Incidentally, when I say “shambled,” it was more like “staggered forward at ten miles per hour, flailing, drooling, and roaring.” I mean, seriously—I thought zombies didn’t have much coordination or had issues with their motor skills because they were, you know, totally dead and barely functional. These zombies were like high as a kite while on fast forward.
“Ridley!” I yelled, and Ridley quickly targeted those zombies at the back, zapping them with force fields that kept them from moving forward while letting the first five or so go for the attack.
Then he and the knight charged forward, throwing themselves at the monsters. The archer stood her ground, shooting arrows here and there, and I saw how hard it was going to be, destroying those mofos, given our newbie point levels or whatever the hell you called them. What she did was shoot randomly at advancing zombies, taking out as many life points as she could with each arrow on each monster without killing it. Being handicapped in terms of points, her arrows most likely only took out tiny amounts. But since she never stopped, those arrows continued to chip away at those life points so that, by the time those zombies got to us, I was able to run forward and hack at them. And she was also able to slightly disable those that Ridley and the knight went head-to-head with, making it a little easier for them to destroy them.
“Look for health potions!” Trini’s archer said. “Save those—we’ll need them!”
I couldn’t answer. I was too busy slashing away at one zombie after another, gritting my teeth and swinging my sword again and again, kind of wishing that I took fencing lessons or something that would’ve made my technique a hell of a lot more efficient. Since I was totally clueless about sword fighting, I just let complete revulsion toward the undead become my energy feeder, so to speak.
“Ugh! You’re a lot more disgusting up close than I thought! Die! Die!” I cried, gasping and panting, practically blinded by the sweat that poured down my face as I kept my sword moving. I mean, really—what we were fighting against were way grosser than the ones that attacked us at the beginning. Those ones were more like a horde of corpses that looked alike. They were all gray and red, all bald, hissing, groaning, skeletal, with like oozing sores all over their naked bodies. Yeah, even the half-zombies were like that.
These ones were still dressed, and they were a mixture of male and female corpses. So it was like a whole village was turned into the undead or something like that. And up close, they looked more rotten and gross. It was all red and gray, sure, with nothing but white eyeballs for eyes, missing noses because those things must’ve already fallen away as though they were infected with leprosy, and their mouths were nothing more than ragged gaping holes that were mushy and bloody and dripped slime. Some of them even had their bellies ripped open, so that their innards hung out. I mean—totally disgusting.
Some of those things even dropped body parts behind them. I saw a growing trail of severed arms or hands. I’m not sure, but I thought that a couple of the female zombies left a trail of shriveled, rotting boobs.
It was like living through an actual nightmare, and the only good thing about this was that I couldn’t get killed. But I was growing way, way, way tired, and it sucked. This was only the first ambush out of—what—three gazillion ones before we got screwed in the castle? Man, I swear I was seriously earning more than my share of that promised pizza.
The CGI world spun around me as I fought, gasping and snarling and spitting out curses, my body twisting and tumbling, rolling on the ground and stumbling back upright. There were so many zombies to kill, and they surrounded us even though Ridley let small numbers free from his force fields. I tried at first to keep slashing away at the nearest zombies I could reach to cut down their life points even more, but it was like the fight never ended.
“Are we there yet?” I cried in between offing—finally!—some freaky-ass armless woman who was sure to give me nightmares for the next year or so and a zombified old man who kind of looked like my former Algebra teacher. I only managed to catch a few breaths before forcing myself to lunge forward and go after that vile-looking undead scumbag. “Anybody here pack some energy drinks? God, this sucks!”
It seriously did. My arms hurt from all that exertion, and my legs were starting to cramp up from running, dodging, leaping, crawling—whatever! And those damned monsters kept showing up—okay, it was Ridley’s efforts at popping those force fields of his to release the next group to slaughter.
I managed to down that old zombie guy and stumble away for a moment to catch my breath. I looked around to see how the others were doing.
Dario’s knight was majorly kicking undead ass, though she had to stop every once in a while to pull out a flask of health potion and then gulp it all down before picking up where she left off, slashing and stabbing at zombies. Ridley stood several feet away, alternately zapping stray monsters that they couldn’t fight off at the moment and using his power punches to kill them. It was awesome watching him punch and zap and dodge any hits that came at him. He looked super confident and, above all, really quick on his feet. I could still remember those jerks in the street taunting him ages ago because of his weight; I wondered what they’d say now with Ridley’s cool superhero reflexes on full display.
Trini’s archer ran back and forth, sometimes circling us while shooting away. She was way more agile than everyone else, but maybe that had something to do with the fact that she was a range warrior. Maybe archers were naturally light on their feet and able to avoid danger with their lack of armor and muscles.
“Eric! We’ve got the monsters down to a good number. Look for health potions, quick!” Trini said, and I was only too happy to obey because, man, I was so over it by now.
Keeping a tight grip on my sword, I ran around, poking at bodies and searching nearby areas for treasure that popped out whenever a monster was killed. I spotted about five health potions and two magic ones, and I quickly collected the health potions and left them in a group in the middle of the battle.
