Chapter 55

Survival

“You say you lived fifty years in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. You must have learned some amazing fighting skills,” Angie said, standing up and moving gracefully around the chairs in Mr. Osmond's study towards Leo.

Leo stood up, backing away, looking for something to throw or use as a weapon. This again.

“I too, would like to observe what you learned in these fifty years you claim to have lived,” Liam said, standing against a wall so he could watch from a safe distance.

“Me too,” said Charlotte, putting down her book.

Great.

“We'd better take this outside,” Leo said, taking a defensive stance, “or Mr. Osmond and his mother will kill us.”

“A true warrior is prepared to fight anywhere, anytime!” Angie threw a quick jab at his face that Leo blocked.

Teach: You may fight anywhere and anytime, except inside my house. Take it to the backyard. Now. Mr. Osmond sent the message through their new implant group chat.

“That man is no fun,” Angie said, joining the other two in following Leo out of the study.

“Got to drop by the bathroom first. Too much coffee,” Leo said.

After Leo finished, they made their way outside, into a grassy backyard with several large rose bushes resting against the surrounding stone walls.

“I spent fifty years learning how to survive,” Leo said, standing on the grass in front of the other three. “I spent most of that time sneaking around. If I encountered someone or something dangerous, I'd run away and hide. If I got captured, I'd beg for my life. That happened more than once.” Leo needed to convince these guys he was what he claimed to be. But without his former stats, he wasn't sure he could.

“So what did you do when you had to fight?” Angie asked, bouncing up and down in front of him.

“When my life is on the line, I fight dirty.”

Leo stepped casually forward and used his left hand to throw a handful of talcum power, liberated from Osmond's bathroom, into Angie's face, while revealing the knife he'd been concealing behind his right wrist. Obviously, he wasn't going to stab her, but he needed to show them he meant business.

Like most of Leo's plans, this didn't work out as anticipated. Angie dodged most of the talcum powder and blocked his knife with her one hand. Pushing the knife to the side, she used her smaller size to get underneath him, pick him up, and send him slamming brutally into the ground. His knife left his hand as his body hit the ground, landing a few feet away.

Angie laughed. “Nice try.”

Leo lay on the ground, body limp and unresponsive as Angie stood over him, bending his wrist in a direction it wasn't meant to go. His open eyes stared off into the distance, then rolled up into the back of his head. His head thrashed back and forth, his arms and legs started spasming, forcing Angie to release his wrist to avoid hurting him more.

“Is he okay?” Liam asked. “Did his head hit a rock?”

“He's faking,” Angie responded. “Come on Leo, admit you lost already. Some apocalypse warrior you are.”

Leo started panting. Foam and mucus formed around his mouth and a wet spot formed around the genital area of his pants.

“Shit! He's having a seizure!” Liam shouted. “Do we call an ambulance?”

“He's faking,” Angie responded. “And didn't he just go to the bathroom?”

“What did you do, Angie?” Liam asked.

“First aid for a seizure is to keep sharp objects away from him,” Charlotte said. “Turn the patient onto their side, make sure they can breathe.” She kicked his knife away.

“Do we call an ambulance?” Liam asked again. “We need to get our phones back!”

“If he's a known epileptic, we can wait for him to recover and he should be fine,” Charlotte said. She tried to push Leo over on his side again, but his leg spasmed backward, kicking her shin. “Ow! But if he's not, it might be more serious. If he has a brain disorder—which could also explain his visions of the future. Or if he's on drugs.”

“Dammit! You told him about Mr. Al, didn't you?” Liam said. “If he's taking that man's stuff, it's no surprise he's having a seizure.”

“I've never heard of anyone seizuring from Mr. Al's drugs. Usually, they just drop dead,” Angie said.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“We'd better get Mr. Osmond,” Charlotte said. “This is his house, after all. Let's see what he wants to do.”

“He's faking,” Angie said again, but she didn't sound as sure.

“I already messaged Teach. Where is he?” Liam asked.

“Fine. Whatever. Let's go find Mr. Osmond,” Angie said.

The three turned away from Leo, whose muscle spasms were slowing down to once every thirty seconds. “Mr. Osmond,” Liam called out. “Please get out here. Where did he go? We should get our cellphones and call 911.”

“Considering our circumstances, Mr. Osmond might not approve,” Charlotte said. “Mr. Osmond!”

Angie felt a prick on the back of her neck. Leo was standing behind her with his knife.

