Beth hauled TJ’s corpse up the ladder. She dragged it two floors so she could watch him splatter on the spikes below. It probably made her sound like a serial killer, but she didn’t care. The bastard could die a hundred times and it still wouldn’t be enough.

She watched him drop over the edge to the two zombies attacking her pillars below, they immediately changed course and began feasting—there was no other way to describe it—on the corpse. Like last time, she picked up his backpack and threw the items into her storage bins.

From there, she grabbed a level 1 bow and a sheath of twenty arrows, she had no idea where the arrows came from, but she wouldn’t complain. She then aimed through the grates and picked the zombies off.

As she watched the day turn to night, she contemplated what she was supposed to do. Beth was stuck. In. A. Game. How? That was the question. Couldn’t they just take the stupid electrodes off her face? Couldn’t they just pull her from the dumb tanning bed? These were questions she intended to get answers to.

What would happen to her? She was already into day nine. Which was three real days. She obviously needed food and water if she was going to live. Could they feed her? Could she eat? Would she start to feel the physical effects of being starved? And would she die? TJ wouldn’t let her die, right?

Maybe she should be nicer to him so he didn’t just let her die. Did her mama know? Was anyone else stuck? Or just her? There were too many questions, and obviously not enough answers.

“TJ?” she whispered, trying to avoid attracting any zombies. “Please get me out of here.”

She had to kill three more zombies before the night was over, and as day broke, she opened the storage box labeled “Weapons” and found a battle ax.

Level 2 Battle Ax

Damage: 45-90

Durability: 71%

Enhancement Slot: (Empty)

Enhancement Slot: (Empty)

Beth sorted through the rest of the weapons. There were guns, 30 rounds of 9mm ammo. Forty rounds of 40 cal, and forty-four shotgun shells, not to mention seven sheaths, each with twenty arrows. She wasn’t sure about her aim, or how many zombies would attack the base that night, but she didn’t want to run out of ammo.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Day: 10 Time: 06:21

She exited the base and walked a little ways out until she could see the entire thing. To the south several small trees in perfectly straight rows had broken through the ground. TJ, perhaps? It did seem like he was actually trying to help her. She decided to make more of an effort to be nicer to him, even if he was a vaginal turd.

Beth walked into town, determined to find as much ammo as possible.

Grass grew between the cracks in the pavement, and somewhere in the distance, an animal of the canine variety howled. She walked past the trader and turned north, toward an area she hadn’t explored yet.

The houses became a strip mall of boarded up stores with broken windows. She passed a clothing store, a fabric store, a souvenir shop, then a restaurant. Beth didn’t know what she was looking for, but she hoped she’d know when she found it. Across the street, she saw an Acme Hardware store, and she shook her head at the lack of originality. “Acme? The least you could’ve done was come up with your own brands, TJ.”

Maybe he was watching, and her criticism, no, she’d call it a critique—she was a beta tester, after all—helped him.

She crossed the street and stopped in the parking lot in front of an old car. After getting out her wrench, she began unscrewing bolts beneath the hood. Each turn gave her some sort of loot, from scrap metal to engine parts.

A burst of blood splattered across her vision, and her health, which was 140 points, dropped to 115. She spun and bashed the zombie dog’s head with her wrench. The impact pushed it backward, and Beth scrambled onto the car’s roof. As the dog’s bloody front paws scrabbled on the trunk to get to her, she pulled out her Glock and shot it in the head.

+635 experience

Her breaths came in fast pants, and the experience notification assured her it was dead, but she was still on edge. Still felt as though she were being watched. A chill went down her spine, and she drank half a bottle of water, then carefully climbed off of the car.

When she started disassembling the car again, that feeling didn’t go away. Someone was definitely watching her, though she wasn’t sure who, or why.

“Hello?” she whisper-shouted. “Is anyone there?”

The only response was the low moan of a zombie.

After a few more cranks, she’d dismantled the car and moved toward the hardware store’s entrance.

The boards had been torn and brownish finger marks dragged across the wood. That didn’t bode well. When she opened the door, a bell chimed, and Beth winced, getting her battle ax out and ready.

Against the right wall was a plastic-wrapped pallet with white fifty pound bags of cement. She’d head there after she made sure the building was clear. On the left was a pair of cash registers, their drawers opened and empty.

The aisles looked well picked-over. Only a couple of things remained. Beth walked past the registers and the last thing she heard was the distinct creaking of the floor before it gave out beneath her.