Respawn: Nightmare Mode (Respawn LitRPG series Book 4)

by Arthur Stone

  March sipped from his can. His voice was indifferent. “I’m the boss. Everyone wants to punch the boss. Alright, everyone, back to the convoy. We have to get out of here before new friends arrive to check out the exciting noises.”

  Chapter 16

  Life Eight. A Cunning Plan

  “Reload!” Fatso shouted as he leaped back to the side.

  His machine gun had run out of ammo at the worst time possible. Six beasts were in pursuit. Three were slow rafflers that could be ignored. But the others were more mature than tramplers by now. They could catch the convoy, and small arms did little to hurt them. Each had taken several volleys without suffering a hit to their speed. They had been stunned, but not for long. It was enough to keep them from jumping on board, but not enough to shake them.

  Cheater raised his rifle and fired. As expected, it was a direct hit. The first creature, which was noticeably ahead of the others, crashed to the pavement. Immediately jumping up on all fours, it continued running, but now it was in the company of the rafflers. Cheater had shot a high-caliber bullet at it, though not an armor-piercing one. Its knee was now seriously injured and would not bend, and few three-legged monsters could keep pace with a truck.

  Chambering the next round, Cheater hit a second beast in the same way, then went for more ammo.

  Fatso had his machine gun ready to go, now, and fired at the remaining threat. “Should I go take a nap? You do pretty well on your own!”

  The bloodcurdling scream turned Cheater’s head towards Tat, who was reeling away from a peephole. The canvas swelled inward. Huge claws attempted to dig into the tarp.

  He heard the pickup’s heavy machine gun spin up and unleash its metallic death at the attacker. Several bullets only left holes in the tent, causing Cheater to crouch reflexively, but others hit where intended. The mighty monster fell to the road, taking a piece of tarp with him. As the creature rolled, the truck managed to pull off towards the side of the road, giving the artillery vehicle in front a shot.

  One precise round struck the beast just as it was about to rise. It was a solid hit, Cheater concluded from the way the monster collapsed. Either the thing was dead, or it would be lying there immobilized for a long time. They would be well rewarded for the victory, as the monster was nearly an elite. Sadly, they had no chance of gutting it.

  The party’s luck had changed. At dawn, the convoy had increased its speed, and it had been smooth riding. The terrifying land along the border had seemed calm as a pond on a still morning. Moving through one desert cluster after another, their only encounters had been with moderately weak infecteds following the sounds of the engines. Infecteds who were quickly left behind.

  Then, March had suddenly ordered them to stop at a uniquely unremarkable location. Its only quality had been a good view on all sides. Without any explanation, the boss had ordered them to wait three hours in that place. Everyone but those on watch was permitted to nap, and so Cheater had.

  In those three hours, nothing had happened, save for an attack by a lone runner in desperate pursuit of her own demise—and a truck riding by in the distance. None of them knew who might be driving the vehicle, and the binoculars revealed that it appeared to be unmodified. Perhaps a reset had occurred somewhere nearby, and the truck’s driver was taking one final Sunday ride before joining the army of the undead.

  Once the three hours were done, March gave orders to set out. For a time, they backtracked. That caused some lively speculation in the chat, which the boss made no reaction to.

  Then, the ghouls showed up, in all their glory.

  Of course this happened in the most uncomfortable location of all.

  The road narrowed to two lanes and hit a series of curves, and dense thickets crowded in on either side. That’s where they started coming from. The cars had to stick together, and the pickup had no room to maneuver, no ability to slide out to the side and deal with creatures from both before and behind. Frequent bends in the road kept them from reaching a decent speed. They proceeded in cramped single file.

  The sounds of their shooting was heard from a great distance away, and more and more beasts moved to block their way. Some fell to the artillery, but not all. One almost got inside the truck, but the pickup was able to save the situation. Still, the right side of the canopy and the network of thin ropes reinforcing it was ripped to shreds. None of the body armor sewn into it could protect the occupants now. A particularly sneaky creature could be in the back with one leap.

