Intro scene for Civil Disturbance
I got a feeling in my gut. It happens every time, but this time it's different. This is the feeling that tells me that everything before was just practice. The real thing's coming up.
One moment I'm leaning over to kiss my wife as I push my kid on a swing. A beep of a pager and 15 minutes later I'm strapping on my helmet and adjusting my bulletproof vest. I flick the safety off my mp5 and holster a sidearm. I'm ready. The rest of the unit is ready too. Commander Russel barks orders at us and we pile into the SWAT van.
That's when I first get the feeling, and it only gets stronger as Russel gives the sitrep.
"Listen up." he says sternly. "We don't have full intelligence for this situation, but the risk to civilians is too great so we need to go in hard and fast."
The van starts rolling.
"So here's the intel we got..."
-
He gives the story as best as it can be described. Central Hospital. 10:30 a.m. It's a busy day at the hospital, and it's about to get much worse. There's a lot of 911 calls from the place. Nobody's calm enough to tell it straight but it's obvious that a group of people is attacking the hospital. The cops arrive, surround the building. Some cops go in, only half of them come out. They're keeping a perimeter around the hospital, leading anyone who escapes to safety. But whatever's going on, it's too hot for them, so the call goes out to SWAT.
-
The van rolls through the city streets, siren carving a path through the snarled midday traffic.
"We still have no word on the identity of the assailants or their numbers." says Russel. "It has the markings of a terrorist attack, but nobody has claimed responsibility or issued any demands as of yet. We're not taking any chances with this. At this moment, snipers are setting up at key locations around the hospital. They'll provide cover for entry. We're co-ordinating with two other elements for a simultaneous entry."
The van hits a bump and we grab hold as Russel shifts our attention to a quickly-drawn-up tactical map of the hospital. "We're blue team. We'll be entering through the stairwell on the north side of the main building and clearing up to the third floor. Red team is coming from the roof and clearing down from the fifth floor to meet us in the middle. Green team will come in through the south entrance and clear the main floor."
Car horns blare as we burst through a crowded intersection weaving around anyone who's either too slow or too much of an asshole to get the fuck out of the way.
"Remember, this is a hostage rescue mission first and foremost. The terrorists and the civvies will be pretty close together so check your background before making a shot. You know the drill. This is what we train for."
We screech to a stop amidst a crowd of police cars. The back door of the van swings open and we spill out into blinding camera flashes from a throng of hungy reporters being held back across the street.
"Green team is in position." crackles a voice over the radio.
A thunderous noise from above signals Red team's entrance. I feel the wind from the helicopter blades pushing down on me as it soars to its position over the hospital.
The entire area around the hospital is a tangled mess of emergency vehicles. Police hold handguns and shotguns towards the hospital, behind the cover of their cars. I see two suspects restrained in the back of one car; bloodshot eyes, screaming unintelligible obscenities as they struggle against their restraints. Next to them a police officer with some kind of massive wound on his arm is being tended to by paramedics, behind him a crowd of patients and hospital staff, some injured, all confused and disoriented. A glint of light in the background shows the position of one of the snipers in a neighboring building.
The helicopter finds its spot over the roof of the building, and a rope comes down, followed by a stream of SWAT officers.
"Get in position!" yells Russel.
We break through the line of emergency vehicles and run past three bullet-riddled dead bodies to the entrance of the hospital. Ortiz takes point, next to the doorway, and we line up behind him. Ortiz readies his shotgun.
"Blue team in position." says Russel.
An agonizing ten seconds later, a voice crackles "Red team in position".
The feeling goes away, and I'm perfectly calm. Happens every time when I know we're just about to get going.
Another voice comes in from HQ. "Commence dynamic entry in 3... 2... 1... go!"
-
Connor steps out from behind Ortiz as he fires a shotgun blast into the door handle. Connor pulls the pin out of a flashbang grenade. Ortiz kicks the door open and in it goes. One ear-splitting bang later we're rushing into the stairwell through the cloud of smoke.
Nothing at the bottom of the stairwell. I advance in, gun at the ready, aiming upwards as we advance up the winding stairs.
