Ghouls'n Guns

by Jared Mandani

  “Come on, we need to go,” Zeke said.

  They heard a crash and the sound of billowing air. The warehouse had clearly just collapsed. The flames would spread. Even now, Davidoff could feel their intense heat. They needed to leave before the whole compound caught alight and trapped them in the inferno.

  ***

  As they left, the flames billowed out, roaring and licking at the concrete block. The concrete itself splintered and cracked, and Davidoff and Zeke had to hurry, their HP dipping by 5 points every second until they got clear of the blaze. Then, as they ran out through the gates, the block’s wall closest to the fire collapsed inwards and half of the structure toppled down.

  “And this is an early level!” Zeke exclaimed, incredulous, as they got outside the compound. “What are the top tier missions going to be like?”

  Davidoff shook his head, agreeing. Although they had admittedly not been that challenged yet, finding their way out of each fight without sustaining too much damage, the spectacle had been something else. The sense of danger had been ever present, the gore had been all too real and the sickness of the eldritch monsters was genuinely frightening.

  “Look, there’s a garage over there,” Davidoff said, pointing down the street. “We should be able to get hold of a new car in there. And we can check out this map, too. I don’t think we can complete this mission until we get the blood sample to Dr. Finkelstein.”

  “You’re right,” Zeke agreed. “Come on, then.” He began to jog over to the garage, and Davidoff followed, relieved as the intense heat from the burning factory fell away behind him.

  The garage was locked up. There was a shutter at its front, rolled down and padlocked, but Zeke took care of that. He bent down and picked the lock, rolling up the screen. “Jackpot,” he said when they discovered what was inside.

  A great monster of a 4x4 dominated the garage. Its engine was exposed, with a few pieces clearly missing, but with everything on hand, Zeke said he could get it running in no time. “It’s what I’m good at,” he told Davidoff, smiling.

  So, they turned on a couple of lights and rolled the shutter back down to stop themselves from being too visible whilst they were here, and got down to business.

  As Zeke worked on the engine, piecing it back together and fitting new parts that he found lying about the garage, Davidoff rummaged through the whole place, searching for supplies. He found another med-kit in a cupboard, alongside a large sledgehammer—slow and unwieldy to use, but with a formidable +50 Damage bonus—that he thought Zeke might like to use as a melee weapon. He found a box of cash in the office and counted it out: $130 all in, enough to tide them over for a bit should they need it.

  There was a pair of steel-toed work boots in the office. They were hardier and tougher than his own, with +20 Defense thrown into the bargain, so he took his off and swapped them out. There was also a blow torch, a couple of head-mounted flashlights and a couple of boxes of power tools—a drill, a circular saw and an electric screwdriver—which he took and added to the rest. It could all come in handy, he thought, and he loaded it into the 4x4’s trunk as Zeke finished the repairs.

  Finally, he saw a shotgun beneath the garage’s counter. It was fully loaded and he dug up a box of new buckshot rounds in the counter’s draw. The weapon would cause Damage 100 or so, depending on the quality of the aim and how much of the shot hit home. “Perfect,” he muttered to himself, and slung it over his back, emptying the box of spare rounds into his coat pocket. His pistols were great in a close firefight, but this would pack a bit more punch.

  “Right,” Zeke said, rolling himself out from under the car. His armored vest, his arms and face were all smeared with engine oil, but he was grinning with the satisfaction of success. “I think we’re good to go.”

  “Nearly,” Davidoff replied. He had just spotted two canisters of gas. If they were to go up into the forest, there was no telling when they would get to either refuel or find another car again. He lugged them over and put them on the back seats and nodded. “Now we’re ready. Do you want to drive or shall I?”

  ***

  Zeke drove as Davidoff sat in the passenger seat, his pistols loose in their holsters should they be needed. The 4x4 was powerful, churning through the streets and across every crossroads with a low moan. A couple of groups of zombies staggered into their path as they drove, attracted by the noise and uncomprehending for their own safety. Each time, rather than steering around them, Zeke cackled loudly and put his foot down on the accelerator, plowing through them and sending them flying. The 4x4 rocked and bumped, and the fender took a couple of knocks, but it careened onwards regardless as they painted the streets red with the zombies’ pale blood and dismembered body parts.

