She lost her balance and hit the concrete hard, face first. Her hands, still in her pockets, didn’t have a chance to break her fall. The instant her head cracked against the punishing surface I dragged myself on top of her back, pinning her down. My first bite sank into the back of her shoulder. She screamed, her mouth opened against the concrete. Without the hit point bar to verify I couldn’t be certain, but when I swallowed that chunk of flesh down I felt better. That was something, at least.
I took another massive bite, the weight of my body pinning her there. She was still screaming, but there wasn’t anything I could do about that. I only had one hand, and I needed that to cling to her.
Besides, I was planning on her bringing more Survivors.
Even though I’d gotten the jump on her, she was a fighter. I wasn't that heavy, and the adrenaline and fear she must have been feeling made her buck underneath me like a bronco. I'd used my Grasp ability to grab onto her ankle, and now that it was on cooldown I didn’t have the strength to hang on when she rolled to the left and she threw me from her.
I pushed myself to my feet. She was going for her gun, and I doubted that I had enough hit points to survive a shot from a high caliber weapon. I Lunged instead, but instead of trying to latch on again I let my momentum knock her off her feet without making another attack against her.
I needed her alive. Well, at least not dead…
I’d been confident in my hasty plan when she hit the ground a second time, but when she did a neat little combat roll and came up with the gun aimed at my face, I had a second or two to rethink my strategy. I had no idea how long this would take, and if I was wrong, I wouldn’t have to worry about Sasha or Silicon Valley.
I could see the brunette try to fire the gun. At least, I could see the struggle in her eyes as she stared in frustration at the gun when she couldn’t talk her finger into pulling the trigger. She tried again, to no avail.
She wasn’t finding a merciful streak, not this late into the game. This woman was as hard-core as the rest of them, but that didn't make it easy for her to pull the trigger, not with my infection coursing through her bloodstream.
She was pissed off at first, frustrated and probably thinking that the game was screwing up. I could see her asking herself why she couldn’t she fire. When she worked it out, the anger became something else entirely. It only took an instant for sheer terror to fill her. I watched as she stared down at her hand like it was made from some alien thing, and I saw her eyes glaze over a little bit as she no doubt read some menu message that had just popped up across her vision.
I wondered what she was reading. How was the game letting her know that her actions weren’t going to be her own, anymore? I had no way of knowing, but I took solace in the thick black lines of ichor that pulsed and stretched from the bite marks on her shoulder and spidered beneath her skin in every direction.
It was fascinating to watch it happen. Up until now I'd only ever seen Survivors or Zombies get killed so quickly that the actual threat of my side wasn't apparent, but now my bite had time to course through her body.
And not a second too soon, either. There were more people on the way. Two of them, by the sounds of their footfalls, and these guys were running.
I turned my head ever so slightly to watch them approach. They were at the start of the driveway. They saw her crouched in the firing position, her gun still uselessly pointed at me. I shifted ever so slightly to the left so that I’d block her clearly compromised face from their view.
"Marissa?" one of them called. “Do you need some help with that one? Why aren’t you shooting?”
Congratulations! You have unlocked the ability (Forgotten Language - Level 2). The written word has returned, and now the spoken word has begun to make sense as well. Go forth and Scheme!
Marissa wanted to answer them. I could see that she wanted nothing more than to warn her friends, but her jaw was locked and her eyelids were twitching. I licked my lips and tasted her blood flecked across them.
Her muscles started to seize up and then her eyes glazed over. The two guys were halfway to us, and I knew it was only a matter of time before one of them put a bullet in me. There might be a code of honor amongst them about kill stealing, but if they thought something was going badly all of that would go out the window, and rightly so.
Just before I dove into the shadows I saw that, while my brain was remembering forgotten languages, poor Marissa’s had forgotten hers. Her brain wasn’t completely shut down yet, but as the darkness closed around me the last of the player she’d been vanished and she leapt at her former allies with a snarl that send a welcome shiver up my spine.
Her mouth may have been useless for speech, but it had a new purpose now. I watched from concealment as she reared back and took a huge, jagged bite out of the guy closest to her, almost tearing his throat out. He was completely unprepared for the attack, and even though her teeth weren't sharp and broken like mine, they proved to be more than effective for the task at hand.
He fell back with a gurgle, both hands splayed and pressed to the gaping wound that spurted a high-pressure arterial mist out between his fingers.
I felt a surge of what I could only think of as health. I might not be able to see my hit points since whatever the hibernation or Sasha or the combination of the two had done to me, but I could feel strength and vitality returning to me. The injuries began to heal, all except my missing hand.
Your minion has done damage. A portion of the health they gain will be yours.
This changed everything. If this was what Schemers could do, then I was in love.
Now that I was healthier I could move more easily. I took a moment to tug my intestines back into my gut and watched in abject fascination as the wound closed once I had. I knew I needed to help my new convert, but if I was dragging around bits of my insides on the outsides I was liable to do harm to myself once again.
