Sponsored Apocalypse, ch 6

The town where I’d chosen to put down roots before the end of the world was pretty old, in the state of Alabama, right  on the border with Georgia.  I’d carefully chosen where to live based on a bunch of criteria, including population density, self sufficiency of the area, and even projected nuclear fallout paths if the end of the world had been nuclear war.

I really hadn’t planned for monsters.  Zombies, sure.  But not cyclops and goblins.

It took me a while since I was trying to move stealthily, but I eventually made it to town.  I didn’t really have anywhere else to go at this point. My current goals reflected the fact I'd just lost everything. One of my pressing concerns was shelter, or at least a place to catch my breath.

The forest ended at a Family Dollar parking lot.  Before actually leaving the woods, I did the best scan that I could to get the lay of the land.

A siren wailed in the distance.  I could hear gunshots and screams practically all over the place.  Something big, fast, and dark moved down the street right in front of me, chasing a jeep full of panicking teens.

It was chaos.  This is a small town, I thought with a shake of my head.  I can’t even imagine what’s happening in the big cities right now.

By this point, it’d only been a little over an hour since monsters had started appearing all over the world, but there were already signs of violence and destruction everywhere.  Something big must have come through town–a fast food place had been reduced to rubble.

It was a good thing that I could handle seeing gore and death.  The parking lot I was skulking across had a dead body with bite marks and other grisly signs of feeding.

Okay, I thought.  Monsters are real.  They’re fast, and some are big, but it’s probably a good idea to switch to a modified version of my zombie plan.

With plenty of time to think about it, I’d come up with several contingency plans over the years.

I had my Reaper glaive in my hand, its empty sheath on my back as I made my way toward the center of town.  There was shouting and commotion down a side street, but I ignored it.  There was just so much stuff going on around me, I needed to just focus on my destination.  Every second, I could feel how exposed I was.

Shadows danced under a lighted billboard ad for a local auto body shop.  Instinct made me stop and stay totally still, watching that spot until I saw a couple shuffling figures.  They had horrible wounds and I could barely make out a low moaning.  Suddenly both of them took off in the other direction at a power walk.

Zombies.  Fast walking variety.  Not slow or running.  I shook my head.  Never mind. I guess the plan is monsters plus zombies now.  I waited a few minutes to make sure that nothing had seen or smelled me before moving again.  Hearing people screaming and dying in the distance was a great motivator to stay cautious.

It seemed like the number of monsters, or at least monster attacks, kept increasing every 10 minutes.   Across the street, I caught a glimpse through a window of something massive, dark, and canine eating someone.

When I hit Main street, I hid between two cars and observed my surroundings again.  Some of the surrounding businesses that usually still had lights suddenly all lost them at once.  The power had just gone out.  I’d never been more thankful for light from the moon.

The sound of an engine growling accompanied the flash of headlights as an SUV barreled down the street.  Something had obviously put the fear of God in whoever was driving.  As the SUV drove at high speed, I didn’t see anything chasing it at first, but then a shadow slammed down on the roof of the car from the night sky.

Whoever was driving was startled even worse than I was and lost control of the car.  The winged monster on the roof took off again before the vehicle hit a parked car and flipped.  Glass shattered and the sound of metal warping echoed off the surrounding buildings.  Even though I hadn’t been living in this new, monster-filled world for very long, it didn’t take a genius to figure out that all the noise would serve as a meal bell for monsters.

Sure enough, a head popped up above a distant rooftop, staring down at the commotion.  As a person started to crawl from the SUV, the shadow flew down for the sky again.  There was the sound of a lethal crunch.  Someone still inside the SUV screamed.  Four moaning zombies came out of an alley on the other side of the wreck, climbing all over each other to get into the upside down SUV from their side.

I briefly, very briefly thought about trying to help before turning and skulking away.  There wasn’t anything I could do.   I sure as hell wasn’t going to die with some misplaced heroics for strangers when there was no chance of even helping anyone.

Main street was too dangerous, so I backtracked and made my way down an alley, heading toward my first destination.  I glanced back the way I’d come and also tried watching the skies.  It was useless, there was no way I’d see something that dark and fast before it was on top of me, but I couldn’t help but stress about it.

With my wavering focus, I got lucky to see movement out the corner of my eye.  I flinched back in surprise and fear as a snarling goblin ambushed me from behind a dumpster.  The monster’s  shiv was a simple piece of broken metal, but it was still sharp.

Pain.   I could feel blood immediately start to soak my shirt.

[Debuff: Bleeding]

A few more system messages popped up but I ignored them.  My inattention made them immediately clear from my vision.

I reflexively stepped back and swung my glaive.  My clumsy strike took off the goblin’s hand, but not before the creature’s improvised weapon almost cut my arm again.  With its weapon gone, the goblin jumped and snapped at me.  Sharp teeth barely missed my throat.

My arm throbbed.  The low, surprised moan I’d been making turned to a growl as I moved forward with my superior size and weight, cutting the monster down.

[Level up!]

I stared down at the dead creature like an idiot for a minute before I shook myself and started moving again.  There was no way to know yet if the noise my little fight had made might attract something else, but I didn’t want to stick around to find out.

Before all hell had broken loose in the world, I’d hated coming downtown.  Parallel parking has never been one of my strengths.  But now that I was trying to move down the street as stealthily as possible, I was eternally grateful for every parked SUV that blocked line of sight.

