Two scarecrows stood at the edge of the parking lot. Dark fog drifted over them, and it flickered with the oil lamp’s orange light. One of the scarecrows wore a white lab coat, and dark stubble covered his chin. The other had dyed her hair bright red, and her oversized t-shirt drifted in the wind.
While the first scarecrow had appeared similar to the other farmers around here, these two looked like they belonged miles away from this place. But Alex supposed she didn’t belong here either.
She leaned against the slaughterhouse entrance, her grip tight against the hatchet’s rubber handle. What should she do? Should she try to fight them?
As the thought crossed her mind, the scarecrows lurched into motion. They lumbered across the parking lot in an awkward shuffle, their backs stiff and their arms splayed to the sides. Their wrists were tied to wooden crosses that ran down their backs. But as they shuffled forward, they struggled against these restraints.
The crosses were nothing more than wooden sticks lashed together, and one by one the sticks cracked in half. First at the shoulders, then at the elbows, and then the scarecrows were free to reach forward and scratch at the air.
To make matters worse, the first scarecrow she’d fought seized against the ground. Though its head was gone, dashed to pieces by her hatchet, the corpse got up and joined the others lumbering toward her. Three corpses, all of them rotting and bloody and seemingly unkillable. How could she fight something like that?
Alex darted inside. Her oil lamp cast a web of shadows through the jumbled tables, and she wove past them, heading to the back. A long counter ran along the back wall, and she placed down the lamp and her hatchet. Her hands free, she grabbed a table and dragged it to the entrance. Her fingers slipped against the cold metal, and she grunted as she heaved the table across the slaughterhouse floor. When she reached the entrance, she flipped the table on its side to act as a barricade.
She was just in time. The corpses crashed into the barricade with a heavy clang. Their arms reached through the gap, and they tried to climb over, their teeth clacking together. Hairdye stood at the lead, and she leaned over the table, her fingers clawing at the metal and leaving a line of blood and rotten flesh.
A timer went off.
The alarm buzzed against Alex’s leg, adding its scream to the cacophony. She pulled her phone out, fingers trembling, and canceled the alarm. Seth would have started his distraction by now, and she was supposed to have the car ready to go. Instead, she was fending off fucking zombies.
Alex had known this was a stupid plan. How could Seth leave her to deal with his shit on her own?
Hairdye lurched through the gap, halfway over the barricade. Distracted by the timer, Alex hadn’t realized how close the zombie was to breaking through. Her breath caught in her throat, and she ran for her hatchet.
By the time she turned back around, the zombie flopped onto the floor. Alex raised her hatchet, and she glanced between Hairdye and the two others clambering at the entrance. What should she do?
Hairdye got up. She stared at Alex, her eyes sunken pits. Then she charged. Alex shied back, placing a table between her and the zombie. Hairdye slammed against the table and reached across it, nails trying to slash at her.
Alex backed up, hatchet raised, and tried to ward the zombie off. She frantically batted at the corpse, but her attacks did nothing to stop the zombie’s advance.
Another corpse climbed over the barricade. The one with the lab coat.
Shit! Alex was losing ground. She needed to do something, but what? How could she kill something that was already dead?
She couldn’t. That was the simple answer. Alex couldn’t deny that she was completely fucked. And it was Seth’s fault. What happened to watching the slaughterhouse to make sure David didn’t come back? He was supposed to be distracting these fuckers so she could fix the car in peace. Now no one was going to escape this cursed place.
A flash of movement drew Alex’s attention back to the barricade. Something new crawled through the entrance, a black ball of slime that slithered across the floor in a rapid blur. It was another parasite, but this one was black and oily, and it charged straight for Alex. She stumbled back, but she was too slow.
The parasite climbed up Hairdye’s back, then it jumped over the table and landed on Alex’s neck. She screamed as the parasite burrowed into her flesh. The cursed creature felt ice cold and blazing hot at the same time, and it swam into her bloodstream. Pain flared down her neck, through her chest, then settled in her stomach.
[Integration initiated. State your desire.]
Oh. Seth had spoken about these parasites and their wishes. But what did Alex want? Most of all, she wanted to get out of here. But that was too vague, and she remembered how the parasites had botched Seth’s wishes. Alex wanted to be more specific.
