by Ian Woodhead
“What are you going on about?”
“Okay, tell me what you're thinking about right now, Jordan?” He held up his hand. “No, don't bother. I already know. You can't figure out why you can't get out of the shopping mall. It should be getting to the point where it's hurting your brain as to why you can't leave the place and get that shotgun.”
Jordan nodded. “Yeah, something like that.”
“I take it you took out the zombie kids in the toyshop?”
Jordan nodded again.
“Thought so, that's one of the early tasks. How about when Jenny pulls you onto one of the tables in the eatery for spontaneous sex?” Barry chuckled. “Just kidding. There's a zombie hiding in one of the cleaner's cupboards that jumps out when you pass the door. Jenny gets her shoe stuck in a grate, just as three of them lurch around the corner. Believe me, man. That place sucks you in. You end up saving each other from life threatening situations for ages.” Barry took a deep breath. “I thought I'd missed some clue, you know like not picking up the bat from the house, or not going back inside my house to find some food. I even wondered if that teddy bear had something else to do with the plot, you know? Anyway, all that was going through my head when I came out of the ninth insertion.” Barry walked over to the window and looked out. “Daft question, but why is there a frying pan and a lampshade on your neighbour's garden shed?”
“The woman next door is as mad as a box of frogs. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me to look out there one day and actually see a box of frogs on the roof. Look, never mind about all that. What happened when you came out?”
“My mum was standing at the foot of my bed, staring at me.” He shuddered. “I knew straight away that something was really wrong with her. I mean, she just stood there, as still as a statue. Not even her eyes were moving. It's the smell coming off her that scared me more than anything else. The odour reminded me of a time when dad drained the liquid from the base of our plastic compost bin. I tell you, that stuff seriously made your eyes water.”
“What did you do?”
“Yeah, well that's the thing. See, I'd just twatted this shambling dead woman who had almost taken a bite out of Jenny's neck. We were on our way to see if we could get out of the fire exit at the back of the mall when it crawled out from this overhead air-duct and dropped right on our heads. It looked like my mum, even down to the clothes.”
“Oh God.”
“You don't know the half of it. As for what I did? What do you think? I stayed on the bed, trying to stay as still as my mum, hoping that she'd either fuck off or that I'd be able to dive straight back into the game despite the two-hour limit.” Tears ran down his cheeks. “Looking back, that probably wasn't my finest moment.”
“Shit, man. I don't know what to say.”
Barry just sighed. “I guess there was still some part of me which wanted to live because my mum must have figured out that I'd become concious, that I was no longer plugged in Necrovoid. All of a sudden, she fell onto the bed. I must have already figured out what she was about to do cos I rolled off a second earlier.”
“A lucky escape, by the sounds of it.”
“Are you having a laugh? No, don't bother replying.” Fat tears rolled down both cheeks. “Do you know what really hurt? I mean, more than finding out that my mum was dead and had come back to life as a fricking zombie?”
Jordan shook his head. He wasn't sure whether he wanted to know.
“It was the the image of my mum, lying on my bed with her arms outstretched, those long fingers reaching for me and her teeth clattering like a pair of fucking castanets, that will be forever imprinted on my mind but all I could think about was I couldn't get my sensenet because she was lying on them.”
“I'm sorry about your mum, dude.” Barry must have been smoking his older brother's special cigarettes or something. Did the guy honestly think the zombie apocalypse had started? What part of 'it's only a game' did the dude not grasp? Jordan would laugh this off as one big stupid joke if his friend didn't sound so sincere.
“Not having access to my electronic comfort blanket kinda helped me break the grip that sensenet had on me. That and finding out that my mum wasn't the only one who had turned. Both dad and my brother were on the landing when I left my bedroom. I was able to get down the stairs and outside the house before they even realised that I'd slipped past them.”
Jordan fought the urge to laugh. “Shit, man. Seriously, you need to give it up now. The joke's wearing a bit thin.”
Barry walked over to his sister's bedroom door. “I've had my dose of reality, now how about me doing the same to you?”
