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  He sat on the bed for a while, pondering his options. On one hand, that much gold could get him better gear for his trip to the surface. His kobold-skin armor was ripped to shreds from the squod attack. Repairs alone would cost him a good ten gold.

  But the temptation of levitation magic was not easy to resist. The places he could go. Things he could steal…

  In the end, he decided to look at it as an investment in himself. The new ability would help him to complete quests and earn money more quickly. By the time he reached level 30, he would have enough gold to outfit himself with better armor and still have some spending money for his surface trip.

  Opening the scroll, Mace began to read. He felt the rush of adrenaline as his mind absorbed the new spell, opening up a whole new school of magic for him.

  As soon as the process was over, he turned to face his staff, now once again leaning against the wall near the door. Mace frowned for a moment. He didn’t remember removing it from his bag to set it there. Shaking his head, he pointed at the staff and activated his new spell. “Volant!”

  The staff wobbled for a moment, then lifted a few inches off the floor. Mace moved his hand to the left, and the staff made a corresponding motion. He raised his hand higher, and the staff rose as well. With a twist of his wrist, he sent the staff into a slow spin.

  “This is awesome!” Mace grinned at the still floating weapon. With some precise gestures, he moved the staff back to lean against the wall, then cancelled the spell.

  Satisfied with his efforts, and with his frustrations sufficiently vented for the time being, Mace elected to log out and get some food.

  *****

  Exiting the pod, he grabbed a quick shower and threw on sweats and t-shirt. One of the shops they’d looted during trips to the surface had been a military surplus store. They’d loaded up on weapons and ammo, as well as grenades, knives, every deadly and shiny toy they could carry. They’d even found a box of six claymores, and brought them along, despite the fact that nobody had a clue how to use them. Mace thought the phrase “Front Toward Enemy” stamped on one side offered a good clue.

  Mace had grabbed himself several pairs of black khaki pants and t-shirts, and a set of strap-on body armor for his chest, shoulders, arms, and legs that looked like they came straight from a SWAT movie. This was also where he’d found his sword and knife. Spotting the long blade on a rack behind the counter, his gamer brain shouted, “Plus ten to zombie killing!” and he had to have it.

  He made his way to the kitchen, where he heated up a can of chicken soup. “Chicken soup is good for the soul” he mumbled to himself. He opened a package of beef jerky to accompany the soup. Not a combination one would likely find in any restaurant, but he figured he was now the highest authority on culinary trends. He smiled to himself as he grabbed a packet of Twinkies for dessert.

  Mace tried not to look toward the security office and the radio inside as he made his way back to his quarters. Laying on his bed, he poked around on his laptop for a bit, checking his survivor’s site and browsing other sites for any sign of recent human input. Finding none, he closed the laptop and closed his eyes.

  Chapter 4

  Survival Quest

  Shari huddled in a corner with a blanket wrapped around her, trying to get to sleep. Every sound that reached her, made her twitch with fear. She knew there were zombies down below, roaming around. She’d been hearing them for two days now. So far, none of them had come close. But she was sure it was only a matter of time.

  She glanced for the thousandth time at the metal fire door to her left. Then the one to the right. The left door led to the stairwell and down through the building. It was sturdy enough to keep out all but the most powerful of creatures. She’d pushed plastic bags into the gap at the base of the door, then duct-taped all around the frame to reduce any noise or scent that might leak through.

  The door to the right was not nearly so secure. Though made of metal, there was a large vent built right into it. She was in the elevator machine room, on the roof of a four-story building. The vent allowed fresh air into the room, but at night that air was growing cold. She’d set up a small propane camp stove in the middle of the room, and it heated the room quite nicely when lit. But she was conserving her propane.

  A creak of metal on metal made her start. She looked toward the roof exit. “It’s just the wire. Moving in the wind. Need to fix that in the morning. Can’t have it making noise.”

  She’d taped some chicken wire across the outside of the door’s vent to keep any infected birds or other critters from squeezing through. It wasn’t ideal, but it was the best she could manage at the moment. This was a temporary shelter. When the zombies below moved on, so would she.

