Left 2 Crawl

At the top of the stairs, the group found multiple subway cars crashed and scattered across the tunnel with a clear, open way to continue in the right direction.

The idea that train rails were a few floors below as well as here didn't make sense from a design standpoint in Jason's opinion, but the group pressed on through the quiet tunnel, popping shots at the walkers along the way.

"If I remember right, didn't they Valve call them, 'infected,' not zombies?" Jason queried out of boredom.

"Ahem, you are correct comrade," Spencer coughed. "We should use that term while in this game-verse."

"Real life," Zoey droned out before remembering it's beat to ignore him.

He started trailing off about walkers, undead, zombies, other names, and other languages.

"You just had to get the boomer started," Bill scoffed only to receive a playful 'nudge' from the stock of her gun.

At least it was in the shoulder, what a violent woman. It must be routine though as Bill only grinned back at her like a grandfatherly figure, the comradely of the apocalypse would be touching if Jenny stopped crying and Spencer stopped... breathing.

A lone boomer sat in front of them at a good distance, huffing on the ground, leaning against the wall.

"Spencer, you okay bro," Jason asked it hesitantly. "Where are your legs, don't worry, we can help you.

He leaned over to Deshawn who and whispered loud enough so the real meatbag could hear, "We are gonna have to put our comrade down, will you do the honors?"

He didn't have to say, "Gladly," in such an exuberant manner, but he did unload an entire clip into it after it exploded on the first shot.

Spencer looked a little pale and backed away, but even the new additions to the party had long lost their empathy for him over the last half hour.

The guy did absolutely nothing useful.

******************************************************

The tunnel was blocked by a crashed subway car. However, the car was open in the back and the front, so the group made like Nathan Drake and climbed their way through the corkscrew configuration of broken cars that were conveniently laid in a path through to the other side.

When they climbed out of the last subway car and got to the other side, they walked for a bit and saw a giant group mulling a few hundred yards away. Along with the horde, they noticed the area already had plenty of bodies laying about the open space and some looked like they were dragged into neat piles.

"Maybe someone is alive out there. Does anyone have pipe-bombs, grenades, or things that explode?" Jason asked quietly as the looked at the obstacle ahead of them.

After a quiet pause that signaled a negative on explosives, Bill spoke up, "We should bait them back to the choke point at the subway cars, wait for them to come to the only door, and shred them as they come."

It was a good plan, but someone had to bait them.

"Thanks for volunteering, boomer," Deshawn remarked as he turned around towards where they came.

"We really appreciate it," Zoey said kindly as she put a hand on his shoulder before following Deshawn.

Spencer was blushing and stuttering to himself and failed to notice that the woman was wiping her hands on her pants and cringing in a disgusting manner. The guy probably never got touched by a 3-D woman.

"Count to 50 and get their attention," Jason added as he handed him one of his handguns with the safety ON. He didn't want to get shot 'accidentally.'

They made there way to their positions. Deshawn and Zoe were at the left of a doorway to the second subway car, Jason on the right, Bill watched their back for stragglers that could use the service tunnel, and Jenny sat on one of the seats curled in a ball in between them.

Unknowingly, all of them were wondering if the fatty could make it through the wreckage of two crashed subway cars to get to them without dying first. An hour ago, Zoey and Bill would have never dreamed about sacrificing a human being in this way, but the way Spencer talks about games and his detachment of real and unreal, none of the survivors could find it in their hearts to care.

Plus, the beady eyed bastard was more annoying then Jenny, at least you could tune her out.

The group of combatants tensed as a gunshot preceded the groans of the infected horde. They watched, firearms ready as they waited for the giant penguin's sprint.

And came, it did.

Spencer screamed at the top of his lungs, sweat falling from his flesh, the gun in his hand accidentally discharged into the ground as shots from the zombie slayers whizzed by his body, whittling away at the horde.

As Spencer flung his body into the first subway car, the gunshots stalled as his body blocked their vision, but the large man crawled and continued to throw himself over the wrecked seats that littered his path.

Finally, like the light at the end of the tunnel, Spencer reached the final car and saw his comrades less then 10 yards away.

And then he tripped again.

This time, his ankle twisted and the pistol fell from his grasp, sliding forward towards the useful survivors. The hair trigger went off, but luckily it didn't hit anyone this time either. Unluckily, Spencer still hadn't gotten a zombie kill yet.

He wailed in horror as the undead horde fell one after another, on to of each other. They blocked the way with corpses and bullets kept flying in a chorus of timed reloads from the survivors that acted as if they were trained by the Seal Team 6 themselves.

It was when the groans of the undead finally trailed off when Spencer realized his butt was bleeding. Thanking the R.O.B. above for the fact that it only grazed him, he started yelling curses that fell on deaf ears.

Jason walked forward, picked up the gun that Spencer threw earlier, loaded it and tucked it in his jacket. He really needed to get some holsters because this system is so annoying.

"So master planning old bastard..." Jason huffed as he looked upon the pile of corpses that almost completely blocked the doorway. There was NO WAY he was going to crawl through that. There are almost definitely some still in a biting mood amid that pile of shit. Not to mention the gore.

He was starting to get reeeeaaally desensitized to this. Now that he thought about it, he couldn't remember the last time the smell of rotting flesh bothered him and he's only been in this universe/dimension for a couple hours.

Jason stopped overthinking life and finished what he had to ask Bill, "How do you expect us to get to the other side of the train?"

"Heh heh," Bill chuckled as he lit a cigarette. "Just watch me, I knew this would happen when I thought about it. You probably should have thought about it before you went along anyway. We learned to keep an eye on our surroundings in the war"

"I don't stress the small stuff, just do your thing pops," he answered as he looked around. His perception stat was below one, it would get up eventually. If not, he would just buy some levels later.

Zoey and Deshawn were whispering to each other. The guy was going to prison before this started and now he has a zombie slaying fictional woman (that's actually a real woman) by his side. Good for him.

For Jason, the thought of a woman that he already knew about from fiction was... odd. Sure, she acted real and he felt that she was real, but he never thought anything more than, 'Ya, she's attractive,' when he met her.

Bill, ready with a lit cigarette from a shop spanning the multiverse, unloaded a few shots on one of the windows on the subway before kicking the cracked glass a few times with his boot until it fell on the ground.

He cocked a shit eating grin like he laughed at his own inside joke, before he jumped out without waiting for anyone to follow.

Jason shrugged and when he was out of the car, hugging the wall, he realized why Bill grinned so widely.

There was no way Spencer would ever fit through here.

"Hey, buddy," he called back at the rest. Even Jenny decided to get up, although her shoulders were hung low as usual.

"You won't be able to fit through here, so you'll have to crawl the way the zombie came from. Sorry, Spencer."

The raucous laughter of Deshawn and the quiet giggles from Zoey warmed his heart as he crawled through the small space that lead to the path towards Mercy Hospital.