As the moments ticked by, so did the kill count.

Harry Bott, a native New Yorker built like a tank, attempted to beat Stephen Taylor to death on the second floor of a house that was missing half of its roof. The combatants took blows and returned them in a wild battle that was more fear-based than skillful. Hand to hand had never been Bott’s forte and it showed as the other player got in a pair of uppercuts and a wild haymaker that put Harry on his ass.

They were both aware that they had to get the hell out of this zone because both watches buzzed incessantly against their wrists. Yet, the two men fought to the death, because there was no place for negotiations in the game.

Harry got lucky. His hand found a piece of concrete just as Stephen put him in a headlock and applied a sleeper hold. As the lights faded, Harry got his hand around the rock and swung it up, catching Taylor across the side of the head. A grunt of pain. Warm blood across Harry Bott’s fingers.

The sleeper hold didn’t let up and Harry saw stars as he fought for breath.

He struck with the block again and this time he could breathe. He stepped back, intending to sweep his leg under Taylor’s and take the man off his feet, but the floor, old and creaking in the dark, gave way.

Rotted beams snapped and the area under the two men gave way just as their first warning shocks arrived.

Harry gave a gasp and Taylor let out a scream. The men plunged to the floor below and ended up on top each other with Harry in the dominant role. But something was wrong. Really wrong.

Pressure in his gut. He looked down and found something sticking out of his stomach. A pole that may have carried electrical wires to the second floor had pierced them both.

Then a warning shock indicated that they had overstayed their welcome in this zone; they violently flopped up and down like a pair of fish on a spike.

Harry Bott wished he could turn his head to the side and vomit but it was too late because the pole had done enough damage to cause him to bleed to death.

Stephen Taylor wasn’t far behind.

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#

Ramon Fryer chased Nathaniel Lawson across the street.

Nathaniel knew Fryer’s name, because the two men had been seated next to each other on the plane and had struck up a morbid, but friendly conversation about where to buy the best barbeque in Dallas, Texas.

They had come down a quarter mile from each other, and Nathaniel had been shocked to see the man at all.

Nathaniel nearly tripped over the remains of a wooden skateboard and found a doorway to duck into. But Ramon, a dark-skinned man wearing a ridiculous, bright yellow Hawaiian shirt and flip flops, howled for his blood. Ramon carried a bat with a bunch of long nails driven into the end, while Nathaniel had been spectacularly unlucky enough to come up with a glass champagne bottle as a weapon. He’d gambled on an old car mechanic’s garage but the damn thing had been completely cleaned out. His next hurried stop had been near a car wash, but that place had also been a bust. Where were the huge cache of weapons he always watched players come up with in the game?

Nathaniel grabbed the entryway as he careened through the doorway, caught it with his fingertips, and flung himself around the corner because he expected Ramon to come in swinging with that bat.

“Gonna kill your ass!” Ramon yelled.

Nathaniel came to a complete stop because what awaited him was almost too hard to believe. It was also a weapon he had never handled, but come on, how hard could it be?

“Come on in and get some,” Nathaniel yelled back.

The spear rose at least six feet into the air and it had been propped up against the wall in plain sight.

“I’m about to go caveman on this motherfucker’s ass,” Nathaniel stated for his stream.

Ramon tried to dance away from the entrance the moment he entered, but it was a simple matter to adjust a few degrees to the right, lean in, and extend. The spear tip, a razor sharp composite carbon blade, entered Ramon’s stomach right next to his belly button and punched out the other side.

Ramon gasped in pain and his eyes lit up as the blade sank in. Regardless, he swung the bat around, missed Nathaniel’s face by inches, and then went to his knees as his legs gave out.

Nathaniel ripped the spear out and then drove it into his opponent’s throat, but that opened up a whole new issue as the blade got stuck in the cartilage.

Nathaniel pulled and tugged at the spear but it simply wouldn’t cooperate. Ramon’s body flopped up and down as Nathaniel jerked at the pole. He finally put his foot on the other man’s chest and wretched the blade free with a frustrated yell.

“Got ya,” he said for the benefit of his streaming channel. “I gotta admit, I thought I was a dead man a few seconds ago. Just goes to show how quickly fortunes can change in this game.”

Nathaniel turned and made for the door just as a shape loomed in the entryway. He quickly lowered the spear, intent on killing this person as well.

Unfortunately for him, the other person had a handgun.

Nathaniel drove the point toward the man’s chest but the guy was quick on his feet and faded back. As Nathaniel cleared the doorway he made out the other man in the light.

“Wow. What a crazy weapon,” the glasses-wearing smaller man named Eli said and then shot Nathaniel in the face.