  Unable to sleep, she decided to take a look around. Wrapping her blanket more tightly, she reached into her pack and withdrew a pair of night vision goggles. She strapped those to her head, then grabbed her rifle and quietly opened the roof door. Once through the doorway, she made sure to securely, and quietly, close it behind her. The last thing she needed was for the thing to slam open or closed in the wind and alert anything below to her presence.

  Making her way to the edge of the roof, she crouched next to the three-foot parapet wall. She held her breath for nearly a minute as she listened for any sign of movement below. Hearing nothing, she rose to her knees and peered out over the wall. Seeing no movement, she lowered the goggles over her eyes.

  The world came to life in a green-tinged view of the street below. The goggles took in the limited light available from the moon and stars, and magnified it to the point where she could clearly see the street below.

  There was no sign of the creatures. She’d seen two earlier in the day, stalking each other. These weren’t human zombies. The larger had originally been a dog, maybe a wolf. It had clearly fed well, and grown even larger. That afternoon it had been roughly the size of a compact car. Its opponent was a buck, with nasty-looking horns. Shari had watched for several minutes as the wolf creature circled the deer, trying to get an angle of attack that would let it avoid those horns. The buck, meanwhile, made several quick lunges at the wolf, head down and horns slashing. For maybe the first time in the history of the planet, the deer was just as anxious to kill and eat the wolf as the wolf was to eat the deer.

  The two had faced off, screeching and threatening each other for several minutes before the wolf tilted its head as if hearing something, then gave up and bounded away. Presumably after less dangerous prey. The deer hung around for a good while, rubbing its horns against cars and buildings, as if marking its territory. Shari had been tempted to shoot it, but wasn’t confident in her ability to get a headshot from that distance. She’d been told the rifle she carried was capable of accurate shots of more than half a mile. But she wasn’t so sure of herself.

  The man she’d gotten the rifle from was a doomsday prepper who had claimed to be ‘special forces’. She suspected he was just an office worker and a gun enthusiast. He was too loud, too slow, and too stupid to live very long in this new world. But he was an okay guy, and he’d taught her how the gun worked. She’d retrieved it from what was left of his corpse after he’d left the basement they were hiding in to ‘take a dump’ as he put it. His screams only lasted a few seconds as they echoed from the yard behind their safe house. Shari waited three days before going to retrieve the weapon.

  The suppressor on the end of the barrel allowed her to fire without attracting every non-living thing for miles. She’d found the creature that had killed her friend, and put a bullet through its brain. Well, eventually. Her first bullet took it in the neck, and didn’t kill it. She managed a second round as it got to its feet, that exploded the skull and finished it for good.

  In the weeks since, she’d taken several opportunities to eliminate zombie creatures. When she deemed it safe enough, with only a single creature in sight, and herself in a safe position with cover. Every one she could take down made it that much safer for her to move around. And she
was going to need to move soon. She was down to two days’ worth of food and water. Maybe three, if she rationed it.

  The small town she found herself in had a mostly intact mom and pop grocery store-slash-general store. It was where she’d found the duct tape and chicken wire. She’d been tempted just to hole up in the back of the store, but it was all ground-floor with a glass storefront. Basically, a death trap.

  She needed enough time on the street to syphon gas from a few cars and refill the tank on her Humvee. Another thing she’d inherited from mister doomsday prepper. He had modified his Humvee with a spiked cow catcher, bars on the windows, and a ridiculous paint job that included a grinning skull on the hood, and blood splatters along the sides. He’d told her stories about taking the vehicle to a gamer convention and convincing several cosplay girls to pose on the hood.

  Despite the ridiculousness of it, the thing was sturdy, and reasonably safe. It could carry enough supplies to last her for weeks, and she could still stretch out and sleep in the back seat. At 5’2”, Shari didn’t need a lot of room. She’d named the vehicle Bertha. Occasionally, Shari would talk to Bertha as if she were alive. She had to talk to somebody.

  But Bertha was a gas-guzzling beast. She usually had to drain four or five cars to refuel it completely. A full tank would take her maybe 200 miles at the slow, careful pace she maintained. Most roads were cluttered with abandoned or wrecked vehicles, if not blocked altogether. Luckily Bertha could go off-road to get around most blockages.

