Chapter 39

Shank 66

Leo grabbed Lydia's pack and stuffed it into the trunk of the convertible, next to his own. “You couldn't have brought a larger vehicle?”

“I didn't think the world would actually end,” Special Agent Lopez responded. “I was driving around the neighborhood, keeping an eye on you, just in case. But the world ended, so here we are.”

“Are you still working for the Agency?”

Special Agent Lopez shook her head. “A couple of weeks ago, the Director called me into her office. She seemed to think I had an attitude problem. And I kind of agreed. I joined the Agency because I like fighting, I like killing. I especially like fighting and killing bad people, but all the real bad guys are in Congress or have political connections, so we can't touch them. Instead, I get a twelve-year-old boy who killed a cannibal. You deserved a medal for that, Leo, but we were going to throw you in jail.”

“What? You weren't going to let me go, like you claimed?” Leo pretended to look shocked. “There goes my faith in humanity.”

“It wasn't my decision. But sending us after a small-time crook like Osmond? That was bullshit. Even the Professor seems like an okay guy whose heart is in the right place and is just trying to help people protect themselves. But for some reason, he's our Agency's public enemy number one... was our Agency's public enemy number one.”

“So you weren't happy with your life of killing, torturing...” Leo helped Lydia into the back seat.

“Exactly,” Special Agent Lopez said. “Officially, I was given an extended leave of absence. Unofficially, they fired my ass.”

“Jason, you get the backseat, since you don't have a character class yet. Don't worry, we'll get you one soon.”

“I suppose.” Jason reluctantly squeezed next to Lydia and Leo took a seat in the front.

“I signed a million non-disclosure forms so the Agency wouldn't kill me, but now the world has ended, so I'm free. Yay!”

“I'm glad somebody's having a good time,” Leo said, watching from the stationary car as Special Agent Lopez's bladed weapon flew around in a large circle, cutting the heads off of two more Afflicted.

She caught the weapon again and used an old rag to wipe the blood off of it. “So what's the plan, Leo?”

“First, we need to help people evacuate to the stadium. Then I'll drop Lydia off somewhere safe, meet with people in charge to get appraised of our situation, form a hunting party, and go out there and kill some shit.”

“I like the last part of that plan.” Special Agent Lopez looked off to her left. “Is that an Afflicted? They don't usually wear armor, do they? Clothes?”

“Uh, oh,” Leo said. The problem wasn't that the Afflicted person was at least seven feet tall. The problem was that it was wearing a biker outfit with a motorcycle helmet and held two large chainsaws.

If the roads were clear, they could use the car to get away from it. But the roads were littered with cars, bodies, and God knew what else, and he knew from experience that the big monster was faster than it looked. Fortunately, it hadn't seen them.

Lydia shifted position, inadvertently jostling the pet carrier on her lap. There was a loud angry yowl from Sparkles. The monster's head whipped around, focusing on the five of them in the stationary convertible.

Leo drew his pistol. “Guys. You're about to meet your first Low-Level Afflicted Boss.”

Special Agent Lopez grinned. “Excellent.” She threw her bladed weapon into the air.

“Wait! Stop!” Jason jumped out of the car. “That's Chris! My brother! Hey, Chris!”

“Jason, you idiot!” Leo tried to grab Jason and failed. “That is not your brother!”

The monster walked toward them. “Jason?” it said, voice muffled by its helmet.

“Lydia, stay here. We'll take care of this. Shank, you go for its weak spots, gaps in armor, knees, feet, try to knock its helmet off.”

“Call me Dez,” she responded.

“Okay, Shank.” Leo ran after Jason, wishing he had his time dilation skill. He grabbed Jason's shoulder, stopping him. “Jason. Damn it! Your brother is dead!”

“But he recognizes me!” Jason said. “Chris!”

“Jason.” The Low-Level Boss continued walking towards them.

Shank's weapon came flying at the monster's neck.

