What is Left - Introduction

What is Left

Introduction

It all started in the town of Shawnee, Oklahoma. An infected man wandered into a family barbecue and bit a little girl on the leg. The girl's father beat the shit out of the man with a baseball bat and called the police. They brought her to the hospital where she turned and infected practically the rest of the hospital. The police barricaded the hospital and have all the infected trapped inside. Our mission; clear the hospital and don't let any infected escape. It's as simple as that.

That was the mission briefing Lt. Mason Bricker gave his men before they arrived at the aforementioned hospital."So, what exactly is it? Like some walking dead type of shit or something?" Said Pvt. Lance as their HUMVEE pulled in front of the police barricade.

"What? Do I look like a disease expert or something?" Said Cpl. Francis. "It's some sort of virus. That's all we know."

"How do we know that they're just not, like, tweaking or something?" Lance's comment was met with a few chuckles.

"If you're tweaking you can't spread it to an entire fucking hospital," Bricker exclaimed, obviously getting annoyed by their idiotic comments.

Lt. Bricker was well respected by his men even though they viewed him as being uptight. Pvt. Lance was the unit's equivalent of a class clown and at times pushed Bricker over the edge. But that day they were faced with their first real mission and everyone remained serious for the most part.

Their HUMVEE rolled to a stop next to a SWAT van and the men jumped out. The hospital wasn't gigantic but it wasn't small either. It didn't look like something that would be crawling with creatures that want to eat your flesh. Yet, it was and it was hard for the men to wrap their head around the idea that this was real and not a video game.

Lt. Bricker gathered with his fellow officers and the chief of police near a layout map of the hospital while the rest of the men stayed near the HUMVEE. "But, seriously, guys. They have to be blowing this out of proportion. This kind of stuff only happens in movies, right?" Asserted Pvt. Lance.

"I don't know, man. I read something online about this happening to an indigenous tribe in the Caribbean. I guess they all ended up biting each other," Sgt. Machen explained. A look of obvious fear came over Lance's face. Bricker returned to his men, pointed to an emergency exit, and said, "That's our point of entry. It'll bring us into a hallway that leads to a cafeteria. We clear that area, advance into another hallway, go up the stairwell, and rendezvous with two other units on the second floor. Everybody got that?" The unit responded with a big, "Yes, sir!"

They busted down the emergency exit door and entered into the hallway. "Clear left!" "Clear right!" "Clear forward!" Pvt. Lance's heart was beating so fast and loud that he could barely hear those words. They continued down the hallway to the cafeteria. "Infected!" Shouted Machen. "Get 'em!" commanded Bricker and the men took out the four infected. "Clear left!" "Clear Right!" "Clear forward!" They entered the next hallway only to see a hoard of infected waiting for them.

"Shit! Fallback! Fallback!" Screamed out Lt. Bricker as the infected chased the men back into the cafeteria. They took cover behind a table and opened fire on the swarms of infected that poured into the room from the hallway. The sound of the gunfire disoriented private Lance and he found he was unable to fire his weapon. He thought about what he was seeing. Innocent people being controlled by a disease are getting their flesh ripped apart by bullets and having their blood and guts spilled onto the floor. An overwhelming feeling of nausea overcame him and he puked all over the floor. The last of infected were killed and Cpl. Francis remarked, "Nice, Lance! All over my fucking boots!"

Suddenly, the sound of an explosion rippled through the air and the ceiling started to give way. "Fuck! Everyone out the emergency exit!" Barked Bricker. They raced the collapsing ceiling down the hallway and Lance felt rocks start to hit his feet and just as he reached the door a large piece fell on him and trapped him there. "Fuck! Oh, god no! I'm stuck! Get me the fuck out of here!" Screamed Lance. The men rushed to his aid but Bricker looked around and saw something he thought he could only see in his nightmares; The entire area was overrun with infected. There were no more cops, no more soldiers, just infected. Bricker felt a stabbing pain in his leg and looked down to see an infected biting into him. He fell to the ground and saw the rest of his men scrambling to escape the infected and Lance getting the flesh on his arm torn off.

A voice came over Bricker's radio, "We are aware of the situation. Protocol 117A has been activated. All units in the city have 2 hours to clear the city before the bomb's fall."

An excerpt from Episode 1 of What is Left:
After waiting motionless for almost an hour gunshots and screams came from behind them followed by an explosion.