Chivalry is Dead

8/8/2019 Chivalry is Dead

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This short story is purely fan-based.

Mother of the Munchkins has no affiliation or rights

toLeft 4 Dead, property ofTurtle Rock Studio

and Valve Corporation.


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Original blog entry from

motherofthemunckins.blogspot.com

May 3, 2010


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Chivalry isChivalry isChivalry isChivalry is deaddeaddeaddead

A short story of zombies, mayhem

and three unhelpful dudes

By Bethany J. Royer

I was hurt.


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"I'm not feeling too good, guys," I hissed between clenched teeth,

as I dragged my mangled right leg behind me. All the

while thinking about how close we were to the safe house;

right over the train trestle. I just had to get across before it

was too late, beforethey came, a horde of the undead. All

it would take is one attack and I was dead.

End of story.

"Guys?" My three comrades in arms, biker-dude

Francis, Bill the constantly smoking Vietnam Vet and

Louis the IT geek had been right there. They had been

covering me while we slipped between blackened trees to

an empty house set along the tracks. We had weaved our

way between derailed cars that littered our path as wed

moved steadily north all day. Silently we celebrated

whenever we managed to find extra ammunition, health

kits and more weapons. Taking a few precious seconds to

catch our breath, wrap up our wounds, glance over the

hastily written notes scrawled across walls, telling us to

follow the tracks to safety.

Things had been going marginally well, all things

considered, what with it being the end of days and just

about everybody being a blood-lusting, flesh-chewing

zombie. Sure we found ourselves swarmed by uncountable

undead and had to fight our way out with bullets,

Molotovs, and the occasional punch to the teeth-bared face of a flailing

zombie.


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We won't speak of the witch, just thinking about her pitiful cries

to lure the unsuspecting gives me the willies...

When we reached the house, our path along the tracks leading to

the trestle blocked by a tumble of train cars, we assumed luck was still

relatively on our side. No big deal, we would make our way through the

house, jump out one of broken windows on the second floor. No

problem until Louis had to mention the hunter and mess everything up,

or I should say, mess me up. We knew the hunter was somewhere in the

distance, waiting for a prime moment to attack so as to spill our blood.

We were cautious, we

were wise, and we were on

to him with our weapons

ready.

But when he didn't

show, as we blasted away

smokers and boomers

with little trouble, I made

the mistake of getting

cocky, too assured of our

survival, as I spied the safe

house dead ahead as I

stood at the second story window of the empty house.

"Safe house up ahead!" I pointed out to my friends as sweat sliced

down our determined brows. The horde busted through the windows

and doors, up the staircase, even straight through the walls, so as to

corner us.


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We dispatched them, every last one, before jumping out the

broken window for our lives, headed for the train trestle. I was in the

lead, my friends right behind, when the hunter seized the moment and

tackled me to the ground.

"Get him off me!" I screamed as I tried desperately to rid myself

of the clawing fingers and gnashing teeth of the blood frenzied zombie

that straddled me. My effort was to absolutely no avail.

It was Bill... good ol' Bill that saved me, granted I wish he had

done so a little sooner, before I was really messed up, bleeding and

dragging that cursedly useless right leg. I might have said something

nasty, I might have made some under-breath comment about his slow

arse but Bill didnt look too good either. In fact, Bill looked down right

green as he handed me his last bottle of pain pills.

"Thanks, Bill, I mumbled and took the pills which made me feel

only slightly better. All of this happened in just a fraction of a few


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seconds, my pace still slow, horrendously, nightmarishly slow, with the

safe house cruelly taunting me from the far end of the train trestle.

"Guys?" I called out again to the empty spaces beside and behind

me. I could hear the mad rush of zombies in the distance, somewhere

just beyond the house, hidden by a riot of overturned train cars.

"Guys???"

Where the hell are they?