  Fatso assessed the damage in a glance and barked commands. “Tat, hold that gap! Cheater, give her a hand! Roach, come help me out!”

  “I’m almost out of ammo!”

  “Don’t make up for it with words. Cover me while I reload!”

  Cheater reached Tat and pulled down the edge of the wind-fluttered tent, leaned out, and tried to observe what was happening on that side of the fight. His head was nearly torn off by a monster leaping at the vehicle. Although the beast missed his head, it grabbed one of the flapping pieces of body armor. Thankfully, it had not been sewn in securely and ripped off immediately. The infected collapsed to the pavement, its trophy of dubious worth clenched in its claws.

  New creatures emerged from the thicket, but they were no serious threat. The truck would be past them by the time they reached the side of the road. Then, they would be in pursuit, and Fatso and Roach would take care of them. More threatening were those who appeared towards the front of the convoy, or even directly in the road. They would not fall behind without a direct encounter.

  Cheater fired five more rounds, crippling some moderately strong ghouls, and left the rest to Tat. He could not waste the ammo for his sizable rifle on weaklings.

  They broke onto a stretch of wide, straight road once again. The vehicle immediately veered to the side, allowing the artillery truck a shot. Judging by the three hasty rounds chaotically fired backwards, Cheater imagined they had some trouble in the rear. Sadly, the road closed up again and encountered yet another sharp turn.

  What idiots paved a serpentine road on flat terrain?

  A new sound entered the mix. Now the automatic grenade launcher was firing. It had been hitherto silent, for it could only shoot straight ahead, in the direction of the pickup.

  Cheater leaned out as far as possible, trying to see what the grenades were being aimed at. He saw. Realizing the depths of the hell they were driving into, he staggered back and grabbed his pistol, screaming, “Up from above!”

  There was no time to say any more. His glance had given him sight not just of the target the grenade launcher was aiming at but of a very specific obstacle. A railroad bridge was around the bend. It crossed over the road, and was likely used by the infecteds for their migrations.

  Nothing else could explain the sheer number of them up there. They had amassed on the bridge and were in no hurry to leave it and pursue the gun noises. Somehow, they had realized that dinner would be coming to them, right under their feet. All they had to do was wait.

  There was nowhere for the convoy to turn but into the dense thickets, where they would all meet vehicle-stopping obstacles and life-stopping claws. They could not go back without running into the horde pursuing them. That horde was likely just as numerous as the crowd on the bridge. Even on this winding road, dozens of them were visible at most moments. The party did not have enough firepower to destroy them all.

  Continuing forward was the only option. And at all speed, to keep from being buried by an avalanche of undead bodies.

  The drivers pressed their pedals to the metal. Now the anti-aircraft gun let loose with everything it had, ammo shortages be damned. Cheater could not see what was happening, but he guessed that Janitor had turned the gun to the bridge and was emptying as many shells as possible into the vagabonds above. A glimpse of the pickup flashed in the hole in the canopy. For some reason, it went off the road and raced along the grass, its right side scraping the forest’s edge. Georgy had abandoned the grenade launcher and seized his machine g
un.

  Cheater wanted to scream that he was an idiot, that the machine gun would do nothing to help him. But he would not hear, anyway, and the pickup had already lost its trump card: speed.

  Something massive was rushing it from the side.

  The next minute, all thoughts flew out of his head as the truck gave a mighty shudder. That was no bullet, nor an obstacle in the road.

  The first ghoul had landed.

  The canopy swelled inward in several places at once, and by some miracle, one of the beasts rolled directly into the gap, knocking Tat on her back. Cheater successfully placed a bullet right in its spore sac, then began unloading his pistol into the mob on top. Fatso joined the fun with his machine gun. The sun peeked out from behind the clouds, gold rays streaming in through the bullet holes.

  And claw and fang holes.