Jordan shook his head. “No, don't open that!” The smell of lavender and cinnamon flooded his nose. He ran over and slapped Barry's hand off the handle.
“You leave me no choice, Jordan. If you don't face up to what's happened, you're going to be no use to me or the others I've found.” Now, are you ready?”
“Seriously, don't open it.”
“Have you been inside? I mean in the past two days?”
Jordan frowned, then shook his head. “No, of course not. Susan freaks out. She hates anyone going in there.”
He pulled the torch from out of his back pocket and slapped it into Jordan's palm.
“I'm not going in there.”
“Do you want a bet on that?” Barry's arm snapped forward. His fingers tightened around Jordan's collar. “Enough yapping. You clearly don't believe anything I say.” He twisted the handle and pushed open the door. “I think it's time for your reality dose. Get ready to really freak out, dude!” Barry pushed Jordan inside then slammed the door shut.
He grabbed the handle and tried to push it down but the damn thing wouldn't budge. Barry must have put something under it. “Let me the fuck out, you twat. I swear, Susan is going to murder the pair of us. You know what she's like.”
The sound of hysterical giggling coming from the other side of the door, was Jordan's only reply. He turned around and rested the back of his head against the door. He didn't know what Barry's game was, he just hoped that Susan would understand that Jordan had nothing to do with it.
Jordan turned around. It was pitch black in here. He switched on the torch and shone the light around the room. God, it must have been ages since he last came in here. It didn't shock him to see that Susan was still a messy bitch. Her clothes were strewn all over the floor. Coke cans and empty takeaway cartons competed with scented candles for space on every available surface. This place really was a pigsty.
He slowly made his way through the mess, heading towards the window. He stopped in the middle of the room. There was a weird and nasty smell coming from somewhere in here. The sickly sweet stink of countless scented candles had already assaulted his nose as soon as that bastard threw him in here but this was something else, a really bad smell, like something had died in here.
A scratching sound started up. It originated from under the bed. Jordan suddenly knew what was lurking under there! It was as if a dam of suppressed recent memories burst, flooding his mind with every unfiltered memory from the moment he picked that damn sensenet . Including what was under the bed.
He ran back to the door, stepping on everything from filthy panties to leftover takeaway food. Jordan reached the door and bashed his fists against the surface. “You need to let me out, Barry. Let me the fuck out! I remember now. Oh God, will you please open the door?”
Jordan shone the torch towards the bed and fought back the urge to scream when the white light reflected off a pale arm reached out from under the bed.
“Susan, I'm so sorry.” He grabbed the handle, just as his sister's movement increased in speed. She must have sensed him and this time wanted to make sure that her prey would not get away. His dead sister had already cleared the bed and struggled onto her feet. She lunged at him and Jordan just knew that his time was over.
Her fingernails brushed over his face. Jordan whimpered and slid closer to the floor. He heard growling and moaning but those teeth, or nails ne
ver touched him. Jordan opened his eyes. Susan's arms were flailing around, trying to grab hold of any part of his body but it appeared that the dead girl was stuck.
It took him seconds to work out why she couldn't get him. Her insides were wrapped around the bed leg, tethering the dead thing.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me!” he screamed.
Jordan turned and managed to get to his knees when the bedroom door opened a crack. “Let me out, you twat. Hurry up before she gets me!” The door opened a little wider. Jordan gripped the edge and and wrenched it open. He rolled to the side and ended up on his back.
Susan's intestines stretched and then snapped. The dead thing flew towards him. Jordan screamed again. His sister's grasping hands never reached him as Barry stepped over Jordan's body. His friend swung a wooden pole into the dead thing's head. He dropped the pole, bent down, grabbed Jordan's shoulders and pulled him out of the room before slamming the door shut.
“Well, that was fun.”
Jordan just leaned against the wall, panting heavily. He decided that once he got his breath back, his first job would be to smash Barry's face in. “Was that really fucking necessary?”
