by Arthur Stone
An elderly man leaning against his car door mumbled, “God help us, it’s witchcraft!” Perhaps he was right. But Rock was getting used to encountering the impossible in this world. In this prison. He knew by now that he hadn’t suffered an amnesia attack. His memory loss was not pathological. It was caused by some cruel individual who had since added “assault with grievous bodily harm” to the list of charges against him, as well.
He moved decisively, pedaling out onto the bridge. One of the cops yelled after him. “Where are you going, young man?”
“Away from you,” Rock growled back, convinced no one would pursue him. He hadn’t broken any laws, and the cops didn’t look like they were committed enough to risk nabbing him. Even if he was wrong, they could never pursue him past where the bridges met. Not even an ATV could tackle that. Nor a bicycle. But if he picked up his bike, he could make his way through, weaving between crumpled bridge beams and walking across the crumpled cars. No problem.
Chapter 9
Life Four: Dwellers of the Forest
The two-part bridge was not the only oddity Rock saw at the river. He remembered what the map had said was across the water. The other side had displayed no full cities, but there had still been something like a port, some industrial complexes, boring multi-house developments, a cloverleaf highway intersection, and other signs of civilization. But none of that was present. Just a one-track railroad, leading mysteriously into a thick forest.
No buildings, no factories, no port. Just woods, as far as the eye could see.
Crossing between the bridges was harder than it had seemed, and as he stepped over, a surprise hit. The world blinked, as if it died for the briefest moment and then came back to life. Bright red text appeared in the center of his vision.
Note: You are leaving cluster 197-33-91. For this revive, this is your cluster of origin. When you leave, your spore meter will become active. Your current spore meter level will decrease at varying rates, depending on your physical exertion, your use of Continental skills, and the state of your health.
Caution: allowing your spore levels to become dangerously low may lead to the loss of a revive.
Rock stopped and looked back and forth. The text did not disappear, and it was preventing him from crossing. Instinctively, he said “menu” twice. The menu opened and closed, and the nonsensical words vanished.
What the hell good were spore meter messages when he had no clue what a spore meter was?
He knew what was about to happen in town. He was not going back there, no matter how much red text the system threw at him. Oh, how he wished he could get his hands on the inventor of this “entertainment.” He’d have a few words for him. Among other things.
Despite these vengeful thoughts and the trouble of getting past the barrier, Rock did notice that something was different. The writing had appeared not at the moment of his death, revival, or ingestion of some kind of muck. It had appeared in the middle of casual, everyday life. With information about a nonsensical “spore meter.”
The menu had various meters, but like the rest of the interface, they were haphazardly arranged, and Rock didn’t know what they were for. He didn’t see a point to trying to figure them out, either. Better to find someone like Horsefly and get an in-person explanation. In a safe location. For now, he had to get moving. The further he was from the city when the fun started, the better his chances of survival, or at least surviving for a while.
As he approached the forest, he saw it was less thick than he had thought. Mostly light pine trees, with stretches of thick bushes along its edges. A service road ran along the railway. The potholes in the road were usually sparse, only severe in patches now and then, and there were few puddles. Driving it with a vehicle would have been tough, but a bicycle could handle it.
Rock didn’t want to walk. His knee was beginning to make itself heard. Before he started pedaling, though, he figured out how to stash his weapon. He was no longer unarmed. A serious piece of steel bridge reinforcement now accompanied him, swiped as he had crossed the bridge. Holding it while riding his bicycle was a precarious idea, so he tied it onto the frame with twisted bundles of tall grass.
He was just finishing up when he heard shots from across the river. It was starting. Thank God he had gotten out of town so quickly. Now to hope his luck held out.
* * *
At first, it did. He made his way slowly, taking care not to hurt his bad knee. There were no adventures to speak of. No crazy drivers flying down the road and no monsters searching for man flesh. The world was silent, even serene. He could barely believe it. This was an apparently standard forest: Trees, bushes, grass, and nothing indicating humans had been here save the railroad and adjacent service road, plus odd stumps from the clearing work done for the roads and a piece of trash here and there.
A few miles in, he found a small car stuck in a set of muddy potholes. After a minute of looking and listening, he decided there was nothing fishy about and approached. It was locked, but the birds had fouled it up and its tire tracks were starting to vanish, so it had likely been here more than a week.
Rock thought about getting out his bridge support rod and breaking in, but why? Even if he could hotwire it, it would be no use on these roads. The driver must have been extraordinarily stupid to take this road at any speed. The car was a piece of junk, anyway; it would be dangerous at any speed even on a perfect stretch of highway. It was possible to get the car unstuck—with the right tools and a heap of time and effort. So why break in? It didn’t look like the type of car to be holding anything interesting.
He would be chasing a waste of time, and maybe trouble if the driver showed up in an off-road vehicle with a bunch of pitchfork-wielding assistants during Rock’s attempted heist. No sense adding new adventures to the mix. He had enough to deal with.
The road soon deteriorated. These potholes were insurmountable, and the car would never have gotten past. Soon he had to climb onto the railway embankment, plant the bike on the rail, and walk it a few hundred feet. After a short ride, he had to do the same again. And again.
