It had been five hours since we had made it to the Chicago Evac Zone and found it under assault from hordes of the zeds. Hundreds of them, jumping off buildings, lunging over cars. And when we showed up, four or five Tanks came out of nowhere and just start trashing the place. Jack and I were looking down at the place in horror, it was like watching a train wreck. Jill had curled up in a corner and was sobbing, and eventually Amber said we should move on. I agreed with her, even though we were running low on ammo and supplies, it just wasn’t worth it to try and make it to the Evac.
I dunno what happened after that, the next day we came back and found the place wrecked. Why we came back I’ll never know, I guess we just thought the army would hold out? They had to, the were the army. Anyway someone had spray-painted 1:24 AM in huge letters on the ground, must’ve been when they pulled out. Well we had no idea what to do, I mean that was basically it for us, the Evacs were done, no one was coming for us. We were alone.
None of us spoke for a while, after a moment or so Jack said we needed to restock and get somewhere safe. We all nodded and started gathering up stuff, ammo, first aid, whatever we could get. Then we saddled up and moved for the edge of the city. Nothing really bothered us for a while, a few Infected lingering around, but we made it to the outskirts without seeing so much as a hunter.
But as we were walking out of the city we saw one of these CEDA posters with the old Evac location on it, but someone scrawled something over it:
GET TO NAVY PIER AND CHICAGO TED WILL GET YOU OUT! WE LEAVE AT FIVE PM! 5:34 AM 11-23-09
Amber noted that was only a few hours ago, so Jack, Amber and I decide we were going to risk it and go back into the city to head for Navy Pier. Jill though, she started freaking out. She said she wasn’t going to go back through the whole of Chicago just because some crazy named Ted might have a way out. So she said ’screw you guys’ and stormed off before we could even follow her. I don’t know what happened to Jill, and I’d like to think she made it out okay, but if I had to bet I’d say a hunter got her.
Anyway we started heading back through the city, and there was no one, I mean no one. Not even zeds. Eventually we find a car with flashing lights, and Jack said ‘hey look, it’s still working’. So he walked over and leaned against the window to see if the keys were still in the ignition, and the cars alarm went off. At first none of us really thought anything of it and just decided we should be moving on, but then we heard them. Must have been hundreds of them, all howling like wolves. And then we heard their feet and Jack started cursing and Amber went berserk, and we all started running. I turned back, and I saw them, and it was the most horrifying thing I had ever seen. Hundreds of them, running for us like maniacs. Their hands and mouths covered in blood, and all the time howling.
Meanwhile Jack was yelling ‘don’t let them eat me, don’t let them eat me’ and Amber was just crying. All this time we’re all running for our lives. Jack darted off into a nearby building, and Amber kept on running and I couldn’t decide who to follow, but then one of those fricking Hunters jumped me. And he raised his claw and I just thought ‘it’s over, this is it, this is it’ and I screamed hysterically. But then Jack came back out of the building and beat the Hunter off with this silver grenade-type thing, then he hurled it into the horde. Then the bomb started beeping and had this flashing light go off and the zeds dropped everything and ran towards it just like that had with the car alarm.
There were about a hundred of them fighting for the grenade, and the one of them held it in the air victoriously. Then it exploded and all of them, every last one, just vaporize. Amber walked up behind us and started asking what on Earth Jack threw, and Jack told us to follow him. He lead us into the building he had run into, and on the floor there were three more of the bombs, and some spray paint on the ground that says:
IN CASE OF RUSHES -CHICAGO TED 12:16 PM 11-23-09
I read it in awe, and picked up one of the bombs. Looking at it closely, I realized it was a type of pipebomb with smoke detector parts attached. Jack just laughed and said that wasn’t the best part, then pointed down the hall to a corpse of a Witch with a blanket over it, her hands folded as though she was sleeping. Above her, more spray-paint:
THERE, THERE BABY, CHICAGO TED’S SORRY HE NEVER CALLED YOU BACK.
Cheers to Axim359 over at Gamefaqs forum for the screenshot
I stared at it, and in spite of everything, in spite of how awful the joke was, in spite of the infection, I laughed. Anyway, we picked up the remaining pipebombs and moved on back through Chicago until we got to the Lake, just a bit below Navy Pier, that’s where we met Frank. He looked scared out of his mind, meekly holding a pistol. He asked Jack if he was Chicago Ted, Jack said no, but told Frank we were looking for Chicago Ted too.
After a while Frank eased up, clearly relieved that he wasn’t alone anymore. He told us that he had been forced to split up with his wife, Jill, when a Tank attacked. Jack, Amber and I all exchanged glances, I knew we were all thinking the same thing. None of us told him about the Jill we had met, and it may very well have been that they were completely different Jills. Part of me feels like it was cruel, but he kept talking about how they were going to meet each other again when it was all over. I just couldn’t bring myself to tell him we may have left his wife for the Hunters.
A bit further on we met two girls, twins. Both young (seventeen maybe?), both looking for Chicago Ted. They told us that they were trying to reunite with their parents, and Navy Pier had been their arranged meeting place anyway. Apparently their Mom and Dad had gone looking for the Evac an hour or so before they must us, and had told the Twins to go wait at Navy Pier.