Moving faster than most would have believed possible, the Low-Level-Boss-that-had-once-been-Jason's-brother Chris, dodged the weapon. It missed his neck by inches.“Yes, he recognizes you, Jason. Low-Level Bosses are smart. The thing is, when he's gnawing the flesh off your bones, he won't care that you used to be his brother.”

Jason stopped and turned to face Leo. “Chris is my brother! I can't believe he isn't in there.”

Shit. How did he handle this? “Okay, okay. Jason. Tell your brother to put down his chainsaws. If he does, I promise we'll talk. If he's still your brother, he'll do it.” Leo held up his hand, motioning to Shank to stop her attack.

Jason nodded. “Chris!” he shouted. “Put down your chainsaws!”

“Jason,” Chris said, still moving towards them, not putting down his chainsaws.

Leo grabbed Jason's shoulder and pulled him backward.

“Chris!” Jason shouted again, “Put down your chainsaws and we'll talk!” Jason pantomimed putting down chainsaws.

Leo activated his Augment skill, pulling Jason back with one arm, using the other to put away his gun and reach for his khukri, a much better weapon for a close-range fight with a fast-moving opponent.

Chris seemed about to do what Jason asked, lowering his chainsaws as he approached. When he was twenty feet away, instead of setting them down, he charged.

Chris swung his chainsaws horizontally, attempting to cut Leo and Jason in half.

Leo used his new strength to hurl Jason backward while dodging one chainsaw and blocking the second with his khukri. Chainsaw and Khukri clashed with a grating screech. Instead of the second swing Leo expected, Chris kicked him between the legs, sending him flying.

His middle exploded. He hurt too much to groan, his body racked with pain, unable to move.

Leo heard a roar from the monster, a scream from Lydia, and gunfire. When Leo looked up, three of Shank's bladed weapons were in the air surrounding Chris like angry gnats and Chris was in an awkward dance, using his chainsaws to block the bladed weapons as he approached Shank's convertible. Shank had grabbed her rifle from the back of the convertible and shot Chris in the head with it, failing to hurt Chris, but putting stars on the face shield of Chris's helmet.

With a groan, Leo reached for his pistol, only to find it wasn't there. So he threw his khukri at Chris to distract him. It was a good throw, but the curved knife bounced harmlessly off Chris's helmet. With a roar of frustration, Chris pulled off his helmet so he could see, displaying his inhuman mouth with its long, sharp teeth as he did so. He charged at Leo.

Gunfire exploded from Leo's right, and red spatters appeared on Chris's face where he'd been shot. Chris took a step forward, then another, before crashing face down into the street, falling on one of his chainsaws that somehow turned on as he fell on top of it, cutting into his chest.

Leo looked to his right.

Jason stood there, holding Leo's gun with shaking hands, tears on his cheeks.

“Nice shooting,” Leo said with a groan, in too much pain to do anything but lie there. He checked his healing skill. It was off cooldown. He activated healing again. His Vitality went up to 9, and he slowly stood up.

“Way to get kicked in the balls, Leo!” Shank joined them in front of the body. “That must have hurt. I can't believe you're still walking around.”

“Sorry Jason,” Leo said. “If your brother was here, he'd want you to do what you did.”

“No, he wouldn't,” Jason said, tears rolling down his face. “Chris was a prick. He would have wanted me to get eaten. But he was still my brother.”

Leo picked up his khukri, blade nicked and damaged thanks to the chainsaw. He examined Chris's remains. “Is it me, or do those chainsaws look familiar?”

“I thought you knew,” Jason responded. “Those are Phoenix, diamond-edged, autographed, Burke-Monster-Trauma chainsaws. Chris was a Monster Trauma super fan.”

“Wow. Twelve-year-old-me would have killed for even one of those chainsaws. If I'd known, I would have hated your brother so much.”

“I thought you did know, or at least used to,” Jason tried to give Leo his gun back.

“Keep it, since it looks like you finally got the hang of shooting the thing. Just don't point it at any of us, okay?” Leo gave Jason the gun's holster, which Jason strapped around his waist, a huge smile on his face.

