by Alex P. Berg
“Um…thanks?” I reached over my shoulder for my own firearm. My fingers found the smooth wooden handle, but when I pulled, rather than the rustle of fabric and the clank of gun components, I heard a ring.
I looked down at my hand. “A machete? How come you get a shotgun and I get a machete?”
“You were expecting a Gauss rifle with optional chainsaw attachment?” Paige drew her weapon. “This is the first time we’ve signed in. You’re level one. A machete is standard fare. We’re fighting zombies, after all.”
“You got a shotgun…” I said.
“Yeah. With—” She glanced at her bandolier and cracked her barrel. “—a whopping six shells. Want to trade?”
The light flickered, and I heard a moan, followed shortly by a loud wooden creak. I tried to turn toward the sound, but I found I wasn’t sure where it had come from. The stairs? Down the hallway? Over by the windows?
“That’s okay, “ I said. “You can…”
Keep it, is what I’d meant to say, but the words stuck in my craw at the sight of the undead terror lurking in the shadows at the edge of my vision.
9
The zombie lunged at me with surprising speed, its face a mass of purple, rotting flesh, with one eye missing and a gaping hole in one of its cheeks. Its mouth yawned as it flew toward me, flashing me a handful of yellow teeth.
I danced back and slashed with my machete, catching the zombie’s extended right arm across the hand. Fingers sloughed off and twirled through the air, trailed by thin streams of blood and ichor, but the zombie barreled forth, undeterred. I caught it further up the arm with my return stroke, hearing a wet crack of broken bones and sending more foul blood spraying into the air.
None of it mattered. The zombie plowed toward me as if it had been bitten by an ant, reaching for me with its mauled arm and good one alike.
On a conscious level, I panicked, but my years of professional kickboxer training held firm. As the zombie closed, I pivoted and twirled, sending the heel of my boot into the creature’s unprotected head. A shudder went down my leg as the skull crunched, and the zombie dropped to the floor like a bag of wet sand.
I raised my machete high, eying the zombie for movement.
“Finish it!” said Paige.
She leveled the shotgun at the reanimated corpse, the weapon’s butt firmly pressed into her shoulder and her right eye aligned along the sights.
“I think it’s—”
It groaned and swiped an arm at my leg. I yelped and brought the machete crashing down on its neck, severing head from body. Foul smelling viscera sprayed across my pants.
I looked up at Paige and scowled. “Thanks for the help.”
“Better save that apology and issue me a real one in a few minutes.”
“For what?” I asked.
A loud crash sounded from the direction of the windows. Cracked boards clattered to the ground as decaying, diseased arms pushed through them, thrashing and clawing wildly. Moans and throaty growls poured in though the gaps, as they did from down the depths of the dark hallway.
“For saving my shells,” she said. “Quick. Up the stairs.”
I turned and mounted the steps, the boards creaking under my feet. I made it halfway to the second floor before a trio of discolored corpses careened around the corner at the top, fighting each other and grasping at the topmost banister for purchase.
A sharp crack spilt the air. The zombies collapsed and toppled down the stairs, their heads turned to jelly.
“Five left,” said Paige as she passed me by, cramming another shell into her barrel. “We need a room we can barricade. Quick!”
The roar from downstairs intensified as I reached the top of the steps, and I heard the thump of heavy feet. A zombie roared and lunged at me. I lopped off half its jaw with a swipe of my machete and kicked the rest of it down the stairs. Paige’s shotgun rent the air again, followed by the thump of several more bodies hitting the hardwood.
“Four!”
“In here!” I said.
I dashed into the only room I could see with a working light source, a small bathroom in desperate need of a thorough cleaning. I ripped the shower curtain from its bar, my machete held at the ready, but the tub was empty of anything except lime scale. Paige slammed the door shut behind us, flicking a button on the door handle to lock it.
The first zombie slammed against it almost instantaneously, rattling the door in its frame.
“Now what?” asked Paige.
