KF - The Truce: A Killing Floor Story

The Truce: A Killing Floor Story
================================

So me and the boys had it from HQ that we needed to drop into West London and "sterilize" the place, yeah? Not a big deal, just a small coupla blocks that the sats picked up a high amount of activity near. So the chopper's taking us there and we're all geared up, and I notice Tim's got himself a crossbow.

"What the hell you going to do with that?" I ask him. "I'm gonna shoot stuff, of course. Whatcha think it's for? Pinning posters?"

I sat there, quite stupified, not only because he wasn't carrying any gun other than a 9mm pistol but also because the rest of my squad seemed to agree with him. I didn't understand. When did the laws of physics change to make an arrow deadlier than a pointed bullet of metal traveling faster than sound? But I didn't bother, he had it, there was no changing it now. Just go with it.

Chopper sets down and we bugger off outside, pilot takes off to wait until we've cleared the place. Kinda quiet. The squad begins to wander a bit, looking around for stumbling things like a crowd just finish the preparty to Saint Patty's Day. I come across an SA80 bullpup, which was sort of strange, considering they were illegal here. It didn't matter though, undoubtedly the population brought all their hidden goods to bear when Nancies with no skin started chopping off their heads.

We hear some kind of growl-grumble sound, and we turn to see some pale things coming at us with a horrible sense of balance. Aldersley starts popping them in the face with a lever action rifle, although it seemed strange. Their heads bust like balloons when he grazed shots off the top of their head, but dead in the face and they simply shrugged it off, carrying a bullet in their nostril.

I yank out my knife and start running towards them. No point wasting ammo on such stupid and slow creatures. I jab one in the neck and watch its head jump off like a Bouncing Betty. "Feels like I'm shanking yo Mum, Timmy!" I laugh. The broad never goes outside. Looks paler than these wankers. I turn around in time to see a large yellowish blob waddling towards me. I don't take the time to admire the view, the thing stands four feet taller than me, so I just shoot it in the head and that's what it loses. Still stumbles around a bit like a chicken of the same fate, but relatively harmless. So I see there's more knifing enjoyment to be had down the street, and I run past the yellow headless blob. Timmy decides it's a good idea to fire his poster pinner and would you know, the yellow thing pops, and sprays me with some kind of sizzling acid. I scream as my face begins to melt, but it feels a lot worse than it actually is.

"Would you f***ing mind not doin' that again?" I ask Timmy, but by the time I've turned back he's gone, looking for more arrows. So we kill the last of 'em and suddenly we get some radio chatter.

"Shop's open boys! Come and get 'em!"

I freeze. "The bloody hell is that?" This was supposed to be a secure channel between the five of us. I was trying to piece it together in my head when I was rudely interrupted by what seemed to be some bright red smoke seemingly launching from my groin and snaking away into the distance.

"The bloody hell is THAT?!" I say again. I check my pants to ensure I don't have some insane medical condition I wasn't privy to before now.

Hessings, our resident shotgun expert and believer in all things superstitious, replied, "Oi, I've seen that before, that's one of the good souls who died here trying to help us out, it is. Let's follow it, it will bring us good luck!" So I watch in disbelief as he skips off, following my red crotch-smoke, and then I stop so I can begin staring in disbelief again when the whole squad starts skipping off with him.

Didn't have much of a choice at the point so I go with them, and it brings us to the other end of the street and into some kind of abandoned bar. "Hurry up boys!" I hear. I look around for the source of the voice, but out of the corner of my eye I see something hideous instead.

"F***ING HELL!" I scream and whip out my bullpup and empty a clip in the ugly's direction. The clip is gone, and I'm reloading frantically to get another one off, but then I notice the creature actually IS the source of the voice. Luckily for it, some pane of bulletproof glass was protecting its face. Looking closer, it seemed to be some sort of human. Female, even. Turns out she was selling weapons to the boys. How she got those weapons, and how the boys got all that cash from nowhere, was beyond me. Checking my pockets I found quite a bit of money too. I was certain I didn't bring any...

I shook my head. "I've heard of people gettin' beat with the ugly stick as a baby, but they must have use a sledgehammer on you, darling. Lemme see what you got." Perusing her wares, I see an anti-tank weapon. My jaw drops and so does my respect for this thing selling me weapons. There's no way that was hidden by some gang here in the city, the only way she could have gotten that was by picking it up off a dead soldier's body.

Either that, or the soldier offered it in trade because he was really desperate. Desperate and blind.

We grab what stuff we want and move out. Door closes behind us and we hear the creepies start coming. Black crawling things, ugly hag screaming things, skinless melee things, chainsaw things. Just lots and lots of things.

My brain rattles from two screams of those hags in jackets, the ones with the wrinkly sagging funbags. Kinda yuck, but they couldn't catch me staring cuz they had no eyes.

"Medic!" I shout. Johnson and Johnson (we call him) was our resident medic, and I was obviously calling for him. I say "was" our resident medic because instead of jabbin' me with a needle, he somehow runs the other way past a horde of zeds and throws on a second vest. Yes, a second one. He had just bought a new one, and as soon as that got scratched, he jumped all over one that was lying on the ground. So now he was full health and double vested and I was standing here about to be sandwiched, and I was already hurting.

Timmy comes galloping in with a chainsaw. God only knows where his crossbow went to, but I was glad he had something that could do real damage. As I get away to shoot myself up with drugs like some hardcore addict, Timmy plunges headfirst into the horde and swings his chainsaw about like a Cirque de Soleil performance. Needless to say he gets surrounded and the two hags make short work of the inside of his head. He drops to the ground, dead. You might think this would affect me, but considering all that training about fighting through emotional trauma and the fact that Timmy was an absolute dolt, it didn't.