“Way to get kicked in the balls, loser.” Lydia joined Leo in front of the corpse.

“Shut up,” Leo responded.

They heard a human child crying from inside a nearby house.

“So, Leo, are we going straight to the shelter, or are we going to try to rescue people?” Shank asked.

Leo knew this was a test. Shank wanted to see what he'd do. “Well. I'm not seeing us fitting anyone else in your car. You wouldn't know how to hot wire a pickup truck, would you?”

“Yeah. Obviously.”

Leo used the Demon Tears he'd made to raise his Augment special skill to Level 2 and sent Shank a party invite.

Shank 66: Why do I want to join your party?

Future Man 10/16: So I can include you in Group Heals and augment your abilities, temporarily raising your stats and improving your skills.

Shank 66: Good reasons.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

She accepted his invite.

***

They entered the house with the crying child inside and found three of the Afflicted pounding on a closet door.

Leo charged, slashing at the closest of the Afflicted with his damaged, but still functional, khukri. The Afflicted spun around and slashed at him with a clawed hand. He dodged, kicked it back, and slashed its neck. There was a deafening boom behind him as Jason fired his pistol. The second Afflicted's head exploded. The third died with Shank's bladed weapon in its forehead.

“What happened to our Augments?” Shank asked.

“Saving them in case we encounter something dangerous,” Leo said, opening the closet door. “The last thing we need is to face more like Chris when I'm in cooldown.”

Leo had seen the two kids hiding in the closet around the neighborhood, but didn't know them. They were young and looked scared.

Future Man 10/16: Mr. Osmond, is it possible we can get some assistance over here? We're trying to locate and rescue survivors.

Teach: Are you insane? Get your asses to the stadium, Now! You're too valuable to waste on a rescue operation. We'll go back to rescue survivors later if we can.

Future Man 10/16: Working on it. Be there as soon as I can.

“Mr. Osmond said they can't spare anyone to help us,” Leo said.

“Doesn't surprise me,” Shank responded. She put on a big smile and knelt in front of the two kids. “That is a lovely teddy bear. What's its name?”

“His name is Berry. I want Mommy,” said the younger one, a girl who might have been six.

“Well, your mommy would like you to come with us. We're taking you someplace safe.”

A few minutes later, she convinced the kids to leave. They all left the house and joined Lydia and Sparkles.

“You have a kitty?” the kid asked Lydia.

“This is Sparkles,” Lydia responded. “Sparkles is very unhappy because the world just ended.” There was a quiet yowl of agreement from the pet carrier.

“You're good with kids,” Leo said to Shank.

“I came from a large family. Where do you think I learned how to fight?” Shank pointed down the street. “You see that big white pickup truck?”

Leo nodded. “Yeah.”

“It looks like what we need. I'm guessing the key is with the two Afflicted trapped inside. Why don't you and Jason secure that truck while I watch the kids? Then we'll keep looking for survivors.”

Leo didn't want to leave Lydia with Shank, but she made sense. “Jason, let's go.”

Jason nodded and followed him.

“They're destroying the interior,” Jason said, eyeing the monster-infested truck nervously.

Leo peeked back down the street, making sure Lydia was okay. “This truck must be pretty sturdy if they can't escape. I'm going to break one of the rear windows and kill them as they come out. Cover me. Don't shoot unless you have to, and be careful not to shoot me by mistake.”

“No problem.” Jason stood off to the side, holding the pistol nervously.

Leo smashed the truck window with the handle of his khukri. The two Afflicted kept reaching through the opening, trying to grab Leo, who spent the next fifteen minutes cutting them to pieces as they tried to escape.

Once they were safely dead, Leo groaned as he looked over the truck's messy, bloody interior. “Somebody needs to clean up this mess.”

***

“Okay, Jason,” Leo said, hours later from the bloody, torn-to-shreds driver's seat of the large, bloodstained, white pickup truck. They'd found the ignition key in the pants pocket of one of the Afflicted Leo had killed. “Your implant is easy to use. The most difficult part is finding a decent character build.”