The second guy had worked out what was happening. I watched as he dragged his gun out of his holster and fired it at Marissa point blank. The impact threw her back a little but she kept coming at him anyway. He slammed round after round into her body, his weapon tracking up from her stomach to her chest.
The next shot would be right between her eyes and I didn’t want that, which meant it was time to hop on to his exposed back. I wrapped my good arm around his head, cranking it back and making him stare at the pitiless moon above us all. He was worried about my teeth, but I showed him that I had more than one set of weapons as I shoved my hand into his throat and forced it down until his teeth were bumping up against my elbow.
He clawed at me, then clawed at himself in desperation. There wasn’t enough air in him to fight, and when I took a bite out of the back of his scalp he seemed resigned to it. I held on, my hand making a fist in his esophagus to make it even harder for him to dislodge me.
I wasn't trying to kill him. All I needed was to disable him for long enough for my Infectious Bite to do its work, and as he went limp and slid to the ground I went right along with him, watching his eyes. Waiting for him to die. Once he had I removed my hand. It took some doing, but I had time.
After all, I needed him to live again, this time for me.
And then there were three…
Chapter 38
I couldn’t see how this was going to go unnoticed. Nobody had fired a shot, but Marissa had been screaming bloody murder and the fight that followed had been anything but silent. Judging by the depth of the darkness dropping around us like a cloak I felt like it was still probably early in the evening, though the condition of the mansion bothered me.
Obviously, something had gone wrong. It couldn’t possibly be Wednesday, anymore. I didn’t believe that the game had skipped time or jumped forward. Even though it shouldn’t happen, the only thing that made any sense at all was that I’d simply been stuck in it, drifting along in unknowing blackness for hours and hours because of the Hibernation ability I’d triggered.
I couldn’t risk any time back in the real world. If they knew what they were doing at all, the Survivors would try and stomp my little insurrection out as quickly as they could. Once they realized that their perfect sanctuary had been shattered from within, they were going to come down on me with everything they had.
It’s what I would do, if I were them…
I looked at my minions, trying to get an idea of what I had to work with. After all, if you’re going to build an insurrection, it’s a good idea to know the quality of your tools.
At least the three Survivors Marissa and myself had managed to convert were now all the way Zombie. Unfortunately, she was so riddled with bullets that she looked like she’d be on her way out after a couple more shots, but the other two guys I’d Zombified were as close to one hundred percent healthy as they were ever going to be. The one who’d had his throat torn out was even wearing a bullet proof vest, which was a nice little perk that I hadn’t been expecting.
Actually… I tried to take his vest off of him. Armor was the one thing I didn’t think I’d be able to come by very easily. If I could borrow his for a while, it may increase my chances of survival enough to make it through this.
As soon as I touched the straps to the vest, the game let me know my options.
Would you like to exchange your backpack for the body armor?
Fuck. It looked like Zombies could only wear one thing on their torso at a time. I stopped trying to rob my new friend of his armor and growled softly to myself. All of the Survivors were just standing there, staring straight ahead. I’d better stop screwing around with my limited fashion choices and get us all moving.
I hadn’t given it much thought yet, but now that I had three prime examples of the effect of my Infectious Bite right in front of me I couldn't imagine that Deep Dive studios forced the Survivor’s player to really still be in there, locked somewhere behind those oddly opaque. The only thing that made sense was that they would be guided by the Artificial Intelligence now, which would be an easy way to cover for the presumably slow decisions they may be liable to make.
I shrugged to myself. Even if the AI was rudimentary at best, that would be good enough for my purposes. Besides, it was time to see what sort of damage I could do with them. On a whim, I stepped in front of the guy with the bulletproof vest and thought walk down the street at him, the same way I’d force a thought at the game menu whenever I wanted to make a selection.
His unfocused gaze drifted to me for a long moment before he obediently shambled off down the driveway. I watched him go, studying the way he moved, making note of his speed and his agility for later use in my tactical decisions. He was slower than an actual Zombie player was when we started the game, but that was to be expected. It wouldn’t be much fun if the AI minion was just as powerful as you were…
All I really needed him to do was cause a bit of chaos on my behalf. Before the Survivors knew what they were dealing with I wanted them taking casualties. Once they were panicked about being infiltrated, their caution would slow them down. And, when they started seeing their former allies turning on them, the terror wouldn’t take long to set in.
Better yet, if they were worried about him, they wouldn’t be worried about me.
I commanded both Marissa and the other guy to hide in the pile of broken branches and shredded shrubbery that had been my home for however long I’d been hibernating and talking to Sasha. The foliage had managed to conceal me well enough, and I had faith that it would serve them well, too.
If a lone Survivor comes by here, I want both of you to attack. If a larger group arrives, wait for them to pass and then ambush the ones in the back. Got it?
