by Ian Woodhead
He glared at Jenny. His emotions were now shot to pieces. How was he supposed to react now? The woman had lied to him, again!
“We’re almost there. “Not far now. “Come on, we need to get this over with before…”
“Before what, Jenny? Before I find out what other monsters that you and your crew of amoral fuck-ups have made down here?”
“Don’t you dare take the moral stand with me! We’re not responsible for…” Jordan spotted the ceiling directly above the woman bulge. He ran for her but it was too late. Something big, scaly and wet burst through a vent shaft, curled around Jenny’s torso and pulled her up. She screamed and struggled, crying out for Jordan to help her. He didn’t know what to do! He couldn’t fire for fear of the shells shredding her. It had already pulled her head into the space above the ceiling. Jordan jumped back, he aimed the gun at the ceiling, a metre away from her dangling body and fired twice.
There was an earth-shattering bellow before something the size of a rhino fell through the ceiling and hit the tiles by his feet with a wet thump. He jumped over the grey, mottled lump of stinking flesh and pulled the weeping woman out of a slime-filled hole. Jordan wiped away the mess from her mouth and eyes, weeping in relief when they both opened. “Oh God, I thought you were dead!”
“Still might be,” she whispered back. “Need to finish this, to get this done. Not far now.”
“Which way?”
“Put me down. Leave me here. I can’t make it, I’m going to slow you down. Please, put me down. I’m in so much pain.”
He shook his head and carried her over the dead monster. “I’m not leaving you, now which way?”
Jenny’s arm flopped out, she slowly raised it and pointed forward. “That way. Straight ahead.” She turned her head to face his. “Jordan. I’m really sorry. I’m sorry for everything.” Her eyes closed.
“I’m sorry too,” he replied. Jordan carried her down the darkened corridor, acutely aware that the walls were beginning to take on a furry composition. The fungus stuff had found purchase on the surfaces and the deeper he travelled into the complex, the worse it became. He finally stopped at a junction. He looked both way, unsure of where to go now. “Jenny, can you hear me? Where do we go now?”
“Operations room. Go right, first door” she whispered.
He followed her instructions and found himself beside another open door. He looked inside. This place was much smaller than he anticipated, there wasn’t much fungal growth in here either. Jordan carried her inside and gently placed the woman into one of the several computer chairs which faced a bank of computer terminals. “Now what?”
She reached into her pocket, pulled out her ID card and dropped it into his palm. “There’s a five digit number on the other side. Enter the number on the console in front of you.”
“Is that all I have to do?” He did as she asked, still not believing this was so easy. Jordan typed in the last digit then pressed enter. He then glanced over his shoulder and was about to ask why they couldn’t have done this remotely when something big smashed into the door on the other side. “What was that?” Like he didn’t already know the answer. He ran over to Jenny and picked her out of the chair. “Where do we go now?”
“We go up,” she answered while moaning.”
Jenny was dying. He didn’t need to be a doctor to know that. The woman felt so light the first time he’d picked her up, now she weighed almost nothing. Two mushroom monsters crashed through the door. They stood together, both staring straight at Jordan. He backed away, still having no idea where to go. Jenny was out for the count. They began to approach him and he continued to back away. He didn’t know what to do now, the gun was no good, he’d left that next to the computers.
“Go away!” he screamed. “Go on, fuck off.” They didn’t take any notice of his shouting and Jordan discovered that he’d just run out of floor. His back smashed into the wall. “Oh crap. Sorry, Jenny. I think I’ve fucked this up.”
The two monsters were getting closer. Jenny opened her eyes. She opened her mouth as well and whispered something. He wasn’t sure but it sounded like ‘press it’
“Press what, Jenny? What do you mean?” He turned. “Oh right.” Jordan pressed the button next to his waist and two lift doors slid open. He backed inside and pressed it to close, just as the one of monsters charged towards him. He pulled Jenny into the side. Waited for it to enter the inside of the lift. He pulled his leg up and smashed his foot into where he thought its head should be. Amazingly, it dropped to the floor, just as the doors slid shut.
It took seconds for the lift to reach the roof and during that time, he kept staring at the monster, expecting it to recover and launch itself at him. Jordan was almost at to the point of not caring anyway. Jenny was so close to death now. What was there to live for anyway?