Leo had leveled his Augment skill once, and his healing skill twice more. Group Healing was turning out to be extremely useful. What was sad was they hadn't found any surviving adults.

It had been the same last time around. A lot of the non-Afflicted survivors were children, most of whom were easy prey and didn't survive the first day of the Change.

“Gunslinger/Rare just got added to my list of character classes,” Jason said. “I think I picked that one up when I started hitting my targets with a gun.”

Leo calmly pushed the accelerator he could barely reach with his right foot, trying to keep the truck moving smoothly down the road. Fortunately, the truck had an automatic transmission and power steering.

Shank sat in the bed of the pickup truck with the kids, focusing on keeping them calm and using her bladed weapons to keep away the Afflicted. Leo was the best qualified of the rest of them to drive. This was a problem. Because nobody had trusted him to drive motor vehicles in his previous life, he had virtually no driving experience. “Gunslinger sounds like a good pick for you, Jason. I met a Gunslinger once. He made his own weapons and bullets, and he had a strong long-range attack. Weak close-up, though. Kind of like the VR character Gavin from School's Out.”

“So you think I should take it?” Jason asked.

“Up to you, Jason, but yeah, I think it's a good fit.”

Teach: Bus number seven is being attacked by a huge Afflicted using a stop sign as a club. The bus is damaged. Defenders are getting... My apologies, false alarm... Trent burned the Afflicted alive with a fireball. Good work Trent.

At least someone had his act together, Leo thought, swerving to avoid a shopping cart in the middle of the road, before sideswiping a parked car with a screech that ruined both vehicles' paint jobs. At least he didn't have to worry about repairs or collision insurance.

Shank banged the back of the cab. “Watch your driving! There are kids back here!”

“Sorry!” Leo responded.

Future Man 10/16: Trent, you okay?

Pyro Mage 43:2: I can't believe it! I can throw fireballs now! This is so amazing! Thanks to the changes you told me to make to my implant last month, I'm burning Afflicted monsters and kicking butt out here. How are you?

Future Man 10/16: Hanging in there. In case anyone asks, I'm the Guardian the aliens were prophesying.

Pyro Mage 43:2: Wow. Got to go. These buses are attracting the wrong kind of attention.

“Okay. I picked Gunslinger,” Jason said.

“Good,” Leo responded, swerving again, and not quite missing an abandoned bicycle on the street. “Now you should see a short list of skills. Pick the two that look the most useful. If possible, specialize in ranged attacks. You should have enough Demon Tears by now to level up your chosen skills at least once. You gain character levels through killing the Afflicted and using your special skills. When your character levels go up, you will get more special skills to choose from. Something else to consider is that, when you level up special skills, you can sometimes merge them. This merged skill will go back to level one, giving you a more powerful skill that you can level up a second time and possibly merge with other skills to create a third or fourth skill. I've been told there were some amazing special skills created that way.”

“Wow,” Jason said. “This implant is neat. I'm picking Extended Aim and Ultra Accuracy. Do you have any more bullets?”

“In my pack. I have to ask, everyone gets a quote with their chosen character class. What's yours?”

“Mine's lame. 'When it came to shootin' straight and fast, he was mighty good.' Burt Bacharach.” Jason said.

“Okay.” Leo turned onto the road leading to the stadium. There was another crash as he used his large pickup's size and power to push an abandoned car out of their way. Ahead of him were several large buses packed with young and terrified-looking people. It was easy to see Trent, due to the blaze of his fireballs and the circle of Afflicted corpses that surrounded him.

There was gunfire from defending gunners stationed in the buses, and a few defenders out on the street. Leo noticed a small figure with a large sword. Was that Angie?

