by Jake Bible
“Okay,” she replied. “Don’t stay in too long. Food will be ready soon.”
“Cool, cool,” I said.
I took a deep breath and dunked myself under the water, Raggy gripped in my hand not so much so it wouldn’t float away, but because my muscles were frozen in place and I didn’t think my fingers would have unclenched if I wanted them to.
But, after a few minutes, a soothing numbness set in and it felt amazing to let the water carry my weight as I relaxed onto my back and just floated there.
“Steve!” Sandra cried. “Steve! Where are you?”
I came awake instantly. Shit. I’d dozed off. I splashed about and stood up, my feet hitting smooth, slippery rocks, so that I went under and instead of replying that I was fine, I only ended up swallowing half the river and coughing like crazy.
“Steve!” Sandra cried and I heard her moving through the bushes that lined the part of the riverbank that was just downstream from our little beach. “Hold on!”
The Galac moons were out by then, and I could see her yanking off her dress up over her head then diving into the river to get to me. She came up sputtering and gasping, only a couple feet from where I stood up to my chest in the cold water. Her eyes were wide and scared and she only stared at me for a few seconds.
Then she splashed me with a huge wave of her arm across the water.
“You ass,” she said, seeing that I was fine. “You scared the crap out of me.”
The familiarity of the day was there, but so was a nervous caution. We were both stark naked, but water covered most of our bodies, so we weren’t totally exposed. Except that Sandra was almost as tall as me and water up to her chest wasn’t exactly as concealing as she maybe thought it was.
Then again, as she closed the distance between us fast and grabbed the back of my head, kissing me harder than anyone had ever kissed me before, maybe she knew just how exposed she was.
Our hands were all over each other. She pressed her body against mine, hooking one leg up around my hip so she crushed herself to me, keeping us from being pulled apart by the slightly stronger current in that part of the river. I went even further and grabbed her other thigh, lifting it so she had to wrap both legs around me.
We were fast, passionate, insistent, and done in seconds after scaring off the night birds with some rather raucous crying out. Then I carried her up to the shore, she grabbed her dress, but didn’t put it on, and we walked shivering to the bedroll by the fire. Dinner was scorched and burning, but we didn’t care as we lay down and embraced again. The second time was slow, kind, considerate, and beyond my wildest dreams. There still might have been some raucous crying out towards the end, but that’s life.
The fire began to die down as we lay there in each other’s arms, so I gently lifted her hand from my chest and crawled over to stoke it and add two logs. I received a smack on my bare ass for my effort and laughed. When I crawled back, Sandra had the bedroll open for me and I eased into her warmth.
The third time was more like a dream and I don’t remember even falling asleep. All I remember was that even if Jeremy and the undead found us, I was fine with that. I could die happy.
Twenty-Seven
The next morning was different.
Not awkward different or anything bad like that. It was different in that as we went about breaking camp, we were both unsure if we should have been kissing whenever we were close enough to do so or if we should play it causal and only focus on the quest.
The kissing eventually won as we kept bumping into each other intentionally. Kissing quickly lead to the fourth time, which was kind of dirty and fast and exhilarating right there on the beach. We needed a quick rinse in the river to get the sand out of places we did not want sand to be when facing the long hike ahead of us.
Time five was in the river.
I think we both stopped counting after that.
Camp was broken down and we were back to the walking. Except it was a lot more fun that day than the day before. A lot more fun.
We laughed and chatted about our lives in the real world before the undead screwed everything up. We talked about what we missed most from our former lives and the way the world had been. There was an instant agreement that the lack of good pizza really made the undead apocalypse a whole lot worse than it could have been.
But, after a while, the easy banter slowed then stopped as the grinding slog of walking started to get to both of us. The end of the valley was still far off, and I think the realization that we may not make it to the trees before dark was creeping into our awareness and taking some of the wind out of our sails.
We stopped for a rest just after midday and I stretched out in the soft, tall grass of the valley floor. The sky was bright blue without a cloud anywhere and the three suns shined down with an intensity that made me wish for a pair of sunglasses. But it was pleasant and I sighed contentedly as I brought up my stats.
Character class: Ranger
Character alignment: Chaotic Good
Character level: 15
Health: 97%
Strength: 100%
Agility: 100%
Magic: 30%
Armor: leather, no bonus
Coin: 200 gold pieces, 155 silver pieces, 0 copper pieces
Inventory: Long bow with 14 regular arrows, 4 magical. 1 long sword of Breaking (Level 16). The Dark Blade, inactive (level unknown). 2 tunics. 1 pair of breeches. 1 hooded cloak. 1 satchel with 1 wine skin, empty.
I sat straight up immediately and reset my display, sure that it was a glitch I was seeing.
“My Magic percentage doubled,” I said, “and I went up three levels.”
“I have that effect on men,” Sandra said and laughed, bumping me with her hip as she lay next to me.
“No, seriously,” I said.
“What does that mean?” Sandra asked, pushing up onto an elbow to look at me. “No, seriously? That’s your response?”
“Sorry,” I said and gave her a fast kiss. “I mean, yes, sure, you do have that effect, but still…”
I trailed off, both feet firmly inserted into my mouth. Sandra laughed again and kissed me.
