One of the zombies, a woman, leapt to her feet and ran at Beth. Beth swung her club again, knocking the woman to the ground. The other two zombies got up and slowly shuffled toward her.
Beth ignored them and as the running zombie got to its knees, she batted the zombie’s head from its body.
Welcome to level 3! You’ve received 1 skill point.
Two more zombies appeared in the doorway.
“Mav? A little help here!” she called. She could hear him below, his grunts and cursing.
“Dammit, Nyx, I’m trying.”
Beth bashed the nearest zombie’s head, and it stumbled, taking another one with it. The newcomers stepped over their companions’ bodies and walked toward her.
Out of Stamina
FRACK!
Beth kept her club between the oncoming zombies and herself as she backed toward the window. She slipped in the blood from the baby’s corpse, but got to her feet, tearing her gaze from the approaching zombies just long enough to look at the red smeared across her hand as she’d caught herself.
Disgusting. She wiped it on her shorts, then got to her feet again and had enough stamina to swing her bat. She hit a zombie in the head, and it collapsed to the ground with an experience notification.
+530 exp
Good, one down, three to go.
A shotgun blast below her let her know that Maverick had also run out of stamina and had resorted to shooting them.
When her ass hit the window sill, she threw herself onto the roof behind her, rolling out of the zombies’ way.
They swung their arms at the window and shattered the glass. The first one climbed onto the roof.
Beth got to her feet and adjusted her grip on her club, calculating how much time she had until she could swing her weapon again. Probably only a couple of seconds.
She backed up, buying herself that valuable time, and in the process, stepped onto something soft.
The roof gave out beneath her, and Beth’s leg fell into a hole. “Shit!”
Zombie guts blew all over her, and the approaching zombie collapsed next to her with a massive hole in its chest.
Mav grinned at her from inside the window. “Need help?”
“Piss off! Where were you?”
He shook his head, but laughed. “I had like seven zombies down there. And a dog!”
Beth didn’t remember seeing a dog in the zombie parade. She scowled at him. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. They’re rare, but they’re infected, and they rush you.”
“I had a runner up here.” She reached her hand toward him. “A little help?”
He bashed the rest of the glass out of the window frame, and leapt onto the roof. He lifted her out of the hole and held her waist until she was steady on her feet.
“Thanks.”
“I think we got the zombies on the first two floors, we should clear the attic real quick, then ransack the place.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
The water drop was back on Beth’s screen, and she drank a bottle of water. She’d have to watch for more water, cause she was nearly out.
“Save that bottle.” Mav emptied his own bottle, then put it back in his backpack.
“What for?”
“If we find a lake or something, we can refill it. We’ll run out of fresh water eventually.” Mav zipped his pack and gestured toward the window. “Shall we?”
Beth tucked her empty bottle back into her backpack. “I got your six.” Which was her way of telling him to go first.
He grinned and ducked into the window, landing inside with a thud.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“Well, if they didn’t know we were here before, they know now,” she teased.
Together, they searched the top floor until they found the attic entrance. The roof was partially missing and light streamed in.
Maverick quietly climbed the ladder and peeked into the room. “I see two deceptors.” He equipped his shotgun and took them both out with three shots. “That was pretty sick. Let’s loot the place.”
Beth started on the top floor, while Maverick covered the attic.
She opened every cupboard she could find, looked under every bed, then began punching pictures to find hidden places behind them.
Maverick joined her in one of the bedrooms. “Do you have a wrench?” He equipped his.
She nodded.
“If you use a wrench on these, we can get things like springs and mechanisms that will be used in the later game stages.” He began disassembling the bed with loud cranks.
“Have you beat the game before? Can you beat the game?”
“I’ve made it to the final horde day, but I died. It’s so fucking hard.”
“That’s what she said.” Beth stared at him, wide-eyed and in disbelief she’d actually said that aloud.
He started laughing, and she grinned. Good, he wasn’t a prude.