“How should I know?” I said. “You’re the one who’s apparently well versed in zombie fighting tactics.”
“It’s called conserving ammo,” said Paige. “Shotguns are for crowd control. Isn’t that obvious?”
The door shuddered again. Something moaned, and a hand burst through the flimsy wood, the splinters raking bloody trails along the undead arm.
I shrieked and lashed out with my brush trimmer turned zombie whacker, severing the arm at the elbow with a wet crunch. The liberated arm thumped as it fell to the ground, blood splattering across the grimy subway tile, the fingers still twitching. Though I knew in the conscious, logical part of my mind that I was in the middle of a simulation, my stomach wasn’t so easily convinced. It turned, and I tasted bile.
I forced my snack back down through sheer force of will, the smell of the shambler’s rotting flesh causing me to reel. “Urgh…I think I could do with a little less realism, at least with respect to my non-visual sensory organs.”
Zombies groaned, and the door rattled. Paige stuck the muzzle of her gun in the gap left by the zombie’s overreach and cut loose. A concussive blast rent the air, leaving a mist of sulfurous spent powder in its wake.
“We’ll change the settings later,” said Paige. “No time now. Secure the door!”
I wasn’t sure how she expected me to do that, but I did what I could with my limited resources. I grabbed the shower curtain rod with curtain still attached and jammed it diagonally across the closed door, forcing one end into the sheetrock. Then I tipped a free-standing linen closet across the door in the opposite direction, closing off the hole created by the grabby zombie and hopefully stalling him and his buddies.
Of course, I’d also blockaded us in the bathroom. Luckily, Paige was on the ball. I turned to find her at a window, methodically knocking free boards that had been nailed over it with the butt of her gun.
Whack. Whack. Whack. One of the boards rattled, and a nail fell out. Paige dug her fingernails under the edge and began to pry.
She looked at me over her shoulder as she tugged. “Well? Do something. Either help with the window or look for supplies.”
“Supplies?” I said. “It’s a bathroom.”
“You’d be surprised.” Paige nodded toward the mirror.
I had to remind myself of the game’s archaic setting and the likely building architecture. I pushed on the corner of the mirror to no effect, but when I pulled on it, it swung open. Inside, I found a small cabinet, on one shelf of which was a small plastic bottle and on another a mysterious white box with a red cross on it.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said. “Painkillers and…what is this? A med pack?”
“It’s a persistent trope for a reason,” said Paige as another board clattered to the floor. “Real medical care is slow, painful, and a drag on the action. Besides, we’re in a genre game. You can’t introduce modern medical procedures. It would ruin the ambiance.”
The zombies moaned and beat on the door, but they didn’t seem to be making any progress against the cabinet.
I grabbed the pills and mysterious box. “You’d think people would rather play something new and different in the horror genre. This? It’s stale.”
“And some folks do,” said Paige. “But that’s not what you get in Marked 4 Death. Put the pair in your inventory for later.”
I glanced down at my camo pants, trying to figure out which pocket was best suited for the task.
“No, genius,” said Paige. “Your inventory, not your pockets.”
“I heard you the first time.” I kept staring. “But I’m finding I, ah…don’t know how to do that.”
Paige sighed. “I knew we’d regret skipping the new player orientation.” The door rattled and shook, and a new chorus of moans started up. “Just stick them in your pants. I’ll show you in a moment.”
Paige pulled off another board and knocked the last one loose with a few more targeted strikes. Somehow, the window behind the wooden planks was still in one piece, so Paige flipped the latch, pushed it up, and motioned me over.
“Want to go first?” she said.
I cast my gaze into the abyss. I couldn’t see a thing. “This is the second floor, right?”
“I think so,” said Paige. “Are you worried about turning an ankle?”
“Are you kidding?” I said. “I’ve got a med pack. I’ll be fine.”
