by R. T. Martin
“There.” She pointed to something above No_Idea’s head.
He glanced up and saw a rusty fire escape attached to the store. They could climb it to reach the fire escape of the next building, where a window was open several floors up. They climbed the staircase as quickly as they could, wincing whenever the metal hinges creaked from their steps. One floor up, they were able to hop over a railing and climb to the open window.
This time they were in someone’s apartment. It was trashed. The furniture was toppled over, and broken glass was everywhere. The cabinets in the kitchen hung open, their shelves mostly empty.
“Looks like we won’t be getting any supplies in here,” N3V3RDIE said. She headed toward the apartment’s main door, only to find it had been barricaded shut with a wooden bookshelf, a mini fridge, and a weight-lifting machine.
“We’ll use up too much of our stamina if we try to move all that,” No_Idea said before she could even reach for the fridge. He heard the floor creak behind him and noticed part of the floor had collapsed in the apartment’s back hallway.
“Hey, we can drop through here.” N3V3RDIE joined him to peer down through the hole, which led into another apartment.
She glanced at him, “I don’t hear anything down there.”
“Me neither.”
She smirked. “After you.”
One at a time, they dropped into the lower-level apartment, which was thankfully empty. They exited that floor through a window, down onto another dumpster, and to the ground where they went back into the alley, now on the other side of the four zombies that had blocked their path before.
They did this for nearly the entire length of the street, cautiously weaving between dumpsters, dead cars, shopping carts, cement, brick, and metal debris. They went up and down fire escapes, through holes in walls, ceilings, and floors.
If they’d been able to walk straight to the safe zone, it would have only taken them about a half hour, but because of the complicated path they had to take, it took them nearly three hours to wind up in a dead end beyond the swarm. There was nowhere left to go, no path that led into an alley, no fire escape to climb up. They were stuck in a small shop that looked like a bakery. No_Idea recognized the glass case that would have held doughnuts, muffins, and other baked goods if this world hadn’t been infected with zombies.
He couldn’t see any zombies immediately outside of the front windows. There were some farther back on the street, shuffling in no particular direction. They weren’t far past the swarm.
“The door’s padlocked,” N3V3RDIE said. There was chain around the handles of the door held together by a large padlock.
“There’s got to be another way to keep going,” No_Idea said, still poking around the bakery to look for another way out. “Or maybe the key’s around here somewhere.”
“No,” N3V3RDIE said. “This is how games end. The last part is always the hardest. We have to go onto the street and run for it.”
“We can’t,” No_Idea said. “The door’s padlocked. There’s got to be another way.”
“Over there,” she said, pointing to the corner. There was something glowing, another tool. It looked like a scuba diving tank with a hose attached to it. Next to it sat a strange-looking mask. It was black and round, with a small rectangular window for someone to see out of.
“What is that?” No_Idea asked.
“I think it’s a welder’s kit,” N3V3RDIE said. “It’ll cut right through the padlock, but when it cuts, it’ll shoot sparks everywhere and create a really bright light.”
“They’ll see us.”
“That’s the point. The end of the game is the hardest part. We need to outrun them.”
No_Idea looked at their stamina levels. He had 8% left. She had only 3.
“Okay,” he said. “Do it.”
Chapter 16
N3V3RDIE dragged the tank and hose over to the door and fired up the machine. She lifted the mask to cover her face and No_Idea took a step back. The end of the hose produced only a small blue flame to begin with, but when she started cutting through the lock, the light was so bright he couldn’t look directly at it.
No_Idea looked at the swarm. They’d taken notice. They were staring at the light, and some of the stragglers were beginning to shuffle toward it. He figured the zombies were sure to rush toward them once the door opened.
“Got it,” N3V3RDIE said. She pulled off the padlock. No_Idea grabbed the chain and looked to N3V3RDIE for confirmation—should he take it off and open the door? The stragglers were getting closer.
“Do you think you can make it?” No_Idea asked.
“We’re about to find out,” she said, gritting her teeth. “On three?”
“One,” No_Idea started.
“Two.”
“Three!”
No_Idea quickly pulled the chain off the handles and opened the door. They were in serious trouble. The moment they stepped out of the shop, the whole swarm surged forward at them so fast that some zombies were trampled.
“Let’s go!” N3V3RDIE shouted. The sight of that many zombies coming to get him had No_Idea frozen where he stood, but her voice jarred him back to reality. He started running. N3V3RDIE had gotten a head start, but he caught up to her quickly. Her low level of stamina was apparently affecting how fast she could run.
