Tanks are huge, muscular zombies that can take a beating and bring the pain. If you accept this transformation your Strength will triple. Your hit points will become (55). Your speed will revert to (4). 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.
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 (12). 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.
Would you like to become one of these two archetypes?
My smile died on my face. Was that it? Where was the rest of the information? I waited for more and it didn’t come…
I felt like the game was playing with me, but instead of getting angry I tried to use my head. What had it said before, some Abilities had to be earned? Maybe that was the same way with this final Archetype.
Still struggling to work out how to advance, I dismissed the game message. I didn’t want to be a Tank or a Runner. I could see how attractive they were to a lot of players, but they weren’t for me. Instead, I watched as the last of the Survivors on the freeway went down.
The Zombies were tearing the bodies of their enemies limb from limb. They were like a pack of hyenas, and in their ferocity I suppose I couldn’t fault them for not seeing the bomb.
Yet again, I’d underestimated the Survivors. At least one of them had thought to boobytrap the place they were making their last stand. I had an instant to see the wires taped to the ground between what must have been a pressure plate and the kind of big eskimo cooler you took when you were tailgating. Usually they were stacked with beer, but this one was full of explosives.
Everything hit me at once. The light from the blast instantly overwhelmed my Low Light Vision and the force of it plastered me against the bus like a bug on a windshield. I knew it was hotter than hell, because I could feel it. Maybe that was the biggest shock. Not the light, not the g-forces, not the wet press of my former allies’ flesh as it became instantly pureed and airborne. After so many hours of not feeling so much as the sun on my skin, the fire of the detonation felt like it split my bones.
The force of the explosion overbalanced the bus and I felt the world go over sideways as I fell off the freeway right along with it. The bus crashed down on its rear and rolled uselessly over on to its wheels. I was lucky to already be pinned to the roof because if it had gone the other way I’d have been trapped beneath fourteen tons of metal. Even if I didn’t die, I’d have been stuck for good.
For the first time in a while, I had to worry about my hit points. I’d had a huge buffer because of the Howl buff, but they’d evaporated in the explosion and the fall from the freeway. Now, I was done to 9. If Headshot wanted to be nice, when the Howl bonus wore off it would leave me with the health I still had. If it wanted to be cruel, it would shave some of them off as well, possibly even killing me.
Sure enough, as soon as I thought about it, the huge hit point bar I’d had shrunk to something much more like I was used to seeing at the bottom of my vision, but at least I still had 9 left. Not much, but better than nothing. I didn’t think even the Tanks had survived at ground zero of the bomb, but the slab of health I’d gotten had saved me.
For the moment. Of course, I was stuck. What was left of the Zombie Horde was still above me, but they might as well have been on Mars for all the help they’d be right now.
I poked my head up carefully, scanning my surroundings. The bus had landed amongst the Humvees and Jeeps I’d spotted below, crushing a couple of pickups that had been unfortunate enough to have been parked below the fall of the bus.
This fight had been more even. The Howl had helped, but the Survivors had just managed to win. The few that remained were shooting helpless, often legless Zombies in the head a hundred yards off or so. It wouldn’t take them long to continue their gruesome task and once they did I was sure they’d hightail it out of here.
I could just lie here and wait. I doubted they’d check the top of the bus, though if they did I’d meet the same fate as the poor Players being executed right now. Still, it was an option…
It wasn’t one I liked, though. I hadn’t gotten this far into the game by not pressing my advantage when I had one, and I was determined not to let that change. I’d rather take a risk and be rewarded than play passive, especially now that it felt like I was on a roll. I’d gotten access to a new Archetype, though I had no idea what it was. And, I’d discovered a secret.
The backpack! Panicked, I swiped at my back with my free hand. Was it still there? It was hard to tell with the deadened-nerves of my fingertips, but after a couple of tries I felt rugged material still securely in place. Even the straps were tight and intact. Either the game wasn’t going to let something as special as whatever it was get damaged or my bod had protected it from the worst of the explosion.
Or both, I suppose…
I wasn’t going to question it, though. Now that I knew the backpack was safe I could focus on freeing myself. The single shots of the Survivors were getting more and more sparse, and I knew I didn’t have long. I couldn’t find the purchase to wrench my hand free. I wasn’t strong enough to bust myself out of this trap, but I wasn’t without tools or determination.
After all, what sort of a Zombie would I be my teeth weren’t able to deal with this very situation?
I’d miss the hand. My jaws were certainly strong enough to slice through my own flesh, and the sinew and then bone beneath didn’t prove to be much more difficult. My hit points dipped to 6 from the damage I did to myself but, oddly, they climbed back up to 8 when I chewed and swallowed.
Congratulations! You have earned the Ability (Consume Undead Flesh). Waste not, want not.
Fair enough. It would come in handy, but I had far more pressing issues at the moment. A few seconds after I’d begun the job was finished. I was free, but that didn’t mean that I didn’t have to hurry.
