by David Payne
Ravenous and murderous jaws sank into faces, throats, arms and legs, multiple spurts of blood shot into the air as jugulars and other arteries were bit open. It looked like several red fountains had just been set off across the plains, watering the grass in a deadly deluge of red rain.
“Aaaaaaah! Oh god please save me! Get them off…” Eye-patch’s words were quickly cut off as his throat was torn apart along with the rest of him, his post-apocalyptic bad ass avatar soon reduced to a pile of bones and offal.
It was disgusting to watch, though I couldn’t take my eyes away. And those screams. I actually felt a sense of relief as the feeding frenzy finally silenced them all. Pain-game was no melodramatic moniker.
One player ran out to the runners, waiving his AK in front of him.
“Eat some lead motherfuckers!”
He fired, keeping his finger on the trigger, pumping his clip into the horde. I thought everyone would have watched enough movies to know you had to go for the head shot to kill a zombie, but this guy seemed intent on rock and rolling with his gun. The runners kept feeding as he fired uselessly into their torsos, the ghouls indifferent to the bullet holes appearing in their bodies. His clip was empty in less than five seconds. Now some runners were finishing their meal and rising to their feet.
“In real life”, said Ted, “you fire on full automatic and your clip empties in less than five seconds. Kids these days, all your goddamned education about fire arms comes from the movies.”
Like the no touch masters, this player could not comprehend that his supposed weapon of mass destruction had emptied in less than five seconds and left him defenceless, despite the fact that he must have been told about that if he had chosen firearms ability. Perhaps the mechanics of movie guns were just too deeply ingrained into him. He took out another clip, but his hands were shaking and he ended up dropping it to the ground. The runners were upon him. Another body swarmed, more screams, more spurting red.
My brain kicked into gear.
“Fuck we need to do something. We have the stat over each zombie individually, but how do we take on the whole horde?”
“Ok kid”, said Ted, “now you’re thinking, we take on individuals, not the horde, and we punch our way through.”
Ted raised his voice so those around us could hear.
“Ok listen you fucks. You aren’t in your bedrooms touching your own dicks anymore. You want to get through this to, you listen to me. The kid here says we got the stats over individual Z’s, so we drive through, close quarter combat. This is how we do it, we form two circles, one on the outside, one on the inside. Outside circle kills anything that isn’t breathing. You stab, club or hack those fuckers with whatever you’ve got. We keep moving forward. When you’re tired, the man behind you on the inside circle takes your place, you got me? Let’s move people!”
Some ignored him, telling him to go fuck himself, that they weren’t here to listen to some old timer, that they were here to kick some zombie ass. Me, I was here to win this game and take that prize, and right now the smart thing to do was follow Ted. How I would beat him in this game would be a worry for later.
Ted started grabbing a hold of people randomly and shoving them into place, others joining of their own accord. Soon we had out two circles, outside and inside, wielding nails, knives, axes, swords, spears, and guns ready to use as clubs.
I was right next to Ted on the outside circle, the elf woman Sara was two people down to my left. Next to me I had a guy with an axe. I wasn’t sure that was the best weapon but it was too late to change now.
“Here we go people! Contact! Show no mercy, keep moving forward, now!”
And then they were upon us. One was coming right at me, snarling, biting, reaching, his fingertips almost on my chest, his mouth open to reveal a row of rotting and bloody teeth ready to sink into my flesh…
“Aaaaah!”
I cried out loud as I shoved my nail right into the ghoul’s eye the, piercing through the cornea with a sickening squelch, driving deep into his brain, my knuckles now right on his fetid eye socket. In the bottom right of my vision a green circle turned to red, and the zombie slid of my nail and fell to the ground lifeless.
A zombie had no mana of course, that was why there was no bar that went up or down. He was either dead or alive-so to speak. Words flashed at the bottom of my screen.
Zombie kill count: 1
Fuck yeah, my first kill. Something welled up inside me, the fear was pushing up through my body and transforming into something else; an excitement, a vigour, a feeling that I was a motherfucking zombie killer.
“Yeah!” I roared. “Bring your dead asses to me, who wants some huh?”
To my side the big guy with an axe was cleaving heads in two, literally bringing his axe down and splitting heads apart just like wood on a chopping block, the brains and gore spilling down over the zombie’s clothes or naked bodies before they fell.
To my other side at the front of the circle, Ted was stabbing away, aiming for the eyeballs with his kitchen knife, just like I was, getting right into the brain.
Our circle was soon completely surrounded, all sides seeing action, but we were dropping them like flies.
“Oh you want some do you?”
The next one came at me. I shoved my nailed fist into his face. One, two, three stabs into his eyeballs, the gore splattering my face and some getting in my eyes as the thing dropped. Fuck, I was having the time of my life.
“Don’t waste any actions, conserve your energy”, said Ted as he stabbed away at the oncoming horde. “Watch out for the bodies falling in front of you, remain aware of surroundings at all times!”