Barry sat down beside him “I'm really sorry, dude. Honest I am. Do you think I would have put you through all that trauma if there'd been an alternative?”
Maybe he wouldn’t hit him after all. The guy did sound genuinely upset. “How did you know she was in there?”
“I took a look earlier while you were still plugged in.” replied Barry. “I kinda figured that you had already been inside the room.”
“How could you know that?”
“There's purple candle wax on a couple of your fingers.” He turned his head. “Tell me how you feel.”
Jordan shrugged. “What sort of a question is that? How do you think I feel? I don't know, drained, I guess. Not to mention fucking terrified.”
“You haven't come apart though. I mean, you're still functioning.” Barry tapped the door a couple of times. The creature inside threw her body against the other side. “You see, I think that your emotions have already gone through the ringer both outside the game and inside. Necrovoid has helped to toughen you up, in order to ready yourself for what comes next.”
“Wait. You honestly think what's happening out here is somehow linked to the events in the game?" Jordan laughed. "Don't talk out of your arse. That's just stupid.”
“Oh, so you think it's all just a sodding coincidence then? Wake up, dude. Of course it's linked.” Barry took a deep breath. “Do you know what I think? I believe that Necrovoid is not just a game but some kind of training manual, designed to help the players adjust to these new surroundings. I think that Necrovoid has perception filters built into the software. In fact, I'm sure of it. We already know that they mess with your head by splicing in people you know into the game. It isn't that much of a stretch to believe it can alter what you see or think when you're not plugged in. Who knows what weird shit Necrovoid implants in you when you're inside its game environment.”
“Fuck me.” Jordan moved away from the door and managed to reach the bathroom before throwing up in the toilet. Once he had stopped retching, Jordan turned around and found Barry leaning against the door-frame.
“Are you alright?”
He fought back the urge to punch him down the stairs. Barry had a cheek to ask him that after he'd spurted out that doozy. Was the clown serious? “As right as I'll ever be,” he replied, after wiping his mouth. Jordan wandered back into the hallway, gave his sister's door a wary look before sitting on the top step. “What are we going to do now?”
Barry shrugged. “To be honest, I haven't got that far. I mean, obviously, we'd have to get back into Necrovoid. The clues are in there. Thing is, I'm not comfortable in doing that.”
“Are you sure the two are connected?”
“Of course I am. That much I do know. I just don't know how, not yet anyway. I do think it has something to do with the first insertion. That first game played out like a movie trailer. Giving you lots of little pieces, none of them made much sense but there was enough there to hook you. The conspiracy bit is what got me, Jordan, and I think that's the section that we have to figure out. that is, if either of us dare to actually roll a sensenet over our heads. Also, there's still the small matter of getting out of the shopping mall.” Barry walked towards him. “You know, I still can't get over how dissimilar the two scenarios are. In Necrovoid, the TV showed riots and mass murder. There were people everywhere, even in the small towns, like ours. Yet here, apart from you, a couple of dead things wondering about and maybe evidence of a few more living people, I haven't seen a soul. It's almost as if everybody in town stayed inside once this started.”
“Maybe that's a good thing? It means there'll be less chance of the dead things turning the living into more dead things or consuming them.”
Barry shook his head. “I doubt it, more likely, it'll just delay the inevitable. Come on, man. Don't look at me like that. Think about it! What do you think will happen when all those people currently hiding in their houses start to run out of food and water? They'll have to leave then, won't they? That's when the slaughter will start. The streets really will run with blood. I reckon, we'll need to get this mess sorted out before that happens, man.”
“Wait a minute!” replied Jordan. “You're talking as if this damn zombie outbreak is somehow reversible. Shit, man do you not know that once a dead thing, always a dead thing.? That's one absolute fact that no bastard dare mess with. It's one of the reasons why that zombies are so fucking terrifying.”
“You don't change, do you, Jordan. Talk about stuck in your ways. No wonder you haven't been able to figure it out. Good job I'm here to help you out.”