Until trouble hit. Rock noticed movement out of the corner of his eye and turned to his left to see two men running diagonally across the road. Their form was terrible. Suspiciously unsightly. They didn’t run like people—they swung awkwardly from side to side and were hunched over terribly, with strange sudden movements. He might have explained one away. A complicated pregnancy resulting in partial lameness at birth, and so on. But there was no way that two people shared the same complications.
Their clothes were filthy, too. No homeless person Rock knew would be caught dead in them. One was even a half-nudist, charging at him without pants. Actually, he did have pants—they were just dragging behind him, somehow wrapped around his foot. The pair likely worked out here picking mushrooms or doing some other kind of field work, since their shoes were clearly not intended for roads or sidewalks, and their clothes were boring but durable and practical.
These are digis just beginning their journey, he thought. I’m sure of it. The journey that ends with them as house-sized thorn rhinos. He had more urgent matters to consider: how to avoid losing another life.
Two opponents were not too much to handle, but that didn’t mean they were evenly matched. Their inhumanely quick movements disturbed him. He’d rather avoid them entirely, but that was no longer on the table. Maybe a circus performer could ride a bike down these rails at a sufficient clip, but even he would demand a raise for the feat. Rock couldn’t get back to the service road without the pair catching him first, and besides, the potholes made this stretch impassable. Could he run? How far would he even make it when his knee was about to collapse?
The bridge rod slid out of its straps. Rock gripped the weighty piece of iron firmly, just as firmly as he was gripped by the conviction that these creatures had to depart this world quickly. They were men. Just a little dirtier and with stranger movements, that was all. He doubted they could fly, so they’d have
to climb up the embankment. That would slow them down.
Rock would be waiting for his guests upstairs, with a nice straightforward greeting for them.
It sounded good in theory, but complications can arise in practice. Rock managed to think through several ways the fight would play out. What mattered most was to prevent them from both attacking him at the same time. He picked up his bike and threw it at the first opponent as soon as he reached the embankment. It wasn’t a good kill shot, but it would slow the thing down.
Now the struck zombie was a few seconds behind his friend. That friend reached out to Rock excitedly, but then stopped grumbling as his prey stepped aside at the last moment and swung with the metal bar. It plunged into the man’s right eye, pushing into his skull. A sickening gush sound followed, and the stunned creature leaped up, tripped on the first rail, and crashed his forehead into the other.
Rock turned his attention to the other one, but he made no plans to dodge. The first maneuver had displeased his knee. He brought the bar straight down. It worked—the zombie was so stupid he didn’t even attempt to shield his head with his arm. Crimson brain giblets sprayed onto the tracks and embankment, but the zombie’s rumbling and climbing continued.
Rock followed up with a double-jab, turning his enemy’s forehead into a horror show and disorienting the creature as rivers of blood flowed into his eye. Rock spun and slammed the rod into the zombie’s temple. Despite his caution, his knee protested at the whirl, but the results were worth it. The zombie rolled down the embankment and into the grass and lay there, his legs barely twitching. The first one was still writhing in his attempts to reach Rock, but something was wrong. He seemed paralyzed from the waist or even chest down, managing only to wriggle his arms and groan intermittently.
Rock took aim and beat out vengeance for the trouble they had caused him, ruthlessly smashing one hand and then the other. He proceeded to break both arms at the elbow, and then with three powerful smashes to a single point, he crushed the beast’s cranium.
It was dead. The kicking ceased.
The pain in his knee made him frown. He sized up the situation. Both dead men were now truly dead. The soldiers’ advice to go for the head was accurate. He wasn’t hurt. He could tolerate his aching knee and blood-spattered clothing.
Despite the smell. A change of clothes would be welcome, whenever the opportunity came.
Rock surveyed the area and noticed nothing else attracted by the battle. No normal humans were seen or heard, nor any beasts—just the breeze in the tops of the trees and the birds chirping away without a care.
He sat and frowned again, then looted the first enemy’s jacket without any hint of remorse. This was pure instinct. He had no idea what he was seeking. The fact that he would search them so automatically without any good reason surprised him.
Loot was lacking, besides a crumpled pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He tossed the smokes aside. He wasn’t a smoker, as far as he knew. If he was, he had forgotten how to smoke, along with everything else. At least the lighter was something. Maybe he’d want a fire in the future.
Infected destroyed. Level 2. Chance of valuable loot: 22%. +5 Strength progress points. +1 Agility progress points. +2 Humanity points.
Infected destroyed. Level 2. Chance of valuable loot: 26%. +5 Strength progress points. +1 Endurance progress points. +2 Humanity points.
Note: Your physical strength is 1. Increase your base stats to level up.
More scarlet news. It didn’t say much, as usual. It seemed he was supposed to be stronger now. He didn’t feel that way. This was certainly not a game but some kind of cruel trick. What were these zombies doing in the forest? These railway tracks were all rusted. No trains had been here for ages. The place was desolate, and there should have been no food here to sustain the walkers.
It was all nonsense. But he had to escape somehow.