That's when I sawthem. In a blinding flash of speed they'd all

circled around and were well ahead of me on the train trestle. In fact, it

was Bill that reached the safe house first, not acting anywhere near

death's door as he hustled into the safe house. Louis followed close

behind. I swear I heard him mumble a word of thanks for having made

it, while Francis stood at the foot of the steps to watch my slow,

cumbersome pace of stepping with my left foot, followed by a drag of

the right, step with the left, drag the right.

Aw, crap, I'm gonna die, I thought miserably. Here I was, so close

to the end, to ultimate safety, only to be abandoned by my comrades, the

dudes who I've kicked arse for well over an hour now, and I'm gonna

die. Crud, what a waste.

By some miracle, the train trestle wasn't overcome by a horde of

zombies as I lurched along. Was it luck? Did they get hung up on one

end, uncertain of how to maneuver over the bridge? I wasn't sure, but I

sure the heck wasn't going to look back as I stumbled and missed the

steps into the safe house which was nothing more than a reinforced

train car. And when I say reinforced I mean someone just threw up a

couple extra re-bars on the windows, nothing extra special or cozy


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about it. I made for the steps again, and missed! A fury of four-letter

words escaped my snarled lips.

Get up the steps!!!! My mind screamed as I heard the mob

somewhere on the other end of the trestle, and knew at some point they

were going to make it. They were going to come en-mass and then I'd be

dead.

Left foot step, right drag.

Left foot step, right

drag.

Finally inside, I

turned from the three

survivors who stood at the

back of the train car.

Obviously, not the least bit

worried that the door

needed closed, that my

motions were slowed and I

was in agonizing pain. I

willed myself to close the

door, close the door, close the door...

Whew!!!

I closed the door.

I'd time to reload, heal myself, and look over the scrawl left by

former survivors who had hunkered down in the little safe house/train

car.

Last campaign and we're out, I thought to myself, and noted my

health was a little greener, actually much greener compared to where it


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had been. The health kits had given me the boost I needed and saved me

from another repeat of stepping with the left foot, and dragging of the

right for the time being.

I stood at the opposite end of the train car and poked the end of

my Uzi submachine gun between the re-bars and did a fair number of

decapitates amongst the lumbering zombies in the distance. A few

would pinwheel towards the car, arms a blur while their teeth glowed in

the semi-darkness, gnashing violently, tongue flailing, a low growl

vibrated from their blood-filled stomachs and up their throats.

One clean shot and down they went.... Louis said something about

moving along, or maybe it was Bill, good ol' Bill was antsy I guess, so I

reloaded my gun, picked up more ammo, double checked my health.

Things looked good. Before I threw open the door to wait for the horde.

There was nothing, nothing but a long, mist-filled ravine of train cars

tossed from the tracks, and a few lumbering zombies.

"I hear a hunter," said Louis as I quickly checked to make sure

all three followed me. I did not want to suddenly find myself alone as I

led our little motley crew along the tracks.

"We have to get up that ladder," I said and pointed out a train

car a dozen plus feet ahead. It stood alone against a small hill and trail.

But the music was ominously picking up...crap, not a good sign

when the music gets racy. Course, it doesn't help when you hear the

hunter coming for you, the boomer, smoker and possibly a tank ...

please not the tank. Francis made me look really bad in terms of tank

points. I'll take the witch at this point, she just loves me, but the music

was not quite creepy enough for it to be a witch. Plus, her spine-tingling


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cry was not echoing seemingly off of every ruined train car or off the

barren ravine walls.

I licked my lips, the ladder was right ahead; was I going to make

it to the ladder? Would I make it half-way up, and fall? Would the

freaking hunter get me once I was on the top car, where he would tear

at my throat... too late to worry, I was already climbing the ladder,

listening as Bill cried out that he'd been caught by the Gene Simmons

zombie with the fifteen foot tongue.

There was nothing I could do for Bill, I'd been vomited on by the

putrid Boomer in desperate need of an antacid, a fury of zombies had

followed in his wake cause they love the smell of puke in the morning.