Hairdye clawed at her, and Alex barely dodged her erratic slash. She needed help. The help that Seth had promised her. Where the fuck was he?
[Wish granted.]
What? That wasn’t fair. The parasite hadn’t given her any time to consider. What had she wished for anyway?
No time to think. Hairdye edged around the table, and Alex ran to the side, always keeping the slab of metal between them. But then Labcoat joined her. The two corpses split around the table, and together they converged on Alex.
She backed up, her heart racing. It seemed she would have to fight. Alex grit her teeth, and she twirled the hatchet in her fingers. Its rubber grip slid down her palm, extending her reach, and she swung it into Labcoat’s skull. The blade cleaved his head in half.
Brains splashed from his shattered skull. The zombie stood for a second, but then he continued lurching for her. That’s right. Alex had smashed the head of the first one and that hadn’t stopped him. Maybe she couldn’t kill these things, but if she dismembered them at least they wouldn’t be able to move.
Hairdye swung at her. Alex ducked under her slashing nails and she used the movement to whip her hatchet in a tight arc. The blade hacked through the zombie’s elbow and cut clean through. Hairdye’s arm fell to the ground, and blood sprayed from the stump.
Alex danced back, and she hopped on the balls of her feet. Fighting these things wasn’t so bad. Her hatchet sat loose in her fingers. Comfortable. It hadn’t felt so comfortable before. And her attacks had never been so effective, so smooth.
The third zombie joined the other two that crowded toward her. Old Headless. His feet scraped against the concrete, leaving bloody prints across the slaughterhouse floor.
Alex dodged to the side and rolled under a table. She popped up on the other side and waited. The zombies pressed toward her, but the group split around the table, Hairdye and Labcoat on one side, Headless on the other.
She made for Headless, hatchet held low. The corpse hunched over, then sprung for her, trying to tackle her. Alex dashed to the side, and her hatchet flicked out as she passed. The blade cleaved through the zombie’s thigh, punching straight through the bone. Headless fell over, now missing a leg.
Alex spun around and eyed the other two. They chased after her, but it would take a few seconds for them to walk around the table. Right now, a few seconds felt like an eternity.
What was happening to her?
She felt… good? Her body had never felt so responsive, and her muscles twitched into action almost before her brain told them to. This must be the parasite’s doing. Maybe it was even a part of her wish, whatever that was.
Furthermore, Alex felt a strange presence in the back of her mind. The presence beckoned to her, and she tried to focus on it.
Inkling Version 1.0
Name: Alexis Booker
Stage: 1
First Shadow [+50% Efficiency]
Strength: 6
Reflex: 18
Vigor: 9
Clarity: 9
Integration: 11%
Free Points: 4 [+4 Each Stage]
Wishes:
Pinpoint [+10 Reflex | +10% Integration]
The words hovered over her vision, bright against the darkness. Alex stared at them, transfixed. This must be the stat sheet Seth had told her about. She recognized her wish at the bottom. Pinpoint. What did that mean?
Alex wasn’t sure, but the wish gave her ten Reflex points. So it increased her reflexes? Interesting. That must be why using the hatchet felt so natural now.
Something else stood out to her, the line about free points. The sheet said she had four free points. Could she allocate those wherever?
The zombies clawed at her, mere feet away. No time to experiment. Alex dumped all four points into Strength, raising it to ten. Then she banished the sheet and charged at the corpses.
Alex swung the hatchet in a wicked uppercut, disemboweling Hairdye, then continuing up to split her chin in two. Of course, that didn’t accomplish shit. But God, did it feel good. Blood sprayed, and her muscles twitched as the cold droplets rained down her arm.
She danced back, dodging Labcoat’s grasp, then darted back in. Her hatchet snipped through his arm. Then his leg.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Labcoat fell over, but he still grasped for her. As did Headless. They crawled across the floor, their fingers scraped raw against the concrete. If Alex wanted to stop them, she’d need to dismember them completely.
Only one zombie remained standing. Alex kicked Hairdye in the chest, knocking her away, then focused on the two crawling for her.