Favoring his right leg, he descended the embankment and searched the other corpse. He was carrying a ring of keys and, strangely, a rich vanity bag decorated with sparkling colored rhinestones. Rock considered the man’s stubble, about a week old, and the filthy rubber boots on the man’s now-still legs. He realized he should just let questions about the bag go before the game’s inconsistencies drove him mad.
Hmm. They both looked equally bad, so why had those numbers been different? They had been endurance and agility or something like that, plus differing “valuable loot chances.”
Those percentages weren’t on his side, though. The lighter was cheap, and the bag was useless. He wouldn’t find answers around here; there was no one to ask. His first order of business was to find someone in the know. Until then, he felt like a blind kitten lost in a kennel of hungry hellhounds.
He’d take a sip of water and then keep pedaling on. His intolerable thirst was growing.
* * *
Infected destroyed. Level 3. Chance of valuable loot: 33%. +6 Strength progress points. +1 Endurance progress points. +3 Humanity points.
“Filthy bastard,” Rock hissed, bandaging up his left forearm.
The forest running along both sides of the railroad tracks had seemed completely safe at first, but that impression had proven false. It was actually a popular hangout for the local grumblers. Since his first battle, Rock had killed five zombies in three distinct skirmishes and had avoided several more, thanks to the speed of his bike and the presence of a few quality stretches of road. Everything went smoothly in the first two battles, except for a few complaints from his knee, but the dead were getting insistent. These last ones had even managed to scratch him.
Rock had failed to estimate the zombie’s abilities correctly. One had been normal, but the other was full of surprises: fast, agile, and with an abnormally quick reaction speed. Its facial features had changed, softening, as if melting away. Its nails had become ugly and thick, more like claws—short claws, thankfully. Its hair was done into an ugly solid mass with a sprinkling of bald patches, and its outstretched fingers displayed swollen joints that would not look out of place on the world’s ugliest spider. All in all, a handsome guy.
Rock had regrettably ignored all of these disturbing signs, focusing only on the state of the beast’s clothing and hygiene. Its pants were gone, as was its left shoe, and its long shirt was defiled from the top button to the bottom, but most of all the bottom. It smelled of fecal matter from a dozen paces out. An obvious hygiene catastrophe. Desiring to avoid a close-combat fight, Rock had tried to get the ball of filth from a distance, fencing with his bridge support. He thought a poke in the solar plexus would disable it for a few seconds, letting him destroy the cleaner zombie without trouble before returning to the stink bomb.
It was a bad plan. The walking corpse didn’t even moan at the poke. It pushed against the bridge support, oblivious to the pain. Rock had to dodge the outstretched arms, allowing his knee to scream in protest. Then, he had the fortune to deal a solid blow to the other zombie. But at that moment, the deadlier zombie reached out its unmanicured nails and seized Rock’s forearm.
Thankfully it wasn’t his weapon hand, and the enemy was apparently not smart enough to capitalize on its success. Rock knocked it twice on the crown of the head to get it to stop rending his flesh, then added a few extra smacks. No flourish, just force, like a man beating the dust out of a carpet.
At first, it looked like Rock’s arm was in pieces. But it wasn’t so bad. Bandages might be enough. Rock wouldn’t mind seeing a doctor, at least to get some stitches, but his chances of ever finding one were low.
Idiot. He should have at least swiped some disinfectant from the pharmacy. How many strains of bacteria had taken to calling those claws home? Maybe he should think of something else. A plant to put on the wound, for instance.
Rock was still beating the twitching body and spitting at it in fury. The bastard was filthy. Rock doubt it had often washed its hands during its life, not to mention its deadlife. Losing another revive to tetanus would suck.
What the! Rock sus
pended his disgust and crouched in front of the dead enemy. Not to search it. Touching it was the last thing he wanted to do. But he had discovered what had made the thing’s face so ugly. Something was growing on the back of the zombie’s head. Something foreign, like a fungus on the bark of a young tree. It had taken root in the skull and displaced the skin as it grew, magnifying the shitbag’s repulsive visage.
As he looked at the lines that seemed to separate the sac into lobes, he remembered that he had extracted those fatal pearls from a similar growth on the head of that giant back in the city. Other less-developed monsters had exhibited formations like that, too, if less large. He wondered what he would find inside this one, but didn’t see the use. The corpses had been useless so far. Rock had even stopped searching them, their soiled state too revolting.
The man got up, walked to his bike lying along the road, and caught movement in his eye. He cursed his luck. That last ghoul had taken up far too much of his time. Another zombie was racing along the road. It didn’t look like a bridge rod was going to be much use. Not a scrap of clothing remained on the beast. Its limbs were deformed into terribly elongated arms, much longer than its body, which had grown to almost seven feet tall. Worse, it was fast. At record-breaking speed it flew towards him. Even on a good road, escaping the beast on a bicycle would be a trick. And this wasn’t a good road.
Still, Rock mounted the bike and took off. He had to try. After all, there was a bend in the road up ahead. Maybe it would lead onto a major highway with pristine pavement, or at least to a long, smooth descent. If not, he had about two minutes to live, if that. He had no confidence in his chances of beating what was coming for him.