Johnson and Johnson comes back with Hessings just as I'm getting backed into a corner, and all I hear is "shhhhhh BOOM" and a brilliant splash of blood goes all over my face. I stare dumbfounded at Hessings and find he had purchased a LAW. How I survived a direct rocket punch to the face I'll never know. I say "purchased" despite knowing he didn't have enough cash, and how the hell he could be so desperate or pull off something so fast with all that armor on, I could not understand. I mean she was on the other side of a wall with no doors! How did that work?! Of course I use the word "she" rather loosely here...

The hordes dwindle and die and my crotch-smoke condition flares up again. Off we go, skipping to its destination. Last time it gave us some kind of weapons trader, and now I'm hoping it will give me a retirement fund. But lo and behold, it brings us to another part of the block where guess who is waiting for us.

"How did you get here?" I ask, amazed. I was certain she didn't run through the streets...

"I like the big ones, don't you?" she answers.

"Is that how Hessings got his rocket launcher?" I ask directly.

"Lovely big guns," she responds. I take that as I yes and try to push the images out of my mind.

"Move over children, I need some guns. Got any dosh?" I turn and see Timmy. My eyes pop out of my head.

"Timmy! You...you died!" I yell.

He stares at me. "That was last wave, mate. Get it together."

My brain shut down for a few seconds trying to reconcile everything, and the best solution it could find was to totally throw logic out the window and accept things for what they were.

We get out of there only to find that Hessings welded shut every door on our way out. He overheard my comment I suppose. Instead of undoing his work I go 'round, pop out the side street and start raining death upon the swarms. Then everything went to hell.

Aldersley dodges a zed and moves into Hessing's line of fire, off goes a rocket using Aldersley's back as a wall, and off goes Hessing's limbs in every direction. Timmy is jumping about with a flamethrower, torching everything in sight and running out of napalm fast. I see Johnson and Johnson run past, this time with THREE vests on, looking for more. Strange thing was all the vests said "Private Jim" on the breast...

I fight my way down the street to the church. I knife the pale ones, use the 9mm on the skinless red ones, and I pop everything else with my SA80. I get to the church in time to find that Aldersley is almost dead and limping, Johnson and Johnson runs past him using his syringe to heal himself although he looked like a lad just sprang from a brothel that gave him its wares for free, and right as good ol' Al is reaching out, groaning for help, one of them black jumpy things leaps up from behind and tears his face off. Timmy is running about trying to get one of them huge buggers off of him, the one with the traffic light on his chest. He's got no ammo because he p*ssed it all away taking out them weak things.

Just as he rounds a corner, Johnson rounds the same one. Now Traffic Light is after the medic, who tries to get away and finds the path blocked by a horde. He turns round and starts pouring ammo into Traffic Light, whose chest changes from "slow down" to "stop" and he charges forward. Its head pops off, but miraculously, it keeps on pounding J&J until he occupies only two dimensions. So now's there's just Timmy and me, which translates to "and now there was only me."

Luckily for myself it didn't seem like many were left, but Timmy, while attempting to kill a red melee creature by hitting it with the end of his flamethrower, got caught by one of the pale snots which tore off the back of his head. I sighed. There were only about thirty left, from what it looked like, and I finished them off easily.

Crotch-smoke again. I ignored it this time and sat in the church; didn't quite feel like staring that broad in the face one more time. Made a mental note to really, really clean up downstairs next time I found myself a shower.

After about a minute of waiting my squad came through the door. Yes, they were all back in the flesh. No, didn't try to explain it.

"Welcome back, ladies," I sighed.

"I need some dosh!" They all chimed in together.

"I bet you do, and I need a new squad. Tell you what, I'll give you dosh if you can give me replacements." They didn't quite know what to do then. Hessings looked particularly sad now that he couldn't pay his lady friend.

Shop closed and the whole squad dashed outside. Someone said something about how that trader-person yelled "SOMETHING BIG IS COMING!" but I dismissed it because clearly she was talking about her and Hessings in the back room again. I just sat there in the pew and relaxed. Thought I heard some yelling and weapons fire, but it didn't really matter to me.

Got kind of quiet so I wander outside only to hear "THIS IS THE END OF YOU!" I suddenly see one gigantic hippie with a rocket launcher arm and pair of glasses come running at me.

"Whoa, whoa, hold on a second there, mate!" I say. He slows down to a jog.

"I'm not here to hurt you, savvy? I'm only waiting for my chopper ride out of here."

The huge hippie glared at me with an eye stalk. "BUT YOU MURDERED MY CHILDREN!"

"Yeah, and? Your children murdered the entire city and tried to do the same to me. Fair's fair wouldn't you say?"

He seemed stumped. "I suppose so..." He mumbled.

"They're clones anyway right?"

"...well...yes...."

"Right. So they're all exactly alike. All perfectly replaceable."

"....I...well, yes, you're right..."

"Alright then. I'll sit here, wait for my chopper, and promise not to shoot you. In return you can wander off, make certain your 'children' don't try to kill me anymore, and we'll all live happily ever after. Truce?"

"Agreed. Truce."

I sat down on the ground and wiped the sweat from my brow. The huge hippie leaned back, stretched, and then turned and sprinted away shouting "EVERYTHING IS SO SIMPLE WHEN YOU HAVE A ROCKET LAUNCHER...FOR AN ARM!"

I sighed. It was a long day.



Source: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=910322
by shrinkshooter - http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/member.php?u=571990