She hunched low and chopped her hatchet down. Her blade cleaved halfway through Headless’s shoulder. Blood sprayed as she wrenched her hatchet free, then she chopped down again. This time, she cut the arm clean off.
Alex hopped around the other side of the zombie and cut off his other arm. Armless and missing a leg, Headless was left to wiggle across the floor like a slug. His remaining leg kicked wildly behind him, but the thing could barely move an inch.
Now for the other two. Alex went to dismember Labcoat, but Hairdye interrupted her. Alex backed away, weaving between the tables. Even with her improved fighting skills, she didn’t want to attack two at once. It would be best to take Hairdye down first, then completely dismember the lot of them.
A burly hand grasped her shoulder. Alex shrieked, turned around. A new zombie grabbed her, his arm thick and meaty. A nasty wound split his gut in two, and entrails streamed from his belly. His other arm was missing, hacked off at the elbow.
Pete. He was back from the dead.
Alex squirmed against Pete’s grasp. His rough skin dug against her shoulder, his fingers burnt and swelling with pus. But Pete’s grip was as firm as a mountain, and he picked her up and tossed her across the room.
The world spun around her as she sailed through the air. Alex crashed against the back wall, and her vision flared white with the impact. Her ears rang. Alex looked around, confused. Where was her hatchet?
Pete charged at her. He barreled straight through the jumble of tables, tossing them aside as if running through a pile of leaves. Alex barely rolled to the side before he slammed into the wall. The cinder blocks cracked from the impact, and the entire building shook.
Alex scooted back, but her head still pounded and her vision was blurry. Any confidence she’d felt earlier had leaked away, replaced by an unshakeable fear. She needed her hatchet. It was her only chance, but she must have dropped it somewhere.
A shadow fell over her. Pete lumbered between Alex and the lamp, and he looked down at her. His head was shrouded in darkness, but Alex imagined a black smile smeared over his dead face. He reached down to the hole in his stomach and gathered a fistful of guts and blood. Then he splashed it on Alex.
She screamed. Blood coated her in thick sheets, cold and slippery. Nausea boiled up her chest. Alex wiped the blood from her eyes, her fingers shaking. What the fuck? Why?
Pete didn’t answer. Instead, he grasped her by the neck and lifted her in the air.
. . .
The car seat stuck to Will’s back, a layer of sweat gluing his skin to his shirt. His arm ached, and with every heartbeat, a sharp pain lanced down his nerves. God, did it hurt. Worse than anything he’d ever felt.
Will groaned. His mind was in a deep haze, but he couldn’t seem to fall asleep. Not completely. No matter how much he begged or pleaded or tried to relax, he couldn’t make this nightmare go away.
The car’s interior light started to dim. Why wasn’t the car running? He needed to go to a hospital. Right?
Will couldn’t remember. Alex had sat in the car for a bit. Fiddling with something. But she was gone now. Where did she go? Didn’t she know he was dying in here?
A sharp pain ran up his arm. Damn, did it hurt. It was the tourniquet more than anything. That strip of cloth squeezed his muscles so tight he thought they would burst. Even so, blood dripped out of him with a steady patter. It rolled down the seat and pooled against his leg. Drip. Drip. Drip.
A flash of motion caught his attention. Will stirred, and his eyes slowly drifted to the car door. Something was squeezing its way through the gaps in the door, a black slime that oozed and undulated. It looked like a living oil puddle, a mirror to the dark blood that pooled beside him.
Once inside, the slime moved faster than his eyes could track. It crawled up the seat, then stretched across the gap and latched onto Will’s stump. The slime ripped off his tourniquet. A rush of blood waterfalled from his wound, the dam broken. It felt good. The slime bathed in his blood, then it crawled into his veins. A numbing cold streamed into him, flowed up his arm, leaving a warm prickling sensation in its wake.
[Integration initiated. State your desire.]
Who said that? The calm voice echoed in his head, almost robotic. His desire?
Will wanted to go to the hospital. He wanted the pain to go away. But for any of that to happen, he needed to start the car.
[Wish granted.]
