Headshot: One in the Gut (Book 1 of a Zombie litRPG Trilogy)

by Matthew Siege

  Maybe she’d get that. Maybe tonight could be the start of something good for both of us. And who knows? Life’s funny. Maybe the guy I was in the game would remind her of the guy I’d always been.

  I walked up to her front door. If she was hiding in the bushes, I was sure I would’ve seen her by now. Yeah, Lori could probably freeze as well as I could in the game but I didn’t think that she had the patience for it. She’d always been a run and gun kind of girl. Every other game weed ever played together had gone more smoothly when I opted to be a medic or a healer or cleric or whatever.

  Even if it meant I spent most of the game running to wherever Lori’s corpse was and trying desperately to revive her before I also found a similar fate. I didn’t really want to think about how many hours I wasted in game trying to keep her alive, only to catch a grenade or a poisoned dagger for my trouble as her killer got me to.

  As I got to her front door I realized that I’d been about to waste an opportunity. Why would I wait out here, when I could go inside and scare her as soon as she logged in? When I’d first dropped into the game my house had been locked. After my struggles with the door on the rooftop I realized why. The Zombies couldn’t operate them, and if their houses could be locked you’d have a million players stuck at the start of the game.

  So, I could go straight into her house and wait for her. I could imagine the look on her face as she blinked into existence with my Zombie head staring straight into her undead eyes.

  Smiling now, I scanned the shadows one more time and went into Lori’s house for the first time in a long time.

  Chapter 19

  At least, that's what I tried to do…

  Except that I couldn’t. Because it was locked.

  I’d been so certain that it would open that I almost banged my head against the door as I tried to walk through it.

  Confused, I took a step back and inspected the doorknob for a moment before trying again, gripping it doorknob more firmly this time and trying to turn it with a carefulness and precision that was neither necessary nor successful.

  I’d like to think that some part of me understood right away. All those little clues dropped into place right then. She hadn’t known that Zombies couldn’t read. In fact, she hadn’t seemed to have any knowledge of my side of the game at all. And then there was her newfound wealth

  Lori was a Survivor. She hadn’t invited me here to team up and stalk the streets together like old times. She thought that she’d get an easy kill out of it, and I was sure that after it happened she’d laugh it off as a prank or joke.

  It hurt. This little betrayal brought back all that old pain. She hadn’t changed, and maybe neither had I. She’d set up a situation that would mean that she had the upper hand once more, and here I’d been stupid enough to almost walk right into it.

  I checked my clock. 11:43. I had to be ready. If Lori was really planning on setting a trap for me, she’d ambush me outside. After all, as I’d already discovered, as soon as I tried to turn the doorknob the jig was up. The fact that she wasn’t already waiting for me meant that she was lazy, but if she’d been smart about it then I would already be dead. Knowing her, her plan was to take me out from a rooftop or maybe even from across the street where I might not have looked hard enough.

  The very fact that I was still in the game, standing on her door mat staring at her door meant that Lori was still inside. At least she wasn’t punctual.

  Thanks to her parents’ money her house was the nicest one on the street by far. It was odd how only a block or so away I could live in that dump I called home, but it is what it is. I’d never really let things like that bother me before, but now that jealousy was swimming up my throat like a hot rush of I’ll and mixing with the pain and humiliation of what she had planned to do.

  No, I told myself. No more. Not this time. I slid off her front step and melded with the shadows of the lush landscaping. I wasn't sure how long I had two wait for her to leave, and I didn't care. I'd be here all day if I had to. I'd call in sick to work if that was what it took. That's what everyone else had done yesterday, anyway. Sure, my bosses would be pissed since I didn’t have any sick days left, but I couldn’t care less.

  Whatever it took, I was going to be the one telling the joke instead of the one getting laugh that. For once.

  Even with all that resolve, there was still that little voice in the back of my head telling me that I was jumping to the wrong conclusion. Maybe Lori had found some trick to lock her front door. Maybe there was a simple explanation for all of this.

  And even if you’re right, that traitor in my head told me, what’s the harm in letting her shoot you? That’s easier than the animosity you’ll cause if you overreact. You’ll only lose access to the game for a couple of days, and you can restart with a new character on Monday, older and wiser.

  But that wasn’t how it would go. Every week when I started a fresh game I would have to deal with her. Stalking me. Hunting me. Trying to run me to ground with the axe she always had to grind…

  I shoved that voice down until I couldn't hear it anymore. For once I had the advantage, even if it was only accidental. I wasn't going to give that up.

  A noise on the other side of the door ended my internal debate as Lori stepped out. She was a Survivor, all right.

  Lori looked like an idealized version of herself; a little leaner, her eyes a little sharper, her stance a bit more powerful. She appeared ready to take on the world. And from the looks of her gear, she wasn’t new to the game, either. Over one shoulder she’d slung an efficient looking combat shotgun, and she held a big, shining Desert Eagle in her hand.

  Lori was smiling, even though the only thing that could be amusing her was thoughts of the little trick she was planning on playing on me. Too bad. Maybe she’d end my game anyway, but I was going to take a shot at terminating hers.