  She’d stopped in this town one afternoon, because she spotted a gas station with a fuel truck parked out front. Feeling like she’d hit the jackpot, she’d pulled up expecting to fill Bertha’s tank and a couple spare tanks she kept strapped to the back. But she quickly found that the truck contained diesel fuel. So, she was back to siphoning from car tanks.

  Before she’d gotten to that, she located herself a safe house. In this case, the rooftop machine room. The first priority any time she stopped was to find a safe place to rest. Or to make one. Only when that was established, would she take time to gather whatever supplies she had stopped for. If she ran across one or more of the creatures, she needed a place to retreat to, in case she couldn’t kill it.

  That had been the case here. She’d been standing at the gas station, kicking a tire on the fuel truck, when she heard the familiar screech. Bertha’s engine wasn’t loud, but in a mostly silent world, the noise often attracted company. Shari quickly grabbed her pack and rifle, locked Bertha, and made for the nearest building without a glass storefront. Which happened to be the municipal building she looked down from now.

  She continued to scan the streets below, quietly moving from one side of the roof to the next. Once, she thought she saw movement in the distance. She raised the rifle, resting the barrel on the parapet as she looked through the magnified scope. She swept the barrel back and forth, searching for whatever it was she’d glimpsed.

  There! Three blocks down. The wolf was padding between cars, nose down as if following a trail. It was moving in her general direction. Fear gripped her for a moment, the fear of a prey animal watching a predator track its scent. Then she realized it wasn’t tracking her. She hadn’t come from that direction. She exhaled slowly, trying to regain some calm. If this thing paused out in the open long enough, it was close enough for her to take it down.

  Shari put her eye back to the scope. Regaining her target, she followed it for half a minute or so. Then she scanned forward of the target, trying to project the wolf’s path and identify a likely opening… and there it was. An intersection that was mostly free of cars. A good hundred feet of open area that would take the wolf creature several seconds to cross.

  She panned back to the wolf, following its slow progress as it sniffed and shuffled from car to car, tree to tree. She began to practice the box breathing technique: take long, slow breaths. Inhaling, holding, releasing slowly, holding. It was best to be calm when you pulled the trigger, so you didn’t jerk it and throw off your aim. Finally, the creature emerged from behind the last vehicle near the corner. It paused, it’s head high and sniffing, as if sensing danger in the open space.

  “Perfect” she whispered almost inaudibly. Sighting on the now motionless wolf’s head, she released her breath, held the release and squeezed the trigger. The muffled ‘pop’ of the bullet passing through the suppressor was instantly followed by an explosion of brain matter as the wolf zombie creature ceased to be.

  “One down.” She said to herself as she retreated from the edge of the roof. Making her way back inside, she quietly closed and locked the door behind her. Feeling optimistic about being able to move out in the morning, she curled up using her pack as a pillow, and tried to sleep.

  *****

  Mace was awakened by a sound outside his door. He could have sworn he heard a voice. He was instantly out of bed, reaching for his clothes with adrenaline rushing through his bloodstream. He grabbed the sword in one hand, jammed a pistol in his belt, and went to listen at the door.

  The sound came again. A sort of erratic clicking followed by a hiss. It sounded familiar, but for the life of him, Mace couldn’t figure what kind of creature would make that sound. Images of giant insects from horror movies flashed through his mind.

  Slowly, he unlocked and opened his door. As soon as he entered the hallway, the sound became clearer. It was coming from the direction of the elevator.

  Shit. How would something have gotten down this far?

  Maybe it was his recent battle with the rock spider, but an image of a giant spider crawling down the elevator shaft appeared bright in his mind.

  Mace moved slowly toward the elevator, staying close to one side of the corridor. The noise came again. The security room. Mace’s heart was racing. He pulled the gun from his waist and crouched down, listening. Once more the sound came, and Mace nearly laughed out loud.