The pain ceased. Just like that, it was gone. Will shook his head, eyes wide, and tried to clear the fog that clouded his mind. It felt like he’d woken from a terrible nap. What time was it?
Will lifted his arm, and he flinched at the bloody stump. Shit, his arm was gone! He felt around the stump with his other hand. Though it was covered in blood, it wasn’t actively bleeding. In fact, skin had grown around the wound, sealing it closed. Holy shit!
The car was a mess. Blood soaked the seat and pooled against the mat on the floor. Alex was going to be pissed. But more than that, someone had removed the panel under the steering column, and wires spilled out like a tangle of guts. What the hell was going on?
Will wouldn’t be able to start the car like this. He needed to fix those wires, and then… where was the key? Alex had it, probably. No, that couldn’t be right. He remembered Alex fiddling with the panel. She’d been the one to remove it, but why? Everything felt so cloudy.
Something squirmed out of the stump in his arm. Will flinched at the sensation, and he held his arm up to the light. Silvery tendrils waved from the stump. They looked like the stingers of a jellyfish, only they were shiny like metal. As Will watched, the tendrils reached for the ignition, as if it were a magnet pulling them closer.
Had he taken some shrooms? LSD? DMT? Because this shit didn’t make any fucking sense.
Either way, those tendrils wanted to touch the ignition. So Will decided to indulge them. He reached over, and the tendrils streamed into the keyhole. A strange sensation flowed up his arm. He could feel the tendrils growing longer, unwinding, crawling into the car’s internals. And as they did, Will could sense the car’s various systems. Electrical. Hydraulic. Mechanical. It was as if the car had become a part of him.
With a flex of his will, the engine ignited.
Headlights flicked on, flooding the garage with blue light. The engine purred. Gauge indicators lit up. Static crackled from the car’s speakers.
Will smiled. Now they were in business! But he couldn’t drive anywhere. For one thing, he still sat in the passenger seat. But more importantly, the garage door was closed, and it looked like the type that needed to be opened manually. And Alex was gone. Where was she? For that matter, where was he?
With a tug of his intent, he called back the tendrils. They slithered out of the ignition, then into his stump, coiled just under the surface. Will opened the door, and blood spilled out onto the concrete floor. Gross. He jumped out, slamming the door behind him, and jogged to the front of the car.
The garage door loomed over him. It was industrial-looking, made of thick metal plates. A bolt stuck out of the floor in the center, and the garage door was hooked to it, held closed by a thick padlock. Will grabbed the lock with his good hand and shook it. Hmmm?
The building trembled. Will stumbled back. What the hell was that? He couldn’t see in the darkness, but the building continued beyond the garage. He crept toward the other room.
A trail of blood covered the floor. Will frowned at it. This place looked familiar…
He followed the trail into a much larger room. Tables were scattered about the place, dimly lit by an oil lamp in the corner. Something moved by the far wall. Will jumped at the sight of a bloody woman with bright red hair. She lumbered toward him, her steps jerky and her arm outstretched.
But then he saw another shadow, this one much larger than the other. He wore burnt overalls over a torn plaid shirt. Pete. The bastard who had tied him to the table. Who had used that awful chainsaw to hack his arm off.
All at once, the memories came back to him. The pain. The blood. The fear.
Now Pete stood in the corner, and he held someone by their neck, dangling in the air. Alex. Her face was pale, covered in blood, and her legs kicked wildly as she struggled against Pete.
Will inhaled a sharp breath. His muscles bunched tight, and the silver tendrils burst from his stump. He ignored them, his eyes locked tight on Pete. He needed to do something. He needed to…
The tendrils undulated in the air, and they beckoned him to the side, pointing to a boxy shape on the floor. The chainsaw. It sat beside the trail of blood, the plastic scuffed, as if it had been kicked across the pavement.
Will burst forward and collapsed beside the saw. His tendrils reached for it, and they streamed into the gaps of the plastic paneling. The tendrils pulled the housing apart, exposing the internals, and then they surged into the engine. Will felt the mechanical pieces click into place, slot into his mind as if they had always belonged.
The tendrils pulled the chainsaw tight against his stump. The engine rumbled to life. The saw hitched into motion, slow at first, then ramping up into a high-pitched squeal. Will brought the saw up to his eyes, and it followed his arm as if it were his new hand.