I heard his words, but I was in a killing frenzy. Soon so much blood was running down my face it felt like I’d been caught out in the rain. I was a stabbing machine, a warrior drunk with bloodlust. I wanted to murder every last one of this horde, I wanted the blood splatter on my face. Stab, stab, stab. Green to red, green to red, green to red.
Zombie kill count: 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 23…
This what they called being in the zone. My world was killing and nothing else, I was the motherfucker with the highest score, I and nobody else was winning this game, I was…
“Kid lookout!”
Thump! I was on the ground. What the hell? I had fallen over one of the fallen zombies. Shit!
I made to scramble to my feet. I could see Ted looking to me, but he was busy knifing the zombies in front of him and could not come to my rescue. I had fallen out of the circle. I was briefly aware of the sun shining right in my face, before the burning ball in the sky was replaced by burning red eyes, mottled grey skin and dagger teeth.
Instinctively I held up my magazine covered arm, and he sank his teeth into the glossy pages. It worked, no mana loss, my light armour had done its job.
“Aaaaaaaaah!”
Searing pain shot throughout my body as I felt teeth clamp into my thighs. I was dimly aware of my mana bar shooting down, before I felt more teeth, and more pain on my unprotected bicep. They were swarming all over me, just like I had watched them do to the no touch masters. A rabid face was right in mine, claws were now digging into my flesh, and then there were jaws on my throat, cutting off my screams. The world went dark.
_________________
I was in darkness with red flashing letters in front of me.
You are zombie food! You have two lives left. Do you wish to continue from where you left off? You have twenty seconds to decide.
Jesus. The pain. The terror. My head was swimming.
Goddamn it. Killed on level one. How could I have let that happen? Fuck.
“Yes”, I said. “I want to continue.” Of course I wanted to continue.
The black disappeared and I was in the mix again. Gunshots, moans, blood splatter, severed heads flying through the air, blood curdling screams, raging red undead eyes, and the maniacal eyes of the living as well.
I had come back to life-so to speak-and this time I was on the insi
de of the circle. My place on the outside had been taken by the guy who was behind me. He briefly acknowledged my presence just before he brought his massive club down onto a zombie head, squishing it like a watermelon, the blood and brains hitting me even though I was standing several feet away.
“Good of you to join us again”, he said.
The circle was slowly but surely pushing through the horde. We were like a slow moving bullet, puncturing this writhing mass one undead at a time. I could see the others had learned from my mistake and were being careful not to trip over the undead at the front of the circle.
I could see Sara, the elf woman whom I had got the impression would not say boo to a goose. She was on the outside circle, stabbing like a madwoman, covered from head to toe in red as if she had been thrown into a bath of blood. If I was not mistaken, that was a smile on her face. I knew the feeling, I had just been experiencing it a few seconds ago. In the zone, in the flow, more alive than you had ever felt in your real life, killing anything that got in your way. She was a beast, a zombie killing bad ass. It was like they said, it was the quiet ones you had to watch out for.
I looked through the circle to see what else was happening. I could make out helicopter gun man amongst the horde. It appeared he was going to down with the new found love of his life in his hands. There was a circle of zombies around him that had been reduced to pieces of skin and flesh with his one thousand rounds, but now he was out of ammo, the barrel spinning uselessly as the undead horde sprang upon him, the gun far too heavy and cumbersome to act as a club.
“Back at it kid?”
It was Ted, on the inside of the circle, taking a rest, covered in splatter.
“Yeah.”
“You came back after those fuckers made a meal of you-they got me not long after you fell, so I’m down a life too. I’m guessing not too many players wanted to keep playin’ after they found out what it’s like to have Z eat you alive. You fucked up, by you got heart kid.”
I didn’t really give a shit about heart, I was pissed that I had already fucked away one of my three lives.
“What are those?” Asked Ted. I had just noticed them myself.
Scattered among the horde were bright yellow arrows right above the head of some of the zombies. Some said, ‘Agility point’, some said ‘Stamina point’, some said “Mana points’. One said ‘Extra Life’, but what was below that arrow caught my attention just as much.
It must have been over seven foot tall, a huge, hulking, slavering monster amongst the horde, the skin hanging off his naked torso.
The stats appeared in the bottom right of my vision
Hulk Zombie
Level 7
Mana – N/A
Strength: 20
Endurance: Infinite
Speed: 5
Agility: 4
Willpower: Infinite
Intelligence: 3
It was so tempting. His stats showed he was far too strong for me, that he just had to get a hold of me and he would crush my skull like an orange, but fuck it was so tempting, I had the edge in speed, ability and intelligence, and goddamn it, I didn’t want to leave level one with less lives then I started with.
“What’s the arrow say? Is that extra life?”, said Ted. “Don’t even think about it kid. Risking another life to gain a life. You want to leave this circle you’re on your own.”
The hulk must have been about ten feet away, and was actually moving away from us, which we should have been partially thankful for, but it pained me to see an extra life departing, and the chance of a challenge that could see me level up. But Ted was right, there was no way I could fight through the horde to get to him, and even if I did, I would be so tired several of my stats would have taken a severe dip. Fuck it. I really did hope there were other hulk zombies to come in this game.
