Gary stared at Morgan in horror.

“What?”

His voice was a hoarse whisper.

Had Morgan really suggested what Gary thought he had?

Morgan pressed on, ignoring the expression on Gary’s face.

“If you kill them, you’ll get the experience points and level up,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone. “You’re classified as undead, so killing the living gives you experience points, right? You kill them and level up. They’re going to die, anyway. Why not take advantage of it?”

Gary’s eyes were wide as the rogue continued. He had withdrawn the knife, seeing that Gary wouldn’t take it.

“You aren’t serious,” Gary said. “Are you?”

“Gary, you need to be practical about this. There are four people dying over there. That’s a fact, that’s going to happen. We’ve already established that killing them is both the kinder and the most sensible course of action. Anything else risks them turning and catching the living here unaware, which will mean more deaths and more infections.

“So why not put them to good use? Resources are limited, Gary. You don’t know what it’s like out there in the rest of the multiverse. What it takes to just survive, never mind get ahead. All of us have had to do things we’re not proud of, even ashamed of, but that’s the price of survival.”

“You should listen to him, Gary,” Annabel nodded, “He’s talking sense.”

Morgan produced the knife again, blinking it into existence. The pommel pointed towards Gary.

“If you want to survive this at all, if you want to have any chance, you’ll need to level up. You’ll be faster, stronger, take less damage when you are hit. If you’re so concerned about saving people, then that’s what you want, isn’t it? You’re no good to anyone as a level one zombie, but if you focus, if you build yourself up, you’ll unlock more powers and abilities.”

“You didn’t mention any of that earlier,” Gary said.

His mind was numb, and he felt his will weaken in the face of Morgan’s silver-tongued argument. That Annabel, who Gary thought was a religious devotee, was also siding with Morgan, made it harder to fight against.

“We weren’t thinking about it earlier, to be honest,” Morgan said. “It only occurred to me after you’d left the tent. There could be some tactical benefits to a conscious undead.”

“Morgan’s right,” Annabel nodded. “Think of it this way. If you level up, you could be invaluable to the war effort. I don’t think there are any other conscious undead. So whilst the circumstances that created you might be unrepeatable, that doesn’t mean you have no value.”

“So that’s why you came back,” Gary said. “It wasn’t to rescue the people in the church. It was because of me. So, what, you can sell me on to the highest bidder?”

“Well, that’s one way of looking at it,” Morgan said. “But think about how much good you could achieve if you had more power. I’ve seen higher level undead command the lower levels. You could use that to help in the war. It would be a huge tactical advantage...”

“You don’t care about the war,” Gary retorted. “You’re only thinking about how to line your pockets!”

“The point stands either way,” Morgan shrugged. “If you want to help, the best way is to become more powerful. The powerful undead, the vampires and the liches, they can do things you wouldn’t believe. Tens of thousands of undead at their command. Actual lich-dragons under their control. If you think trying to save a couple of dozen people in a church is worth all this effort, imagine what you could achieve. You might even turn things around. You could make a real difference out there.”

Morgan’s words were influencing Gary whether or not he wanted them to. Every time Gary thought of an objection, the rogue countered it. Laying out the benefits like this was a masterstroke.

If any of it is true, Gary reminded himself, for all I know, he’s just spinning me a line to get me to do what he wants. This could all be a complete fabrication.

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

He glanced at Forge. The warrior was standing at the far end of the church, leaning on his axe. He turned his face to one side, as if he was avoiding catching Gary’s eye. Even if he had any qualms about Morgan and Annabel’s plan, he wouldn’t intervene.

As for Rain, stood at the side door; she was observing the three of them with a curious expression. Gary got the distinct impression that despite their whispering voices, she could hear every word they were saying.

“I need to think about this,” Gary said. “It’s a lot to absorb, you know? This morning I was just a normal guy, and now all of this...”

Morgan gave Gary one of the most disingenuous smiles Gary had ever seen. He put an arm around Gary’s shoulder.

“Sure, my man, you take a minute. It’s a lot to think about, I know. Just remember that whatever happens, those four over there are going to die. So you might as well take advantage of the situation, right?”