Or was it afternoon?

Or early evening?

Who knew! The skies were endlessly cloudy, ready to spill rain at

any given moment and I was blinded with bile and mindlessly shot a

plethora of bullets into the air as I tossed out a left hook at every

opportunity so as not to die or be knocked off the top of the train car.

By the time my eyes were clear of the vile bile, (Say that three

times fast!) Francis, Bill, and Louis were ahead of me,again, on the hill

and running down the trail.

"Guys, seriously?" Were they really going to leave me behind,

again? I quickly skirted over the train car, wondering how in the world

they'd managed to get around me. I shot blindly, threw out punches,

before I stopped in my tracks over a very ominous field of browned

corn.


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"I'm not going in there," I said, left hand at my hip, Uzi down to

one side. "Say what you want about my lousy aim and cocky 'tude, but

I'm not going into that field, that's suicide."

"Honey, don't be that way," Bill replied, his cigarette danced in

the corner of his mouth as he spoke. It never ceased to amaze me how

that cigarette never seemed to vary in length, even as he pulled it out of

his mouth after a long drag before quickly slipping it back into the

crook of his thin mouth.

"Oh, don't be calling me honey, I may be the last college-age

chick, thus last potential breeder, on the face of the planet not calling

for blood and brains, but that in no way gives you the right to call me

honey, okay, pops?"

Bill casually scratched the back of his head, right beneath a plume

of white and gray hair that stuck out from underneath his green beret,

looking especially flummoxed and uneasy.

"Well, I'm not going in there!" Piped Louis, as he readjusted his

tie, shot-gun cradled under one arm pit, as he re-rolled the sleeves of his

long, once upon a time white collared business shirt. "Might as well

paint a bulls eye on me, or give me a red shirt, if that's the case."

"What the H

are you talking

about?" Francis

growled as he swung

round to Louis with

his eyes grazing

angrily over the IT

man's frazzled attire. "What's this about a red shirt?"


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"Are you a commie?" Spat Bill, his beret now pushed far over his

brow, lip twisted into a grimace, cigarette dancing up and down

between his lips with his obviously growing agitation.

"He's referring to Star Trek," I replied with a heavy sigh with the

slow realization we were never going to get out of here unless I made the

jump into the suicidal field of corn myself. "Guy wearing the red shirt

in the landing party down to a strange, new world always dies."

Louis nodded in agreement while Francis and Bill simply

shrugged and knocked off a few shots into the distance as a handful of

zombies came over the hill, their bodies fell into the field.

"Well, we can't just stand here," Francis said and flexed his

heavily muscled and tattooed arms beneath his sleeveless vest.

"Obviously..." I said only to be shushed by Bill who narrowed his

eyes down into the field, gun pointed ahead.

"Do you hear that?" He whispered, all of us listened very intently

for the dubious cry of the witch or the silent stalkings of the hunter.

"I don't hear anything," Louis replied, ear cocked towards the

field, while his dark eyes flashed from my face, to Francis, before they

landed on Bill. "What is it?"

Radio transmission," I mumbled.

Everyone had an ear cocked into the field now, listening to the

faint squawk of a radio transmission, undoubtedly from the military,

asking if anyone was there.

"Must be a safe house across the field?" I continued. I felt an

unsettling rush of coolness sweep through my veins. Obviously, we were

going to have to go through the fog-riddled corn field of suicide to reach

the radio, call for help, and get out of this mess. Course, my statement


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produced nothing from my comrades and with a heavy sigh of irritation

I jumped from the hill, straight into the corn field and started my way

north at a dead run. The others must have followed suit because in mere

seconds I heard gunfire directly behind me, and turned in time to see

the faint outlines of my comrades as they fought off a swarm of the

undead. Their presence noted by the guttural growls of their lust for

our warm blood and living flesh.

