Beth followed Maverick to the trader, and he showed her how to create what he called a POI on the map. A Point of Interest. She labeled it trader and followed Maverick into the compound.

“Always make sure to close the door behind you. If you leave it open, zombies will come in and kill him, then you’ll be screwed.” Maverick secured the door, and Beth looked around.

The walls of the compound were made of mishmash pieces of metal, on the inside of those was a barbed-wire fence. In the center of the compound was a house on stilts, and they climbed the steel steps to the second floor.

“So is this guy like a computer or?”

“Yeah, he’s an NPC. A non-player character. You come to him to sell or buy items, and he can also send you on errands or quests.” Just walk up to him and say hi.

Beth did.

A small screen popped up.

Would you like to buy and sell?

Go on an errand?

Never mind.

Beth selected buy and sell.

The trader’s inventory opened in front of her on the left side of her vision, and her own inventory on the right.

“How do I know what items I need?”

“What do you have?”

Beth listed her items, including her jacket, socks, pajama pants, and shoes.

“Why aren’t you wearing any of that?” Maverick asked.

“Cause I don’t know how.”

“ex out of the trader.”

Beth pressed the X at the top right corner and backed away, facing Maverick.

“Okay, open your character sheet and hit the shirt icon at the top left.”

Beth did.

On the top right side, she saw an outline of a person with boxes overlaid. Her inventory was directly below that screen and she grabbed her jacket and clicked it on the box on the character’s chest. There was another one on the character’s abdomen that Beth suspected was for a shirt.

She placed the socks on her shins and the shoes on her feet. The pajama pants only gave her +1 to warmth, and it was the middle of summer. She also didn’t feel like wearing light blue pants with puffy white clouds on them, so she opted to stay in the tight leather shorts she had on. She exited out and stood looking down at herself.

Okay, so she wasn’t a badass. But for now, these clothes would do.

“Nice. I wouldn’t sell any tools, or any clothes you’re going to use.”

“Okay.” Beth clicked on the trader again, then sold her pajama pants to him for 50 coins.

She looked at his inventory and bought a bottle of water, using all 50 of the coins. Dammit.

“Done?” Maverick asked.

“Yeah.”

He grabbed her elbow and started guiding her toward the exit. “K, let’s get back and I’ll show you the best way to build our base for defense.”

Beth gently pulled away from him. Admittedly, she didn’t get the best view of the guys at the office, and maybe she was being nerdist for thinking they were all 30 year olds who lived in their parents’ basements. She might think his avatar was handsome, but she didn’t want to give him the wrong idea.

By the time they arrived back to base, it was almost 5 pm. “The time does go really quick here.”

“Yeah, it does. I want you to start making wooden pillars, put one about four blocks out from each corner and once here in the middle.” He walked around showing her where to place the pillars.

Beth opened her character screen and went to the crafting section, then found wooden block on the list. She crafted about 100, each one using 100 wood. When she was done, she tried to place them, but couldn’t.

“Hammer required,” British boy told her.

She looked through the list and found the hammer schematic, then using the appropriate wood and stone, crafted a stone hammer. She was really getting the hang of this. Beth placed pillars 5 blocks high in all 16 places that were four blocks apart and four blocks away from the base. It took her several hours, including a break for food, water, and to let her stamina regenerate.

Maverick climbed up the ladder and began creating walkways from the top block of their base to each of the pillars Beth had built. Then in the spaces between the walkways, he placed wooden grates.

A shriek rang out directly behind Beth before blood splattered across her vision. She spun to see a partially blindfolded woman directly behind her. The music instantly changed to a fast-paced eerie music with screeching violins. She swung at the woman’s head with her hammer, and the woman dropped to the ground.

All around her, zombies appeared and started shambling toward them.

“I count six,” Maverick said, climbing down the stairs.

Beth switched her hammer for the baseball bat and stepped over the corpse. A second later, Beth was knocked to the ground from behind, and in the top right of her vision, directly above her health bar, a red biohazard symbol appeared. The zombie’s teeth tore through her shoulder, and she noticed her health bar drop 25 points.

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“Oh, shit!” Maverick yelled, and the weight disappeared from Beth’s back. She shakily got to her feet and found the actually dead shrieker on the ground behind her, headless and unmoving.

“I thought it was dead,” Beth said shakily as she slammed her bat into an oncoming zombie’s head. An experience notification popped up at the bottom of her screen. She was a dumbass. She should’ve been looking for experience all along. That had to mean that she’d killed it.

They made short work of the other five zombies, and Maverick turned to her. “Are you infected?”

Beth glanced at the biohazard symbol. “I think so.”

Maverick glanced up at the sun, which had just started to go behind the mountains in the distance. “Do you have an antibiotic?”

Beth looked through her inventory. “Not that I see.”

“I have to run to the trader to see if he has any. You stay here and defend the base.” Maverick started toward town.

Beth nodded and climbed the ladder into the base. Feeling exposed, she climbed down and sat on her sleeping pallet. She reached over and touched the infection warning and a box popped up in her vision.

Infected with Pithovirus.

4% infected.

Get an antibiotic before you reach 50% infected.

