lot of them, but it's nothing I can't handle.
…
As the battle drew on and the bodies piled up under John's relentless hail of lead, a heavy, distinct breathing along with an equally heavy thumping entered his ears.
Looks like I spoke too soon. My luck is still just as shit as it was before.
John knew exactly what those sounds meant and who was producing them, and low and behold a Tank came charging down the stairs seconds later. One look at the muscle-bound freak was all it took to know it was raring to rip his head off and tear into his living flesh brutally. A bit of trepidation took over his heart as one would expect when being eyed by a biological tank, but he had already put down a total of three of these monstrosities today, so what would be another when he had a whole assortment of gadgets and weaponry to ensure his survival and its destruction.
Familiar with the fact that all the special infected weren't dumb and had instead retained some portion of their previous intelligence, he still did his best to rile the Tank up and draw it over whilst he swapped over to his APDS drum mag and got ready to take on another infected boss. "Come and get some, you big, stupid brute!"
The mountain of muscle roared angrily at his provocation and beat its chest before beginning its charge towards him. Sadly for the bruiser, John had grown quite proficient in his nonstop killing spree through this overrun city; hence, he swiftly loaded his armor-piercing rounds into his primary weapon and took aim at the beast. And the instant he had his sights lined up, he depressed the trigger and sent a stream of fully automatic fire at its dome.
Our increasingly proficient zombie killer was hoping to take the Tank out right then and there on the spot, but that hope was quickly dashed when this Tank repeated the same strategy as the first and raised its massive limb to block the shots.
Yeah, that pretty much confirms it. These Tanks are intelligent, but why do they both use the same strategy? It'd be one thing if the one I first came across was unique, but if they all utilize the same set of techniques, it's just weird. I wonder what's the true cause of this behaviour… I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they are being controlled or influenced to some extent.
Before his thoughts could drift anymore into this topic, the Tank roared as its arm bled from John's armor-piercing rounds and dug its massive, meaty hands into the concrete flooring of the subway platform and began prying it up. The ball of muscle was gifted with insane strength, so it effortlessly ripped a large, several hundred pound chunk of rock from the concrete platform and got ready to chuck the piece at John. Well aware that if that massive projectile made contact with his body, he would be seriously injured, if not crippled, but more likely than anything else, he would be dead and splattered across the tracks.
I better deal with that before it's too late.
Our main character here knew what awaited him if he didn't deal with the Tank's projectile right here and now, so he didn't give his actions another thought and raised his GL. The moment John lined up his M320's sights with the chunk of concrete, he immediately pulled the trigger and heard an audible thump come out the end of its tube. And a split second later, the 40mm high-explosive grenade made contact with the slab of stone, and when it did, it erupted and shattered the Tank's plans on the spot and sent the many broken pieces and jagged shards flying in all directions.
That explosive projectile of his disoriented the hulking infected for a moment, so John took advantage of its predicament and swiftly unloaded a dozen rounds into its forehead. He presumed it was going to take more than that to put this beast down, but it failed to defend its vital area in time, thus it received the full brunt of the APDS rounds. The potent armor-piercing rounds did exactly as they were designed to do and penetrated the Tank's tough skin, flesh, and hardened bones as if it was a knife slicing through butter and since they were aimed straight at its dome, they pierced its skull and shredded what little intellect the zed still retained in its cranium.
Was that enough… There's no way it died that fast, right?