by Ian Woodhead
The shutters were half way down.
Steve pulled his fist back, obviously intending to punch him. Jordan leapt put of the way. He jumped over the counter and ran over to the back table. There had to be one in here somewhere.
“Hey, you can't go in there. You not…”
His complaint turned into a blood-curdling shriek. Jordan looked up from his search and saw that an infected human had managed to squeeze through the five inch gap between the shutter and the floor and had fastened its teeth around Steve's thigh.
“Help me, man! Oh, please. I'm begging you. It hurts so much.”
Jordan turned around. He couldn’t risk losing another second. Besides. Steve wasn't real. He was just another NPC. They didn't count. They weren't human. His hands hunted through bits of PC motherboards, opened game cartridges as well as other assorted junk. Steve continued to weep and cry. “Fuck this.”
Jordan spun around. He ran over to the counter, picking up a screwdriver on his way. “This is such a bad idea,” he muttered while vaulting over the counter. Steve didn't look like there was much life left in him. He continued his attempts to stop the infected man from biting out more chunks of leg flesh but wasn't having much success.
Jordan ran up to the monster who growled at him. “Yeah, that’s right. I'm going to take away your new chew toy. Here. Try this on for size.” He slammed the screwdriver into the man's ear. The monster immediately stopped all movements and released Steve's leg.
Jordan dragged the injured man over to the counter and sat him against the side. “Stay with me, Steve,” he said. “I'll call for an ambulance.”
The entity crouched on the other side of Steve. He placed his hand on the man's face and uttered a few silent words before pulling his hand back. Steve was dead. Jordan checked his heart to make sure but there was nothing. “Why did he have to die?”
The entity shrugged. “Everybody dies,” it replied. Even digital lives have their time. Steve though, well he might be gone, but a lot of the other Steve’s are still in play. This Steve is currently involved in another nine hundred and twenty-seven thousand games. Hell, in some of them, I've let him be the Barry. Anyway, it is good to see that you've still some compassion in circumstances beyond your control. Check Steve's pocket.” He let out a loud sigh. “Don't just look at me like that, you big plank. Do as you're sodding told”
Jordan glowered at the entity before finally rummaging through the dead man’s pockets. He found what he was looking for stuffed into Steve’s back pocket, a crumpled up sensenet.
“Well done, you’ve sorted the mess. The timeline is back to how it should be.” The entity held out the map. “Go on take it. It won’t bite you.”
Jordan kept his hands by his side. His fingers couldn’t stop playing with the sensenet. “Right, so I have what I came for. So, what now, I take it that I put it on and wake up back in reality?”
“Oh, that’s a classic. God, what a dipshit. No, of course you don’t! You and Mr Brainbox here has to go back the way you came. Now, will you take this fucking map off me?”
Jordan shook his head. “No, not a chance. I’m not going back in there.” He snatched the map out of the entity’s hand. “Nothing you can do will make me change my mind either.”
The sensenet had vanished and so had the entity. All that remained was a map that was now half its size, with half the text gone and a very confused and scared Matt. His companion moaned quietly.
“Jordan. I think I fell asleep or something. I dreamt about food and God. Can we go now?” Matt glanced over Jordan’s shoulder. “I spy another sleepyhead. Looks like he’s waking up too. He doesn’t look very happy.”
Jordan’s heart jumped into his mouth at the sight of Steve sitting up. His glazed eyes stared at the now closed shutter. His head tilted to one side. It looked like he was trying to work out what had happened. Jordan knew that wasn’t the case. Steve was dead and now reanimated. A creature operating purely on base instinct. He guessed that Steve could sense others of his kind on the other side of that shutter.
The dead thing attempted to get up, his gaze still fixed on the metal shutter. It looked like he wasn’t even aware that Jordan and Matt were in the shop. Jordan inched back, hoping that perhaps it would stay that way.
“Hello?” yelled Matt. “Are you okay, do you have any cheese or pizza? I like pizza.”
