High Fever

[Dahlia Breaker]

[glow=red,2,300]In the depths if the city's business district, three young survivors wander amongst the decay. Signs of the chaos from the epidemic still show, fires still burn, the dead still walk. Yet viruses are bizzare things, constantly mutating. These mutations bring about such terrors like the Special Infected. Yet sometimes the infection doesn't reach full completion... For better or for worse.[/glow]

The streets were barren of life, the darkness all encompassing. The only sources of light came from the car fires, any still working lights, and three moving flashlights.

The smallest of those three nervously glanced around the area, eyes widening when she saw the burning fire truck. That alone spelled doom. But sheheld it in, hiding herself, humming quietly in a attempt to distract herself.

[Luigi]

"No use just standing here." Luigi spoke up after surveying the scenery thoroughly. "Let's go find a safe house."

He aimed his pistol around carefully while he headed toward the submachine gun and pump shotgun on the ground along with three first-aid kits. As he bent down to pick up the pump shotgun, his eyes caught sight of a cricket back. After slinging one of the three first-aid kits over his shoulder, he grabbed another one and headed back to Dahlia and Rae.

"Here you go," Luigi handed the little auburn-haired girl the cricket bat and first-aid kit. "You'll be needing this. How's Mr. B holding up?"

[Dahlia Breaker]

The child readily accepted the items, setting the first aid on her back along with her bear. Smiling up at Luigi, she giggled. "Mr. B is fine! But we think we saw one of those one armed guys in the pants behind us.". She checked behind herself as she said that, wary of the creatures ever since...

Ever since the hospital.

She shuddered at the thought, whimpering slightly. Uncle Norman...She had shot him... What if he was like Mommy now? Angry and after her? She tightened her brio on the cricket bat, as if reassuring her protection.

-------

Behind the three was indeed a Charger. There were a few things off about it, however. One largly being it's lack of overalls, instead sporting the traditional bright orange prisoner garb. Another being that one of it's eyes was blown out. The final was that it didn't plan to attack, only watch as his neice bravely continued on.

Norman smiled to himself. Or whatever you would call it right now, considering his face. "Still truckin' kid... What a trooper.". He thought out loud, sighing. He tried to stay out of sight as much as he could, not wanting to be shot. "If only I could..."

[Luigi]

Hearing about the possibility of a charger behind them made the muscles in Luigi's body tense. He looked over his shoulder nervously, shining his flashlight in random places. The teen soon relaxed when he didn't find anything.

"Come on," He grabbed ahold of Dahlia's hand before taking off into the new, threatening environment.

~*~*~*

"Akiko! Tell Tiney that there are no cake stores here!"

The whining came from a blonde-haired smoker as he trailed after a witch who was following a boomer and tank. She stopped and inclined her head to him.

"Do you want to be the one who breaks it to him? Huh, Chris?" Akiko demanded.

Chris, the smoker, didn't reply. He crossed his arms and grumbled under his breath and continued to follow the special infected through the city.

[Dahlia Breaker]

Staying close to Luigi and Rae, Dahlia followed, head on a swivel as she took in the scenery. Bodies littered everywhere, store windows smashed, piled cars.... Something out of a nightmare. She also could have sworn (but she wouldn't, she was raised better than that.) that she heard other voices echoing. But it was all probably part if her imagination.

It was that moment that a rather odd question came to mind. "Luigi... Remember when you said back at the airport that there were some sick people who weren't bad?". She paused, gazing at both sibling figures. "Do you think you'll ever see them again?"

--------

She watched. She waited. She hated. Here she was again, tounges swishing through the air.

----------

Norman continued to follow as discreetly as he could, killing any over-interested common he found. Dahlia would make it out alive; he would make sure.

[Spector]

"They're so beautiful."

A charger stood in front of a floral shop, remembering his life as a gardener. He would tend his precious flowers: water them, fertilize them, even talk to them. He loved his elegant plants. But, he couldn't raise flowers anymore; he was trapped inside the body of a hideous beast, meant to roam the earth as a monster till the end of days.

The charger then turned around and wondered about the plaza. Confused and depressed, the mutant didn't know what to do. As he walked about, he heard voices.

"People," thought the large arm creature, thus walked to the direction of the chatter.

[Mother]

Standing atop a roof, she watched the trio go. Tounges flicking through the air, the smoke spores emanating off her giving her a dark aura.

She still lived. She had survived the subway, the hospital, and numerous other survivors. Yet she and her Hunter companion survived. Or, rather, her companions. She had brought a number of infected under her leash, her favored standing with her. Two Hunters, the mute and Cory, who still possesed speech, and another Smoker, Jewels. Yet she favored her mute over the others. He was her most efficient, her best killer, her most loyal, perhaps most of all.