I readied myself at the sill, machete still gripped in my right fist. Jumping out a second story window with a sharp, forty-five centimeter piece of steel in my hand perhaps wasn’t the best idea, but I did it anyway. Better to suffer an ignominious death by impalement than be torn to shred by zombies, in my eyes.
I needn’t have worried. I hit the ground lightly, with the machete held out of harm’s way. Another light thump followed me, that of Paige’s feet hitting the damp soil. As my eyes adjusted, no longer blinded by the comparatively bright light of the grime-covered wash closet, I made out Paige’s outline as well as the dull siding of the house. Behind me, bulbous, leafy trees loomed like giants over dark fields of some thick, tall crop—possibly corn. Clouds crept across the sky, blotting out whatever light the stars and moons provided.
Moans and thumps continued to echo out from the open window above us, but no sounds of life or any twisted, undead facsimile thereof wandered over from the surrounding undergrowth.
I shuffled over to Paige and spoke in a low voice, just in case. “So…what now? How do we find Lars’s former party? Does this game have an internal map system?”
Paige reached over and tapped the side of my forehead twice. In response to her touch, a Brain display appeared over my vision, including an empty inventory display, a health bar, a compass, and a minimap.
“I just engaged your HUD,” said Paige, “which you would’ve known how to do if you’d bothered to sit and listen to Johnny Masters’ spiel. You should have a mini map, but you can access the main one through regular Brain controls. You asked about inventory? Activate it, then handle the painkillers and med pack. They’ll digitize, and you’ll see them on your display. You’ll be able to do the same with ammo, but not weapons. With those, you only keep what you can carry.”
“Perfect,” I said, bringing up the main map. “So where do we find Lars’s crew?”
“If you go into the settings on the side of the HUD, you can search for specific avatars,” said Paige. “But that’s going to have to wait until after we head back into the house.”
“Head back in there?” I said. “Are you nuts?”
“Think about it, Rich,” said Paige. “This is a game. You’re a new player. The servenets put you in the standard house opening. Even though they only gave you a machete to start and me a shotgun with six—now three—shells, they’re not that cruel. There should be a stash inside. We need to find it, otherwise we’ll never make it far enough to meet Lars’s friends.”
“So your plan is to head back into the house that’s infested with zombies, armed only with a blade and a shotgun with three shots left, and hope we don’t get our faces torn off before we find some better guns?”
“It’s the only smart thing to do,” said Paige as she loaded the remaining shells into her gun’s breech. “We already roused them. They should be massed at the bathroom door. Easy pickings.”
I wiped a hand across my face. “I can’t believe we’re going to do this.”
“Well, you’d better get used to it.” Paige pumped the shotgun’s action. “We’re just getting started.”
10
I snuck along the edge of the house, my feet making little more than a whisper in the soft, damp soil. Paige crept behind me, her shotgun at the ready.
I paused at the edge of the dilapidated dwelling and craned my neck around the side. A trio of drooping willows slouched lifelessly in the still of the night, moss trailing from their limbs down to the roots below. A flag hung from a pole stuck in the home’s covered porch, its cloth layers folded over one another without any wind to fill its sails. Sweat beaded at my temples, more from the heat and humidity than my own exertion.
I gave Paige a nod and headed toward the terrace. I kept my eyes peeled, but nothing moved. Though I could’ve used a gust of wind to wipe the sweat from my brow, the stillness made my surveillance easier.
A floorboard creaked as I set foot upon it, and I paused, holding my breath. Paige swept the surroundings with her shotgun, but not even a cricket chirped. Carefully, I shifted my bulk up the remaining two steps and to the front door.
I crouched outside it, eyeing the peeling paint and deep gouges that marred its heavy construction.
“It’s manual,” said Paige in a low voice. “You’ll have to turn the handle.”
“I know that.”
I reached out, testing the knob, but the door didn’t give.
“It’s locked,” I said.
“No, really?” Paige nodded toward the side at a window whose boarding had been torn free and discarded. “Try that.”