  As they passed an old supermarket, they met a giant, brown bear rooting through the bins outside. The bins were massive, industrial things, eight feet high and made of steel. The bear’s large forepaws held onto the rims and its snout worked inside, clearly looking for food. Then, as the 4x4 drew level with it, it turned, its nostrils dilating over and over as it scented them.

  Davidoff swore loudly and stood up, pushing his body through the open sunroof and readying his new shotgun, bringing it up to shoulder height. The bear was blind; a great wound had been slashed across its face, wrecking both its eyes. The wound was new and open, puffy around the edges and bleeding still. Its fur was matted and it had various cuts to its bodies, all of them vicious looking. “I don’t think it’s a zombie!” Davidoff yelled down to Zeke as Zeke worked the pedal, speeding up. “I just think it’s been roughed up a bit!”

  Sure enough, it seemed furious. Its instincts had taken over from the pain it must be feeling and everything it did was for survival. Its nose worked once more, twitching in their direction as they passed it by, and then it lowered itself down onto all four paws. Davidoff swore again, squinting as he aimed. The bear broke out into a canter, then a full, headlong run, following them from twenty five feet away and closing in fast.

  Davidoff took a look at its stats. They were comparable to the large ghoul they had fought on the bridge. A few swipes of its large claws would turn their 4x4 inside out. Those jaws would crush Davidoff and Zeke with ease and, in its fury, it would do so without a second look. Though its eyes were gone, it was still ferocious, and it was still easily able to follow them with its nose and ears. Even wounded as it was, it had an HP of 568 / 750, and enough resistance to make anything but a straight shot all but useless.

  But all I need to do is stop it from chasing us, Davidoff thought. With this in mind, as Zeke swerved along through the empty city streets, Davidoff aimed his first shot at the bear’s head. He squeezed the trigger and fell backwards against the sunroof’s lip. The shot missed, however, the buckshot scattering wide as the 4x4 swerved and jolted. He pumped the shotgun and reloaded, bringing it back up to his shoulder.

  The next shot was more successful; he caught the bear full in its front, right hand shoulder with a scattering of buckshot. It only took 45 HP, but it clearly hurt the beast. The bear roared and began to limp a little, clearly favoring its other side as it slowed its pursuit just a little.

  Davidoff fired three more rounds, pumping them all straight into that cantering body as it charged them with increasing fury. He caught the right hand shoulder once more with one, missed with another and just glanced the left shoulder with the third. The bear was angrier than ever, roaring its head off now, but it was losing blood and it seemed to be in almost too much pain now. It could do nothing but slow down, allowing the 4x4 to pull ahead.

  Davidoff had one last round left in the chamber. He loaded it, aimed at the bear’s left shoulder and squeezed the trigger. With a flash, he saw a spray of blood shooting out of the bear’s neck and upper back as the buckshot flayed through skin and fur, aggravating it and hurting it.

  It was enough. The bear slowed so much that they began to leave it behind. No longer able to smell them so well, it jogged to a standstill and th
en fell silent, allowing them freedom to flee from it properly.

  Davidoff dropped back down into his seat, panting hard from the effort and the stress. He fished six shells from his pocket, not knowing how many he had left after that, and began to put them into the shotgun’s chamber. Zeke drove them outwards through the suburbs, following the map from the lab. It showed them a road they needed to take from the north side of the city, up into the wooded mountains beyond, and they made their way to it through the quieter suburbs.

  “It’s up ahead,” Davidoff said, reading off the map as he put the final cartridge into his gun. “Just across that flyover, there.”

  However, as they turned off from the last of the city streets and onto the highway that they needed, a couple of deer staggered out in front of them. One was a massive, swollen buck with crooked antlers, snapped in some places. Both of them turned to face the 4x4, impassive. Their faces were ragged, with clumps of flesh falling from them, and the doe had a large gash gored across her side. Guts trailed out of the gash, plastering to her wet fur.