As the sun disappeared behind the mountain and crickets began to chirp, her British guide said, “Build a fire to keep you warm and ward away infected birds.”

A shiver ran down Beth’s spine and she opened her character sheet. She clicked the hammer to take her to the craft screen, then gently scrolled down until she found a fire pit.

50 stone, 100 wood, a flint, and 50 paper.

Dammit. Maverick had been taking all the letters from mail boxes. In the distance, she could make out a porch light on the outskirts of the town. Did she dare go into town this late?

She clicked on the map icon and found a marker at her current location, and one she’d set at the trader’s compound. She could also see her original starting point. Everywhere she hadn’t been yet was still white and unexplored. She’d have to explore later. Beth redirected her attention to the matter at hand. If she went quick, maybe she’d be able to grab some papers before she was discovered. She searched her inventory for some sort of light source, but came up empty.

Going back to the craft screen, she found a torch schematic.

10 wood, 20 cloth, 1 oil, and a flint.

She put the required supplies into the boxes, and created a torch. Then she cursed as she realized the flint was a one-time-use item. She had no way of creating a fire without another one.

Quietly, she snuck up the ladder, traversed one of the walkways, then went back down outside the base. Maverick had moved the ladder to one of the pillars, and she made a mental note of its location on the east side of the structure so she could find it quickly in case she was being chased when she returned.

Once down, she used the torch to light her way. The music had stopped completely, and only the sound of crickets accompanied her. She moved quickly, the torch in her left hand, and the baseball bat in her right.

As she crossed the threshold where desert turned to grass, the crickets quieted, and one by one discordant notes began to play.

Damn, she was scared.

Beth reminded herself that this was a video game. She couldn’t really get hurt, and this infection couldn’t really turn her into a zombie.

A low moan was the only warning she got before she was tackled to the grass by a zombie on her left. The torch flew from her hand and landed on the ground. Beth’s body jolted and her health bar took another hit. Since the last attack, she’d slowly ticked back up to full health, but now she was back down 25 points.

She swung her bat and it slammed into the zombie’s head. The zombie went still, dead weight pinning her to the ground. In the light of the torch, she could see another zombie rushing toward her.

Shit.

Beth shoved the zombie off her and swung the bat just as the zombie reached her. The bat broke in half.

Double shit.

She turned and ran toward the base, watching as her stamina bar drained at a steady clip.

A shriek sounded to her left as a second zombie joined the chase.

It was pitch black when her stamina hit zero, and she was still several yards from the base. She slowed to a torturous pace.

Blood splattered across her vision.

She tripped just as a loud sound exploded behind her. She heard the pumping of a shotgun and another blast, this one closer, almost deafened her.

“Get up!” Maverick shouted.

Beth’s ears rang, and she stumbled to the ladder.

You feel ill

She leapt, barely grasping the bottom rung, and pulled herself up. Once at the top, she opened the infection screen.

Infected with Pithovirus.

18% infected.

Get antibiotics before you reach 50% infected.

Maverick killed the two zombies that had attacked her, and he climbed the ladder to join her at the top. “What the hell was that?” he demanded.

“The game told me to build a campfire to keep the infected birds away, but I didn’t have any paper, so I was just going to sneak over and check the nearest mail boxes for letters.”

He sighed. “Climb down into the base. Hopefully we won’t get attacked again tonight, but if we do, I’ll handle it.”

Beth wanted to tell him that she could take care of herself. She’d been taking care of herself since she was old enough to lift a frying pan, but she needed his help. She had no idea what she was doing. “Sorry. Did you at least get the antibiotic?”

He tossed her a small orange pill bottle. “I had to sell almost everything in my inventory to get this, so enjoy it.”

Guilt ate at her. “Thanks.” She opened the bottle to reveal a single dose. Beth put the pill in her mouth and swallowed it dry.

“Let’s work on the base from the inside for now.” Maverick built a fire inside the base; the smoke escaping from the open ceiling. Then he began placing wooden blocks, making their base two-stories high. “If you want to make a hole right there and start digging down, we’ll make an ore mine below our base.”

“Doesn’t that screw with the structural integrity or something?” Beth asked.

“Not in my experience.”

Beth used her shovel for the top soil and dug straight down. Once she hit three blocks deep, she looked up and realized she wouldn’t be able to get out of the hole.

“Umm. How do I get out?”

“Build a ladder. You still have wood? If not, I can build one for you.”

I got it.

Beth built several sections of ladder and continued digging downward.

When she hit something solid, she switched her shovel for her stone ax and began chipping away at it. “I can’t really see,” she said into the pitch black.

“Don’t go too far, and pay attention to what direction you’re heading,” came Maverick’s reply.

After a bit, she realized she couldn’t hear the clatter of Maverick's tools anymore. “Mav?”

She built a ladder and climbed back to the base.

“Maverick?”

He didn’t answer.

She climbed the ladder to the small second floor and found Maverick slumped in a corner. Beth shook his shoulder. “Maverick?”

She half expected him to suddenly jump up in zombie-form, but he just sat there, unmoving.

Seconds later, darkness overtook her.