Gary nodded, trying not to squirm under Morgan’s arm. Morgan pushed the knife closer to Gary, but Gary shook his head.

“Just give me a minute, yeah? I need to talk to the others and, uh, make a plan.”

“No problem, Gary,” Morgan said, smiling again. The offered knife blinked out of existence.

Gary ducked out from under Morgan’s arm and walked towards Jonathan’s group. His mind was reeling from Morgan’s arguments. The worst part about it was that in an awful way, everything Morgan was saying made sense. He could put the four dying people out of their misery, stopping the risk of them returning and attacking the others. At the same time, he’d level up.

But it’s just wrong, Gary thought. I don’t care how much sense it makes on a rational level. This whole situation is wrong. I’m not doing it, and that’s final.

It wasn’t so much the putting the people out of their misery aspect that troubled Gary. At the very least, though, they should have a choice about it. It wasn’t up to Gary or anyone else to decide how and when they should die, no matter how hopeless the situation might be. So that was one argument against everything Morgan had said.

The second one was the idea of profiting from someone’s death. If the four chose to have their lives ended before the infection killed them, there was no way in hell that anyone should gain from their deaths. Which meant Gary was the last person who should kill them, as he was the only one who would gain. Or so he assumed. He wasn’t sure if the living would gain experience from killing other living beings.

And finally, Gary knew that underneath all of Morgan’s rational sounding words was a base desire for his own profit. He was willing to sacrifice others so that he could gain, with the goal of escaping the war between the living and the dead altogether.

Gary was sure that Morgan was the ringleader. This had been his plan, formed in the tent when Gary had left.

Of course, no-one could have known that there were infected survivors in the church. That part they must have improvised on the spot. Gary supposed that their original plan had been to save him, then find dying or infected survivors and get Gary to level up. That there were four infected in the church was just lucky, from their perspective.

“What’s going on?” Jonathan asked as Gary neared the group.

“We have a problem,” Gary muttered under his breath.

“Can they help the infected?”

Gary shook his head, “Sorry, it’s too late for them.”

“Fuck. So what do we do now? Are they going to, you know, come back after they die?”

“Yeah, they will. And they don’t have long left.”

Gary considered telling Jonathan Morgan’s plan, but hesitated.

“Fuck,” Jonathan said, “That’s not good. We’ve got another problem.”

“What’s that?”

“Half the people here think we should stay here until the military arrives, assuming they do. The other half wants to get out of here.”

“Welcome to democracy,” Gary muttered, his tone sour.

Despite the circumstances, Jonathan gave a chuckle. “Right?”

“Okay. Staying here isn’t a good idea. There’s no food, there are no weapons, and the chances of the military stumbling across this church are pretty remote, I’d guess...”

“Hey, you don’t have to tell me,” Jonathan said, “It’s that lot that needs persuading.”

Jonathan waved his hand at the twenty-five people standing in the northern transept.

Gary looked at the group. They were all dressed in their finest suits and dresses, funeral black, of course. They had separated into three distinct groups. There were five teenagers, huddled together and talking quietly. Then there were two other groups of around ten people each, of mixed ages and genders. One was in the ‘stay here’ camp and the other was in the ‘leave the church’ camp.

Gary walked into the transept and held his arms out, indicating that everyone should gather round. This they did.

“Hi, look, we can’t stay here. I’m sorry but it just isn’t safe.”

He was greeted with a barrage of comments, criticisms, supportive voices and condemnatory tones. The government was mentioned by at least three different people, all with three different ideas of what the government could do, should do, hadn’t done, or might think about doing.

Tempers were high all round, fuelled by fear and confusion.

Gary glanced helplessly at Jonathan. Jonathan raised his hands as if to say ‘Told you.’ He stepped forward.

“Let the man speak!” he boomed in that schoolteacher’s voice.

Gary was startled by the sudden outburst. For a second, he felt like he was back at school assembly.

“Need I remind you that without Gary here, we wouldn’t have any choices at all? We’d still be stuck inside this church with all those hideous things outside trying to get in. So if nothing else you can do him the courtesy of hearing him out.”