“Oh, shit.” When Trent had messaged about unwanted attention, he'd been understating the problem. The buses were surrounded by hundreds of the Afflicted, with more on the way. They were pushing forward, but Leo could see it was only a matter of time before the mob of the Afflicted got past the buses' makeshift armor, damaged something vital, and forced one or more of them to stop. At which point, a lot of refugees were going to die.

Future Man 10/16: Dammit, Mr. Osmond! I thought we'd agreed to use multiple routes to the stadium to throw off pursuit! I'm counting over twenty vehicles on Main Street, about to get mobbed!

Teach: We are using multiple routes. That particular route is being blocked by an Afflicted mob and causing a bit of a pileup.

Future Man 10/16: Shit!

He was sure nothing like this had happened the last time around. In his previous life, the retreat to the stadium had been far more chaotic and haphazard.

Leo checked his stat sheet.

He had gained experience from using his skills and killing enough of the Afflicted to get to the next level. This gave him two additional skills to choose from, and allowed him to pick one more skill.

Shank tapped on the back of the cab.

“What?” Leo turned to see what she wanted.

“Go down that side street.” Shank pointed off to the left. “Get us the fuck away from those buses or we're going to get mobbed too, and we don't have protection back here.”

Leo hit the brakes, bringing their pickup to a stop.

Shank made sense. They'd be a lot safer if they could avoid the main group of refugees, since they'd also be avoiding most of the Afflicted. And they were traveling with a bunch of kids in an open-bed pickup truck.

Pyro Mage 43:2: Guys, I'm running out of power. Need a break!

“Defenders fall back!” someone shouted over a megaphone. “Throwing out Molotov cocktails!”

The roar of flames near the buses drove away the Afflicted, and the buses surged forward, getting another fifty feet closer to the stadium.

Spider 007: Doing recon. Four big guys heading your way! The largest one looks like the CEO of that Aid-For-Famine-Victims charity. The one who swore he did not spend all the missing funds on Bio-Blessed. Lying bastard.

Shit, Leo thought, Charlotte must be using her Assassin stealth ability to scout the area.

Future Man 10/16: Be careful Charlotte! Never assume they can't see you!

“I've got to help clear the way for those buses!" Leo shouted. “You and Jason take over here.”

“What are you going to do? Heal them to death?” Shank asked. “You have shit for skills, Leo. You'll just get in their way!”

He opened the door and jumped out of the cab. “Get everyone to the stadium. Look after my sister. I'm counting on you guys.” He took off for the buses at a run, staying low, keeping parked and abandoned vehicles between him and the Afflicted. He had about three hundred yards to cover in order to reach the buses, and he needed to get as close as possible before they discovered him.

Leo pulled up his stat sheet again. The two additional skills available to him now were.

Shield:

Combines with Armor to protect the user from harm.

Time Freeze:

Slows down time surrounding the skill user. Duration of skill depends on skill level.

Still running, Leo picked Time Freeze. He had just enough Demon Tears to level the skill up twice, and immediately did so.

Future Man 10/16: I'm activating Augment. I can boost up to 20 people's stats for a short time. He invited Trent, Angie, Liam, Howie, and everyone on his list of contacts (less than twenty) to join his party.

Trent, Angie, Howie, Shank, Mr. Al, Charlotte, and Mr. Osmond, accepted immediately.

Teach: What are you doing Leo? I told you to get your ass to safety!

Leo activated Augment. Suddenly, he and every member of his party felt stronger and faster. All of their stats, except for common sense, went up 15 percent. Special skills were 15 percent stronger and cooldown times were 15 percent shorter. Not much, but not nothing either. He wasn't sure how long it would last. Ten minutes? He'd need to work fast.

Leo spotted an Afflicted near a parked car and crept up behind it. Habits that kept him alive in his previous life were coming back to him. He slashed at the back of its neck with his khukri, severing its spinal cord. Two more slashes killed it, and Leo backed away before the rest discovered him.

If he was going to be able to help, he needed to get as close to the buses as possible. Fortunately, the Afflicted were too intent on all the noise and shooting around the buses to notice him. He moved forward.