“My mana’s getting low, the guy in front of me shouted, “my arms are getting tired, I’m gonna need a rest, you ready?”
I nodded my head. Payback time, and this time I was going to watch my feet. Ted slapped me on the back as I took my place, nail hand at the ready, and began dropping zombies one after the other, staying calm, staying focused.
All around me we were maintaining a rhythm. Zombie approach, stab, retract, zombie approach, stab, retract. Keep an eye on surroundings, keep an eye on mana, when tired and mana down, switch, rest, recover. Repeat.
“Day light at the end of the tunnel folks”, shouted Ted. He was in the outside circle again. “We’re almost there. Keep pushing, keep pushing.”
And then we were through. The bullet had went right through the body and come out the other side. There was only green grass in front of us. Ee had done it. Now all the zombies at the back of the horde were turning their attention to us.
Zombie kill count: 49
No wonder my arms were tired, and my mana was down to seventeen.
“Ok we’re free and clear, let’s go!” Said Ted.
Thankfully there were no runner zombies at the back of the horde, all the runners had burst through to the front and were now feasting on other players, so we only had to break into a light jog to escape our undead pursuers.
“RPG, take cover!”
I was thrown to my back as a huge explosion suddenly hit, I was staring up at the sky again, my ears ringing. Then Ted was pulling me up to my feet and pushing me forward.
“No time to lie around kid, fuck, everybody wants us dead, we need to get the fuck out of here.”
I actually hadn’t been seriously injured and looked back to see what had happened. I was looking at burning grass and body parts strewn all over the place. But those body parts would not be lying there long, the zombies were arriving to clean up the mess.
And then Sara materialised near where the explosion had taken place, a furious look on her face as she looked around her, and then sprinted to join us.
I looked to the right of me to a see a figure in the distance, with what looked to be the RPG in his arms, before he turned and ran, away from us, and away from the approaching horde.
“What the fuck? Son of a bitch want take out all the competition already?”
“He’s probably a player-killer”, I said to Ted. Gets his kicks from killing other players, or there could be hidden elements to the game we don’t know about it.”
“Player-killer huh?”
“No others wanted to continue?” I asked Sara as she caught up.
“I guess not. Either they’re perma-dead or getting eaten and blown up in the same day was just too much. Either way, looks like it’s just the three of us.”
We soon put some distance between ourselves and the horde, and found ourselves standing at the top of the hill, looking back down at the scene.
I thought I could make out a small circle of players copying our strategy, but their circle was small, it could have been no more than four or five, and they were in the middle of the horde. I was sure I saw one of them go down. It was doubtful they would make it. Some players were heading for the yellow arrows, like magpies to shiny objects, drawn by gamer instinct to more points and extra lives, swiftly meeting their first, second, or third demise.
“I guess that culls the playing field somewhat”, said Sara.
Indeed it did.
________________
“So what exactly is the objective of this game anyway you think?”
Sara had been chatting with me as the three of us walked. There was a vast green expanse before us, and all we could think to do was just keep heading forward.
“Just keep going forward, and shoot or stab whatever is in front of you. That’s pretty much has always worked for me.”
Sara smiled at me, and I could not help but give a little smile back. She had chosen an attractive avatar, of that there was no doubt.
“So are you like, female in real life?”
“Ha ha! Are you thinking I’m a sweaty three hundred pound guy?”
“Well, when it’s an attractive avatar, I like to think…” I
stopped. What was I saying?
“My avatar is attractive? Why thank you. You’re not so bad yourself. You got that whole bad ass look about you, very original.”
We walked in silence for a minute or so.
“So what brought you to Deadhead?“ She asked.
“Money and winning”, I replied, feeling able to give her the honest answer. “You?”
“I dunno, sounded interesting I guess”. She shrugged her shoulders. It was a slightly odd answer, considering this game was run by the mob and involved the experience of pain that was just like real life. I was just about to ask her what was up, when Ted stopped.
“We got company”.
There was somebody up ahead approaching. They appeared to be on a walking stick, so it was-presumably-no zombie. But Ted raised his AK just in case.
As he got closer I could see he was a wizened old man, who looked about a thousand years old, his skin almost yellow in colour. He did not seem phased by our armed welcome.
“Greetings travellers”, he said, stopping about ten feet from us. “By the looks of you, I assume you have just got thought that horde.”
“We have”, said Ted. “And you, what’s your story?”
The old man smiled.
“I take my chances alone in this world. Are you looking for civilisation, a place for food and water?”
Actually we could do, or I could anyway. My mana needed restored.
“Yeah”, said Ted.
“Well”, said the old man. “There’s a place about ten miles from here, I guess you could call it the nearest thing to civilisation in this world, although I haven’t been there for a while myself. You come to a large forest and it’s just on the other side. Be aware, they’re somewhat suspicious of new folks, but at least they don’t eat the flesh from your bones. Say, some of you bit or infected? From the looks of your faces, I assume some of you got it in your eyes.”
Our eyes. Of course. I’d played enough zombie games and watched enough movies to know that once you were bitten you turned before too long, but blood in the eyes? I guess that varied from movie to movie, and game to game.