“Trini! I found some!” I called out. “Oh, shit. Phooey. I forgot—they can’t hear me.” I made a face as I watched Dario kill a zombie, take a swig out of another health potion he carried, and then run forward to attack another pair of monsters. I glanced down at the health potions. Both Trini and Dario could see them from where they played, anyway. They should be able to collect them whenever they needed to replenish their strength.
The zombie number had been whittled down to about five by now, and it looked like everyone had a good handle on the fight, so I decided to poke around some more. I found a couple of swords that were much shorter than what I had, but they came as a pair, so I assumed that they were über knives that I could use in battle. Since they were shorter and narrower, I guessed that their damage speed was faster than a broadsword’s, which would make up for the fact that their damage points were also most likely less.
“I’ll take them,” I muttered, dropping my sword and picking the knives up. I felt safer like this, anyway, not being weighed down by a weapon that was big and heavy. It’d also help me lower the life points of monsters the way Trini’s archer did, as long as I kept stabbing them and preparing them for death blows coming from Dario and Ridley.
As I explored the carnage, I found more health potions and gathered them for my friends.
“Done!” Ridley crowed from somewhere, and I looked around to find him raising both fists—which still glowed—in the air and hopping in place. Sort of like a boxer after a knockout. “We did it!”
The knight and the archer didn’t say anything, but they quickly ran to the spot where I dumped all of the health potions I found, and they started hoarding and refueling. I left them to do whatever they needed to do and trotted over to Ridley.
“Good job, man!” I said, giving him a high five. “How was it? Did you feel anything different from the last fights? I mean—other than the fact that there were way more monsters than usual, and they were harder to kill.”
Ridley was sweating, I
saw. His face was flushed and wet, his hair damp. Oddly, his superhero costume showed nothing at all—no wet spots around the neck, chest, back, armpits, or even crotch areas. Maybe the spandex used for that was from the future or something, and if so, maybe the Sentries would allow me to beg for a wardrobe that wouldn’t show just what kind of sweaty, sticky activities I engaged in with Peter. I mean, you know—considering the fact that he and I were still dressed up whenever we fooled around the way desperate virgins fooled around…
“Yeah, they were much harder, and they freakin’ wore me out,” he said, grinning. “But I could feel myself get stronger much more compared to when we first started out.”
I frowned. “You mean it’s like earning those life points or something? Like you’re leveling up really quickly?”
“Yeah. Isn’t that crazy? I can actually feel it! It’s like I’m not only getting my powers back, but I’m also adding to them. I wish we could see just how many points we rack up with each punch or something. It’d be cool, knowing how much life points or experience we’re gaining each time.”
“That sounds awesome. I wish I could feel the same thing,” I said, nodding. “But since I’m like a ghost in this game, all I can do is pick up better weapons along the way.”
Ridley gave me a playful punch on the shoulder. “That’s better than nothing. And you’re helping us out, for sure, even if you don’t add to our points.”
I glanced back and found the archer and the knight at rest—both of them went down on one knee, their heads bowed, and I guessed that it was because they were trying to get some of their energy back.
“Give us another moment, guys,” Dario said. “We’re trying to save our health potions by not drinking them, and we’re bringing our life points back up by resting for a bit.”
There you go. Made sense. What a strange combo we all made. If only real life worked that way, too; it’d be so much easier getting a crap load of work done just by stepping aside and resting till I felt my life points go back up to maximum levels. For now, I depended on siesta or coffee, which didn’t really amount to much in the long run. Then again, in the real world, I wasn’t slashing like crazy at zombies every half hour. Unless you counted older sisters, that is.
I sighed. “I hope I can hold up till the end,” I said, giving Ridley a worried little smile. “I can’t renew myself the way CGI characters can. I need food. I’m totally starving right now.”
“Same here,” he said, grimacing and petting his belly. “My stomach was growling the whole time I was fighting. I was glad that no one could hear me.”
I glanced down and fixed my gaze on a random zombie corpse—I mean, a dead undead corpse. Yeah, that. It lay a couple of feet away from me, and it was nasty as all hell. At this point, though, I’d gotten so used to looking at disgusting things that I started to zone out, my eyes glazing over even as I stared at the monster.
Then its head turned to look at me, all white eyeballs and bloody, slimy mouth, noseless face, and shit. “Heads up!” it said in a low, gravelly voice.
“Ridley! It’s still alive! Kill it! Kill it!” I cried, jumping back and pointing at it with one of my knives. “Pound it till its brains explode!”
“Eric, I can freakin’ sense you screaming your head off. Now cut it out!” the zombie retorted. It didn’t get up or anything, thank God, but it looked way too similar to Linda Blair’s head when it rotated on its axis in The Exorcist. Seriously, I was going to kick Althea’s ass when I saw her next because this was so not cool, and I almost swallowed my tongue. Then again, if I did, that might’ve taken care of the hunger bit for me, but I was never too keen on self-cannibalism.
Yeah, I’d have to kick her ass.
“Okay, calm down, calm down,” Ridley said, looking just as pale as I did. See? I wasn’t the only one Althea freaked out. “Let’s listen to what she has to say.”