“I’m joking,” she said. “Your magic doubled because of the worm. It doesn’t happen to everyone, but yours was so low that I’d have been surprised if it didn’t go up a little.”
“And the levels?” I asked. “A worm can’t make me jump three levels.”
“That’s just experience, Steve,” Sandra said, giving me a knowing look.
“Oh, right, experience,” I said.
I felt my face turning hot and bright red. Sandra started laughing and couldn’t stop for a good few minutes.
“You about done?” I asked, getting to my feet.
“Yes,” she said, wiping her eyes.
I helped her up, there were a few more kisses, then we were back to the walking. So much walking.
Even though Sandra and I eased into a comfortable silence, it was nice to have the river next to us, a natural soundtrack to keep any possible awkwardness from happening. It was almost soothing as we followed it towards where it came rushing down the hills that marked the valley’s end, and we were in a steady rhythm of hiking by the time we left the valley floor.
The hills weren’t too steep, but we both worked up a heavy sweat when we stopped for the day, the suns setting against the valley’s edges.
I sat down hard and let my heart rate and breathing slow to a point where I felt that standing up again was a thing I could do. Sandra didn’t sit down. She paced back and forth, her eyes upturned toward the last mile or so of the trail we’d found, her eyes studying the hills’ ridgeline.
“What’s up?” I asked, getting back on my feet to face the same way. “You see something?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I think so, but I can’t be sure.”
She turned her head and tried to study the ridgeline out of her peripheral vision. I knew exactly what she was doing. It was a trick any survivor learned
back in the real world as the light began to fade and shadows played havoc with your vision. It was actually easier to see in the darkness by unfocusing and letting your peripheral sight take over. You’d be amazed at how well you see out of the side of your eye at night.
I copied her and we both walked back and forth, back and forth, trying to see what she thought she saw a few minutes earlier.
“I’ve got nothing,” I said as I stopped and sat down. “Was it an animal or what?”
“I don’t know,” she said, still pacing. “I saw movement, I know I did.”
“Well, whatever was up there is gone,” I replied. “We should keep moving and find a more level spot to make camp. We’ll end up back at the bottom of the valley if we sleep here. One roll and it’s all over.”
“Yeah, okay,” she said, but I could tell she didn’t care at all about a level camping spot. She was fixated on the ridgeline.
I trusted Sandra. I trusted her with my life and, gulp, my heart. So, if she said she saw something, then she saw something.
I pulled the Dark Blade. It was glowing blue.
“Shit,” I said. “This thing is like Bilbo’s Sting, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” Sandra said, not bothering to look at the sword. “Probably. Half this Domain is a Tolkien rip-off, as you know.”
“Totally,” I said and waited for her to catch the significance of what I’d said. When she didn’t, I continued. “Which means a glowing blue blade is probably a warning of danger.”
Still no response. She was hyper-focused.
“Which also means that you are right. There’s probably danger up there.”
Jesus Christ, she was not paying attention at all!
“Sandra!” I snapped.
Her head whipped around at me, her eyes wide and angry for my interrupting her. Then she saw the Dark Blade which wasn’t so dark.
“Oh,” she said, looking from the blade to the ridgeline and back to the blade. Then her eyes found mine. “What do you think it means?”
“Well, as I was discussing with myself only a moment ago,” I said. “I’m guessing you are right and there be danger ahead, me lass.”
Her face scrunched up.
“Yeah, sorry, I won’t call you that again,” I said.
“Thank you,” she replied then looked at the trail we were on. “We can’t stay here.”
She definitely didn’t hear my comment about finding level ground.
“Great idea,” I said.
She took the lead and I sheathed the Dark Blade. It didn’t matter if it was glowing out of its sheath or inside it, really. What did matter was that light was making it hard to see in the deepening twilight. We needed our eyes to adjust to the darkness and a glowing blue blade made that kind of hard.
There was no level ground along the trail.
We hiked all the way to the ridgeline before we found a spot that was even close to useable. It was barely level ground, big enough for us to build a fire and sleep next to.
It did have the advantage of being pressed up to a nice rock outcropping, so our backs were protected if whatever Sandra saw decided to come looking for fun in the night. It would have a very healthy campfire to deal with if it wanted to get to us and one thing I knew was that mystery things, no matter what they were, were not fans of fire.
Rocks to our back, fire in front, and just enough room to cozy up together as we lay down for some much-needed rest. We fooled around a little, but both of us were too tired to get serious and we sort of drifted off in each other’s arms after only a few minutes. It was nice.
What wasn’t nice was waking up to the sound of something scratching on rock. Rock that was supposed to have our backs covered. I came awake fast, but didn’t move. I let my hearing relax and waited for that sound again.
The fire had died down to only a few glowing embers, and I was tempted to toss some wood on it and build it back up, but the instinct to not move held me in place. It was maybe five more minutes before I heard the scraping sound again. I was certain there was something on the rocks behind us.
Sandra was spooned up against me, her back resting into my front. I gently placed a hand over her mouth and put my lips to her ear.