I made my way there, careful not to step on the broken boards and rusted nails. A ragged hole in the window beckoned with all the charm of a harpy’s embrace. I didn’t catch any movement from within, nor did I smell anything foul wafting my way, but I didn’t drop my guard as I climbed in.
Glass crunched underfoot as I stepped into a study lined with bookshelves, the contents musty and old. A heavy, wooden desk provided the only hiding spot for a zombie, but with its face to me and a glimmer of diffuse moonlight at my back, I deemed its underbelly safe.
Paige joined me, and together we crept to the room’s lone door. Paige reached for the handle. I stopped her with a hand to her forearm.
“What is it?” she said.
“This game is known for its realism, right?” I said. “You know, other than your standard inventory, medicine, and food and beverage related tropes, correct?”
Paige nodded. “Where are you going with this?”
“It’s hot. Humid. Old house. Creaky wooden steps.” I pointed at the door’s hinges.
Paige smiled. “And here I thought you wouldn’t even know what those were.”
“I may not be able to operate a coffee machine on my own, but I’m familiar with how pre-actuator driven doors work.”
“And you happen to have some lubricant on hand?”
“Perhaps,” I said. “It all depends on how good this simulation is.”
I switched my machete to my left hand and raked my hand through my hair, my fingers meeting resistance from the pomade. I worked my fingertips against the substance. When I pulled them back, I tested them against one another. They stuck.
Paige smiled again. “Don’t ever let anyone tell you you’re a dolt, okay?”
“Remind yourself,” I said. “You’re usually the instigator.”
I smeared the pomade over the door’s three hinges, hoping the greasy substance would do its job, then wiped the remainder on my pants before securing my blade back in my dominant hand. Paige hefted her gun and gave me another nod.
I pulled.
Silence. It was golden.
Paige took point, heading up the entranceway and over to the living room we’d so recently escaped. The lamp still shone weakly, illuminating a mob of zombies at the top of the staircase, all of them amassed around the bathroom door. Paige held up a fist, then pointed two fingers at the mob. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I kept my mouth shut, gr
ipped my machete tight, and followed her close.
Up the stairs we went. One step. Two.
The zombies moaned and pounded on the bathroom door.
Three steps. Five.
More moaning. The zombie stench thickened.
Three quarters of the way up the stairs. A zombie turned.
Blast. Pump. Blast.
A dozen walkers crumpled to the floor, their bodies torn to shreds by buckshot. A couple tumbled down the stairs, while others flopped to the ground like dying fish. Not a one remained.
“Huh,” I said as I loosened my grip on my machete and brought my arm down. “That was surprisingly easAAHH!”
A zombie lunged at me from out of a bedroom, latching onto my flak jacket with superhuman strength. I brought my hands up for protection, pushing the zombie’s snarling face away with my left while driving the machete into its midsection, but not before the creature’s momentum sent us toppling down the stairs.
The zombie’s snarling muzzle hovered in front of my face as the room swirled around me. An inhuman scream assaulted my ears. Hot breath attacked my face while I bounced off the steps. Pain blossomed in my side and arms, and I feared the crunching might be from my own bones rather than the wooden planks underneath.
We slammed into the ‘L’ near the bottom of the stairs, causing the zombie to lose his grip and me to lose my machete. He rolled and slammed into the couch while I lingered several steps from the bottom.
My head swirled. My body ached. The zombie moaned and clawed at the ground, trying to orient itself. Paige followed down the stairs.
“Shoot it!” I said.
“Not yet,” said Paige. “I’m down to my last shell.”
“And our last zombie.”
“Not quite.”
A trio of moans erupted from around the room. Another walking corpse appeared from the entrance hall. A second surfaced from behind one of the couches. A third turned the corner from a door near the back.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” I said.
The zombie who’d joined me on the staircoaster rose and dove at me. I punched him in the face, grabbed my machete, and ripped it free from his chest before sending my boot crashing down onto his diseased melon. It crunched. Bits oozed out, and I gagged.