Preview:

Hello, guys. I'd like to thank you so much for reading my second Left 4 Dead fic. What follows is a preview of my third and final Left 4 Dead fic; The Midnight Riders. It will be my own take on The Passing, involving all eight of the Left 4 Dead characters and some of my own. Look out for the story "The Midnight Riders", coming real soon!

'Tomorrow marks the first anniversary of the infectious disaster that destroyed the western continents,' spoke the middle-aged newsreader through the old, small television. The image quality was poor; frequently fading away, blurring or cutting out into static. Still, it was the only source of light for what appeared to be a very small cafeteria. There were two tables with small, circular seats attached to them. Lying down over some of these seats was a man wearing a green beret that was tilted over his face. In his mouth was a lit cigarette, the end flame flaring as the elderly man took in a breath of smoke.

'All over the world,' the news reader continued to say to his barely interested audience, 'memorial marches have been arranged in honour of the over one billion people who lost their lives due to the disease. A minute of silence will take place at twelve noon.' The man lying on the seats removed the cigarette from his mouth and let out a chuckle, the smoke drifting up out of his mouth. He leant up and took the nearby remote and switched off the television, leaving the end of his cigarette as the only source of light in the room.

'Son it's gonna take more than a minute to remember the dead,' the man sighed to himself, straightening his beret and standing up, leaving the small cafeteria. Dressed in his favourite army uniform from the Vietnam War, Bill stepped through the doorway and into a tight corridor. The space was scarce and light was low but Bill moved confidently through the corridor of thick tubes and pipes, cables, wires and into a larger room.

The room was a square one, with computers, monitors and consoles surrounding the entirety of the area. In the centre was a large table that had an image on it. The image displayed was a map of their current position. Bill saw that they were close to the east coast of America, approaching North Carolina. There was another entrance to the room, just beyond the table. Stepping through the door was a handsome young man in dark naval attire. He took one look at Bill and his face became angry.

'Bill!' Miguel Doyle spoke angrily. 'You're in a submarine! For God's sake man, you can't keep smoking everywhere!'

'Who's gonna stop me?' Bill asked rhetorically. Miguel stood tall and defiantly before him.

'I will,' he told him. Bill chuckled in response.

'I'd like to see you try...'

'I agreed to take you and your friends with me as a personal favour for Anna Shepherd,' Miguel told Bill. 'Even so, I'm not going to have you disregard the rules on my boat, or petulantly disobey my orders!'

'Making friends, I see?' said Zoey jokingly as she stepped into the room. Bill and Miguel glanced over to her, Bill with a look of slight anger and Miguel having a gaze of moderate seriousness. 'Oh God, Bill, can't you just be nice for once?'

'He started it,' Bill insisted.

'He started what?' Zoey asked.

'He won't let me smoke.'

'We're in a submarine!' Zoey cried.

'Thank you,' Miguel gestured appreciatively to Zoey.

'This isn't over,' Bill looked back to Miguel.

'Oh yes, it is,' Miguel told him, taking the cigarette from Bill's mouth, throwing it to the floor and stubbing it out with his shoe. When he looked up, he saw the venomous glare that Bill was now giving him and recoiled, stepping backward.

'Bill...' Zoey spoke with caution.

'Keep out of this, kid,' Bill told her, stepping close toward Miguel, who matched his pace by stepping backward. 'You want to try something like that again?' Bill asked him. 'Just try it. And I'll do the same to your genitals.'

'Okay,' Zoey spoke up, trying to sound cheerful, stepping in between the two men. 'Maybe it's time we go over the plan again?'

Bill and Miguel exchanged glances. They stared at each other for a few moments, neither one of them wanting to back down. Zoey looked seriously at Bill, using her expression to tell him to back away.

'Fine,' Bill said, stepping back. 'But this ain't over.'

'What isn't over?' asked Francis, who stepped into the room along with Louis.

'Nothing,' Zoey spoke up quickly. 'Nothing at all.' She looked at Louis and smiled at him. 'Hey.'

'Hi,' Louis waved at her.

'Alright,' Miguel composed himself. 'Now that you're all here we may as well go over the plan and the ground rules.'

As the submarine approached the coast, Miguel spoke the plan to Bill, Francis, Louis and Zoey. In theory it was a simple one; find five people. Former United States Secretary of Homeland Security Norah Hanham had been lost in the United States along with a high school gym teacher known as Coach, his mechanic best friend Ellis, a former conman called Nick and a woman whose life was shrouded with secrets named Rochelle. These five people were connected to Bill and his friends, united in their battle against the former director of a now destroyed organisation, CEDA. They needed to bring them back home.

The submarine surfaced off the coast of North Carolina and a small boat was launched from it. Onboard were seven people, four of them being Bill, Francis, Louis and Zoey and the other three being heavily armed soldiers. As they landed on the beach, the team set foot on sand and looked at their surroundings. Everywhere was quiet and desolate.

'My God,' Bill took in a deep breath and sighed. 'It feels good to be back home.'

Standing between them and their goal was a path littered with destruction, tragedy and an infinite number of infected. A year had passed since they had fought the infected, but little did Bill or the others know that the horde had changed over the year.

There were now new infected. And they were stronger.