Steve spun around. His mouth opened wide and his lips curled back. He leaned forward, looking like a predator preparing itself to pounce on their prey. It then clicked that was exactly what Steve was doing. The dead thing’s jaw clacked shut.
“Move it!” He grabbed Matt’s arm and pulled him backwards, through the invisible vortex and back into the dark funhouse. Thankfully, dead Steve stayed in the game shop.
The dead Steve threat was the least of their problems! Jordan clearly heard the sound of tiny spider-like feet. The head-things were returning. From the look on Matt’s face, he heard them too. He whimpered and looked around his feet. “I’ve lost my pointy stick!”
“We have to go back for that shotgun!” said Jordan. “We’re dead otherwise.”
Matt shook his head. “We can’t do that. That’s where those nasty monsters are.” He grinned. “Don’t worry. I know a way out. You have to follow me and keep up cos I can go really, really fast when I’m scared.” He turned and raced down the dark stone corridor, leaving Jordan standing. It took the sight of several spider heads creeping around the stone wall to make him race after Matt. “Hey, wait up!”
Jordan gasped in shock when the corridor abruptly changed. He blinked rapidly when he found himself standing outside a white panel door. “What the hell?” He slowly turned in a tight circle, taking in his new surroundings. This was somebody’s house and he stood on the top landing. He leaned over the wooden bannister and gazed down the stairs. There was the sound of a TV coming from down there as well as somebody laughing. That seep voice obviously found something hilarious. If only he felt the same. Jordan was seriously confused over what had just happened. Where the fuck was he?
The door behind him opened. He looked back to find Matt grinning like a loon. “Oh boy, did I not say that I can run fast when I’m scared? I knew it.” He giggled. “I really did know it. I left you behind but cos I’m nice to you and you released me from that room, I came back. I’ve had to go through eight bedrooms but I did it.” He put his hand out. “Come on, don’t be shy. Take my hand. It’s probably what I should have done in the first place.”
Jordan did as he was told, no longer knowing what to do any more.
Matt pulled him through the door.
“It’s some kid’s bedroom,” he muttered. Matt kept hold of his hand while leading him towards a wardrobe. He saw a teenage boy, of about fourteen, sitting on the side of his bed with a sensenet rolled over the top of his head. His eyes fluttered and he moaned softly before flinching. “Christ, is that what I look like?”
“There’s no time to dally.” Matt pulled him into the wardrobe. “More bedrooms to go yet, Jordan.”
They emerged in a girl’s bedroom. The colour and style had changed but the central figure, a teenage girl, wearing a purple dressing gown and bunny slippers, hadn’t changed. Her sensenet had rendered her immobile too. A long rope of drool hung from the side of her mouth and dangled down to a green plate holding the remains of a pizza. Matt changed direction. They passed close by the girl and towards the blue door. He didn’t open it, just passed through the wood. Jordan closed his eyes as Matt dragged his body through.
His companion pulled Jordan through several bedrooms, all occupied by people of all genders and ages, plugged into the Necrovoid game.
“One more to go,” said Matt.
They passed through another wardrobe door and entered a bedroom that he knew very well. “Wait, stop. This is Barry’s bedroom. He looked at the Mecha posters which dominated the main wall then glanced at the calender girl posters on the opposite wall before finally turning his attention to the bed. Unlike
all the other bedrooms they had passed through,. This one was empty. “I don’t get it. Where is he?” Jordan turned to Matt. “Shit. Don’t tell me he’s already finished the game!”
“Never mind about him, Jordan. Come on, there’s no time to lose. We’re almost there, almost at the end.” Matt pulled him through Barry’s white wardrobe.
“Oh no!” hissed Jordan. “Why did you have to bring us back in here?” The funhouse was quiet, he heard no skittering feet. It wouldn’t be long before the heads found them again. That much he did know.
“God, ain’t you a little ray of fucking sunshine. You know, I thought you’d be glad to see your old pal.”
Jordan recognised that voice. He turned around and sighed dramatically at the sight of Barry. He sat on a dry-stone wall, next to two black archways. “Oh, there you are, you annoying little shit. I did wonder.” Jordan gave his friend a slight grin. “I didn’t think you’d be here though. See, I thought you’d be in your bedroom, whacking off while thinking about your mum.”
