by Ian Woodhead
Jordan pushed Matt against the front door. He handed the sword to Matt. “You need to keep as quiet as a mouse,” he whispered, while he pulled the knife out of Matt’s hand. He took the mop out of the bucket beside him and turned it upside down. “We only have a few seconds.” Jordan held the knife handle against the end of the mop handle and wound the masking tape around both the handle and the mop.
Matt cried out. “Oh no, there’s one. What do I do?”
He looked up to see the first dead thing creeping towards them. “Kill it,” he hissed, “and stop fucking talking!” He tried to stop the panic from overtaking him, not helped by Matt’s shaking hands holding the knife in front of him, with his eyes closed.
The dead thing leapt forward. Jordan placed his foot on the mop, dropped to one knee and tilted the business end towards the monster. The creature’s momentum did the rest. The blade sliced through its chest. He pulled the sword out of Matt’s numb fingers. He lifted it and brought it down diagonally, the blade cut through its neck, like a hot knife through butter. “Matt, pull the mop handle out!” Another two were heading for them. “Come on, man, help me out here.”
The man did as Jordan demanded while whimpering and asking if he could go back to his room.
“All you have to do, Matt, is if they get too close, thrust the mop forward. Make sure the blade goes into their body and then jerk it back. Don’t worry, To get you they have to get me first, and I have the sword. Are we clear?” There was no time to see if the idiot had received the message loud and clear because the next dead thing charged forward.
He thrust the sword forward, the tip skewering it through the abdomen, but the dead thing carried on regardless. The blade continued to slide through its soft flesh. Jordan started to panic when he realised he couldn't get the sword out. He took his gaze off the approaching fiend for one second and saw another two behind it. Jordan pushed down on the handle, then twisted the blade and pushed it to the right.
The cold blood, guts and gore splattered the wall when the blade slid out of the monster’s side. The thing was almost on top of him! Jordan thrust it forward again, but this time, the tip punctured its right eyeball, pushed through the brain and out the back of the skull. The dead thing collapsed in a heap, the thing’s weight almost pulled the sword out of his grasp!
Jordan whimpered. He ducked as the next monster’s arm swung at him. Its ragged nails narrowly missing his face. The sword wouldn’t budge! “Use the knife,” he hissed. “Hurry up, or we’ll both die.” The blade still wouldn’t move. His next panicked demand died on his lips when Matt slammed the improvised weapon into the other monster’s mouth. He pulled it out and stabbed it again and again, through its cheek and its throat. Matt then landed the killing blow when the carving knife punched through the side of its nose.
The sword finally came free. Jordan lifted it high and brought it down hard on the final dead thing’s head. The sharp blade cut through the top of its skull, slicing through bone, flesh and brain. He held onto it as the final monster fell backwards, using the creature’s own momentum to pull the sword from its head.
Matt stumbled over the bodies. He had the look of a terrified animal caught in the middle of a forest fire. Jordan had to drop the sword and dive at him. His arms circled his legs, bringing Matt down.
The man even tried to stab Jordan. He soon put a stop to that by snatching the improvised weapon out of Matt’s sweaty palms. Jordan flung him on his back and sat on him. “Stop it, you fucking moron,” he gasped. “Just stop it. We’ve done it. We’ve survived!”
Slowly, the man’s eyes stopped rolling. He blinked rapidly, then focused on Jordan. “We stopped them, didn’t we?”
Jordan nodded. “Yeah, we stopped them. Are you going behave now? I need you sharp, Matt. Do you understand? See, if they do come back, and I’m sure they will, we’re going to have to fight them again and if you’re still like this, we’ll both die.”
“I’m sorry, Jordan. I got all weird and spooked. I think my head kinda misfired or something. It won’t happen again. I can be good. I can be a real good boy. Even more than a better good boy when my mum caught me trying to escape through the bathroom window.”