So many humans had been felled between the two of them. But still these three humans evaded them, her child among them. She still longed for her child back, still desired for her to join her in the infection.

"Soon...". She hacked, having only recently re-taught herself some speech.

[Robert]

Beside her, Robert resisted the urge to quip, “Soon? Soon what?” (Of course, the lack of vocal chords certainly helped his cause.) Following Smoker-Lady (or as some had called her, ‘Mother’) had been a blast, and there had plenty of gore to go around, but they still hadn’t shredded the brats, and an creeping impatience from his past life had resurfaced.

With a sigh that rumbled like gravel down a landslide, Robert tugged the ‘leader’s shoulder, then shrugged his shoulders, palms open to the sky, miming his question: “Now what?”

[Lizzie]

Greenish-reddish eyes stared boredly out the window of an abandoned hotel at the ruined city. The hunter yawned, rows of sharp, blood-stained teeth could be seen. A loud racket behind it made the hooded infected turn around.

Not far away a tank, smoker, and boomer were seated in a loosely-made circle with cards in their hands. Farther away a jockey was saying cackling nonsense while a charger and spitter conversed with him, the only two out of the group who actually understood what the hell it was saying. Sheltering in the shadows near the back of the lobby was a witch, her red eyes the only sign that she was there.

"Okay, this is boring!" The smoker threw its cards down on the floor angrily. "Why can't we play something else instead of Goldfish? I mean, shit! We're not that stupid yet like those other infected!"

The boomer rolled its eyes and placed its cards down as well. "Whatever gets you to shut the hell up Damien."

"I know." The tank scooped the cards up, shuffled them, and then suddenly tossed them onto the ground. The action caused them to scatter around wildly. "52 cards pick up!" It glared at the smoker who's name was Damien. "Now pick it up!"

The hunter near the window sneered at and returned its attention back outside. Oh how it wished something interesting would pop up. It had been bored for the past couple of days ever since the incident at Rayford.

Damn those survivors. A growl rumbled deep in the special infected's throat at the mere thought of them.

[Rae Beckham]

After loading bullet's into her submachine gun, Rae strapped her first aid kit onto her back. She had to pause at Dahlia's mention of a charger, putting on the alert for the familiar sound of the heavy foot steps.

"Luigi... Remember when you said back at the airport that there were some sick people who weren't bad?"

Rae's thin frame tensed. She glanced at Luigi through the corner of her eyes.

Boy, this is gonna be a helluva long story...

[Mother]

The mute was attempting to communicate with her in his usual way. Facial expressions and hand gestures. Granted, she had spent enough time around him to get a much better grasp, but that was beside the point. She knew he was "asking" what she was talking about.

Simple, my mute companion. Do you see that flashing car ahead of the humans?"

She gestured to said vehicle below, eye narrowing. There was something else catching her attention. "Our Horde is waiting." She turned to face her four. "My mute, it's time to alert them. Get down there and set it off. Cory, that Charger following them..." She didn't like it. It was only following the humans, rather than flat-out attacking them like it's bretheren usually did. And for some reason, this frustrated her.

Go.

[Robert]

Robert nodded, albeit reluctantly. He wasn’t too fond of letting a bunch of mindless commons take all the credit, but for the plan’s sake he’d go along. (Besides, messing with the car sounded fun.)

With a quick salute, Robert leapt away towards the flashing car. Many days of practice paid off; he soared effortlessly though the air and landed on the hood of the car with a solid ‘thump’, slamming the front on the top-half of one poorly-placed common. Grinning, Robert hopped off and waited for the impact to start the alarm.

...It didn’t.

The light flashed, mocking him, while the alarm refused to go off. Robert pounded a fist on the front, kicked the side door, and even drove his fist through the window. The alarm was a dud, apparently. (That, or it was prejudice against zombies.)

Refusing to let this stop the mayhem, Robert raked his claws around the newly-formed hole in the window, shattering little pieces of glass until the hole stretched to the metal frame. A quick hop launched him into the front seat, where he used the only car-knowledge he could recall and slammed the gas pedal.

Once again, nothing happened.

‘Dammit!’ he cursed to himself, wriggling into the driver’s seat and staring at the wheel. He hadn’t even started Driver’s Ed in his past life; hell if he could recall how to start the thing now, after zombie-mind-deterioration. Frustrated, he curled his hands into fists and lashed out at the nearest punching-bag: the wheel.

This time, he was rewarded with a short but startling ‘BEEP’ from the horn. A few zombies in the area looked up, searching for the source. Robert grinned, placed both hands on the front of the wheel, and leaned all his scrawny weight forward.