Along the way, they had found a dead Tank with a saddle on it, and a baseball bat lodged in it’s head. Written on the bat was a message that said to meet Chicago Ted at the Pier.
Amber told the Twins that the Evac had pulled out. They looked mortified. Neither of them spoke until we reached the Pier. When we finally did reach it, we found a ship captain and a few other survivors standing in front of a Cruise Liner. Some sand bags, a massive pile of fifty or so propane tanks, miniguns, a stockpile of grenades, plenty of weapons, and ammo piles were all placed throughout the Pier. A final spray-painted message was on the ground:
HOLD DOWN THE FORT UNTIL I GET THERE, SHIP LEAVES AT FIVE.
Jack looked at his watch, 4:57. Amber began talking to the ship captain, who had apparently met Chicago Ted and they had been making runs across the Lake to a Safe Zone the army had set up. Frank and the Twins started talking, Jack began chatting it up with the others that were at the Pier.
Three minutes later, on the dot, we heard the roar of a motorcycle and a man wearing a fedora, a trench coat, a pair of black jeans, some sunglasses, but no shirt came roaring down the Pier, a slew of infected in pursuit. In one hand he held a gas can (which he was pouring on the road behind him), and in the other a Molotov Cocktail, which he took a swig of as the motorcycle came screeching to a halt.
Then he tossed it into the trail of gasoline, lighting up the entire Pier and killing every zed that had followed him. For a few moments we were speechless, eventually someone meekly asked ‘are you Chicago Ted?’ He nodded, stared each of us directly in the eye, then ordered the captain to start the Cruise Liner.
“Everyone on the boat” he said, winking at Amber and blowing her a kiss. She blushed, and we all went aboard. A few moments later I heard a roar like I did when the car alarm went off, only a million times worse. Then the thunder of a million feet, then we saw them. Every one of them. Thousands upon thousands, every infected in the city.
The Liner began to pull away from Pier, and I looked at Chicago Ted. What looked like a Claymore hung around his waist, and a chainsaw was strapped to his back. He wielded a M16 and an autoshotgun akimbo, and stood perfectly still as the hordes of zeds rushed through the dieing flames towards him.
I couldn’t even see the Pier itself anymore, I could only see infected. The first thing to reach Chicago Ted was a Hunter. Ted dropped his M16 and caught the Hunter by it’s neck mid-pounce, then he bashed it’s skull against his kneecap, and threw the thing’s corpse into the water. After firing ten shots from his autoshotgun he tossed it to the ground and revved up his chainsaw. Body parts went everywhere in a glorious display of blood and entrails. A Smoker’s tongue darted towards Chicago Ted, but he caught it and gave it a yank, dragging the Smoker towards him. He stomped on the Smoker’s face, then dropped the chainsaw and cut off the tongue with his Claymore and formed it into a lasso.
As soon as he finished, a Tank came raging towards him. Chicago Ted lassoed the behemoth with one hand, and picked up his M16 with the other. Then he leaped onto the Tanks back. He rode that monster through the hordes, all the time unloading round after round into it’s skull. When he had to reload, he put the new cartridge in one side of his mouth, then pulled the old one out with the other, and inserted the new one with his tongue. Eventually the monster keeled over, and Chicago Ted leaped off it’s back into the horde.
He fended off the hordes with a claymore, and a pistol. A Boomer tried to vomit on him, he grabbed the zed by it’s massive turkey-neck, looked it dead in the eye, and tossed it into the water. A clever Smoker wrapped it’s tongue around the Claymore and dragged it away, presumably with much damage to the tongue. Completely unfazed, Chicago Ted grabbed a random zed, pistol-whipped it until it’s neck snapped, then tore off it’s head and through it at the Smoker, who stumbled into the way of a Hunter that was mid-pounce, and they both tumbled off the Pier.
Around this time Chicago Ted began fighting his way back to the pile of propane tanks, and ten Tanks began galloping towards the Pier from the outskirts of the horde. Chicago Ted climbed to the top of the propane tank pile, picking up an Uzi along the way, and unloaded clip after clip into the unending swarm. All the other survivors and I had rushed to the back to watch the showdown, I realized we were all cheering for him.
The final Uzi cartridge ran out, he tossed it away, whipping out his pistol instead. The ten Tanks rushed for him, knocking everything else out of their way. Hunters leaped through the air, only to miss Chicago Ted by a fraction of an inch, Smoker tongues darted out in every direction, bile covered the pier. I counted the shots, Chicago Ted had fired off fourteen, and there was no time to reload. We were almost out of his earshot.
“Who is he?!” Amber asked, in utter amazement.
“He’s Chicago Ted!” I replied.
“AND DON’T NONE OF YOU BITCHES FORGET IT!” Chicago Ted yelled back.
He fired a single shot down at the propane tanks as the Tanks reached him. The entire pier blew up in a fiery inferno, bloodied body parts flying through the air. None of us said a word as the Pier broke down and collapsed into the water, or as vapor rose from the lake. Jack sat down, produced a flask from his pocket and took a swig.
“To Chicago Ted,” he said, and handed it to me.
“To Chicago Ted.”