  I burst out of the bushes and latched onto the hand holding the gun.

  Critical hit! Your vicious attack was made from the shadows! Double damage!

  I smiled when I saw that message. The look of surprise on her face was everything that I thought it would be, though it soon mixed with both indignation and agony as I squeezed her hand so hard that her flesh and the metal of the Desert Eagle were practically one and the same.

  Lori shrieked. The noise was so loud that it made my eardrums ring, but an instant later I'd locked onto her shoulder with my other hand and dove my face forward, trying to tear out her throat.

  But, gamer girl that she was, Lori somehow got herself under control and didn’t quite panic. The gun in her hand was basically useless, since her fingers were far too mashed to make use of it. I might not be as fast as she was if it turned into a foot race but I was stronger and I had the element of surprise.

  Not that Lori was a slouch, though. The look of determination that swirled up in her green eyes made it clear that she wasn't going to go down without a fight. She brought her other arm up and locked it underneath my chin as she threw herself back into her house, trying to get back into safety.

  It made sense. Retreat was a better option when faced with a thing like me clinging to you.

  Except for the fact that I was clinging to her, of course. There was no way I was letting go, and so as she fell back into her house I went to. Lori landed hard on the flat of her back, and I heard her head bounce off the fancy marble tiles her parents been so proud of laying in the entryway. Her eyelids flickered, and the impact not some fear back into her.

  The combat shotgun was useless, pinned beneath her. She managed to bring her other arm up from where it was lodged against my neck and force it into my mouth. I got the taste of her that way, but it made it hard to get a killing blow

  So be it. I chewed voraciously at the meat that she gave me, and I watched my hit points climb and my experience take off as she screamed. Through all that, Lori had somehow managed to get the Desert Eagle up and aimed in my direction. When her broken hand pulled
the trigger, I realized that I’d overestimated the damage that I’d done to her when I ambushed her at the front door.

  The boom of it in that confined space washed over me and I felt as if someone grabbed my leg and tried to pull me off of her. I was so surprised by that sensation that I stopped my full frontal and looked back over my shoulder to make sure that we were alone. Had someone come to her aid?

  There was nobody there. The front door stood open and all I could see was the yawning, empty street beyond.

  Then the boom came again and so did that sensation of being pulled away from her. This time I realized that I was feeling the impact of the high velocity rounds is the bullets struck me high in the upper thigh. I was still clamped onto the gun and Lori wasn’t strong enough to aim it at my head yet, but each trigger pull kicked its target higher on my body.

  No way. Not this time. I didn’t care if she dragged me down with her, but there was no way that I was going to let her win this.

  I didn't let go of the Desert Eagle. If I did, I was a goner. The way she was keeping my jaws at bay meant that a bite wasn’t going to end it, and so I pulled my free hand away from her body, made my long, bony fingers go rigid and then plunged it up to my wrist into her side, just above the kidneys.

  Her whole body convulsed. I grabbed something inside of her and pulled, and it was like I was yanking on the strings of a puppet. Everything inside of her was connected and as I yanked, she danced beneath me until I could drag my hand free. A tangle of organs trailed away from that fresh wound like a length of knotted rope and the noises she was making from her throat went instantly wetter.

  Maybe it was the anger. Or the pain. Perhaps the Survivors can access some a last-ditch ability that had a chance at saving their life. Wherever she got strength, somehow Lori was able to bunch her legs up beneath my hips and push. I was still light, and now she had leverage.

  I was still holding on to her, but I had one long second to regret not choosing the Tank archetype as she scampered out from beneath me. Even though I was still holding on as best I could, my weight was no longer pinning her to the ground. At least the Desert Eagle was laying on the ground beside me, abandoned in the struggle.

  She scrambled to her feet and pressed her empty hand to the gaping wound I’d just made, her eyes burning with hatred.

  With her other, broken hand she was trying to get the combat shotgun off her shoulder. It wasn’t easy. Those mashed fingers couldn’t do it in one quick motion, which was the only thing that saved me.

  If they’d been able to, she’d have won.

  I couldn't let that happen, and as she finally unslung it and attempted to bring it to bear on me I ducked underneath the muzzle and launched myself at her. I’d seen how quickly my Lunge ability could close the distance, but I triggered it when I was already inside of her guard. I sprung up and I felt the top of my head make a sickening contact with her chin.

  The sound of her teeth clacking painfully together made my stomach roll. Her head rocked back at an angle her neck wasn’t designed for, and a moment later she crumpled to the ground.

  This time I didn't let her up. Lori was down and out, and I pressed my advantage.

  “It’s just a joke," I told her, though I could see by her last expression that my words were only growls to her. I reached out with my foot as I stripped her flesh from the bone and kicked the front door closed.

  Chapter 20

  The fight was over much quicker than the time it took for me to consume her. I ate beyond the feeling of fullness, and as I did so my hit points once more returned to their maximum. Even better, a message flashed across my vision.