Matt grinned wide. It was obviously faked but it did help to calm Jordan’s heart down a tad. “Good to hear.” He climbed off his body, picked up the sword and wiped the blade on one of the dead thing’s jacket. He then grabbed the improvised weapon and handed it to him. “You did pretty good, just then, Matt, and I’m really proud of you.”
Matt scooped up the masking tape. He wiped off the pieces of brain matter then set about using his teeth to find the edge. “The blade has come loose.” He grinned again, not noticing that his teeth had collected an impressive amount of red and grey lumps. “I can fix it though, Jordan. I’m really good at fixing things. Just you see.”
Jordan turned away, feeling a little nauseated at the sight of Matt’s bloodied mouth. “Yeah, I’m sure you call make it all better,” he muttered. “Come on, we’d better get out of here.” Jordan told Matt to stay by the kitchen door. He then ran up the stairs and looked out of his window. There were just few dead things left now. He watched two more leave Matt’s house. One of them carried Mrs Spicer’s severed head. “Frigging hell. That’s just sick.”
He gazed up towards the centre of town. Jordan still wasn’t sure where to go. He blinked. “Wait on.” Jordan reached into his back pocket and pulled out the folded piece of paper. The map on the other side still showed the town from the deep game but that was fine, as he still remembered how the map looked when it showed this town. There was a large red x in the middle of one of the largest buildings in town and as the largest building in town was the Orchard multi-storey carpark, that had to be their destination. Why the hell anybody would want to go there was anyone’s guess but he figured that, it was bound to be a little easier to defend against those running freaks than this house.
He ran back down the steps and entered the kitchen. “Are you ready?”
Matt tilted his head to one side. “Ready for what, Jordan?”
“We’re going into town. The man grinned again. It pleased Jordan’s delicate stomach to see that Matt had wiped his mouth clean. “Don’t worry. The dead things have gone for the moment. I think they’ll be coming back this way though, that’s why we need to move somewhere else. You need to promise me something, Matt. When we get out there. You so need to stay quiet. Can you do that?”
Matt nodded. “Sure. I can stay quiet. As quiet as a mouse! This so sounds fun, Jordan. I really like going on trips, you know. Almost as much as I like eating food like hotdogs and pineapple and pizza.”
Jordan silently sighed. He moved past Matt and slowly opened the door. Once he was sure that they really had all gone, he opened the door wider and slipped out into the back garden. He motioned Matt to follow him, then ran across the lawn, opened the garden gate and held it so the other man could get through. Jordan eased it closed. “Okay, remember what I said about no noise. We’re going to do a bit a running, so try and keep up. I won’t be stopping. Do you understand?”
Matt nodded. “Sure thing, Jordan. I like running, almost as much as I like going on trips.”
“Well, ain’t that nice to hear,” he muttered. Jordan checked to see that the area was still empty before he took off. He raced along the path, moving past the car and the two takeaways. Jordan heard Matt’s footsteps so he didn’t have to worry about losing the idiotic man-child. He made his way over roads and across pavements, seeing evidence of death and slaughter almost everywhere but he saw no bodies.
He reached the town’s small bus station and stopped to catch his breath. It annoyed him to see that Matt wasn’t even panting.
“Oh boy. That was fun,” he remarked. “Are we at the place now or are going to do the running thing again?” Matt leaned against the side of the wall and added another piece of tape to the improvised weapon.
The simple fact of the matter was that Jordan didn’t know wha
t to do now. He climbed onto the low brick wall beside him. The roof was just about visible. He could even see a couple of cars parked up there. Jordan wondered what could have happened to their owners.
Exactly why should that car park be so important anyway? At no point did it mention a stupid car park on the back of the game box. “Like it’s really go to say that anyway,” he muttered. Matt gave him a funny look. To which Jordan ignored. Then again, it didn’t mention anything about the game being multi-layered either.
It only spoke about the MC, devastated over his family’s slaughter deciding to join up with Jenny and must fight through hordes of mutant killers in a race against time to find the cure before it’s too late. Fine, so there’s two games. Did that mean that the surface game had a similar objective? Two game? What about the one where his sister turned into a werewolf? Was that another game or just a side quest?