“Oh, you really are so funny!” He replied, bristling. “Yeah, well, I’ll be wiping that smug smile right off your face in a minute.”
“Oh, will you now? Man, don’t give me the tough guy speech. I thought you were a waste of space before this fucking game messed with my head. Admit it, you’re just a pathetic virgin dweeb who’s going to die alone.”
Barry grinned. “Ha! I’ve kinda missed your shitty insults.”
Jordan grinned back. “Yeah, I guess it’s been a while.” He paused. “Wait, are you the real Barry?”
He shook his head. “No, sorry, dude. I’m the NPC. Your pal is still playing.” He winked. “He’s no where near where you are though.”
Jordan looked across at Matt. “Einstein hinted that I was close to finishing. Is that right?”
Barry clicked his fingers and the two black archways blazed into light. Bright blue swirling vortexes reached out then shrunk back. “Indeed it is. You need to choose a portal, Jordan. The one on the left will take you back home, back to your bedroom and out of the game. The portal on the right will take you back into the deep game, to your last savestate before you fucked everything up. If you finish it in time, Necrovoid will reward you with a very special prize. So, which one is it going to be?”
“Would I have had this choice if I’d have stayed in the game shop? See, I reckon I could have found some way to put Steve down. Would that put a spanner in your works? See, it figured out why you had to put me in there. It’s so I could mail the game to myself so I could get out when my sister turned into that werewolf!” He straightened his back and silently dared the NPC to called him a liar. It was Matt who replied.
“Look at what I got, Jordan.” Matt showed him a tablet. “I pulled this off the display stand. Isn’t it pretty?”
Barry laughed. “He’s the reason why you went into the game ship, dude. Matt wanted something better than his old portable TV. As for the timeline error, the code would have patched it. It’s no biggie.”
“Fine, whatever,” snapped Jordan. “You know what? You can both fuck off. I’m going home. Simple as.” He started to walk towards the left portal.
Matt stopped him. “Wait, please. Don’t leave me hanging. I need to know what happens. We all do!” He pointed to the tablet screen. “Please, Jordan.”
Barry chuckled. “What, you thought he really was just watching cartoons on his TV? He’s watching you, man.”
“What are you talking about?” Jordan looked at Matt and tried to see the tablet but Matt held it to his chest and shook his head. He looked back at Barry. “Come on, man. This is a wind up. He couldn’t be watching me.”
“Why not, Jordan?” Barry jumped off the wall and walked a little closer. “You wanted to feel important, to be different. You remember how you felt when I told you that the surface game wasn’t actual reality? I believe you were more than a little upset. Well, good news, Jordan. You are special. Matt isn’t the only NPC watching your progress in the deep game.”
Jordan shrugged off Matt’s hand. “Look, I’m sorry, but I’m not playing this anymore.”
Barry ran after him and stood between Jordan and the left portal. “You wanted to know what the surface game objective is? It’s simple, dude. The objective is to get you to finish the deep game. You were right about this being essentially a sandbox arena. It’s just a reality mirror, that’s all.”
“Bullshit. How can this mirror reality? What about the runners, and the dead things and everything else?”
“Oh, that. Well, I don’t want to be the party pooper here but that’s all your fault. You brought the infection back when you came out of the first deep game. You’re patient zero.”
He pushed Barry aside. “You think you’re so clever. Bollocks, I said I’m not playing and I mean it.”
He hurried towards the left portal only to find a pair of arms clasped around his waist. “Matt, get off me.”
“Sorry, I need to know.” Matt spun Jordan and pushed him into the portal on the right.
Chapter Sixteen
Last Insertion
Jordan dare not move a single muscle. He struggled to keep his breathing light, not wanting to give that thing out there any possible reason to stop what it was doing. Jordan had no clue as to its intent, only that it had shown more interest to the dead woman than to him or to Jenny. Her fingers tightened around his hand as the thing paused. Jenny then shuffled a little closer and that slight movement caught its attention.