No_Idea knew he could make it. They were only a block away from the safe zone, the front door glowing green—the end of the game, the end of this nightmare. But he kept pace with N3V3RDIE. She only had 1% of her stamina remaining and was barely running at all. She was moving more and more like the zombies, in a hobbling shuffle.
He looked at the door again. He could definitely make it, probably with some time to spare, but N3V3RDIE wasn’t going to. If she kept going at the pace she was, the zombies would get her long before she had a chance to reach the door.
I could leave her behind, he thought. It was her fault that he was here in the first place. She had picked him so that she could beat him.
No, he thought. I can’t do that. I never would have gotten this far without her.
No_Idea grabbed her arm and wrapped it around his shoulder. He put his other arm behind her back and pushed her forward. His stamina started decreasing dramatically. He was down to 5%. He was going more slowly and burning stamina twice as fast as he had been before.
N3V3RDIE groaned as she lifted her legs to step forward, looking like she was traveling in slow motion. They weren’t far, only seventy feet or so to go.
His stamina ticked down to 4%. He looked behind them and saw the swarm gaining quickly. Maybe this hadn’t been a good idea. He may have just doomed himself along with her.
3%. They were fifty feet away. The moaning sound became a roar as the zombies closed in. She was now holding him up just as much as he was holding her.
2% and thirty-five feet away. He could hear N3V3RDIE repeating, “Come on, come on.”
1%, still twenty feet away.
They hobbled toward the safe zone together. They were only ten feet away by now, but it may as well have been a mile. The swarm had caught up.
Just a few feet from the green door that would end the game, one of the zombies grabbed No_Idea’s leg and he stumbled, accidentally taking N3V3RDIE down too. No time to get up. They were almost there. They did the only thing left they could, reaching their arms toward the door. In that brief moment, No_Idea thought, That’s it. I’m done. I’ll be trapped in this place forever.
Chapter 17
No_Idea could feel the zombie’s breath on his leg. It was about to bite down on him. But just in the nick of time, their fingertips touched the glowing green door.
The zombies disappeared. The safe zone disappeared. The ruined city disappeared. It was all replaced by an overhead view of the city, making it feel as if they were floating. This time, a single word appeared over the image of the destroyed city:
VICTORY
Their stats faded into view. It had taken them thirteen and a half hours and 100% of their sta
mina to get through this world.
Both able to stand and move freely again, they got up and looked at each other.
“Is that it? We won?” No_Idea asked.
“Yeah,” N3V3RDIE replied with a grin. “We won.”
“Do we get a prize?”
“Yeah,” she said again and pointed to the stats. “That’s the prize, right there. That’s record time.”
“We’re the only ones who have played this game.”
She shrugged, “So we’re in first place.”
No_Idea laughed.
“Thank you,” N3V3RDIE said then. “Seriously. I don’t think I would have made it if you hadn’t helped me back there.”
“Hey, I still would have been stuck on that rooftop if it weren’t for all your help. Honestly, the only thing I care about right now is that the game is over . . . Right?” he asked suddenly. “It’s done. We made it out, correct?”
“Yeah,” she said. “We made it out, and hey—you beat a game!”
“Ha! Who’s the n00b now?”
“Still you,” She smiled again, but softer this time. “I’m sorry about choosing you, forcing you to play. If I had known what we were getting into, I never would have done that.”
“You know,” he said, “all things considered, you could have done a lot worse than me, and I actually think I could have done a lot worse than you.”
She let out a laugh. “We may have been kind of dysfunctional, but we got it done.” Their joking was cut off by the Game Runner appearing before them.
“Congratulations!” he said. “You have both completed Safe Zone. Well done.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” No_Idea said. “Now that we’re done, I was hoping to get out of here. Is there an elevator, or what? How do I get out of this thing?”
The Game Runner’s lips quirked up. “Of course, of course. You will be removed from the game in just a few minutes. Thank you for participating in L33T C0RP’s test trials.”
“Yeah, yeah, thank you for the trauma,” No_Idea said, but the Game Runner had already vanished.
“Well, I’m probably off to start another game,” N3V3RDIE said, then she grinned. “Any chance you want to join me?”
“I don’t know about that,” No_Idea said. “But I would be up for hanging out again in the real world. You know, actually outside?”
“Oh, come on,” she said. “Sure, we can be friends in real life, but we can be so much more as Level Up partners! If we make a pretty good team when we’re at each other’s throats, imagine what we could do if we were on the same page.”
“You know what?” No_Idea said, shaking his head and smiling. “I’d really rather not.”
About the Author
R.T. Martin lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. When he is not drinking coffee or writing, he is busy thinking about drinking coffee and writing. He is left-handed and has made exactly one good tiramisu.