Cara eventually put Stan out, and he was fine once he’d been guided over to the medical supplies where he was able to pump himself full of morphine and apparently cure the burns that by all rights should’ve left him permanently scarred.

“Well, that was interesting,” Stan scoffed as he pulled off his ghillie suit and looked between me and the large, charred hole in the door that I’d only just managed to put out, “put a lot more effort into putting that out than you did in putting me out.”

I was speechless, mostly because I was still focusing on the truck horn downstairs, but luckily Cara didn’t have that same trouble, “I took over pretty quickly,” she said in my defense as we both snuck a look over at the bike, “I have a very… large personality.”

“You mean you barrel people out of the way so you can slap other people’s eyeballs out?” Stan half-heartedly snapped, “Which still hurts by the way.”

“Hey, you were on fire, I had to do somethin’.” Cara replied dismissively, “Besides, you seem like the type who’d be pretty used to gettin’ slapped in the face.”

“Doesn’t make it any easier.” Stan sighed with a faux sort of depression in his voice, “So, Finn, what’s the plan now that you’ve gone ahead and literally burned through over half your ammo?”

“I reckon the first thing we ought to do is shut off that damned horn,” Cara responded before I could, “thing’s only gonna be callin’ in more zombies the longer we leave it.”

“And how do you suggest we do that?” Stan asked, making absolutely no effort to hide the fact that he was annoyed that I hadn’t been the one to reply, “We start shootin’ and we’re only gonna bring in more, as well as any players who think that it’d be a good idea to try and take a swing at us while we’re compromised.”

“We could pull it up.” I said right before Cara could open her mouth, “Pull it up, hope that fixes it, then go from there.”

“And what if pulling it up doesn’t work?” Cara asked, “What if we start draggin’ it up the side of the hospital and it just lets the zombies know where we are?”

“Then we drop it,” Stan replied, “just because we start, doesn’t mean we have to keep going.”

As much as I’d been thinking about… well, you know, I’d prefer to not say it, but it was good to know that Stan had my back, and could explain the things that I’d otherwise have trouble with.

“Alright,” Cara finally said after a few seconds of looking between the two of us, “let’s see if it works. You two on the rope.”

“And why the Hell should we be the ones who have to haul it up?” Stan asked with no small amount of bitchiness in his voice.

“Because someone needs to watch the ground,” Cara replied matter-of-factly, “make sure nothin’ untoward happens, and I had to haul it over the edge while you two were fartin’ around and settin’ each other’s faces on fire.”

It was hard to argue with that logic, and I know because I watched Stan spend a solid five seconds trying to think of a way to do so before finally giving up and gesturing for me to grab part of the rope, “Let’s just get this over and done with.”

The first thing I noticed about the bungie cord was just how taut it was, and when I say it was taut, I mean that the damn thing looked about three seconds from snapping, and felt like it was made of tiny shards of glass.

I pushed myself through the pain though, and quickly found myself able to pull the line with relative ease as Stan worked as my anchor.

“Horn’s stopped.” Cara called over from where she stood by the ledge, “Zombies are still around it though, can’t get a clear look at it.”

“Well look harder,” Stan groaned, showing that he was having a far harder time with the whole process than I was, “this damn rope feels like it’s covered in razorblades.”

“Are your hands bleeding?” Cara asked, knowing the answer, “Because if your hands ain’t bleedin’, you haven’t got anythin’ to bitch abou… Stop. Stop pullin’.”

I did as Cara said, but could still feel Stan pulling the sharp rope through my hands, “Why?” he asked through a grunt.

“Frickin’ stop it!” Cara barked, “Bunch o’ zombies have grabbed the bike, you’re just pullin’ them up-”

“Mother fuck!” I practically squealed as Stan let go of the rope without warning, allowing it to slice across my palms and take a good deal of flesh with it, “You-you… you prick. Shit!”

“Go get yourself cleaned up.” Cara said coldly as the bike crashed back into the ground, before seeing the state of my hands and seething, “What the Hell was that?”

“Payback,” Stan chuckled, “that’s what you get for setting my face on fire.”

“That was an accident, you…” I trailed off as I struggled to think of an insult past the pain, “Screw you.”

“Eh, you’ll be fine.” Stan replied dismissively, “You really should go and get that sorted though, I don’t imagine holding a gun will be all that fun with all that blood.”