“Okay, numb nuts—the castle’s another ten minutes away. You’ve got another ambush coming. I can’t get rid of those monsters in case you’re wondering. They’re sort of like your key to get in the castle to save the others. Just fight them, rest, and move on. The Sentries and I are close to a solution, which isn’t a hard one, really, but it’s still a pain in the ass to work into this dumb game.” The zombie paused, still fixing its eyeballs at me. I desperately wanted to poke them out of their sockets with my knives, but we needed that stupid thing functional, I guess. “The good thing about this is that I can communicate better with you guys now. No more stupid Twitter-like messages, and no more depending on random scrolls.”
“Yeah, but it’s still a one-way deal,” I muttered. “Big whoop.”
“I sensed that!”
“Oh, shut up.”
At that moment the archer and the knight appeared, with the knight moving past us. “I guess we’d better get moving,” Dario said.
I followed them, taking up the rear as usual, but at least I was a little more encouraged by the fact that I now had a couple of kickass weapons that were way faster than the one I had before. I couldn’t wait to try them out, for sure, but I was also growing more and more aware of exhaustion and soreness. As we walked down the road, I couldn’t help but look around me, my eyes zoning in on a fruit-bearing shrub or something that looked like it, wishing that things worked the way they did in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, and I could throw myself on the grass and start eating away like a pasty-skinned, skinny-ass cow.
“Since you can’t talk to us, I guess it’s best for us to yak once in a while,” Trini piped up after a few minutes of silence and stomach gurgling from me and Ridley. Incidentally, two bellies in the throes of starvation? They sounded like quicksand the way movies made quicksand sound like.
And, man, I was starting to sound like Dr. Seuss, but that’s hunger for you.
“Dario and I’ve gained mucho life points from that last fight,” Trini continued. “From where we are right now, we can also see Ridley’s life points going up, which is totally weird since he’s not a character in the game but more like—dunno—like an antibody? That right?”
Ridley turned to me, blinking. “Is she saying that I’m like good virus or helpful bacteria or something like those?” I could only shrug. My brain cells were shot at this point, and I was just going with the flow. And I desperately needed a bag of gummy bears.
“Anyway, we can see the numbers here, but with Eric, we only see him fight and do other things, but that’s it. It’s almost like he’s part of the game as a regular character that doesn’t really contribute anything in terms of life points even though it’s weird that you’re still able to kill monsters.”
I rolled my eyes. “Sounds like how it is at my home, actually. Nothing new. Oh, sweet! I can see the castle from here!”
Yep, I sure could! We’d just cleared the last hill and forest, and we were standing in the middle of a colorful meadow with no monsters or generic peasant characters in sight. And there, suddenly appearing in front of us, was Sleeping Possessed-By-Demons Beauty’s castle. It was also pretty generic in design, but I was sure that the monsters that waited for us inside weren’t anywhere near generic.
It was so weird, standing there, surrounded by 3-D cartoon-like images, including two of our companions. This was probably how it felt like being in a Twilight Zone episode—though less cool. Seriously, Rod Serling should’ve written the game’s storyline. Then I wouldn’t mind so much getting trapped in it.
“Wait a sec,” I said after a moment’s silence. I glanced around. “Didn’t Althea say that we’ve got one more ambush before the castle? How’s that going to happen?” There was nothing weird anywhere in sight—only miles and miles of fake grass and flowers plus vast expanses of fake blue skies. There weren’t CGI animals anywhere, either, but I figured that the demons that cursed the kingdom might’ve already had all the livestock for lunch.
“We’d better move carefully, then,” Ridley said, nodding. His hands immediately glowed, and I noticed that the pulsing light was much, m
uch brighter than it was before. “There’s a chance that the ambush can come from the ground—you know, like things crawling out of the earth or something.”
“I hear you,” I replied, looking down. “This place looks much too pretty and uplifting to make me feel easy.”
We moved forward without another word, Dario leading the way as usual. I fidgeted with my knives, my heart thumping, my stomach growling more loudly.
Nothing happened to us as we walked even though we stopped every once in a while to scope out the area and report to each other about possible danger zones. The place was so quiet and brightly colored that I was getting really creeped out. In the meantime, the castle grew larger and larger as we approached, and before I realized it, we were standing in front of its walls, gaping.
The walls were completely covered with thorny rose briars, just like in the fairy tale. And the thorns were massive, probably the same size as a switchblade, and the roses were also gigantic. I didn’t know how thick the wall of thorns was, but it looked damned thick, considering the number of skeletons trapped in them.
“Oh, yikes!” I said, grimacing, as I stared at them. “Looks like the game’s following the fairy tale, all right. I remember that part about princes and shit getting trapped in the thorns and dying there.”
“Ew.” Ridley made the same face I made. “Looks like we’ll have to cut through them to get inside.”
A low hiss suddenly broke through the silence around us, and the skeletons started moving, squirming among the vines as they freed themselves, their bony hands holding up weapons. They slowly hacked their way out of the thorns, hissing and growling as they went.
Dr. Morbid's Castle of Blood (Masks) Page 13