Jordan jumped down and watched Matt pull off another piece of masking tape and wound it around the mop handle. God, he wished that a simple task like that would give him so much pleasure. “Okay, I give up. You win. Fine, I’ll go to the sodding car park!” he shouted. “It’s not like I have anything else pencilled into my diary today.”
This so wasn’t fair. Why should he end up with Simple Simon for his NPC? Sure, Barry might have been a pain in the rear end but at least he would have given him some decent advice, in amongst all the bragging and general showing off. He would have known exactly what all that bullshit was about with wolf girl. That’s for sure.
Jordan pulled the map out of his back pocket he held the folded up paper between his thumb and forefinger. He waved it in the air and uttered a silent prayer to the sadist who designed this fucking brain melting game and asked for something a little more constructive than a big red X.
It didn’t shock him in the slightest to find the contents hadn’t changed. “Gee, thanks for that.” Jordan started to fold it up again then stopped. Maybe the pretend Barry did know why the car park was so important. He glanced over at Matt and came up with an idea. Both Barry and Matt were NPCs, both connected to the game, both software. So didn’t that mean that this annoying dork would know something more than he was saying? Well, obviously he did, but surely there must be some way to make the NPC break character, a trigger event, for example. “Here, have a look at this, Matt. Tell me what you think.” He unfolded the paper, half-expecting him to pull it out of his hand and eat it.
The change in him was electric. Matt started to shake. Sweat rolled down his face. It looked like he was about to pass out. His eyes fluttered. “Hey, calm down, man. It’s only a map.” Despite the distress it appeared to be having, he didn’t let go of the map.
“Oh no, no, no, no. That place is worse than the room, it’s worse than anything that mum ever did to me!It’s even more worse than the dead people who want to eat me.” He dropped the weapon and the now empty roll of tape, slid down to the pavement and covered his up his eyes. “That’s no car park, Jordan. It’s just a façade, a mask. It’s where all the bad things are made. Please don’t take me in there.”
Perhaps the sadist answered his prayers after all. Jordan crouched in front of Matt. He picked up the weapon, pulled his hand away from his face. Matt formed two fists. Jordan uncurled the fist pushed the shaft inside and pushed the fingers in. Jordan had not expected that outburst, but it showed him that despite all appearances the NPC really was intrinsically connected to this stupid game. Matt looked a little different too, not quite so gormless, like the light was on and somebody really was home now. Perhaps dazed or sleeping but it had to be an improvement.
“That was quite an eloquent speech, Matt. You almost had me going too. Thing is. You told me that your mum locked you into that room for over ten years. So how the hell can you know anything about what happened outside? You couldn’t have gotten anything out of her, your mum was as insane as they come.”
Matt winked and his grin returned. “You really want to go there?”
“Of course I do,” he snapped.
The grin faded. “I’m not sure that I’m allowed to.” He tapped the side of his nose. “You sure do ask a lot of questions, Jordan. Thing is, stuff happened to me when you broke the fourth wall. Stuff that I can’t explain nor do I want to, you see some of that stuff I saw made me want to pee myself. It was that scary. I did find out about that place you want to visit though and everything about it is really bad. Bad enough that even you will pee yourself.”
“Okay, fine. I get the picture. You don’t want me to go there.” He stood up. “Fine. I’ll go back home. Makes no difference to me.” He turned around. A moment later, Matt’s hands landed on his shoulders.
“Wait, I said nothing about you not going. In fact, Jordan. You have to go there. In fact, you really have no choice in the matter.” Matt turned him around. “The backdoor you dropped through also created a pocket scenario, meaning that you have a time-line error to fix for a start. If you fail to correct the code oversight then it’s likely you’ll be thrown into a feedback loop, meaning you’ll remain here with this NPC and all the arena’s ravenous runners chasing you forever.”
“What the fuck?” He pulled the map out of Matt’s hand. “Just what is any of that supposed to mean?” Matt just gazed back at him for a moment before that happy smile returned. He blinked twice before putting his arms back down.