  Cheater managed to drive a bullet into the gaping mouth of a ghoul, and then the tarp gave way, revealing the sky.

  A dozen bodies rained down, not all of them dead.

  It was time for hand-to-hand combat. Shooting one last time, he reached for his hatchet and triggered Smile of Fortune.

  It was now or never. Either everyone would perish in the fight, or his seconds of luck would help them out.

  Dropping his empty pistol, he hit a squatting monster at the back of its head. He howled as another grabbed his ankle, claws clutching it in a torturous clamp. This one received a blow to the temple. Thankfully it was only a mature runner, and his weak melee attack was enough to split its skull.

  Recoiling, he nearly fell out of the truck. He had no idea why he backed away like that, until the fire of machine gun exhaust blew right past his nose. Despite the risk of friendly fire—or self-fire via ricochet—Fatso was letting a long volley loose at a raffler. Not the strongest of beasts, but a terrifying opponent in melee combat.

  Grabbing the side with one hand, Cheater raised the other over his head, ready to finish off another beast. But none were left alive.

  That was almost a shame. Had he overestimated the danger?

  Perhaps he had triggered Smile of Fortune prematurely?

  Pistol shots rang out. They were no longer behind him—Clown was in the cab, shooting at something. The truck was not armored. Someone was dead in the back.

  Fatso unleased another blind volley towards the roof of the cab. But the vehicle jostled him then, and the machine gunner lost his balance, landing stupidly on his tailbone.

  Cheater crouched down and grabbed his rifle, finger on the trigger.

  And froze.

  What should he shoot? A river of undead beasts were behind, charging from the bridge, nearly upon them. Most of them were weaklings, but there were so many that he could not pick out targets.

  Tat rose, blood streaming from her torn forehead, and joined him in looking behind. She cursed in terror and launched a grenade from a launcher into the horde. Once more she cursed, when the grenade did not explode, and then she kicked Roach. “Idiot! What are you, sleeping?”

  Raising her machine gun again, she unleashed a full burst, then went to reload.

  Cheater was hanging from the side once more and shouted back, “Don’t waste your ammo, we’re in good shape!”

  “Good shape?!” She was hysterical. “Fuck that. There’s a whole army on our tail!”

  “Don’t panic. The road is about to straighten out and we’ll break away from them.”

  The corpse of another infected fell from the roof. Its head was so ridden by bullets that its contents fell out on the way, spilling all over Roach. The man screamed in terror and rolled away, then began grabbing for his gun. Thankfully, he had lost it, so there would be no panicked friendly fire for the time being.

  It was amazing that no one had been seriously hurt, as far as he knew.

  But it wasn’t over yet. Perhaps the road was straight and clear ahead, but more dangers could be waiting for them. The battle under the bridge could be nothing more than a prelude.

  Fatso gave the receding mob of undead the finger and ordered everyone back to their stations.

  “Ready yourselves. If we run into more of them, the fighting will get worse!”

  No one disagreed. The canopy had not been in the best of shape before, but now it looked like a beggar’s last shirt. The trailer could be seen into from all sides.

  Fatso, however, probably had other things in mind. Two of their eleven icons were black. Georgy and Physic.

  The crew of the pickup truck.

  Once infecteds killed a player, they immediately lost interest in the body. A priest had several minutes to resurrect the dead.

  But not in this case. A whole army lay between them and the bridge. Perhaps Tat had exaggerated, and it was more like a regiment, but still. The squad could not break through to the pickup and get them out without suffering more losses.

  It was over. There were nine left in the party.

  One, of course, was impossibly far away.

  Cheater wondered what Kitty was thinking as she saw new faces appear in the party, turn black, and then regain their color.

  Or, sometimes, remain black forever.

  * * *

  March exited the gas station with a sigh. “Dumb store. No beer. Come on, time is running out.”