  “The damned radio. It’s the radio!” he stood and walked swiftly to the security room door. The radio made the sound again. Someone somewhere was keying their radio’s microphone. That was the clicking sound. And the hiss was simply static as the mic was held open for a moment.

  Foolishly hoping that somehow Katie’s brother had survived the attack he’d heard yesterday, Mace keyed his own microphone. “Hello? Are you there?”

  He waited, holding his breath in anticipation of an answer. Nothing happened for a good long while, and he found himself gasping for air. Taking a minute to calm himself, he spoke aloud. “Maybe he’s injured. Can’t speak. He’s keying the radio as a sort of distress call. But, if he’s been injured by one of those zombies, then he’s certainly contaminated. There’s nothing I can do to help him.”

  Mace jumped when the other radio keyed again. There was a loud screeching for a moment, and then silence as the mic went back off. This was repeated several times, as if one of the monsters was pushing the button repeatedly while screeching at something. Then the mic was keyed and held, and Mace listened to the thing’s voice as it wailed at him. There was also the sound of breaking wood, maybe furniture. And glass shattering. The thing holding the radio was in a rage. Then the mic went silent again.

  Angry now, Mace keyed his own microphone. “I’m gonna kill you! You hear me? You killed Katie and her brother! I’m gonna put a bullet through your skull!” he screamed into the microphone.

  There was no reply. Mace grunted as he pictured the monster dropping the radio in surprise when it screamed back at him. Maybe stomping on it, trying to kill it. Or maybe it tried to eat the damn thing and choked on it. He hoped so.

  Turning off the radio, Mace went back to his room. He locked the door behind him, setting his sword and gun on the desk. He crawled back into bed. His clock said it was 9:00 am, but he wasn’t in the mood to start his day. He turned off the light and just stared into the darkness.

  *****

  Shari had been up before the sun, packing up her belongings and getting ready to move. With the wolf creature dead, she liked her odds of bein
g able to gas up and get moving. She made her way down the stairs, pausing at each landing to listen for any evidence of movement. When she reached the ground floor, she paused to look out a window. Scanning up and down the street, she saw no evidence of movement. So she unchained the exit door, which she had chained and padlocked on her way in, and opened the door.

  Moving quickly to the Humvee, she crouched down to make sure nothing was hiding underneath, then checked that all the doors and windows were still intact. Reassured that nothing would be waiting to spring out at her, she opened the back and set her pack inside. She grabbed one of the empty gas cans and her syphon pump, and moved to the nearest SUV. This town, being as small as it was, it hadn’t suffered any air strikes or military ground engagements. It was all over so fast, only the larger cities took those kinds of hits. So most of the cars here were still intact. Several were empty, having been left running when occupants fled or were ripped from their vehicles. It didn’t take her long to fill the five-gallon can and then empty it into Bertha’s tank. She pressed her luck, moving back to the same SUV and syphoning some more. This time she brought both gas cans. If she could get ten gallons quickly, she could move on.

  Shari got another four gallons from the first SUV before it was empty. She moved on to the next car, but it was already empty. The next was a police van with shattered windows. The keys were not in the ignition, so she gave it a shot. This one was nearly full, and she topped off both cans. Moving as quickly and quietly as possible, she hauled one can back and used it to fill Bertha’s tank. She went back and filled it again from the van, then picked up both full cans and waddled back over to Bertha. After securing both full cans to the rack on Bertha’s tailgate, she went back and closed the door to the building she’d been hiding in. One never knew when a good hiding place would be needed. If she was ever back this way.

  Next, she went back to the police van. As she expected she found a tactical shotgun and a box of rounds in the cab. Opening the back, she found two sets of tactical gear with helmets, shields, and body armor. She also found several pairs of handcuffs and leg restraints, along with a key, in a box under one of the benches. Under the other bench she found smoke grenades, tear gas, and a grenade launcher. She also found a radio with its charging cradle, a couple of the tin foil type thermal blankets, a large box of latex gloves, and a well-stocked medical bag. She filled a duffel bag she found behind the passenger’s seat after emptying out some seriously smelly gym clothes, leaving a half dozen protein bars she found in there. What didn’t fit in the bag, she carried by hand.