Chapter 14: The Roof
Left 4 Derpy
Chapter 14: The Roof
The four humans groggily reached the top of the stairs on the 26th floor of the hospital. Ditzy, on the other hand, was relatively fine after flying the majority of the way. The stairs appeared to be under renovation along with the remaining floors of the hospital, so the group stopped to rest and plan their next moves. After a moment to gather their thoughts, Bill opted to find another way to the roof on the floor they were on.
Francis tried desperately to kick the floor’s door open, but the force of his feeble kicks sent him stumbling backwards and almost toppling back down the stairs. “Damnit…” *pant* “…I hate doors.”
Zoey stepped over and opened the door regularly before shooting Francis a smug grin.
“…Shut it.”
“Shut what, the door? But don’t we want it open?” Zoey replied sarcastically. Francis grumbled under his breath.
Louis chuckled through the heavy breaths he was taking. He and the others exited the stair case before Zoey closed the door behind them. The floor they were on now was relatively bare. Piles of wood and bags of cement could be seen in places, and there were rows two-by-fours indicating where walls had planned to go. On top of that there was no outer wall, opening the entire floor to the outside.
The group walked over to the closest edge, looking over the desolate city. The orange glow of fires could be seen in buildings and streets as smoke rose up from the city. The sky was turning a deep reddish-orange as the sun was getting ready to rise. They stared at the horizon silently before Bill broke the silence.
“A red sky at night is the sailor’s delight.” The others turned to face him. “…A red sky in morning, and the sailor takes warning.” Everyone turned back to the glowing sky, contemplating the old veteran’s words.
“…I hate sunrises,” Francis said bluntly, utterly ruining the moment. “Heh, I wonder how far I could spit from this height.” He harked up a massive lugie and spat it over the ledge, causing the others to roll their eyes or cringe.
“Right, so can we get to the roof now or do you morons want to wait for a double rainbow?”
The others grumbled and walked away from the ledge and wandered through the floor until Louis found a stair case that different stair case that went up to the next floor. Upon climbing the stairs, the group found themselves at the end of a long hallway with a pair of lights mounted on a tripod at the opposite end.
The five of them could hear the gurgles of idle infected from the dark rooms they passed as they crept down the hall quietly. They knew they had nowhere near the energy required to fight all the zombies. When they reached the pair of lights, the hallway opened up a bit before an open set of elevator doors. In front of the open door there were two saw horses blocking it, one of which had a sign leaning against it.
“Warning: elevator closed for maintenance. Do not use,” Ditzy read out loud before huffing. “Oh, now they tell us.”
Louis stepped past the cutting horses and looked down the elevator shaft. “Yikes…” He noticed a platform across the shaft on their level. There was a ladder bolted into the opposite wall that led up to another platform, from which a foldable ladder extended up to an open skylight. “Hey guys! I think I see a way to get to the roof!”
The others crowded around the doorway to see what Louis was referring to. “If we can find a way over to that platform, we could climb up to the roof,” he explained.
Francis rolled his eyes. “Yea, well it’s not like we can fly over there.” Ditzy cleared her throat behind him. “…Most of us,” he corrected with an irritated tone.
“I could try and fly you across one by one,” Ditzy offered.
“While also carrying a weapon and that bag of muffins? Louis and Zoey, maybe, but I don’t think you’d have a chance at carrying me or Francis,” Bill noted. “No offense, of course.”
Francis took a step back from the door and crossed his arms. “Yea, I’d rather not run the risk of getting dropped down a 30 story pit. Let’s try to find another way across.”
The group began looking around the room for a way across the shaft. Ditzy, however, had flown into the shaft, and was trying to find a way into the room from their destination. After a few minutes of searching, Louis remembered something when he spotted a ventilation shaft beside the door.
“Hey Ditzy, is there a ventilation opening on your side?”
The winged pony scanned the walls lining the platform. “Yea, there’s one over here, why?”
“I got an idea.” Using his crowbar, Louis pried the vent off the wall and knelt down before it. The light going around him did a poor job of lighting the shaft.