  Zeke swore, swerving around the buck. The 4x4 skidded in a wide arc, crashing through the buck with one side before snaking and juddering past. The buck’s body crushed the door behind Davidoff’s own, then flipped over the car’s roof to land in a heap of broken bones behind them. Davidoff checked the rear view mirror as Zeke managed to get the car under control. The doe was nuzzling into the buck’s broken body, beginning to grind her teeth over a meaty bone which stuck out of its body. Then, as they got onto the highway to leave them behind, Davidoff saw the buck shudder and stand, lopsided as its whole left side was mangled. It staggered some more and managed a couple of steps before disappearing as the highway turned upwards, into the mountain road.

  “God,” Davidoff said. “If the zombies, ghouls and warlocks don’t get us, the damned animals will!”

  “I know,” Zeke muttered, keeping his eyes ahead. They twisted around on the road, snaking upwards. Great, tall ferns rose on every side, marching along beside them higher and higher as the altitude climbed. Far off, they could make out the mountaintops rising against the dingy sky.

  “It’s just over the second ridge, there,” Davidoff said, reading off the map. Just then, they saw a couple of signposts.

  WARNING: MILITARY INSTALLATION AHEAD.

  MILITARY PROPERTY: NO TRESPASSING.

  “That must be it,” he said. “We should be there soon enough.” Zeke nodded, keeping his eyes firmly on the road.

  ***

  As they drove along a wide well-compacted dirt track through the woodland, both Davidoff and Zeke were surprised at the beauty all around them. Leaving the city and the unnatural, warping energies therein, nature seemed to be reasserting itself. Green, bountiful trees rose up on either side, standing thickly all together with a vibrancy that neither had expected in this game.

  It was a juxtaposition to everything else they had seen in this world so far. Such lush nature had no place in the same game as the desolate ghost town below, in the mountains’ valley, in which the ghouls, zombies and warlocks were forever bloodthirsty and brutal. If anything, the lavish forest made all that seem harsher still. It granted the two friends a reprieve from the darkness; it gave them time in which to think about how cruel the world below had become under the bio-sorcery’s influence.

  In time, they came to a more open portion of the woodland, seated high on a jagged peak which thrust outwards from the mountain range’s main body. They saw a winding track leading up the peak and a cluster of utilitarian buildings at its top.

  A perimeter fence surrounded the peak, with its gates closed and padlocked. Barbed wire ringed the fence’s top, twenty feet above them, and the fence itself was chain linked and imposing. However, there was a small hut next to the gate. “We should take a look in there,” Davidoff said. Zeke grunted his agreement and pulled up beside it.

  They both climbed out of the 4x4, their guns at the ready. Davidoff had his luger in his left hand, having slung his shotgun over his back, whilst Zeke left his rifle in the car and kept his hand tight around the handle of his revolver, his knuckles bright white.

  A wicked wind blew, realistic and chilling, undercutting the beauty all around them. “The sensations are almost too real,” Davidoff muttered, repeating himself.

  “Come on,” Zeke said, ignoring his comment. “Let’s get this sample to the doctor, if he is even in there. Then we can log out and leave it until tomorrow. I’m getting tired, anyway.”

  Inside the little hut, they found a dilapidated comms system for communicating with the main building. There was also a key switch for opening the gate, though the key was missing. “But it’s all shot, anyway,” Zeke muttered, swearing to himself under his breath. He was right. Everything was dented and broken. It was all in a quite advanced state of disrepair. Wires poked out in several places, rust was evident everywhere and a few panels had fallen off some of the casings, exposing the inner workings to the elements.

  “There’s no power, either,” Zeke complained. Then he brightened, following a piece of cabling with his eyes. It snaked across the back of a desk and then through a box in the wall. He dashed out of the hut and around to its back. Davidoff followed him, knowing that his friend was excited: he thought he could fix it up and get them inside.

  He was right. There was a working generator around the back and the cabling was loose, fraying at the ends. There was blood streaked over the generator and it looked as badly off as everything else, like it had seen its fair share of violence and action. “But it’s good to go,” Zeke crowed. He bent down with a couple of tools and began to fix up the wiring, cutting off the ruined pieces, streamlining them and then hooking them back up to the generator before wrapping it all in tape.

