The heavy metal door swung open under John's strong kick and forcefully impacted the concrete wall beside it. And when it did, it revealed the scene within: an office-like space with several desks, a few old computers from the early 2000's and just as many CRT monitors… But no survivors, as expected.
"I was hoping to encounter those four elusive survivors, but I guess they're well on their way to Mercy Hospital." He griped.
Although John wanted to see them, he wasn't going to chase after the four, especially when his goals didn't align with theirs. Regardless, even if they were standing right here in the same room, he would probably have a difficult time trying to get them to follow him when he had no proof to back up any of the information he could have used to convince them. Plus, he was facing the undead all on his own right now and would have to continue till he linked up with them, so it wasn't exactly wise to go ever deeper into the city's downtown when he could venture off to less populated and safer areas.
With no survivors inside the safe room in sight, John headed inside and closed the door behind him before he went on to do the same for the other side and shut that door too, since the four who passed through earlier didn't bother.
Leaving the safe room door wide open, huh... Kind of an asshole move on their part, but whatever.
Once it was shut and he was absolutely sure he had secured the space fully, John took a seat on a cheap office chair stationed by one of the several desks in this back office turned survivor safe house and let the stress and tension his body and mind had been constantly subjected to since he came to this world slowly wither away and disappear from his being. The process took a handful of minutes of straight relaxing for it to fully dissipate, but when it finally did, he refocused on what needed to get done since he had yet to find a secure and truly safe location to reside.
Alright, time to find a map, and after that, I'll see what sort of supplies have been left behind… But if the apartments are a sign of what's to come, then I probably won't find shit.
Extra supplies were nice, but they weren't essential, nor were they as important as finding a map, which he could use to find where he wanted to go. Unwilling to run around and explore the city all willy-nilly, he got off his ass and started searching the place from top to bottom, fortunately or not so fortunately the safe room wasn't large and was instead rather small, hence it didn't take him long at all to locate what he was searching for.
Good, good, good, the place has a map just like I thought it would. And not just one; it has a map for the whole city and those nearby, plus a map for the entire United States, though that last one is far less detailed.
Having found what he was searching for, John took the multiple maps over to the desks nearby and spread them out. The minute he had them all laid out atop the mostly metal office desks, he started investigating the local one first since that was the only one that would be useful in the immediate.
Where am I currently on here… Oh, there's one of the metro entrances and there's another, and that's the Mercy Hospital over to the north. Hmm, so if I take those places' positions into account and look south a bit, I must've begun my journey from this apartment building, meaning I have to be right here after following the path I took on foot.
It took a little while for John to triangulate where he was in regards to the map, but once he did, he could really begin exploring the map and trying to figure out where he wanted to go from here. However, just as he was going to begin, a stampede of steps and stomps came from behind the door he had entered from, and soon enough the predatory growl of a Hunter.
Ah, that can't be good.
And not even a moment after that thought entered his head, the Hunter snarled loudly before launching itself at the reinforced door and clawing at it madly. An aggro'd Hunter was already bad enough to deal with, but the special infected's actions also caused the horde of zeds that came with it to gather around the metal door and start hammering it with all the force they could produce. The situation was rapidly going from bad to worse, so before it could devolve any further, John left his open maps where they sat and ran to the door with his AK loaded and ready to kill.
I was hoping to leave the way I came in open, but that doesn't seem like it'll be an option anymore.
From what he could see through the small slit in the armored door there was no way in hell he was going to be able to go back with the amount of zombies packed in the office's storage… Unless of course he wanted to climb over literal piles of corpses. He had already had the privilege of trying that in the alley before and would rather avoid going through the gross experience again, especially if there were other options available.
As he was considering what he wanted to do, the zeds kept pummeling the door and raking their claws against its durable metal plating, and after letting them do so for a bit, the door's frame started to creak under their nonstop assault.
Oh, shit, I better deal with them before they bust the door down and start pouring in.
The creaking was a sign that they were slowly but surely making progress, and he wasn't about to let that happen, so he lifted his drum-fed assault rifle, held it up to the slit, depressed the trigger, and opened fire on the ravenous crowd of infected. His first burst of 7.62 rounds pierced through the Hunter's chest and went on to do the same to multiple infected afterwards, putting big holes in them and shredding their bodies. If they were normal humans, many of them would've died on the spot from his initial burst of automatic gunfire, but they were zombies straight out of fiction, so something a bit more lethal was required.
The slit in the door is kind of tight, but I'll make it work.
There wasn't a whole lot of real estate to work with here, but there was no fucking way he was opening that door. Thus, he made the best of it and tried his damndest to acquire as many headshots as he could. Thankfully, he was already an avid shooter prior to coming to the world of Left 4 Dead so when that was combined with the decent bit of improvement he made on his way to the safe room, the disadvantage he was at wasn't really that cumbersome in the grand scheme of things. It was to such an extent that he managed to keep a headshot kill to bodyshot kill ratio of 1-1.
Mmm, the bodies are piling up damn fast... This shouldn't take me much longer.
John kept unloading on the infected swarm as they packed into the storage space like sardines, and after slaughtering them for several minutes, things had quieted down. Though that was mainly because the area outside was completely blocked with corpses, literally from floor to ceiling.