I shot him a harsh look a couple of times before finally stalking my way over towards the medical pile, “What’s the situation? Bike broken?”

“May as well be,” Cara said disappointedly, “though the good news is I think we may have messed a good few of ‘em up.”

+Morphine

+Morphine

+Morphine

+Morphine

+Morphine

+Bandage

+Bandage

+Bandage

+Blood Test Kit

-Blood Test Kit

+Blood Bag (O-)

+Blood Bag (O-)

-Morphine

After making sure I was more or less happy with my medical loadout, having gone back and forth with the idea of getting the weighty blood test kit a few times, and that my hands were healed, I turned back to my two bickering teammates, who surprised me with just how civil they were actually being with each other.

Don’t get me wrong, they were still clearly pissing each off, and Stan had dropped that act he normally had with women, but they seemed to be having an actual conversation instead of just yelling at each other.

“I’m just saying that it’s a bad idea.” Cara said as calmly as she could, “We only just managed to stop the bike from making noise, now you wanna do this? I just… It seems like a bad idea.”

“Well, I’m just saying that there doesn’t seem to be much of an option.” Stan replied, “We can’t just waltz through the hospital. There’re a zombies in there, and I’m almost positive that there’re a bunch of players too.”

“Blowing up the bike is just gonna bring more in, you frickin’ moron!” Cara shouted, giving up on any pretense of courteousness, “I’m sick of gettin’ steamrolled. I mean Hell, I was the one who said that throwin’ the bike over was a stupid idea, and now look at where we are. Stuck between a rock and hard place with no-frickin-where to go.”

“And if we blow up the bike we’ll fix that problem,” Stan replied coolly, irritating Cara further, “either it clears downstairs long enough for us to slide down, or it draws the ones inside out, giving us enough time to sneak out through the back.”

“It seems to me that you’re forgetting a lot of ‘ifs’ there.” I said, finally deciding that I should weigh in, “If we blow up the bike, and if we don’t just draw ‘em all up here with our gunfire.”

Stan didn’t seem all that happy with the fact that I’d decided to side with Cara, but quickly shrugged off the negativity that had built up in his shoulders, “Then we use a grenade.” he said as if it had always been on the table, “No one can trace a grenade, and it increases the chance of an explosion to a hundred percent.”

“A grenade would work,” I agreed, “but do you have a grenade? Because I sure as Hell don’t, and I’m pretty sure Cara doesn’t either.”

“He’s right,” Cara said before patting her sides, “and I ain’t hidin’ one anywhere neither.”

Unsurprisingly, this answer kind of ticked off Stan, but he was doing a pretty good job of masking it, “Alright,” he said coolly, “then we’ll call one in, finally make use of some points.”

“That’d work,” I replied as I pulled out my tablet and started scrolling through the available drops, “except for the fact that even the most rudimentary grenade costs ten points.”

“So?” Stan scoffed, “Didn’t you get a bunch from killing all those zombies?”

“Yeah, but, like any decent player, I’m saving them for the endgame.” I said almost defensively, “You know as well as I do that spending any points before you unlock tier three stuff is just a waste.”

“Again, he’s right.” Cara added, showing that Stan wasn’t the only one who would have my back, “I’ve got a couple of points, but I’m not about to blow them so we can do something that might work.”

I’d like to think that the conversation was going to continue on like that, in that it would remain relatively peaceful and, for the most part, non-violent, but it appeared that the game had other plans for us.

EddietheCodeJumper murdered WetShoes

-1 Player (150 Players Remaining)

Warning!

Warning!

Zeta-One-Meta-Beta has mutated!

Warning!

Warning!

Infected individuals have gained higher brain function!

Warning!

Warning!

Zeta-One-Meta-Beta has mutated!

Now, I’m not quite sure why, but from the moment we all stepped over to the ledge and looked over I couldn’t help but start chuckling.

My laughter, unsurprisingly, earned me somewhat upset and confused faces from Stan and Cara.

“Why on God’s green Earth are you laughing?” Stan asked with an almost gravelly voice.

“Man,” I huffed in response, showing absolutely no sign of how truly panicked I was as we watched the zombies slowly but surely figuring out how to start climbing up the bungie cord, “we’re so frickin’ screwed.”