  As Zeke worked, Davidoff saw his XP rise by a couple of points. He got a point when he repaired the wiring, two points when he managed to fix it back up to the generator, and another four points when he got the little petrol motor running. “We have power!” he said.

  Then they both dashed back into the hut and Zeke carried on as Davidoff covered him. Zeke bent down over all the kit, screwdriver, wire cutters and tape in hand, and began to patch it all back together. As he worked, Davidoff squinted all around. The horizon ended in trees and everything seemed peaceful enough. The military base up above them, at the peak’s summit, seemed equally quiet, all of it peaceful and clear.

  However, after a couple of minutes, as Zeke hammered away at a piece of casing, his XP rising all the time with each menial little task, Davidoff detected movement in the tree line. “Keep going,” he told Zeke. “I’ve spotted something out there. Could be nothing, but I’m going to check it out.”

  “OK, then,” Zeke muttered. He checked on his revolver and tucked in its holster beneath his vest. “Go on, I’ll keep at it,’ he said.

  Davidoff holstered his luger and brought out his shotgun once more. Hopefully, if it was bad news, he would be able to get off a couple of shots before getting into melee. I will weaken them and then I can tear them apart, he thought to himself grimly.

  He pumped a cartridge into the chamber with a loud, ominous click, and strode out to the part of the treeline at which he had sighted the movement. He brought the shotgun up to his shoulder, aiming it squarely at the bushes as he approached. “Who’s there?” he called out, his voice bombastic, more confident than he actually felt.

  There was a roar, high-pitched and alien sounding. It was terrifying, and Davidoff squeezed the trigger. His shotgun exploded, the muzzle barking, as a shape leapt out from behind a tree trunk, aiming straight for him.

  The shot caught it in the chest, flooring it. It landed, skidding and rolling, before balling up at his feet. Davidoff immediately felt two XP points being added to his counter. He would check his XP total out soon enough, before they quit the game. No doubt he would be able to buy himself some decent upgrades to try out tomorrow.

  The beast at his feet was a ghoul,
though it was quite unlike the others. This one seemed weak. It was clearly half-starved and it was close to death even before it had attacked. Davidoff saw its characteristics and found that it was relatively harmless, with an attack Damage of 20 and an HP of 35 / 280. As Davidoff watched, its HP began to drop slowly even more. Within ten seconds it was down to 30.

  He kicked it with the steel toe of his boot, rolling it onto its back. He threw the shotgun over his back and pulled out his pistol, pointing it two handed straight at the creature’s head. “No, no,” the ghoul whispered. It had once been a woman, tall and lithe, Davidoff thought. But now it was a shrunken monster.

  “Please,” the ghoul whispered. “I meant no harm… I have just been so scared.”

  “Scared of what?” Davidoff demanded.

  “The rest of my kin… they have a plan… to kill you all.”

  “I had noticed. You have all been trying to kill my friend and I since we arrived,” Davidoff replied.

  “No, no… that is different,” the ghoul said. It was bleeding worse now and its HP was approaching 10. “That is at it is meant to be… for the… game…” it whispered. Its eyes closed and its head lolled back on its neck, less than half-conscious. Its HP ticked down to 8 and it sighed. “This is… bigger…” it said, barely audible now in its weakness. “They all plan to… kill… for autonomy…”

  It closed its eyes and passed out entirely. Its HP ticked downwards until it was dead and Davidoff received an extra boost of XP points for having killed an enemy. However, he was unsettled. He peered out into the trees and saw nothing. Nothing was amiss, nothing was moving out there.

  “What was all that?” Zeke asked him a couple of minutes later, meeting Davidoff outside the hut. “I heard the gunfire. A ghoul?”

  “Yes,” Davidoff replied.

  “So why do you look so uneasy?” his friend asked, frowning.

  “I don’t know,” Davidoff replied. “There was something about it… something unsettling. I think there is more at work here than just the game narrative.”