“In a life-or-death situation,” Leo said, “that would have been me putting my knife through your neck, Angie. Charlotte would be next, since she's an assassin and might be dangerous. I'd ignore you, Liam. No offense.”

“That's fine, none taken,” Liam said with a shrug. “I get that a lot.”

“I would then run away and hide while Angie and Charlotte either died or recovered from their stab wounds.” Leo put his knife away. “And that is how I survived fifty years in Armageddon hell.”

There was clapping from an open window where Mr. Osmond was watching and listening.

Teach: Good acting, Leo. I almost believed it.

Angie laughed. “I knew you were faking.”

“So you would piss your pants to win a fight?” Charlotte asked.

“I've done a lot worse than that,” Leo said. “I had to play dead several times. Got pretty good at faking a death rattle. Once they even buried me in a mass grave. That was horrible. I had to wait for night to dig myself free and escape with their attack Doberman.”

Teach: To keep up a pretense of normalcy, Leo and Charlotte should continue to go to school. Angie and Liam have been kicked out of their schools for the time being and can help me out around the house if they want. I'll show them the information I've obtained, with difficulty, concerning School's Out.

“Darn it,” Leo said. “Let me clean up first.”

“Cool,” Angie said.

***

“So what happened to your Doberman, the one you escaped with?” Charlotte asked as the two of them walked to school. “Did the two of you bond?”

“It wasn't quite like that,” Leo said. “I had to kill the dog to escape. Then I carried it to a safe location and ate it. Best meal I'd had all year.”

“Ew,” she said, a look of disgust on her face.

“Do we go to the same school?” Leo asked to change the subject. “How come I've never seen you?”

“We're in the same school, but I'm in the eighth grade, and I try to avoid notice,” she responded.

“'Assassin' has great stealth options,” Leo said. “When October 16 comes around, you'll be able to turn invisible for short periods of time.”

“Cool,” Charlotte said. “Is the world really going to end?”

“I believe so,” Leo said. “Sorry.”

“At least I won't have to put up with the mean girls any longer,” she said. “I know they'll be Afflicted. 'Daddy bought me a bunch of b-word for Christmas. I'm so pretty,'” she said, mimicking another girl. She stuck a finger into her mouth and pretended to vomit.

Leo laughed.

They walked past some missing kid posters stapled to an old wooden fence. Through a window in a big rundown house across the street from them, Leo saw a slender shadow move with fluid inhuman grace. Something about the shadow made his brain's internal alarm system go nuts.

“ALERT! ALERT!” Imp shouted in his head. “Special quest! Destroy the child-eating monster! Reward is forty Demon Tears and possible bonuses!”

“Are you sure?” Leo asked silently. “I know what it looks like, but that doesn't mean an Afflicted actually ate those children. Anyway, it's too early for Afflicted.”

“Something wrong?” Charlotte asked, oblivious to what was going through Leo's mind.

“No, just my--,” Leo motioned to his left wrist, “reminding me to water Mom's potted plants,” he lied.

“This is a special quest, Leo. I do not make mistakes,” Imp responded, sounding indignant.

“What about Charlotte? Is she getting the quest, too?”

“I have no contact with Charlotte's Imp. You may include her in the quest if you want.”

“I see.” Leo made special note of their location before continuing to school. This quest was going to require some thought.

***

They were both late for class, which meant they had to go to the principal's office to get a tardy pass.

When Leo got to his homeroom, Jason was hanging out with other students. As close as he could tell, they were talking about the DUD game. Leo sighed.

Leo spent the rest of the class trying to stay awake through a droning lecture. When the bell rang for the end of class, he grabbed Jason and pulled him into the hallway.

“Hey, we were talking,” Jason protested. “They were going to set me up with some badass DUD mods.”

“I don't care about your stupid naked pet cheerleaders, Jason. This is way more important.”

“How did you know about that? And what?”

“A guy's playing School's Out for research purposes,” Leo whispered. “He's setting up pods for a six-person team to play the game through to the end. He wasn't sure about you, but I put my neck out and told him you were a great guy and an amazing player. So you'd better be there Saturday.”

Jason's eyes lit up. “You're serious? Wow! Nobody has gotten to the end of the game. I checked.”

Leo nodded. “Totally. I'll text you the address.”

When Leo made it to the cafeteria for lunch, Brick and his two cronies were waiting for him.