Looks like I can forget about going back that way… I guess I'll be following the survivors' trail for a little while longer before charting my own route through this urban hellscape. But for the moment, let me take stock of the stuff they took a pass on and left behind. Hopefully, I'll find something I would actually use.
With the zed threat extinguished for the minute, John examined the small back office, turned safe room, and searched it from top to bottom, intent on scavenging everything he could. Unfortunately, his efforts weren't rewarded this time around because after going through all the drawers, he discovered there wasn't much left to take. More specifically, there were only a few limited supplies spread about the desks and the nearby shelving units. His search didn't exactly come up completely empty, but it was obvious that those that had come through here earlier had picked through them clean and taken the best of what was there originally.
Welp, I wasn't planning on finding much, if anything, but at least I managed to scavenge some meds, a dozen mags for various weapons, and a decent amount of ammo, that consisted of several different types and calibers… I probably won't use them personally but I'm sure they can be used in trading with other survivors when I eventually encounter them. And if not that, I can simply scrap them, retrieve the powder and primers, and melt down the brass for rounds I would actually use. Though that would take quite some time to set up and do, and probably wouldn't be worth the effort, unless I took over a near-fully automated plant that could manufacture the rounds en masse as long as I had the materials to sustain its operations…
John let his imagination go wild for a minute there, but he knew it would inevitably lead him nowhere and instead just waste his valuable time if he allowed it to continue… At least when he was this early on into his adventure.
It's nice to envision all the awesome stuff I can get up to later on, seeing how the world has gone to shit and I'm no longer restricted by the confines of the law and the deadly force backing said law. But I'll never make it to those sorts of things if I don't focus on the now and surviving my first day, so I gotta focus on the present and what I need to accomplish in the coming days instead of what I would like to do and achieve in the far future.
Steering himself back towards his priorities, John directed his brainpower to what was right this second important, which was finding a place and an area he wanted to move into. Particularly one that he could loot and was decently safe... Or as safe as it can be by zombie apocalypse standards.
Yeah, I'm not at the stage where I can do much since I've yet to secure a spot to live, nor have I built much of a power base, so any and all extravagant ideas are out of my capabilities… For the time being, that is.
Aware that it was way too early to do anything major just yet, John laid his grand ambitions to rest and returned to the table where he had left the maps, plopped his ass back in the seat, and began studying his butt off, intent on constructing some sort of plan to ensure he would survive his initial entry into this world. Running mindlessly was cool and all, but it wasn't for him. Luckily, he had some experience in this field from his days in the army and frequent hikes through the mountains when his dad was still around. So, a boring task to figure out where he wanted to go and what he wished to accomplish there, which would've taken the normal person hours, was reduced to little more than half an hour.
Alright, so after scanning this map of the city of Fairfield and the surrounding area extensively, I've come to the conclusion that it would be in my best interest to head north to this section of the city. The reason being that this area holds the Fairfield police headquarters alongside a number of pawnshops and other outfits that supply weapons and gear. On top of that, there's a Walmart and a couple of dealerships in the area, which I could use to secure a decent vehicle for myself. And if that didn't sound great enough, there was even a National Guard depot even further north, about a dozen miles outside the city's limits.
Yeah, it doesn't exactly have any locations that are built like fortresses, but I'm confident I can clear the area and take over one of the apartment buildings there for me. And if that's not secure enough, I can just take a visit to that National Guard depot and take it for myself since the troops will have likely turned well before I show up. As for how I'll get there, this subway line runs all the way up to that area and has an entrance that pops right out by the police headquarters, which is surrounded by a bunch of residential and commercial buildings.
A satisfied John gave the larger map a quick scan before folding all the maps and putting the stack of them to his side to be handled later, since it was now time to spend some of that hard-earned cash he'd been accumulating.
Now it's time to do some shopping and replace this AK-47 of mine. I mean, it's served me well, but I want something that can hold a target better and put more lead downrange in a shorter span.
The second he completed that thought, he brought up the store and selected the 6P67 KORD he'd been eyeing for a while. In addition to that, he decided it would a good idea to kit out his new toy, so he picked up a heavy barrel replacement to better handle the heat of his automatic fire, a multi setting scope capable of switching between 1x magnification to 6x magnification, a canted red dot sight for close engagements, and a tactical laser light combo for obvious reasons.
On top of that, I'll grab a better heavier stock with built in recoil buffering to further get that 7.62x39mm under control, another sling because it's so damn cheap and has more than shown its worth on the trip over here, and last but certainly not least an M203 under-barrel grenade launcher for crowd control and taking out more hearty targets i.e. Tanks, Chargers, and Witches if they're as tough as their in-game counterparts.
I may have been better off just getting a real machine gun like the MG3 with its quick-change barrel and more powerful cartridge, but I would've had to invest in a whole new set of mags plus ammo since it uses 7.62x51mm and not 7.62x39mm. And besides, I quite like the idea of always having a pretty destructive BOOM! option on hand that is just a trigger pull away.
Although happy with his weapon upgrade, he still wasn't satisfied with his spending spree just yet.