“Gosh, I am so hungry. Do you have any cheese? I like pizza too. Do you have any pizza?”
“Oh Christ,” he muttered.
He folded up the map, taking his time over the task while keeping a close eye on Matt’s behaviour. As far as he could tell, the NPC had returned to character. Jordan considered pushing the paper back into Matt’s hand to see if he could pull out any more valuable info nuggets. For a start, he’d so love to know exactly what a time-line error was. “Fuck it,” he muttered before pushing the map back into his pocket. It’s more than likely, Matt would spit out yet another sentence of confusing bollocks. He’d got what he wanted anyway. Jordan had to go to the building.
Jordan looked both ways then crossed the road and hurried past the front of the town’s bus station. Instead of trying to figure out the reason for going to this damn building, would it not be more beneficial to work out the objective for this game?
Of course, his rational mind decided that this wasn’t the best way to use his thinking privileges and decided to show Jordan his loving family sitting in the living room, watching some rubbish on TV. Only the so called rubbish was in fact him. They were watching his progress through the game. His dad leaned forward and nodded approvingly, while asking his mum if she remembered the ice rink which the council demolished a decade ago. Mum grinned and told dad that how could she forget their first ever date? His sister wasn’t doing much of anything apart from trying to pick her nose without her parents from noticing. She then gave Jordan a huge smile and asks him if he wanted to hang out next Saturday. They usually met at the park before picking up a couple of mates from the bus station before crashing at somebody’s house for a few hours.
Jordan skidded to a stop in between a pharmacy and a butcher’s shop. He shook away the mental image. Could Necrovoid get any weirder? This was getting more and more confusing. It’s almost as if the damn program was telling him to stop playing the game and go have a life, to leave the house and get himself some real friends just like his sister. What sort of game does that? It’s almost like the game doesn’t want anyone to play or something. He sighed to himself. No, that was insane, he was over-thinking everything again. Besides, he had friends, both online and fully interactive and anyway, all of his sister’s friends were idiots who thought Jordan was some sad, pathetic loser.
“We're almost there, Jordan.”
He looked up to find they’d already reached the outskirts. They passed a stationary ice-cream van and stopped. He gaped in shock at the building that had taken the car park’s place. “You have go to be shitting me,” he said. He found himself staring at the largest funhouse he’d
seen in his life. The damn thing had to be ten storeys high. The large placard above the red double doors simply said ‘Necrovoid’.
“The eating things are coming back!”
Jordan nodded. “Yeah, I figured they would be. We don’t have much of a choice in the matter now.” He took a deep breath and walked towards those doors.
Chapter Fifteen
That door looked pretty thick. It took both of them to pull it open. Once they’d managed to pull it wide enough to let them both inside, it had closed easier. Considering the whole street was packed with those things and were almost on top of them, made him feel a better about having that door between them.
It made him wonder how it could been possible that their scratching sounds could travel through such thick wood. That wonder turned into self-evidence when Matt pulled him away, telling him that the eating things might go away if they can’t smell you. It was part of the damn narrative.
Matt’s eyes looked at the door, then back at Jordan, his eyes now wide with terror. “Please, we need to go. Trust me, I don’t want to, Jordan. There are worse things waiting for us in here. Things that makes my heart beat real fast.” He took out a fresh roll of tape from Christ knows where and added another strip to the join.
“Will you stop doing that please? Also, it might help if you unscrew the mop head.” He allowed Matt to pull him away from the door and once they were out of sight, his companion settled down and stopped whimpering. Jordan opened his mouth then shut it again after realising that asking Matt to describe these so-called ‘bad things’ contained within this funhouse would be a pointless exercise. Matt had the descriptive powers of a cheese sandwich. They were bound to stumble upon them soon anyway. God, what he’d do for the shotgun from the deep game. The sword was great but yet again, the game had stuffed them into dark, narrow corridors, making the sword practically useless.