His right arm had been taken by this wicked machine, but now the chainsaw would replace it.
Will smiled, and he charged at Pete. The engine rumbled, the vibrations streaming up his arm and matching the beat of his heart. He jumped onto a table, slid across its metallic surface.
The red-haired woman blocked his path. Her skin was bloated. Decrepit. Rotting. Blood leaked down her split chin and stained her shirt red. Will didn’t have time to question it. He swung the chainsaw at a diagonal, carving through her waist and exiting out her collarbone.
The rotting corpse fell apart, but Will didn’t give her a second glance. He charged past, clearing the distance to Pete.
The burly man glanced away from Alex. He held her at arm’s reach, but his other arm was missing, chopped off at the elbow. His stomach was torn open, a huge seam splitting him from his waist to his neck. Dark guts spilled from the wound, but Pete didn’t seem to care.
What the fuck was going on?
It didn’t matter. This fucker had to die. Will plunged the chainsaw into Pete’s back. Blood sprayed out. A black mist burst around the saw, filling the air with the taste of metal. Will grit his teeth, and he willed the saw to speed up. The engine rumbled against his arm, the saw screaming as it chewed through flesh and bone.
Pete dropped Alex. He stumbled to the side, entrails slurping out of him and splashing against the floor. Will pressed forward, biceps bulging as he fought to dig the saw deeper. He felt the blur of steel slipping through flesh, hitching against bone, and then it cut clean through his spine and out the other side.
Pete fell apart. His top half hit the ground first, then his legs collapsed in the other direction. Blood splashed out from the huge pool that covered the floor.
The chainsaw slowed. The engine fell into an idle grumble. Will stepped back and wiped the blood from his face. Holy shit!
Will held the chainsaw up to his face and stared at the jagged chain. It was beautiful. Blood dripped down the metal teeth, dark against the steel that flickered with the light of the oil lamp.
Someone tackled him. Alex. She wrapped her arms tight around him. Her fleece jacket was cold, soaked through with blood, but he could feel the warmth of her skin beneath.
“You’re okay,” Alex said. She shivered against him, her grasp held tight. “Your arm, I thought…”
“Yeah,” Will said. He pulled back and looked into her eyes. She stared up at him, her face stained red with blood. It looked like none of it was hers. She was okay, though a purple bruise surrounded her neck, marking the outline of Pete’s fingers. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner.”
“Don’t say that.” Alex smiled. “Let’s get out of here.”
Something scraped against the floor. Will stumbled back at the sound, and he held out his chainsaw. Pete dragged himself across the floor. Well, he dragged his top half, his remaining arm clawing against the pavement for purchase.
“Damn,” Will said. “I thought the chainsaw would’ve put him down for good.”
“You’d be surprised. That’s the second time today that Pete’s been eviscerated by a chainsaw.”
Will stumbled away from the crawling corpse. The scratch of nails and the clash of teeth echoed from deeper in the room. More corpses crawled across the floor to join Pete. “How do we kill these things?”
“We can’t,” Alex said. “We could dismember them, but there’s no time. Come on, we need to help Seth.” Alex dashed through the tables, stopping to pick up a hatchet along the way.
Seth? That’s right, he’d joined them on this trip. But where was he?
Alex ran to the garage and stopped beside the car. “Do you know how to hotwire it?”
“No need,” Will said. “Just get in the passenger seat. I’ll drive.”
While she hopped in, Will ran around the front of the car and grasped the padlock in his good hand. With a flex of his intent, he activated the chainsaw. Steel blurred in a tight arc, and Will pressed it against the lock. Metal screamed against metal, and it sawed through in a heartbeat.
The lock gone, Will reached down and heaved the garage door open. Starlight filtered into the building, and Will stared out into the expanse of pavement beyond.
Freedom.
A smile on his face, Will hopped in the car, unsocketed the chainsaw, and threw it in the backseat. The silvery tendrils swam through the air. Will directed them into the ignition, and it only took a second for his awareness to flood through the car, connecting it to his brain.
“Time to get the hell out of here.”