“Barry. I'm too tired to listen to you kissing your own arse. Just tell me what you're banging on about.”
“It's obvious, man. Look, Necrovoid is a product of our technological society but it doesn't need the tools used to create it to operate. No online network, no external power supply, but it does need users. People like you and me, dude. Without us, its just a fancy looking headpiece. We're the missing link, the crucial element. Without us, its nothing and believe me, there's just no way that, after all its accomplished, Necrovoid isn't about to commit suicide.”
“You have it all worked out.”
“Yeah well, I've had nothing else to think about.” Barry grinned. “Before we decide what to do next, we're going to need to do a bit of searching for food. I've already gone through your kitchen cupboards and found nothing edible.”
Jordan took the last tin of hot dogs earlier on. That meant they'd have to leave the house and look for food elsewhere. He didn't want the streets to run with his blood! “Wait, I think mum and dad might have something to eat in their room. It won't be much. Mind. Mum likes to have a packet of crisps at night. Dad might have some jerky kicking around though.”
“Jerky is ideal. It’s a good source of protein.” Barry held out his hand. “Okay, I’ll go get the gear. Pass me the torch, dude.”
“Wait on, shouldn't I be going first? You know, with it being my house and everything?” He walked past Barry, got within a metre of his sister's bedroom door and stopped. He could hear her by the door, those fingernails which almost punched holes into his flesh scraping away the paintwork. “Tell you what, Barry. I'll let you go check it out. It's about time you did something useful for a change.”
Barry took the torch out of his hands. “If you insist, dude. I have no idea how you managed to stay alive before I turned up on the scene.” Barry grabbed hold of the handle and pushed it down and pushed the door.
Two pairs of grasping hands reached through the gap. They grabbed Barry's hair and clothes. Jordan stood, frozen to the spot while his mum and dad pulled the shrieking boy into the pitch black room. “Mum? Oh, God. Please, not you as well!”
The scratching coming from behind Susan's door grew in intensity when Barry's agonised screaming suddenly cut
off. With only the wet sound of chewing and slurping now emerged from inside his parent’s room. Jordan finally found the strength to move forward a couple of inches. Every part of his being told him that there was no hope of saving his best friend, that he had passed on and yet Jordan still found himself hoping that against all odds, Barry might still be alive.
His dad's snarling face put paid to even that dying hope when it emerged, coated in a layer of blood and gore, from inside Barry's stomach cavity. The dead thing's mouth moved up and down and side to side, like a contented cow chewing cud.
He had to get out of here before they both realised they had an audience. Jordan moved away from both doors, keeping his gaze fixed on his dad but, as in life, the old man didn't even seem to notice his existence. He reached his own bedroom door, his sanctuary. The only room in the house where Jordan had ever felt secure. He pushed open the door wide and saw a figure sitting on his bed. Jordan let out a single disbelieving howl.
How the fuck could he be sat on the bed, plugged into Necrovoid when he stood by his bedroom door looking at himself? Jordan backed away from the bedroom, aware that letting out that God-awful noise probably wasn’t the best idea he'd ever had.
Both his mum and dad now stood by their door, the mutilated corpse of Jordan's best friend seemingly forgotten. “So that's it, you two? You obviously prefer your food to move.” They stepped into the hallway.
Jordan spun around and ran down the stairs. The two dead things raced after him. He panicked when his mum's long nails missed his cheek by a whisker. This wasn't fair! The dead things weren't supposed to move so quickly! He threw himself through the open door and into the kitchen, remembering, at the last moment to shut the door.
It took him seconds to pull the stuff away from the broken window and crawl outside. Jordan ran to the gate and turned around. He had to hold onto the top of the gate so he wouldn't fall. The shakes had seized him yet again and this time, the bastards didn't appear to be in any rush to leave him alone.
“What was he going to do now? Just where the fuck could he go? If he gripped the wood any tighter, Jordan was sure that his fingers would sink into the gate. He wanted to moan and cry and weep for his total loss but Jordan couldn't even do that, despite losing everybody dear to him.