Chapter 33: How do you plan a murder?

Lucas and Brian pulled out their pistols while facing the direction where Eugene’s voice came from. Jack barely reacted. He looked up for a second upon hearing Eugene’s voice, then went back to ripping out grass.

“Be calm! Be calm! We are here to help you,” Howard said, standing next to Eugene. Howard was wearing a suit as always and Eugene was wearing his football uniform as always.

“The fuck do you two want?” Brian said, gun still in his hand.

“Fernando forced everyone to agree to kill you three on sight. Also–” Howard was interrupted.

“You shitheads used my fucking gate into this game! Fuck you! Now Fernando is gonna put a hit on my head as well!” Eugene yelled.

“I don’t see how that’s our problem, dickhead,” Lucas said.

“Excuse me, but may  I ask what happened to him?” Howard said.

Eugene also stopped his ranting for a moment to stare at Jack.

“What’s it to you?” Brian said.

“Well, the following plan needs all three of you. And… What is wrong with him?” Howard said, while Jack laid down on the ground and stared at the sky.

“He got a special spell. This is a temporary side effect. He’ll be fine,” Brian said.

“Is that so…” Howard said.

“You fuckers are going to help me and Howard kill Fernando!” Eugene said.

“But why should we do that? What’s our… how do you say, incentive?” Brian said.

“Survival. He is going to kill you three now,” Howard said.

“Mhmmm… But I think we’ll be fine. We can just stay out here forever. Keep grinding. Get stronger, and eventually kill him on our own. Right?” Brian said.

“That sounds like a fantastic idea,” Lucas said.

“Okay, how about I–”

The negative effects of the ritual sacrifice finally passed and Jack jumped up.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! AAAAAAAAA!” He screamed.

“I am never fucking doing that again! Fuck! Fuck!”

For almost two days, Jack felt like a prisoner inside his own body. The completely focused state and the completely unfocused state felt like prisons inside his own mind.

“Yo bro! Good you’re back!” Lucas said, and slapped Jack on the back.

“Hey, finally! We were super worried about you,” Brian said.

“It’s good to see you are better,” Howard said.

“As if you give a fuck. What do you want? I caught glimpses of the convo but most of it slipped my attention,” Jack said.

Howard explained the situation.

“You know, back when you gave us all that money. You promised more achievements and how to get skill points. I say it’s about time you deliver on that promise, and we might help,” Jack said.

“Okay, I can give one now, so a simple way to get a mental achievement is to–”

Jack disappeared out of thin air. As if he had pressed the exit button on the game. But before he disappeared, he was maintaining eye contact with Howard and it didn’t look like he was looking at the exit button at the bottom right corner at the edge of his vision.

Everyone was silent for a moment.

Brian turned his head around and tried to see if there was another person or monster around. He pointed his gun at Eugene.

“Is your people here? Was that a spell? The fuck did you do to Jack!” Brian said.

Howard noted that his name was Jack.

“I didn’t do shit! Put your fucking gun down!”

A lot of arguing later, and a half hour of waiting for Jack, Howard said: “We don’t know what happened to him. And we do not have time to wait for him. He might be in the real world. Or who knows. We just have to hope he is safe. Now. May I explain the achievement and then we can get to work? I’ll give some information now and more after we finish taking out Fernando” Howard said.

Lucas and Brian looked at each other. Lucas shrugged his shoulders.

“Okay. Fuck it. Let’s go kill Fernando. I’m tired of hiding around like a little bitch,” Lucas said.

“If anything happens to Jack, I will kill both of you,” Brian said.

“Noted. Now, the achievement. If you count to 1000 very quickly and without waiting too long between counts you get a mental enhancement point. You can choose it for anything related to mental stuff. So, reaction time. Mental maths. What else? Better memory. The effects are minimal, but it is a good point in the right direction,” Howard said.

“How the fuck did you even figure that out?” Lucas said.

“I’ll tell you if you tell me an achievement you learned,” Howard said.

“Go fuck yourself,” Lucas said.

…

They all exited the game together. Eugene and Brian and Lucas met each other in the hallway of the metal building, and took a cab over to one of Howard’s bars where they had agreed to meet.

The plan was to put on ski masks and go over to Fernando’s house and wait for him.

“Wait, why are we breaking in?” Eugene said. It was now night, and after waiting many hours in a tinted van nearby, Howard said they had to rush in now.

“Just. Do. What. I. Say!” Howard said.

Nobody asked him how he figured out where Fernando lived. Or why he knew when Fernando would be home. Or how he already had the key to the house.

When they broke in silently, Howard had Eugene stay and guard downstairs. Howard and Brian and Lucas went upstairs.

Howard whispered, “There’s two kids in that room. You two gag them and tie them up and bring them downstairs. I’ll handle the mom.”

“Oh shit!” Brian said, realizing what was happening.

They did as they were told.

When they brought down the thrashing, gagged mother and the scared kids, Eugene almost lost it.

“Ain’t no love in this game, bitch,” Lucas said.

“We are going to hell for this shit!” Eugene yelled.

“Who gives a shit. He is trying to kill us. We’re not even doing anything to the mom and kids,” Brian said.

After a lot of pointless arguing, Eugene went to his corner of the living room and sat down.

They all waited many hours for Fernando to come.

They stood on guard for about one day. Doing a lot of feeding and escorting the hostages to the toilets. Until finally, in the middle of the night, they heard the door to the house open.