“Son, what the hell are you doing?” Bill asked as he and the others stepped closer to investigate their companion’s actions.
“Ditzy says there’s a vent over on the platform. Now I’m just guessing here, but I bet that these two connect.”
“How do you figure that?”
Louis paused, not sure if he should answer or not. “…Video games,” he said confidently. “Ventilation shafts are always the way to go in video games.”
Francis huffed. “Look out, we’ve got a badass over here.”
“Hey, you got any better ideas Francis?”
“Yea, but I don’t think you would like them.”
Louis rolled his eyes and crawled into the shaft. Dust and cobwebs stuck to his (once) white shirt as he moved. After a few moments of crawling in the tight air duct, he found that the vent split left and right. The right was pitch black, where as he could see a vent at the end of the left shaft. Another quick moment later and he was at the closed vent.
“Ditzy, you out there?”
“Yea.”
“Ok, step back from the vent, I’m gonna have to kick it open.”
It was difficult to turn around in the vent, but he eventually was able to position his feet in front of the vent. He kicked it several times, each kick echoing down the elevator shaft, before the vent finally gave way and fell off the wall. After shimmying his way out of the musty shaft he brushed himself off and turned to the others at the elevator door.
“Ok guys, I’m through. Just go straight, and when you get to the split go left. Don’t worry, it’s not that far.”
Bill nodded and turned to the others. “Alright, Zoey, you go next. Then you, Francis. I’ll cover you two and follow after you’ve gotten across.”
Zoey nodded in agreement, though Francis just mumbled something under his breath about hating ventilation shafts. Bill waited and watched as they entered the shaft, each taking a few minutes before popping out at the platform. Double taking the area to make sure there were no zombies around to cause trouble, Bill repeated the process.
Once everyone was on the platform, the four humans began climbing to the roof as Ditzy flew ahead with ease to make sure the roof was clear. The opening at the top of the elevator shaft was on top of a higher section of roof. Ditzy looked across the multi-layered hospital roof carefully looking out for any signs of infected, which she saw none.
“It looks all clear guys,” She shouted down the shaft at the others.
“Good. Just wait there for us, ok?” Ditzy could tell from the voice that it was Zoey.
“Okie dokie.”
“Do you see the helicopter?” Louis asked from wherever he was in the shaft.
She looked around again before spotting a giant red circle with an H inside it painted on a large, flat section of roof right beside the high section of roof she was on. She assumed that the H stood for helicopter.
“…No, I don’t think it’s here.”
“Son of a bitch!” Francis swore violently.
“Relax Francis, All we have to do is call him on the radio and he’s sure to pick us up.” Bill stated, sounding rather irritated.
It wasn’t long before the others began exiting the elevator shaft one by one. They all looked over the large roof for a moment. Bill spotted a singular room that stuck out of the roof with glass-less windows and open doors. There was barbed wire lining the edge of the room’s roof, as well as a Gatling gun mounted at the edge that was aimed towards the helipad.
“Come on, there’s probably a radio in there.”
The group climbed down another ladder and onto the empty helipad. Bill noticed that one of the pad’s corners had collapsed in on itself and into the rooms beneath the pad. As Bill walked closer to the collapsed section of building, he noticed something in amongst the rubble in the room below. There was a dead tank lying in the rubble, and it looked relatively recent in death. It was holding a massive chunk of concrete that had crushed a large section of the tank’s upper body, including its head.
From what he could piece together the thing had pulled up the chunk of concrete (something they were infamous for doing, just before throwing it at you), resulting in the whole section of the roof collapse. The rock it was holding must have crushed it in the tumble. Coincidentally, the tank could also be the reason why the helicopter was not there. Taking a final glance down at the bloody tank, Bill stepped away from the edge and made his way to the building where the others were waiting.
The inside of the room was relatively bare aside from a radio and some paperwork that were on a table by the door and two propane tanks in another corner. The rest of the group stood around the table waiting for Bill’s arrival.
“What took you so long? Having trouble with your crotchety ‘old guy’ hips again?” Francis asked sarcastically.