As carefully as I could I crept to the edge of the bus. If I got spotted now, I was a goner. I could see the scene before me much more clearly now that my Low Light Vision was coming back to a level I was comfortable with. The blast had played havoc with it, but the sun was setting and that was helping a lot.
The tangled bodies of both factions lay scattered in every direction, and there were two Survivors killing Zombies in the distance. I didn’t see any other movement, and for a second I paused. How the hell was I supposed to know which vehicle was theirs?
I shouldn’t have worried. If I’d been thinking with my head instead of my gut, I’d have realized that one of the Humvees had its engine running. Now that I knew what I was looking for I could see someone the wheel in the glow of the dashboard’s lights, and I slid from the bus and did my best to roll to reduce the sound of my body hitting the ground.
I don’t think the driver heard me. If he did, he put it down to falling cement from the overpass or something else, because he didn’t so much as flinch, nor did he glance back in my direction in the rearview mirror.
Move. Freeze. Move again. I went forward as quickly as I could, staying low to the ground. A couple of times as I crouched I banged my new stump against the ground. It didn’t hurt, but not having the hand there to catch my balance was already disconcerting. Hopefully, I’d get used to it…
Wealthy players were used to wealthy things, and that was going to save me. The Humvee was a good option when you’re looking for a vehicle in a Zombie Apocalypse, but these guys had selected one with a hilariously high lift and massive wheels. The clearance on this thing was insane, and I had no issue sneaking up to the back of it and climbing beneath it. Being onehanded was a pain in the ass, but I soon found a way to wedge myself into the undercarriage in such a way that I was fairly certain I was both secure and unable to
be seen. I dug my grip in even harder and even triggered Grasp, locking my arms and my legs into whatever space I could find. There were massive struts and suspension coils, and they provided far more place to hang on to then I’d first suspected.
This had better work, I thought to myself. I jumped as the driver of the Humvee beeped the horn, two sorts and a long, but by the time his Survivor buddies had turned around and come back to the vehicle I was composed once more. Before I’d decided to hang on I’d thought about dragging the driver out, but as I heard the doors unlock I knew I’d made the right decision.
Besides, I didn’t just want these guys. I wanted them all.
They could have checked to make sure they hadn’t picked up any stowaways. They should have. But the fear of being stuck out here exposed, to either another Horde or the return of what was left of the first one once they found a way off the freeway made them hurry, and their haste made them sloppy.
Even when they gunned the engine and sped away they were reckless, hopping curbs unnecessarily and using their wide bumper to shove the wrecks of other cars out of their way as they drove to wherever they’d decided to head to next. I hung on with the strength of muscled imbued with rigor mortis.
They didn't go back on to the highway, choosing instead to take side streets that were clearer of the carnage. There were no lights, and no other traffic. The sun went down and their headlights lit the pavement ahead of us. They drove for almost an hour without pause, and I studied the terrain and tried to work out where we were going.
Hiding beneath their ride had been a risk, but the real danger was still ahead of me. I’d rolled the dice, and I had to hope against hope that I was right about their destination. It was 8:30 at night, and I’d decided that the Survivors were made up of two diverse groups. There’d be the younger players like Lori, who’d most likely used their parents’ money to buy their way in to Headshot. Then, there’d be the older, career-minded players, ones who had been waiting their whole lives for game like this and had gladly paid the fee to be a part of it.
I was hoping that these guys were part of the second group. There'd been a few clues that I thought had given me a hint that I was right. For one, they weren’t reckless. They took the experience the game had given them and lived to fight another day. Hopefully, they were either part of a guild or a close group of friends. Even the way the driver had beeped spoke volumes. He could have laid impatiently on the horn, but he’d given his friends a signal and they’d promptly returned. Unspoken teamwork like that spoke volumes, at least to me.
The Survivors were getting better at working together. At least, the ones that hadn’t learned to cooperate were now sitting on the sidelines. These guys acted like they may even know each other in real life.
The rich kids had nowhere in the real world they had to go. They could play all day and all night, if they wanted to. If they had jobs, they wouldn’t catch much shit if they called in sick. They could sleep whenever they wanted, since they didn’t have any other responsibilities.
But the other guys, the older gamers? They probably had jobs they couldn’t ditch and families that expected them to make an effort to be a part of their lives. They were breadwinners, and as much as this addictive game was probably getting in their head the same way it was mine, there were often husbands or wives who very well might be wondering why their significant other was choosing to get lost in their skull instead of spend time with their kids.
If I was right, I'd know soon enough. They should retreat to somewhere safe before logging out for the night, and when they did, I’d be ready.
Chapter 27
The longer we drove the darker it got. It was almost midnight now, and I figured that in another hour or two they’d have to log out. The world got darker and the sporadic gunfire lessened. If there was a front line to this roaming war, I was almost certainly behind it. Whatever battles I did hear in the distance didn’t sound anywhere near as fierce as the one I’d turned the tide of on the freeway overpass. I didn't hear any other Zombies using the Howl either, but there were certainly roars and cries of aggression, not to mention the high-pitched, albeit distant screams of Survivors.