"Second floor entrance." says Russel. "Bang and enter. Smith, you cover the flank."
We repeat the well-rehearsed entry and emerge into a corridor. I see blood spattered on the floors and walls but no bodies.
"Keep it moving" says Russel calmly.
A voice chatters over the radio. "This is Red Team! Hostile enemy contact!"
There is a sound of muffled gunfire from two floors above us as we turn the corner.
"Two suspects down!" over the radio.
We arrive at the nurses' station, and see even more blood spattered around. A nurse is lying backwards in her chair. Half her face looks to have been ripped off.
"Cover me!" says Russel. He runs up to the nurse, and puts his hand to her neck. "No pulse. Let's keep moving."
Suddenly the nurse jolts in her chair. Her eyes open. "Cancel that. We've got a seriously injured hostage in need of a medivac!"
He grabs the nurse by her shoulder and starts to help her up when she shrieks shrilly and sinks her teeth into Russel's neck. What the fuck doesn't even begin to describe what I'm thinking about this. The gush of arterial blood spray looks unreal. My training kicks in before my conscious mind grasps the situation and I open fire. Two shots to the chest don't seem to even affect the psycho nurse as she bites in deeper. Russel struggles to push her off and they hit the floor together. We rush up to help him. I grab the nurse and pull her away. She whips her head around, Russel's blood all over her face. She shrieks and lunges at me. I try to pull my gun up but she's already on me and I can't move it so I let go and pull out my sidearm. I smash my forehead into hers, and as her head snaps back I take a vertical headshot shot through the bottom of her chin. I push her corpse off of me and look to Russel, who's twitching on the ground. I know he's lost too much blood to live, and I'd have time for this to affect me emotionally if I didn't notice that we'd attracted attention.
They're all around us now, but we haven't opened fire yet because none of them are armed. Patients, nurses, doctors, hospital security guards. All with that same animalistic glare in their eyes, screeching and moaning incoherently, most with limbs missing or gaping wounds that should be fatal. All of them converging on us. I stand up and raise my mp5.
There's a confused mess of desperate shouting over the radio in both directions as the other two teams are losing officers left and right and HQ is trying to figure out what's going on. I barely have a handle on the situation myself and I'm right in the middle of it. The sounds of gunfire around me are deafening as we make a desperate stand against what I keep trying to convince myself aren't fucking ZOMBIES. They surge in on us relentlessly as we try to fall back. I'm in the lead, and I turn around as we reach the corner and come face-to-face with a former doctor. Out of pure instinctual reaction I ram him... no... it with my shoulder into the wall and before it can reclaim its balance I put a bullet through its head.
"Come on!" I yell at the squad, laying down a stream of gunfire at the advancing crowd. "Let's get the hell out of here!"
We're bolting through the hallway towards the stairwell as fast as possible now, minus Smith and Kroeger, who lagged a bit too far behind and are probably now being ripped to shreds. I burst through the door and blast two of the things on the other side. Sounds of moaning and screeching come from above and we hear several more of those things shuffling down the stairs after us.
We burst out the stairwell door, and Ortiz slams the door shut and pushes his weight against it to keep it closed. Soon after the door starts shaking as the things smash into it. I look up and see the helicopter lifting off the roof, three zombies clinging onto it. Two of them fall off but one of them gets inside, suddenly it starts wobbling and spinning, and with horror I realize it's in a downward spiral directly above us.
"Run!" I scream. I break into a sprint, and Ortiz reluctantly dashes away from the door as the helicopter smashes into the ground an angle. First the blades hit the pavement, and one of the broken fragments whooshes dangerously close past me, then the body hits and it erupts into an enourmous fireball, blasting me off my feet.
A second later and I shake the effects of the blast off and see zombies spilling out of the hospital from every available exit. The cops are freaking out and opening fire. That's when I know what that gut feeling was telling me earlier. This is just the beginning of something big, and I've got to keep it together if I'm gonna survive this, or if what remains of my team is going to survive this. I see one of the things running towards me, and I raise my mp5. Let's rock.