The doors slid open. He gently picked her up and walked past the creature, noticing that it was finally beginning to stir. The air tasted strange, like a sweet bleach. Jordan lifted his head back and watched as the sky darkened. Several bolts of green lightning shot across the tops of the buildings and then the heavens opened. Thick rain pummelled them, soaking through their skin in seconds. It had an oily texture to it. Jordan lowered himself. He couched while still holding her tight. He heard movement behind him. Oh hell, he’d forgotten about the monster! Jordan turned to find it had crawled halfway out before stopping. “Oh my God!” he murmured. The fungal growth had steamed away, where the rain had soaked the creature’s body to reveal pink, very human looking skin.
“Jordan?”
“You’re okay?” He could hardly believe his eyes. Jenny was awake and smiling up at him. “I’m getting there,” she whispered. “It’s going to take a few weeks. The damage isn’t as bad as it looks.”
He leaned down and kissed her. “It really is raining.”
“Told you it would. We launched hundreds of atmosphere seeders into orbit, there were originally designed to spread the new pathogen. The new number you put in, released the antidote instead.”
“I can’t believe it’s all over, Jenny. Now what?”
She took his hand. “Well, I know of this cabin on top of a hill. I say we go there for a while.”
Epilogue.
Jordan felt like he could sleep for a week. He had finally left the game about twenty minutes ago. He now lay on his back and stared at the ceiling. His face ached from grinning. He had really done it, he beaten the game! He lifted his hand which held his sensenet. It had changed colour to gold as soon as he pulled it off his head. Jordan wasn’t sure if that was significant, nor did he care, not right now anyway.
After taking the devive off his head, it took him ten minutes to stop the uncontrollable shaking and once they had died down to a manageable level, he then spent another ten minutes on the toilet. It took him a while to convince himself that he was actually out of the game for real this time. It was only after he’d checked the kitchen cupboards and found no hotdog or pineapples, watched the news before he started to believe. To make totally sure, he had raced back up the stair, back into his bedroom and looked out of the window. He checked the contents of Mrs Spicer’s shed roof before he believed he was really out.
“Jordan!”
He sat up, stuffed the sensenet into his pocket and padded over to his bedroom door.
“Jordan!” repeated his mum. “Door!”
That would be Barry, no doubt here to boast that he’d finished Necrovoid as well. He left the bedroom and walked over to the stairs, eager to swap stories with his best mate. He couldn’t wait to find out how Barry’s NPC had acted. He stopped at the sight of his sister walking up the stairs. He moved out of the way to let her pass.
She stopped, looked at him, wearing her traditional glare and called him a shithead.
He wrapped his arms around the girl. “Your mum doesn’t know about your new boyfriend,” he whispered into her ear. He let her go. “Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.” He turned around and ran dow
n the stairs, he decided to go to the games shop with Barry. He could bring Susan some nice candles back.
He reached the front door and opened it.
A young woman stood on the front step. “I don’t believe you’re real!” She ran forward and hugged him tight. “Oh Christ. You are real.”
“Jenny?”
She pulled him back. “Wait, you don’t recognise me?”
Jordan nodded. “Yeah, I do now. Sorry. The hair is a little different and I think you’re taller and…” his words tailed off, he couldn’t believe it, she was here, at his house. “Wait, how did you find me?”
She chuckled. “Well, in my game, the surface game, I mean. We were both stuck inside your sister’s bedroom while the dead crazy woman from next door was running through the house. You managed to get us both out by twatting her with a metal mop bucket, by the way.” She giggled. “Do you fancy going for a walk? I can’t wait to compare our games.” She took his hand. “Or maybe a drink and a burger? She laughed again. Hey, I don’t suppose in your game, I cooked you a burger in the shopping mall?”
He just nodded, not daring himself to speak.
“Oh, that is so weird. Oh wait, before we do any of that, I think we ought to go back to the game shop before we do any of that though.” She pulled a sensenet out of her pocket. It was the same colour as his. “They have a dozen monitors that are neural-linked to Necrovoid games It’ll be fun to see how some of the others are doing.”
“Jenny, are are our sensenets a different colour?”
She kissed the tip of his nose. “It’s because we’ve beaten it, you dummy! There’s a prize for beating the game, Jordan. A big prize.”
He returned her kiss. “I think I already have my prize.”
The End