“No. There was a dead tank by the helipad. Caused a section of it to collapse too. All things considered, that’s the most likely chance why our helicopter isn’t here.”
“Seems legit,” Zoey noted. “So you gonna call him up, or should I?”
“I will.” Bill continued, picking up the radio’s receiver and holding it to his mouth. “News Chopper Nine, this is Mercy Hospital. You said that you were picking up survivors here, over.” The radio’s speakers emitted static. “News Chopper Nine do you read me, over?”
The group began to grow uneasy as the static continued. Suddenly, the speakers clicked. “This is News Chopper Nine; I read you loud and clear Mercy Hospital. Sorry I couldn’t be there to meet you personally, but some local infected were giving me a hard time, so I thought it was a good time to go refuel. I am on my way back right now. ETA 3 minutes.” There was a pause. “…What is the status of your group, over?”
“There’s fo- …five of us; three men and two women. We are all immune and ready for pickup, over.”
“Good to hear, Mercy Hospital. There are weapons and ammunition on the roof above you in case any of you are interested. I’ll be there shortly, so just sit tight, over.”
“Roger that, News Chopper Nine. Mercy Hospital out.” Bill set the receiver of the radio and turned to the others.
“Alright, rescue is on its way. But we still have one thing to deal with before it gets here.” He looked down to Ditzy with a concerned look on his face. “…We have to figure out how to convince this guy to let you on his helicopter.”
Ditzy was taken aback by Bill’s words. “W-what? What do you mean?”
Bill sighed. “Look, it’s not that you’re a problem. But other people who know nothing about you might react a bit more… violently than we did.”
Ditzy thought back to how they had met. They had thought she was a human girl, and they had still been violent. Of course, after getting to know them better, she knew that was just Francis being Francis. But Bill did have a point. Who knows how someone might react to meeting a talking, flying pony? (Zoey had explained earlier how truly bizarre such a thing was by Earth standards)
“So… what are we going to do?”
“Assuming he doesn’t try to shoot you right off, I suppose we’ll have to try to convince him to bring you along.” Bill paused. “…Of course, if we can’t convince him, I suppose you could just follow us. You can fly, after all.”
“Oh yea!” Ditzy flapped her wings happily.
“Alright, so until then I suggest we get topside and see what we can use from those weapons an ammo the chopper talked about.” The others agreed and followed Bill as he opened a second pair of doors at the rooms back, which opened up beside a set of stairs that led to the room’s roof.
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Kinda short, but still good. Wonder how the pilots going to react
Update Faster dood~~~~
awesome story keep up amazing work
I'm on your rewf!
You forgot where the radio waves apparently alert all the zombies to your location.
LSD and ponies. like fav watch read
1714476 shh you'll give it away
Lolyes.
Crescendo event approaching!
I guess Louis has been playing a bit too much Half-Life. Actually, I suppose it would be just enough, considering it got them to the roof.
Oh god, the roof scene.
I remember I once did that on L4D2. I was the only one left, going to the helicopter, when a Charger grabbed me and flung us both off the building. 'course, Derpy can fly, so I suppose that makes it a bit easier.
1714476 that is probably where part of the intelligent Hunter idea came from.
maybe they could put ditzy in a duffle bag?
Great chapter, glad to see you updated, wonder how the pilot with take the news of our favorite mailmare....wonder how Dinky and everyone else from Equestria is doing.
He's on yer rewf, he used them pipe faggots surrounded by them machineries to get up there, he needs brain dawgs!
1720599 Hey, I'm just poking fun at the situation. Bill is actually my favorite survivor out of both games.
1720599 woa, hey, whats with the hostility?
its just a joke, man
1720643 (same here
)
1715167. Ellis in l4d2 says that video game joke in the tunnle of love.
Nice new chapter. Thank you author for uploading these!
You know what this calls for?
ANTICLIMAX!
Need more. Must read about Derpy killing a tank.
1714155 i know how i would react. "OMG a flying pony" *hug*
i would react ike this
fuck you guys im taking the pony to safety
also louis is a genious
1741728
I would squee, promptly hand over my man license, and not even care. I got a freaking Pegasus in my helicopter.