Left 4 Dead: West Coast Chronicles

Safehouse

Jesse awoke the next morning with a start. She whipped her head around, desperately trying to figure out where she was when her memory flooded back. She’d fallen asleep sitting up against the counter. Looking down at her hands, she studied a makeshift garrote wire she made the last night by tying two guitar strings together and wrapping them around two pieces of a guitar’s broken neck. Yawning loudly, she pulled the conjoined wires taught as she wondered just how effective the weapon would be. After a moment, she stood and slowly rolled her head side to side, popping her neck several times. She continued stretching the rest of her body from sleeping in an uncomfortable position and looked at her wrist.

”Oh, God damn it, the one day I forget my watch.”

She patted her skirt’s pockets and luckily found her iPhone. She pressed the home button and the display lit up with a picture of Jesse posing and making silly faces with some of her friends. Silently hoping they made it out safely, she glanced at the time which read as 9:24. Huh, that’s the earliest I’ve been up in a while.

Something rustled behind her. Allowing instincts and reflexes to take over, the shotgun was off her back and in her hands, pointed at whoever made the noise, in an instant. To her surprise and embarrassment, Chris was walking out of the back office blinking owlishly. She quickly set the gun down and felt her face flush as she stammered an apology. “I-I… sorry about that, I kinda freaked out there.”

He grinned back and pulled out his pad and wrote, Nice moves there but just try to watch that trigger finger.

Jesse’s face turned slightly redder. “Uh, thanks and sorry about last night, I just passed out after a while.”

It looks like we didn’t have any surprise visitors last night so it’s okay. Let’s eat then get out of here, that evac isn’t going to wait for us forever.

Her stomach growled in agreement to food and soon enough, she was wolfing down another freeze dried meal. While they weren’t the best tasting, she found that they filled her up quickly enough and seeing as she didn’t get the late-night munchies last night, they kept her full. Looks like I won’t eat up all our food after all, she thought with a little smile.

While they ate, she tossed the improvised garrote wire to her companion who eyed the weapon questionably. Speaking through mouthfuls of rehydrated hamburger, she explained, “Made that last night so that we both can take them out quietly. Dunno how well it’ll work but it should do the job.”

He picked it up and pulled one the wires experimentally then pulled out his notepad. So you want me to decapitate the infected with this wire? That doesn’t seem like a good idea to me I mean, we don’t know how easily this Green Flu thing spreads and cutting heads off is pretty bloody business.

“I don’t think you’ll get infected if you get their blood on you, I got some on me when I dealt with my first infected and I haven’t been feeling sick. Besides, we’ve been using the bat for a while now and the blood’s gotten on us.” She gestured to her clothes that were spattered with droplets of dried blood.

If you say so but I feel uneasy about it.

”Would you rather have me try out the wire?”

No it’s fine. Besides, I’m not sure you’d have the strength for something like that.

“Hey, I may be smaller than you but that doesn’t mean that I’m weak.” Jesse protested, flexing her lithe arms in failed emphasis. She did work out as often as she could but she did it to stay healthy rather than gain strength. To her annoyance, Chris rolled his eyes sarcastically then flexed his muscles which were considerably larger and undoubtedly much stronger.

Jesse huffed loudly in exasperation. “Whatever, just don’t go asking me if I bought tickets to the gun show or some other dumb shit.” He laughed silently but didn’t write anything else in reply.

On their way out of the pawn shop, she spied a bottle of spray paint and an idea suddenly came to her. She picked up the can and shook it experimentally. Her face broke into a smile as she felt that it was mostly full. She looked over at Chris who was watching her attentively. “Just give me a couple seconds, I have an idea.”

She went outside and pulled the cap off the can, staring at the window, thinking for a few moments before she made her decision. She sprayed the orange paint in a three sided square, leaving the top open with two diagonal lines above the opening and a plus sign in the center then wrote ‘SAFEHOUSE’ beneath it. She took a step back to examine her handiwork as Chris walked out to see what she made. After a moment’s consideration, she voiced another idea. “I think we should leave behind some food and ammo in case anyone else finds this place.”

Chris looked at her incredulously. You want to just give up some supplies for people on the off chance they find this place? I admire your altruism but our immediate survival is a little more important.

“No, no, no, it isn’t altruism, it could be like a way to communicate. We make a place or two like this safe and we could leave a little ammo and food as we go to help others. We could also get other people to make other safehouses when they go their ways. We could also leave messages behind on the walls to give others information.”

Chris thought this over for a while before responding. Okay but we’re not going to leave behind very much. Helping others or not, we don’t know if anyone else will even find this place.

Jesse smiled then headed back inside. She set her backpack on the counter an rifled through its contents then decided to leave one of the freeze dried meals and a protein bar along with twelve of her shotgun shells. She looked over to her companion who had set a packet of jerky and a sleeve of saltine crackers next to two of his spare magazines. She walked over to a wall that was lacking the shelves that seemed to cover all the others and wrote:

HI, WE’RE A COUPLE OF SURVIVORS LIKE YOU WHO FOUND AND SECURED THIS SAFEHOUSE. WE’RE CURRENTLY ON OUR WAY TOWARD THE MILITARY EVAC IN SACRAMENTO. IF YOU’RE ALSO GOING THAT WAY, BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR OTHER SAFEHOUSES LIKE THIS. IF NOT, THEN WE’D LIKE TO ASK YOU TO DO THE SAME AS WE’RE DOING. FEEL FREE TO TAKE WHATEVER FOOD AND AMMO YOU NEED AND LEAVE BEHIND ANY EXTRA SUPPLIES YOU DON’T TO HELP OTHERS WHO WILL PASS THROUGH.

BEST OF LUCK!

JESSE AND CHRIS

Jesse held the spray can out to Chris. “Want to add anything?”

He thought for a moment before shaking his head then hooked his thumb over his shoulder, indicating for them to leave. She nodded back and the pair headed out.