They didn’t really have a way to answer me, but at least both of them moved to crouch in the wreckage of the once-perfect landscaping. Once they hidden, even I had trouble picking them out from the surrounding foliage.
Okay, I thought to myself. At least these two might cover my back. Time to move on.
Marissa’s surprise arrival had shaken me up a couple of minutes ago, and I felt like a lot more time had passed between the mansion’s explosion and now. My head was saying it was only twenty minutes later, but my gut… Well, that was certain that I was looking at something closers to days than hours.
The fact that the game clock was still missing from my Heads Up Display was worrying, but I only had to look at the mansion I’d burned down to see that something was definitely off. I risked getting a little closer, trusting that the night and my Hide in Shadows ability would hide me from anyone who’d come over to the scene of the crime to investigate exactly what had happened.
I felt like my heart was in my throat. My ears were ringing, and the first step I took made me wobble. I needed to see the damage for myself because things just weren’t adding up.
Sure enough, when I got close enough to put my hand on the charred wood, trusting in my newfound ability to better experience temperature, I discovered that the wreckage was no warmer than the air around us. In my head, I’d blasted this place to pieces only a couple of minutes ago, but that obviously wasn’t the case.
But it was dark. The sun had been almost completely set when Sasha had yanked me into that void, and even though I was practically convinced that more time had passed then I thought, it was still night.
Or rather, it was night again…
Chapter 39
I had a lot to think about. My head was swirling with the financial possibilities and it was getting in the way of the tactical decisions I knew I should be making.
As much as I hated to admit it, the thing that was distracting me the most was the money Sasha had offered me to complete the journey to the Silicon Valley. It wasn’t a fortune, not exactly, but it would certainly make my life a hell of a lot easier. Try as I might to focus on the task at hand, I could still hear her voice echoing through my thoughts.
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't tempted, but I’d lived long enough to know that nobody gave away something for nothing. Even though I had to keep reminding myself that the amount of money she was offering probably was nothing to her, it would still be the old story; she’d be telling me to jump and I’d be asking how high…
At least I was still wearing the backpack. I was beginning to suspect that the game was hardcoded to ensure that it couldn’t get damaged. None of this was real, so I certainly expected some safeguards to be written straight into the blood and bone of the software itself. And, if the brick or the radio or whatever she wanted to call it really was as important as Sasha was saying it was, it would make sense that the item would be indestructible.
It was looking more and more like the problem was that I’d been able to pick it up in the first place. That was the bug, and the rest of the mess has gone on from there. The game should never let me add to my in-game inventory. Probably, in fact, I shouldn’t even have an inventory for it to go in to, since I was a Zombie and all… After that, some mutation in the source code or random permutation of the algorithms doing their dance on the backend of the game had tried to cope with something that shouldn’t have been allowed to happen.
And now she wanted it back.
I wasn't going to do it. I told myself that, over and over. I didn't like the fact that she no doubt thought that she'd already bought my commitment. And it wasn't just the mercenary way things had gone down, either. Sasha was much more than she was admitting, what with her and her guild’s ability to push through the game somehow and hack the code. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it had been her guys behind the server attacks, and that meant that getting caught helping her was bad news.
Maybe the brick had some sort of sentimental value to it, but there was more
to the story than she was letting on…
Even though I’d told myself to push this shit to one side, as I heard shouts coming from down the road as more Survivors sprinted in my direction, I gnashed my teeth and cursed my inability to ignore Sasha’s quest. It wasn’t as if this wasn't the time to let my mind wander, but none of the decisions I made would matter at all if I couldn't make it through this most dangerous part of the game. I was well behind enemy lines, alone except for some possibly useless AI minions, and the game wasn’t even showing me my health status anymore.
If I wanted to do myself a favor, I’d start thinking about the fight at hand, since even now I could hear the throaty rumble of a few cars tearing up the street as well. If I decided not to bring the brick to Sasha that was one thing, but I wanted the decision to be mine.
And the only way I was going to make it was if I could somehow manage to avoid getting taken out amongst the luxury and glamor of the sweeping vistas of Beverly Hills.
I slid into the shadows and let my advantages, however few, reassure me. I had my minions, for one. They might not be that effective, but the Survivors didn't know about them yet. It was dark enough now that I felt my little squad could hide in the gloom and let them run right by us, if we had to. That would be important. Striking from ambush was the only way we were going to make a dent in them.
But on top of that, I was a Schemer. Even before I'd picked the archetype it had felt that I’d been playing the game that way, and as I wrestled with the logistics of where and when to attack I felt the world open up ahead of me. Strategy. Tactics. If I was going to make it out of this, it sure as hell wouldn't be because I'd assaulted them had on.
I had to guess what the Survivors would do, which meant putting myself in their shoes. If I underestimated them, even for a moment, they’d win.
Headshot: One in the Gut (Book 1 of a Zombie litRPG Trilogy) Page 20