“Shhh,” I whispered. “We have company.”
She was a good adventurer and all she did was open her eyes and give a very slight nod. I took my hand away and we both lay there, fully alert. I’ll admit that if the roles had been reversed, I’d have probably screamed against her hand. Pretty sure she was well aware of that.
More scraping and I knew we were dealing with legs. Lots of legs as the scraping increased. Sandra’s hand slowly, barely perceptible, moved to her dagger. My hand went to the hilt of the Dark Blade, and we waited some more as the scraping noises increased.
Then something dropped between us and the campfire. Something hairy with eight legs and a lot of eyes and was about the size of a medium-sized dog.
Yeah, it was a goddamn spider.
Better yet, and you’ll love this, it stank of death so much that there was no doubt in either of our minds that said oversized spider was totally, completely, 100% undead.
One more check mark in the Steve hates EverRealm column.
Sandra was up in a crouch and stabbing before I even had the Dark Blade pulled out an inch from its sheath. The spider gave a high hiss like a muted tea kettle then collapsed onto the ground, its body deflating like a disgusting balloon. Putrid liquids ran into the edge of the campfire, sending up stinking steam that had us both gagging and scrambling to our feet.
That instinct of mine that said not to move earlier kicked back in, and I realized that one medium dog-sized undead spider could not have made all the scraping sounds we’d heard.
I spun to face the rocks and was slashing and hacking before I even fully focused on what was coming at us.
A lot of goddamn undead spiders.
Twenty-Eight
I wanted to yell “Run!” but where would we run to?
We were up on a ridge and hadn’t explored anything beyond our campsite. All I knew was there were a lot of trees on the other side of the ridge and running into a thick-ass forest in the middle of the night was not the brightest thing to do. We would have to stand our ground and fight which was also not the brightest thing to do considering.
And by considering, I mean considering all the goddamn undead spiders.
But, it wasn’t time to complain about the lack of good choices. It was time to keep hacking and slashing with the Dark Blade.
I cut down anything and everything that leapt at me. Although I was not that great at baseball as a kid, I did just spend several years killing zombies with a fire axe, which is just a deadly version of a baseball bat when you think about it. Don’t think about it too hard.
So, realizing that if I knew one way to fight, it was to batter up and swing, I gripped that Dark Blade with both hands and went to work.
I was batting one hundred that night. Fast undead spiders, curve undead spiders, knuckle undead spiders, and even a slider undead spider or two did not get past me. They leapt from the rocks, making these horrible screeching noises which didn’t make sense since as far as I knew, spiders didn’t make noise.
But we are talking about EverRealm, so spiders make noise. Undead spiders, when you chop them in half, make a lot of noise.
They also make a huge mess.
I had undead spider goo dripping from every part of my body. Every part. I could barely blink my eyes without goo clouding my vision. Oh, man, and the smell. Worse than the undead horse people. I thought undead centaurs stank. Oh, hell, no. Undead spider juice is the worst shit you’d ever have to smell in your life.
A life that wasn’t looking too long for the world as something new decided to join the fight.
Not new as in a new creature, but new as in it was the size of a Volkswagen Beetle and ragingly pissed off because we’d been killing its undead babies.
“Steve!” Sandra shouted as sh
e ducked under a dual attack from two undead spiders, slicing both of them wide open at their bellies with her dagger. She stood up, flicking goo from her face, and pointed at the monstrosity coming up over the ridge at us. “We can’t stay here!”
A sticky line of undead spider butt string flew at her, but she managed to dive and roll away to avoid it, coming up with her back against a pile of jagged rocks. I watched in horror as the back of her head slammed into one of the rocks. Her mouth opened in a silent scream and her eyes rolled and swam from the impact.
A baby spider, which I say jokingly, landed on my head before I could go help Sandra. Its eight legs clung to my face, my neck, jabbing into my ears, trying to stab my eyes. Then I caught a glimpse of the dripping wet fangs that were about to puncture my cheeks and I freaked.
I was not graceful. I was not cool. I was not some valiant warrior fighting for his life. I was not Viggo Mortensen bravely stoic in the face of possible death. I was whatever the opposite of that is.
I flailed and screamed and dropped the Dark Blade as I grabbed that undead spider by two of its legs and yanked it so hard from my face that its sticky little feet ripped strips of flesh from my cheeks. But I avoided those fangs and that was all that mattered.
The undead spider slammed against a rock and exploded everywhere, coating a dozen of its brethren in goo.
“Ha!” I yelled. “How do you like that?”
Then some of that nasty undead spider butt string came flying at me, and I found myself with one arm pinned to a boulder and the other arm stuck as I tried to pull the first arm free. Then my legs were pinned and a wad of butt string hit my head, barely leaving space around my mouth for me to breathe and scream.
Mama undead spider totally nailed me, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.
I could just make out the little ones moving closer to me through the convenient eye slit in the butt string. I refuse to call it web since nice, normal, pretty garden spiders make webs. Undead, disgusting, about to liquefy my insides and suck my body empty of its juices, spiders do not get the distinction of spinning webs. They shoot gross butt string. Fuck them.