The weapon upgrade is great and all, but it's not the only thing that can be improved in my setup, so what else should I get… Well, my hazmat suit is unarmored, so let's replace that with an armored variant. There are better options than that in the shop, but I don't have the strength nor the endurance to wear that kind of heavy armor without it seriously impeding my movements. Nor the resources to justify its purchase just yet.
That said, I could use a better backpack, so I'ma grab a massive waterproof load hauling pack that I can stuff a ton of shit into and hang extra weapons from, like my retired AK-47. I don't particularly need that amount of space at this juncture, but when I get to where I'm heading, I'll be going on one hell of a looting spree, so it'll come in clutch then.
Following this, John continued scrolling through the unending list of items and bought things he thought he would require in the interim. And after doing so for more time than was probably necessary he eventually purchased a multi-tool, mainly to mod his new weapon, 2 more bile bombs and 1 more pipe bomb to fill up his grenade sack, some additional rounds to replace the ones he just expended in his most recent fight, a pair of quad nod NVGs that would grant him the ability to see better in the dark subway tunnels he's going to be taking to the north side of the city, a 40mm grenade bandolier for quick reloading of his new GL, and finally something to fill his belly since he was growing hungry and thirsty from all this intense activity.
Aaaannnd, I'm broke again… I mean, not really, but I just spent half my funds on a bunch of new kit and other junk I'll need to survive and make my time in this overrun city worthwhile.
When all was said and done he had hundreds of rounds made up of 7.62x39mm and 40mm grenades, a brand spanking new reduced recoil AK and plenty of mods and accessories for it, a few throwables consisting of bile bombs and pipe bombs, a pair of quad nods, a 40mm grenade bandolier, a bottle of spring water and a couple of protein bars to satiate his hunger and thirst, and a massive backpack that stood at over half his height and his new armored hazmat suit, which kept his previous outfits color scheme going alongside his spacious pack and the rest of his equipment.
John shed a few nonexistent tears over the loss of his funds, but he knew his most recent purchases would be well worth their weight in gold.
Haa, crying over my hard earned coins ain't gonna get me anywhere, so I better set up my new gear and get back to it otherwise I'll never have enough for a perk, an all around attribute improvement, or any of the expensive stuff in the store I want to get my hands on.
Motivated to acquire his very first perk from the store, he wandered into the small bathroom that only had a sink and a toilet and washed his suit off as best he could. The sink was incredibly small, so this ended up being quite the task, but he nevertheless got it done, though that was only after he removed the suit. Following that, he proceeded back over to the desks where his new purchases were laying, tossed his folded up hazmat on the desk, stole the suppressor off the AK-47, and set up his assault rifle first with all the cool parts he bought for it.
"Now this is what I call a fucking weapon!" John exclaimed with a kitted-out assault rifle that basically looked like some top-tier endgame weapon ripped straight out of a video game like Duke Nukem.
"But she's a heavy one, that's for sure… Good thing I bought a sling for her." He followed up as he slotted a 40mm high-explosive grenade right into the under-barrel grenade launcher's tube.
His new toy was pretty much set up just the way he wanted, so he moved on to attach the night vision goggles to the first set of armor he had gained since coming to this new world. Once that was out of the way, John suited up, tested out the feel of the new armored hazmat suit as well as its weight, and fully loaded both his 40mm grenade bandolier and his grenade sack before moving on to gather the remainder of his things. Thankfully, there wasn't that much stuff that needed packing.
Time quickly flew by, and after spending 10 minutes or so on getting most of it stowed away in his new pack, he threw it on and felt the full weight of the additional items and their load.
Yeah, I'm starting to feel the weight of my kit now… But it's not to such a degree that I feel the need to invest in a strength upgrade, though it is on its way there.
With everything prepared, John took a handful of minutes to just simply relax and fill up his stomach with some water and a couple of protein bars.
That wasn't very satisfying, but I can have a proper meal later on.
The moment he had finished his rather simple meal, that was more of a snack than an actual meal, he got off his ass and stood up. John had developed quite the impressive figure from all the time he spent physically exerting himself in both the gym and the military, so once the young guy stood up with his armored hazmat suit covering his well developed physique he practically looked like the spitting image of a Call of Duty Modern Warfare juggernaut. Especially with all the bulging mag pouches, explosives, and additional weapons covering his frame.
About as ready for action as one can be, he lumbered to the exit and got used to the increased load as he approached.
Hmm, I don't see any zeds.
The area, although dark, had that smoldering car from before blocking the stairs up, providing a bit of light, which was enough to scan the area. However, when that was combined with his flashlight from his Glock 20, he was able to see everything that was in view, and what he found were just the remnants of the four survivors carving a path forward.
Our main character, although eager to keep going, wasn't stupid, so he spent the next dozen seconds scanning the big-ass gaping hole in the floor and wall that led back into the blocked subway stairwell as well as the space around it. However, no matter where he looked, all he found were mutilated undead corpses.
I should be fine to leave.
The immediate path ahead looked about as clear as it could from what he could tell, so he disengaged the locking mechanism, flung open the reinforced metal door, and headed out into the darkness.