“I like you, Nyx. You’re all right.”
“Thanks, Mav.”
They finished clearing the house, Beth filling her backpack completely full. She hadn’t paid much attention to the items she’d gathered—or looted, as Maverick called it. But she had gotten a bike frame. She was one step closer to actually making a bike.
You are encumbered.
Beth and Maverick walked back to the trader.
“Hi, Trader,” Beth said.
“Welcome back! Thank you for clearing those zombies. Here’s your reward.”
An inventory box appeared in front of her and inside it was a set of bicycle handlebars. Sweet. Now she only needed a seat and tires. She sold a pair of shoes that she’d looted that had no stats. She donned a pair of leather pants and even though she put a shirt on under her jacket, she still looked like she was wearing a glorified leather bra. Typical.
Level 2 Leather Pants
Reduce chance of overheating by 10%.
Durability: 91%
Enhancement Slot: (Empty)
Level 1 T-shirt
Durability: 100%
Her favorite find was a 9mm handgun. With all the ammo she’d found, (another thing Maverick had insisted she say. Apparently calling them bullets wasn’t the right terminology) she had over 100 rounds.
Beth felt like she was finally getting the hang of things. They went back to the base, and Maverick built a couple of boxes on the interior of the second floor.
“These are storage containers. We’ll build more and make them more specialized later, but for now, just use these."
Beth opened the storage container and dropped all of her loot inside, keeping a couple cans of food, water, her weapons, her ammo, and a few tools on her person.
“All set?”
Beth nodded.
“We should spend the rest of the day beefing up the base.“
They had enough stone and dirt to create cobblestone, and they worked together to make the entire first floor cobble. Maverick had her place another set of pillars, these ones five blocks away from the previous pillars, making the base significantly wider.
While Beth cut wood for the grates that would go on the ground of the second floor, Maverick connected the columns from the second story, putting cobblestone blocks from one to the next.
As she cut the trees, a shriek sounded behind her, and Beth turned to find a half-blindfolded zombie woman. Shit.
Maverick came running as five zombies appeared around Beth in a semi-circle. Thankfully, they all walked slowly. She backed away from the approaching zombies, getting just close enough to bash them in the head one at a time. She killed the shrieker first, as Maverick snuck up on the zombies from behind. He equipped his club, which he’d enhanced with metal spikes earlier today.
Beth checked the time, it was nearing dusk, so they had to kill this horde quickly, then head into their base for the night.
Blood splattered across her vision, and her health dropped. Then again. And Again.
“Help!”
An arm wrapped around her neck, she swung her club behind her, hitting the back of the zombie’s head.
Maverick ducked beneath a zombie’s arm and came up with his shotgun in hand. He put it to the zombie’s head on beth’s back and pulled the trigger.
“Are you infected?”
She looked, but didn’t see a biohazard symbol. “No.”
They finished off the last few zombies, then headed to their base. Standing on the framework of the second story, Beth saw a couple zombies wandering in the distance. They still had several minutes until the sunset, so she climbed down the ladder and ran toward them. When she finally reached them, she was out of stamina, and pulled her 9mm out, shooting them both in the head.
Welcome to level 4! You’ve received 1 skill point.
She drank a water bottle, then walked back to base just as the sun disappeared behind the mountains in the distance.
Beth opened her character screen and created the grates that went on the second story floor, giving them a view of any zombies attacking from below. She carefully placed the grates between the new pillars she’d created.
Maverick had crafted some torches and placed them into the mining hole she’d started digging yesterday.
They spent the next few hours working together to gather iron, stone, and dirt.
A shrieker screamed outside their base.
“Keep working. I’ll handle the zombies.” Maverick climbed the ladder into the base, and disappeared onto the second story. Beth continued working to the sound of stone hitting stone, and bullets hitting flesh.
A little while later, climbed back into the base and found Maverick slumped in the corner, unresponsive. Then her vision went black, save for a white message.
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