"Figures," I mumbled under my breath as I threw out a few stray

bullets. I could hear someone yelling at me to stop shooting at them. I

might have been embarrassed for erroneously shooting my own team

mate if not for the fact they were soon flanking me on both my left and

right and from behind. We moved once again as a solid team north, out

of the field and onto the property of a small farm. I quickly noted the

two-story farmhouse and what sounded like the radio transmission

coming from somewhere inside.

Meanwhile my three men-turned-mice congregated inside a door-

less barn, perhaps a storage building for tractors, which now stood

empty. Minus the three who flanked each other in one corner, of course,

just across from a lone white gas

tank.

"Seriously, guys?" I said

from the threshold of the barn

and shook my head in

annoyance, "There's not even

any scary music playing." I

quickly checked the environs of


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the barn anyway, found nothing of any importance, flitting in and out

the door, around one side of the building and the next. I shot a few

slowly stumbling zombies, certain my team-mates would follow. But no,

they just stood as a threesome in the corner of the barn, guns pointed in

my direction, waiting for an apocalyptic number of the undead to rush

in. But there was nothing.

"Great, so I get to do this by myself, eh?" I shot off one round

from my Uzi into the lone gas tank. It exploded immediately and sent a

wall of flames about our feet.

"Whose side are you on?" Snarled Bill, as the flames quickly died

and the loons continued to stand in the corner of the barn that may or

may not have once housed tractors.

"You know what, fine, if you dudes want to die in here so be it. As

for me, I'm heading for the house, come hell or the witch and getting

rescued. Adios amigos!" I promptly left the threshold of the barn for

the sweeping porch of the two-story white farmhouse. I shot at nearby

zombies who were apparently in no hurry for blood and flesh, or were

very satiated for the time being. I even glanced over my shoulder to see

if my chicken buds had bothered to follow at this point, which they

hadn't, they were still huddled in a triangle in the stupid barn.

Oy!

I managed to get up to the porch without any real issues, taking

out a few zombies that milled about the living room and kitchen, before

I made another sweep onto the front porch where I quickly found

myself engulfed by a mini-horde of zombies. I knocked some flat to the

ground with a quick leftie, while drilling others to a bloody pulp at my

feet with my Uzi.


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"Ha, take that and your little dog, too!"

I went round the house, still on the large porch, and fired off a few

more shots at pinwheeling zombies from the west, only to hear someone

cry from the adjoining lawn, "Quit shooting at me!"

"For crying out loud, could you guys make up your mind?" I

squawked as the three cowards ran up the lawn and into the west-side

entrance of the house, shooting down a second mini-horde as I circled

round the radio positioned on a table. Maybe it was in the kitchen,

perhaps the living room, I'm not really certain at this point since I was

so terribly anxious to get the military APC here, pronto!

"Sit tight, we're on our way!" Someone on the other end of the

transmission said as the music grew to a crescendo of really bad news.

Bummer... I had time to think before the room we were cornered

in became a furious overload of zombies that snarled, gnashed teeth,

screamed, pinwheeled, puked and flailed. We were hit with everything

save the witch, and the tank literally made the entire house shake like


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we were experiencing an 8.5 ... easily... before it smashed through a wall,

bound and determined to take all of us out.

It was only when my three comrades started to abandon me in the

house then did I realize the cavalry had arrived. I pushed my way

through my team-mates to watch as the camo APC pulled into the front

yard. The back hatch opened so as to let us in.

Dang if Francis didn't beat all of us, with Louis a close second,

Bill a third and yours truly missing the platform.

ARGH!!!! I screamed so loud it hurt my throat, wanting so much

to do a face-plant but knowing to do so would mean certain death.

Quickly I made another run up the platform and ignored the lashing,

tearing, and gnashing going on behind me so as to secure myself inside

the APC and away we went.

Apparently, in a post-apocalyptic world full of zombies

there is no such thing as ladies first. Chivalry is dead and

Bill, Francis and Louis have forgotten about the power of a

woman scorned.

Just a warning, dudes.

Until next time...


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Chivalry is Dead