I could spot movement inside some of the stores that I passed.  Some had been broken into, but others were still whole.  In fact, now that I was looking for it, it seemed like a lot of businesses that had still been open when everything went down had living people in them.  That might have been smart–to stay put– at least in the short term.  Maybe waiting until morning before moving was the right call.  A lot of the monsters were stopping to eat the people they killed, slowing them down.

It probably hadn’t been a hard decision to stay inside when people were dying in the streets.  And there had definitely been deaths.  Even though I hadn’t seen all that many bodies so far, there were very obvious blood trails on the sidewalks from where people had been dragged into alleys and such.  Under the light of the moon and stars, the blood stains were like smears of darkness on the concrete.

I suddenly got a creepy feeling, my spine went cold.  Without thinking about it, I followed my instincts and ducked between two parked cars, crouching down to make myself small.

A few seconds later, I was thanking my lucky stars and wondering where my premonition had come from.  Ahead of me, about two stores down, something knobby, ugly, and about twice the height of a person unfolded itself out of the shattered front window of a boutique.  Moonlight shone off the fresh blood on the creature’s chest.  My head was barely sticking up past the trunk of the car I was hiding behind, looking through the back window. A familiar feeling gripped my chest, the same as had happened when I saw the cyclops that destroyed my house.

Fear, cloying, muddy fear settled on my heart.  I didn’t move.

The creature had a wooden club in one hand.

Is it a troll? I wondered.  For the first time, I considered that since my stats were so similar to a game, I should be able to see the monster’s name and level.  Unfortunately, no text popped up.  The creature stayed a dark, dangerous silhouette as it sniffed the air.

Then my stomach dropped again as the monster turned its shaggy head in my direction before taking a lumbering step.

I thought fast.  What can I do?  What can I do?  My glaive was a good weapon, but fighting the troll was not possible. It’d be like dueling a grizzly bear with a rapier.

That’s right.  Weapons.  I ducked down a little lower, completely out of sight. Then I fished the Lindstrom Family Hammer out of my belt.   With the strongest underhand I could manage, I threw it across the street, aiming for an alley.

The throw wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough.  What was even better, it hit something metal and loose.  The racket was obvious and split the night, even before the hammer skipped olff the asphalt into something that made even more noise.

Fortunately, the troll took the bait.  The big creature moved across the street with deceptively slow, but ground-eating steps.

I took the opportunity to shimmy my way to the opposite side of the car from the big creature.

There was a broken window on the other side of the street, what used to be a sign store.  A couple growls from inside made the troll slow and growl back.  I watched silently, not daring to move more than I already had.

Wait, that’s right!  I thought.  With a thought, I called the Lindstrom Family Hammer back to my hand.  In a few seconds, the handle filled my palm again.  I briefly thought about tossing the hammer into the business with the monsters inside, maybe instigating a monster fight, but I didn’t know if that would work.  Trying to get too clever at this point without more information would probably be a great way to screw myself over.

Let’s keep it simple.

I reared back and chucked the hammer as far as I could down an alley on the other side of the street about twenty feet behind the troll’s turned back.

The reaction was immediate.  Faster than I could have imagined, the big creature darted down the alley, scattering any detritus in the way, smashing it to pieces.  Since the troll was gone, I tensed to move, but the creatures that had been in the ruined sign store came out next.

Two evil-looking, shaggy, lupine monsters slunk forward, warily looking down the alley the troll had just disappeared in.  One sniffed the air.

I swallowed and called my hammer back.  Something told me that throwing my hammer as a distraction wouldn’t work well on these things.  Luckily, I was saved when gun shots rang out, an angry series of staccato thunderclaps from the direction I’d just come from.

The demon wolves turned to each other, flicked their ears, and ran in that direction.  I waited a moment, trying to gauge whether the troll would also double back to move down the street.  When I decided I couldn’t wait any longer, I moved.

Alleys were dangerous, but luckily, I knew this own.  The age of the area worked to my favor–some alleys were so narrow, anything large like the troll would have a hard time fitting down them.

I went down a series of alleys and side streets, feeling a sense of sadness and disconnect whenever I saw a curtain twitch.  Despite all the death and violence, a lot of people were still alive.  They probably had a better chance of survival than me.  This was the South. A decent number of people had guns.  All I had was a glaive and a hammer.

If the skills I’d chosen had given me some cool, superhero-type powers, maybe I wouldn’t be currently so scared shitless.  But I’d seen the cyclops.  I couldn’t even lie to myself that hiding would be a good idea, like, let things calm down.

I wasn’t sure things would ever calm down.

News anchors had been attacked.  This thing was world-wide.  I needed to change my situation, and for that, I needed tools and allies.

My destination was close now.  I started to quietly jog.  For the first time, I allowed myself to consider the fact that my friend might be dead.  Anything was possible.  My heart dropped to my stomach and I prayed that he hadn’t been unprepared.

When I rounded the corner, I saw a literal pile of monsters on the sidewalk.  A knot of stress started tightening in my back and I was preparing for the worst right before a loud “pop” from inside the building preceded a shuffling, one-armed zombie across the street falling down.

“Don’t shoot me!” I yelled.  “It’s Miles!”  I laughed in relief and hurried to the barred door.