  “Sometimes we spin our wheels and take naps, other times you say time is running out,” Clown protested. “You know, if we’re in such a hurry, you could have helped refuel the tank instead of your alcoholism.”

  “I’m your fearless leader! I work with my head. You work with your hands.”

  “Well then, what did you get into your head back there, fearless leader?” Roach accused as he fiddled with the artillery truck’s fuel cap. “We’re just stupidly riding back and forth. As if you’ve forgotten which way it is to the border.”

  “I know its distance down to the foot,” March proclaimed. “Well, not everywhere. But in some places. We are currently in such a place. Whenever you worry, remember that I see many things, not just the border.”

  “What makes this place so special that you can see from it?” Fatso wondered.

  “My sense has some... peculiar features. Don’t worry about them. Just know that it does not lead us astray. The closer we get, the clearer I can see many details. We will not drive in circles any longer. I know the route now.”

  “Which way is that?” Roach chirped.

  March waved his hand vaguely.

  “That way. That’s the cluster we need.”

  “‘We’? What do we need it for?”

  “Everything. It’s five miles away. Straight shot. This road leads directly there, almost. I can’t see beyond that ‘almost’—maybe it will turn off, but I hope it gets us where we need to go. That cluster will reboot in fifteen minutes.”

  “That’s your sense telling you that?” Fatso clarified.

  “Yes. As we traveled, I was listening to the area around, looking for an opportunity just like this one. After all, this is the border region. Resets happen here all the time. This cluster is not a small one. It’s about 15 miles long and 8 or 9 miles wile. For the next few hours, there will be no serious infecteds there. They’ve scattered from it, in various directions. We may have just run into a gang of them as they were retreating from the cluster. There were far too many in one place back there, even for a border region. So we have the opportunity to cover about twenty miles without any particular trouble. Then we will be terrifically close to the first border. An hour or two away, perhaps. Unfortunately, nothing in that zone is about to reset, nothing to come to our aid. But we have vehicles, weapons, and my wisdom, with only a short distance to cover.”

  “No one can just speed across a three-region boundary,” Roach provided. “And we are running low on people as it is. Things will only get worse from here.”

  March shook his head. “It’s not getting worse. Only better. Yes, beasts do exist at that point—where do they not?—but there will only be a few of them.”

  “How do you know that?”<
br />
  “That’s just the kind of area it is. Enough questions. I’m the boss, the head of the group, and you’re the hands. And my head knows that there are very few creatures at the junction of those borders at this very moment. I can sense it. Finish refueling and let’s go claim our prizes from the System.”

  Chapter 17

  Life Eight. Rest and Relaxation

  The truck at last finished its long climb and stopped abruptly.

  Roach started bugging Fatso immediately. “Why aren’t we going? Is something wrong with that cluster? March busy vomiting booze?”

  “Who the hell knows?” Fatso answered, but thoughtfully. “The artillery truck has stopped too. March is outside looking at something. Wait...”

  Fatso leaped up and pulled himself in with ease.

  “To hell with you, cockroach.”

  “Did I say something wrong?”

  “You won’t stop bugging me. Now I know how you got your name. And here I thought it was your stink.”

  “The cluster hasn’t reset? Or is something else wrong?” Tat chimed in.

  “It’s a fucking city cluster!”

  Fatso whistled. Roach’s face lit up.

  “What city? A big city?”

  “No idea. But I can see buildings that are more than twenty floors tall. No country town, for sure.”

  “Damn, we’re done for! Why didn’t March tell us it was a city?”

  “Looks like he was surprised himself. I guess he can’t see details like that. But it does really have that sour reboot smell, he was right about that.”

  “Well?” Roach grew more tense, if that were possible. “So we’re going to drive through the city?”

  “Do you have a better idea? March is right: after a reboot of a cluster like this, we have an amazing opportunity to slip through a dangerous section of the borderlands without any problems. Every spare mile we can rack up this close is a gift. OK, the boss is back in the cab. Nothing in the chat, even—we’re heading off.”