Beth hadn’t planned to get stuck inside this stupid meat packaging plant when the sun went down, but she also hadn’t thought through the whole situation.

If it had been in the middle of the day, she could’ve ignored the notification telling her she was encumbered, and waddled her chubby ass back to base. But as it was, she had to stop to recover her stamina every minute or so, and she was moving considerably slower.

Now, she found herself on the roof of the building, and it luckily only had one entrance point, so she sat with her back against the ductwork and a gun pointed at the door that gave roof access.

As the world grew darker around her, she attached the flashlight mod to the handgun and clicked it on.

Level 1 Glock .22

Damage: 50-150

Durability: 82%

Enhancement Slot: Flashlight Mod

Enhancement Slot: (Empty)

She didn’t know if it was a good idea or a terrible one. Would it draw more zombies to her or just help her see better?

The music shifted as darkness took over, the violins screeching eerie notes, and the piano more haunting. It was accompanied by the low moans of zombies and clanging in the building beneath her. She’d just cleared it and now the zombies were back? Ugh.

A bird cawed, and Beth pointed her flashlight in the air, scanning the skies for the zombie bird. She caught a glimpse of its wing and squeezed the trigger, blowing the thing out of the air.

The sounds of zombies intensified. Great.

A dog barked, and a wet thud hit the opposite side of the door Beth was guarding. Her heart jumped and she aimed her weapon at the danger. She could see a zombie’s arm glitching as it tried to break through the steel door.

If it broke it down, she wouldn’t be able to hold them back. She needed some way to limit the number of zombies she let through. The door was sticking up through the roof like a finger, and Beth built a stack of wooden blocks directly in front of it. If the zombies broke through the door, they’d still need to break through the blocks to get to her.

She cast around for something else to help her, and realized she could break through the ceiling of the stairway and shoot the zombies from above. They wouldn’t be able to get to her—or at least, she hoped they wouldn’t—and she could thin them out before they even reached the door.

Beth leapt atop the staircase roof and used her ax to chip away the ceiling. Broken cement rained down on the zombies, and Beth exchanged the ax for her gun and began to shoot them. From this angle, she was easily able to get their head with her first or second shot, and she made short work of the four zombies trying to get out.

Before she’d killed them, she’d noticed they’d turned their attention to the walls on either side of the door, trying to break those down in addition to the door. If Beth was going to be stuck here, she might as well reinforce the walls, too.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

She built wooden blocks on either side of the door, encasing the entire roof access in wood. Then she built up and around herself, so she could stay perched in relative safety, leaving only a couple of wooden grates above her head so she could shoot any birds who approached. She was extremely glad for the pile of firewood she’d destroyed just outside the plant’s door.

Maybe TJ was right, maybe starting with a building was a smart way to stay alive.

Beth spent the rest of the night shooting birds and any zombies who wandered up the stairs.

By the end of the night, she’d obtained everything she needed to build her bicycle, the only problem was that she’d left some of it at her base.

Day 8: Time: 05:03

Beth stared at the time as the sun came up. The music shifted, and instead of the eerie caw of crows, there was the soft chirping of songbirds. She dropped from her perch above the staircase and walked back through the meat-packaging plant. At the exit, she had to stop to let her stamina refill.

It took her nearly an hour to get back to base. When she arrived, it looked different. A roof had been built over the second story, and the ground beneath the base had been filled with wooden spikes.

She jumped over the perimeter of spikes she’d placed and climbed the ladder. Mav’s avatar was still slumped in the corner, and she could hear the clang of metal in the mines below the base. So TJ had done all this? He’d built this? Her storage boxes were missing and she climbed the ladder to find at least a dozen boxes, all labeled, on the second floor. The cement mixer was turning, and a stack of rocks that almost looked like a makeshift oven was glowing with fire. She stepped closer and saw a pool of liquid iron inside of it.

Okay, so it was a forge of some sort.

She climbed back down the ladder and to the mine’s entrance inside the bottom floor of the base. “TJ?”

The clanging stopped.

“TJ?”

“It’s Helios,” came his echoing reply.

Beth clenched her hands into fists and closed her eyes, taking several deep breaths. “Helios?” she finally said, proud when it didn’t sound like she was going to snap his head off.

“Yes, Nyx?”

“I want Maverick back,” she said.

He cleared his throat and his helmet-clad head appeared through the trap door. There was a feral look on his face that had Beth taking a step away from him. She glanced at her gun, she only had a couple of bullets left, but she’d put TJ’s name on them if he kept his murder face on.

“If my predictions are correct, he should be here before horde night.” He managed to keep his tone even, but Beth didn’t miss the slight sneer to his lips or the way his eyes narrowed.

Definite murder face.

“Did something happen?”

He shrugged. “Nothing you need to worry about.”

She stared at him, letting her silence speak to her annoyance. TJ shifted.

She quirked an eyebrow and crossed her arms over her chest. C’mon TJ, crack already.

His adam’s apple bobbed, and she narrowed her eyes.

“One of my labs was broken into. Three pods were stolen. If I’m right, your buddy Maverick, and his two friends will be joining us.”

“But Maverick said they were in the intermediate map, or server or something like that?” She really needed to shut her mouth before her rambling clued him into her lack of gamer knowledge.

He climbed the rest of the way out of the mineshaft and closed the trapdoor over top of it. “If they log in, we’re merging them here. We’ll need all the help we can get.”

Beth did not like the sound of that. “Why?”

“Because, as of now, the only way to get you out of here is to beat the game.”

She felt weak. Like the little girl who hid in her closet to get away from her mama’s boyfriends. She hated it. Beth pulled the gun from her inventory.

“Now, wait. Nyx—Beth. Wait.” He backed away, but in the confined space, he didn’t really have anywhere to go.

Beth aimed right at his forehead and squeezed the trigger, killing him, and the fear that had coated her tongue. All that was left in its place was a sense of power.