Why couldn’t she have stayed still. What was wrong with her? That monster down there had taken two shotgun blasts with little or no damage. Was that not enough reason to stay as still as possible?
After what felt like years, the creature returned to doing whatever it was doing to that corpse. It flipped the body onto its front then ripped open its clothing to expose the back. It then bent over and pushed some kind of proboscis into the spine. It looked like it was sucking out its spinal fluid. In fact, Jordan was sure of it but, deep down, he knew that it was really injecting it with a chemical. How he knew this for certain was a complete mystery but he wasn’t going to argue with this new inner voice.
The monster suddenly lifted its deformed head, it pulled the bone tube out of the body’s spine, let out a quiet yelp then backed away from the body. It then turned around and ran off in the opposite direction and disappeared into the darkness a few seconds later.
“Do you think it’ll return?” she asked.
Jordan shook his head. “No, it’s done what it had to.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
He shrugged. Jordan wasn’t too sure himself. “Come on, I think we need to get away from here.” He pulled her down the embankment, staying well away from that corpse.
“Maybe we ought to see what that monster did to that dead woman? You know, it might prove helpful?”
“No, not a chance, Jenny. Anyway, I thought you wanted to go to that chemical factory? We can go by the canal, I know a way inside.”
Jenny squeezed his hand. She moaned. He turned to see the dead thing sitting up.”
“Oh no! Jordan, you have to shoot it!”
He shook his head. “Leave it. If we get too close, I bet you, they’ll detonate, like the things did in the first outbreak? How much are you betting that they’ll be lots more of them too?”
Jenny stopped dead. “Wait, what’s going on? How come you seem so knowledgeable?”
He shrugged again. “I don’t have a single clue, Jenny. It’s like I’ve already done this once. I don’t know, it’s like I’m reliving a dream or something. I am right about this. This new inner voice knows what he’s talking about.” Jordan took her hand. “Trust me, honey.”
Jordan didn’t bother waiting for her to reply, as he knew they were running out of time. He took her away from the viaduct and into the centre of town, past a few other corpses. Like the first one, he skirted around them all. Jordan kept moving until they reached the canal bridge. “Almost there,”
he said.
“That water stinks.”
“Yeah, tell me about it.” Jordan led her down the footpath. “There’s a rumour that some of the sludge coming from the chemical factory is dumped in there. Not sure how true that is. Wouldn’t surprise me.”
He hurried along the canal bank, brushing past some of the heavy foliage. Jordan then stopped when a chain-link fence replaced the brick building beside him. “Right, just a bit further.” He ran his fingers along the metal links then stopped. “Here we are.” Jordan crouched down. “Some kids cut through the fence here, ages ago. They repaired it, but didn’t do a great job.”
His numb fingers struggled to unwind the thick wire but after a lot of quiet swearing and a couple of slips which almost took out the nail on his forefinger, Jordan managed to free the bottom of the panel enough so they could both squeeze through. He waited until her left leg was in the other side before he dropped the panel. That deja vu feeling continued to plague him. If anything, it had gotten stronger.
Jordan pulled her up. “There we are. Did I not tell you that I knew a fast way inside?”
She grinned back. “Don’t get too excited. We’re still only in the carpark, Jordan.” Jenny pointed at the building further up. “We have to get into there next. Thankfully, I know a way.”
They hurried towards the large glass-fronted building, passing a couple of empty cars. Jordan had to stop himself from giving them a wide berth. His inner voice had already assured him that nothing would jump out at him. It stayed silent on what terrors could be waiting for them inside.
Jordan stood in front of the two glass doors. He placed his fingers into the gap between the doors and pulled. Nothing happened, the doors remained shut. “That’s not supposed to happen. Those doors are meant to open!”
“Maybe your inner voice isn’t as infallible as you think, Jordan?” Jenny gently moved him to the side. “Remember I said that I know a way? Well, promise me you won’t get mad?” She pulled out a an ID card card. “Things is. I work here.”