The horn blared, and the zombies replied with their own battle cry. From inside the car, Robert grinned, and held the horn down. Forget the alarm; this worked much better.

[Lizzie]

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEEEEP!

Luigi's head snapped up when a car horn rang out through the air. He tensed when the screeching of a horde followed soon after. Instinctively he pushed Dahlia behind him, already gunning down the first infected that showed up.

"Rae! Move so that Dahlia's between us!" the brunette yelled over his shoulder.

~*~*~*

A hunter following behind Tiney and Brock looked up when he hear crazed honking. The others must've heard it too, because they stopped as well. Akiko brought up her clawed hands to cover her ears.

"Ugh! Where is that coming from?!" she demanded.

Straining his ears, the hunter muttered, "Over there." and pointed in the direction.

Annoyed beyond words, the witch took off. The hunter, Chris, Brock, Hunter, and Tiney glanced at each other before following. It wasn't long before they discovered the source of the honking, a hunter sitting in a car responsible.

Akiko strolled over and, without warning, wrenched her hand through the hole made into the window. Once she had a grip on the hooded infected, she dragged him roughly out the car before slamming it against the ground. Her hand was wrapped around hsi throat, claws pricking the skin threateningly.

"Honk that damn horn one more time and your guts are going to be ripped out!" the witch hissed, squeezing to emphasize her point.

[Robert]

Robert didn’t even think he’d been in the car five minutes when some witch-bitch strutted on over and yanked him out like she owned the damn place. Worse, she was demanding he stop the noise, like some old grandma whining about the blaring music. (What, weakening the humans wasn’t good enough for her? Damn, she was probably some tree-hugger who thought the people should be saved.) And she somehow thought piercing his throat would make him give up.

Been there. Done that. It sucked.

Letting what could have been a growl scrape through his larynx, Robert swiftly rolled his legs against his chest, then pushed outward, driving his feet into her chest (which he would’ve called flat and made more insults towards, had his vocal chords been functioning) and pushing her away. He didn’t miss a beat: rather than let her pals catch on (odds were, they were on the same human-hugging philosophy as the witch), he leapt into the car, gave the horn one last, spiteful blare, then sat back into a crouch and pounced straight through the passenger-side window. He hit the ground and sat for only a moment before continuing up onto the roof by Mother’s side.

His lips curled into a sharp-toothed smirk, he turned up towards the smoker and tilted his head, awaiting a compliment.

[Dahlia Breaker]

The moment the car alarm went off, Dahlia's heart almost stopped. The howls that followed made her forget to breath. The wet coughing she heard from nearby made her freeze, fear filling her.

Of all the infected, Smokers terrified her the most. And overall, it was with good reason. Hunters came a close second. Tanks and Chargers, for whatever reason, didn't bother her as much. Possibly because she was already used to have hulking family members. But the Smokers were the worst.

Hiding as best she could between Luigi and Rae, she tried just as hard to bring down any infected that got close with the cricket bat. She breifly considered pulling out the pistol Uncle Norman had given her, but she wanted to save it for when she needed it. So she settled for breaking the legs of the oncoming zombies, occasionaly getting a lucky swing in, breaking off a leg or two.

That's when it wrapped around her.

All safety leaving her, she could only give a terrified shreik before the tounge began to constrict her, pulling her away.

------

He heard the shreik. He saw the long lounge wrap around his neice and pull towards an alleyway.

He was good and mad.

--------

The Smoker finally pulled her all the way to itself, taking advantage of the confusion for what it hoped would be an easy meal. Full grow. Adults couldn't escape it's wrappings, how could a small child?

What it didn't expect was a large hand connected to an equally large, scarred arm to grab it's tumor-covered head, wrenching it into the air. A quick tug and the tounge was broken, the child freed.

The Charger glared at the Special infected currenly held in his hand for a moment before beginning to slam it against the wall repeatedly.

"You-*wham*-Will-*Slam*-Ever-*Wham bam*-Touch my neice-*wham slam*-Again!". He roared, hurling the barely living Smoker against the wall, the infected bursting in a cloud of smoke.

Snorting, the ex-convict turned his attention to the gasping child, his expression becoming more gentle. (Or what he could best manage.).

"Hey kid.". He said quietly, kneeling down to her level. Dahlia stared at him, eyes wide.

"...U-Uncle.... U-uncle Norman?". She whispered, still staring. The moment was ruined, however, when gunshots reminded him of the still ensuing fight. Glancing around, he motioned for the girl to follow him before charging headfirst into the fray, scattering zombies in his path, managing a quick "Dont ya dare shoot me!"

"How do ya like dat ye frickan wimps?". He challened the remaining zombies, clubbing another one down.