There was so much death out there, be it from bite or blade or bullet. I wasn’t sure if Los Angeles would fall before the week was over, but the fact that we had to drive this long to get away from the fighting spoke volumes and that got me thinking about what the winning conditions would be.
In the Beta, the week had simply stopped at midnight on Saturday night. Whatever progress you’d made in game was erased and everything was reset, ready to resume in twenty-four hours. Nobody had complained, since the game hadn’t yet launched and we all felt privileged to get early access. The launch had made the stakes much, much higher. Now that there were so many good reasons to risk your life for experience, be they new abilities or completely different Archetypes, I could see people wanting their progress to matter.
If the driver fell asleep at the wheel and ran full tilt into a wall and I died, was that it? Would I really be stuck back at zero on Monday?
It didn’t seem fair, but fair wasn’t necessarily a consideration when so many of us were playing for free. I had so many questions, and the game wasn’t particularly forthcoming in answering them. Let’s say they Zombies somehow won on a Friday. What then? Would that be it, or would the rest of the week play out with a world empty of Survivors? If it did, what would be the point?
On the other hand, what did the Survivors have to do to win? I doubted they had to kill every Zombie. The math behind that was just impossible. It was much more likely that they’d win if they did exactly what their name implied: survived. I was willing to bet that if a sizeable percentage of them were still fighting on Saturday night, they’d win.
I had nothing else to do but hypothesize about the Survivor’s abilities, since I didn’t dare log out during the drive. They’d have at least one fighter tree, though more would make sense. Melee, ranged, possibly explosives based. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had people who specialized in recon and scavenging, and there’d be some sort of tech tree too.
That last one worried me the most. They obviously didn’t have a lot of trouble getting the cars to work. Either they were all driving their “own”, which I doubted, or the game had an easy ability to let you hotwire a vehicle of your choosing. Gasoline wouldn’t be an issue, especially since the game only took six days of real time. Even the worst gas guzzler could be driven like Mad Max himself were behind the wheel for that long, and there’d be plenty of fuel when the tank ran dry.
What else could the Survivors use? Guns, obviously, but what about jets? Or nukes…
I shook my head at that last thought. Deep Dive studios had a lot of tweaks to make if Headshot was going to be the sort of game that people came back to week after week, and letting one side rain instant, remote fiery death on the other with very few consequences to themselves wasn’t the way to address the obvious power imbalance. I mean, I know the Survivors had bought their way on to a side primed to win, but something that over powered would be ridiculous…
I closed my eyes as we bounced across a stretch of road covered in broken glass and took a hard, screeching left. I hung on, wary of being thrown beneath the big, spinning tires of the Humvee. Thinking of the future and pondering the game mechanics was all well and good, but if I lost focus in here I was going to get mashed into a paste.
As it was, my hit points were down to 6. It seemed that the higher level I was the slower my health ticked down when I wasn’t eating, and I was pleased about that.
The pavement we were driving across was gradually becoming less cratered and pockmarked. Wherever we were, it wasn’t long before we entered a part of the city that had obviously seen very little fighting. I risked hanging down a little lower and peering around the tires to get a better look. The streets were lined with palm trees and glitzy, expensive storefronts. The shops had been ransacked, but the lack of blood to
ld me that the Gucci and Chanel and Prada that they’d held had been looted by Survivors more interested in fashion than the fierce defense of LA.
I didn’t need to be able to read the street signs to know we were driving down Rodeo Drive and I couldn't help but grin. Of course guys like this would move into the mansions of Beverly Hills. Why wouldn’t they? The hills would provide an excellent vantage point, and because it was highly unlikely that anyone who couldn’t afford to be a Survivor would be living amongst them they were practically guaranteed be safe from Zombie interlopers.
We drove up a long winding road, up to the gate of an exclusive community the likes of which any trophy wife worth her salt would have been proud to be a part of. I couldn’t imagine that the wrought iron gates would work, not with the electricity still being out, but instead of hopping out the driver just pulled the Humvee up and waited expectantly.
To my surprise, I heard the crunch of boots as someone came out of the gatehouse and physically rolled the gate out of the way. Really? Who the hell would waste their expensive game time standing guard when they could be out looting, pillaging and busting heads?
As we accelerated up the hill I caught a glimpse of the helpful guy who’d opened the gate. He was closing it now, but the way he moved was off in just about every way. He was too efficient with his motions.
Also, there was a big glowing NPC above his head…
Non-Player Characters, huh? That was new, at least to me. I hadn’t expected to have to deal with this particular wrinkle in my plan, but it was too late to change now. Adapt and survive, Ryan. It’s the only way you’re going to get through this.
Between their NPC guards and the fact that they were removed from the fighting, nestled amongst an area that should be devoid of Zombie starting locations, the Survivors I was hitching a ride with had every reason to feel safe and secure.
Headshot: One in the Gut (Book 1 of a Zombie litRPG Trilogy) Page 14