  Congratulations! Headshot has found that one of your recent kills was known to you. You have been awarded double experience and the title of Victor of the Vendetta. In subsequent games your victim may seek revenge. Be warned.

  and then

  You have achieved level 5. Your hit points are now (20). Your speed is now (6). You have also consumed enough experience to unlock access to a new Zombie tier. Choose now, and be advised that your choice is permanent for the current game week. Would you like to become a Runner? Runners are quick, agile zombies that can tear through the ranks of Survivors with ease. If you accept this transformation your Speed will become (20). Your hit points will become (10). You will gain immediate access to new abilities, forgoing some of the ones you already have. Remember, these choices are PERMANENT for the duration of the game week.

  I almost agreed to it. It was certainly tempting. As much as I would have loved to have had a bit more strength in the fight with Lori, I could see that a speed of twenty would make me a blur when I was going all out. The Survivors counted on the Zombies being relatively slow, shambling mounds of experience. If there were faster ones amongst our ranks, it was certainly worth considering making the transformation…

  But I thought No at the menu anyway, and it obediently went away. I'd been expecting to receive another skill, and I was disappointed when that didn’t happen.

  I wiped the last of her gore from my mouth with the back of my hand and looked around. It was odd being here, in the game version of her house. Especially when I was sure that she was back in pretty much the exact location, in the real world.

  And she’d be pissed. Headshot had already threatened that she’d be able to seek revenge in future games, but that was the least of my concerns right now. I had more immediate problems, since I knew that Lori wasn’t going to wait until next week to get back at me. She’d be on the phone or on the ‘net with some of her friends right now. If she was a Survivor herself I didn’t doubt that she’d know others, and she’d be bringing them down on my head if she could.

  I wasn’t safe here. Not only was this where her makeshift posse would begin to try and track me from, but I couldn’t even lock the door. I had to go, and now that I realized that I had to hurry I was regretting passing up that Runner option even more.

  It hadn’t suited me, though. I was never into that twitchy sort of game, and even though I thought that my reflexes were okay, it took the confidence and surety to make those speed of light combat decisions that I just wasn’t sure if I possessed.

  I wondered if the game would tell me if and when I reached the final tier. What if I already had? What if there were only Tanks and Runners and normal zombies like me and I’d just given away my only chance to progress beyond what I was?

  I didn’t think that was the case. There was something more. That strange Zombie on the rooftop had proven that, the one that had Howled and saved me…

  Of course, I had to get out of here first if I wanted to progress. I looked at the clock. It'd been ten minutes since all this had begun. My hit points were fine, but where was I going to log out? Not here, that was for sure. And not back at my house. There were other places to hide, other houses, but if I knew Lori at all the wrath of the vengeance that she’d try and bring down on me would mean nothing in this neighborhood would be safe.

  She'd be livid. I was glad I couldn't hear it now but I was sure that my phone was ringing. She had a thin skin and wasn't ready for the tables to ever be turned, and now that they had she’d be claiming that I'd somehow wasted her parents’ investment. Never mind the fact that it had been her that had tried to ambush me…

  Let's just say I didn't imagine she was ever going to let me live this down. That made her dangerous, at least at the moment. I felt like I had a big target on my back, and accompanying it was a giant spotlight that lit up my location.

  I needed to get out here. But I needed to do something else even more.

  When Lori and I had broken up, I hadn’t got most of my stuff back. I consoled myself by saying that none of it was valuable, but that was bullshit. The fact that those things could be replaced wasn’t really the point. I didn’t want another Mecha Dread shirt. I wanted the one that she’d bought me when we went to that first concert together, back when we started going out.

  There was a long l
ist of things like that. An old, broken phone that I’d been using as a camera and never transferred the pictures from. The leash I’d bought her dog, who I loved like it was my own. The poor thing might’ve been run down in the street, but that strip of red leather was all I had to remember him by. I suppose it was just stupid stuff, but there was no denying that it mattered to me.

  When I’d asked for it back and she’d told me that she’d already gotten rid of it all, I’d hurt almost as bad as I had when I knew we weren’t going to last.

  I went through the house to Lori’s bedroom and began to paw through her closet. As I saw outfit after outfit that I remembered all too well, I was again struck by how realistic everything was. In order to get into the game you had to sign the Terms and Conditions but this time around I’d done something I’d never done before.

  I actually read them, and what I found was equal parts genius and madness.

  I’d already known that Deep Dive studios was running this immersion as a two-way street. There weren’t any programs on their end that were simply guessing what your house looked like. They had satellites for the big stuff, but the rest? Well, they were simply dragging the details right out of your head, sometimes in rough form and sometimes, when they deemed it necessary, in intricate detail.

  Of course, they promised not to do anything wrong with this treasure trove of information. They’d even made not-so-subtle suggestions the anything criminally damning would be instantly filtered before it made to the game. They had to, since some everyone had said that the cops could go in to Headshot, raid your virtual house, find your virtual stash of weed, and then come knocking on your real door with a warrant.

  In fact, most of the terms and conditions were taken up by them explaining just how secure their servers were, how invulnerable to attack, how far they were hidden offshore in locations known only to them. If any organization or individual, be they are representative of the government or a criminal mastermind attempted to access them the servers would be immediately wiped, magnetized, crushed and then literally melted.