Zombie Rebirth

As it turned out, I couldn’t use up every bit of hot water. Tankless water heaters meant I could soak for as long as I wanted. I wanted the house as my own. On top of everything else, I could actually feel the heat. Early, the shower had been miserable. I threw up a few times, especially when a loose eyeball slid out of my hair. Then again, when I had to pick it up and toss it out of the shower. After that, though, I was able to focus on cleaning my body. I had to ride the line between scrubbing my skin until it peeled clean off, and gently enough to not overwhelm my newly regained sense of touch.

When I emerged from the bathroom, steam coated every glass surface. I had no idea how long I had been soaking, but I did feel like a new man. On reflection, that was likely true, and twice over. I sat in the towel on the edge of the bed and thought about my day. Well, night, but who’s counting?

I had fallen to my death while flirting with a woman, which was not how I had imagined the night ending. I was thrown face first into a new universal system which acted like a video game, except very, very real. And gross. I shuddered just thinking about the random eyeball in my hair. My clothes were ruined. But there was some good too.

I mean, when I fell, I broke my neck, and badly. But being resurrected as a zombie, and not just any zombie, but the very first in the universe, seems to have done some awesome things for me. When I woke up, my neck was broken. I knew it had to be bad. Probably one of those medical terms. I heard one that fit a while back. There was a show I watched where a woman was in a car accident, and she couldn’t move her body. The paramedics stabilized her head, strapped her down, all before removing her from the car. I think there was some other tension, like shit was exploding. Either way, what they said stuck with me far more than the action did. They had called it ‘internal decapitation’, which is metal as fuck and equally terrifying.

So, yeah. I’m pretty sure I woke up internally decapitated. Which makes less sense considering what I did next. That is, I reset my head. Just kinda clicked it back in.

I sighed, stood and stretched. It felt good to just feel again. The burn of muscles that had been overworked. My knuckles felt bruised and split. And it was wonderful. The hypersensitivity that had plagued me my whole life being gone should have been a blessing. Instead, it made me incautious and rash. And it changed my mindset. That, or being a zombie did. I was a fiend. I think ‘bloodlust’ only just touches on what was going on with me. I felt calmer after my shower.

Curious, I opened the closet. Inside the massive walk-in was enough clothing to sell and buy a nice house in the suburbs. It was ridiculous.

“Damn right, I’m getting bougie,” I said to myself. I picked out slacks, an undershirt, and a gorgeous blue-and-purple pastel button up. It felt like silk, but breathed better. I had no idea what material it was and didn’t care to figure it out. I guess it was just sheer luck that it all fit like it was tailored to me.

“What was next?”

I fought about a hundred monsters, destroyed some anchor things, broke a dude’s neck… which wasn’t the craziest thing I did all night. After ‘killing’ the Necromancer, I got into the house and killed even more zombies, this time well over a hundred, and then faced off with a monster that I can only suppose was made from the remains of the Necromancer. The amalgam, a crazy level nine creature that ate corpses to add to its biomass.

“It’s time.” I sat down, elbows on knees, head hung low. I had to psych myself up. This was the real deal. It was going to prove I wasn’t hallucinating the whole night. Not some bad acid mixing with too much booze. Not that I did drugs, but I’ve been roofied before; and slipping drugs into a drink at a party, while a douche move, does happen.

I pulled my status up.

Name: Alabaster Blackwood

Race: Half-dead Human-Zombie

Faction: Blackwood Company

Job: Half-dead

Age: 20

Renown level: Unknown

Renown: 1169

Level: 6

XP: 69/130

HP: 840

HP regen per second: 0.30

MP: 80/140

MP regen per second: 0.03

Stamina: 500

Stamina regen: 0.17

Strength: 42*

Agility: 25*

Constitution: 42*

Wisdom: 7*

Intelligence: 7*

Charisma: 7*

Luck: 14*

Free points: 4

Titles: Primordial Undead, Prime Undead, Star-born: Dragon, Noble, Royalty, Capable

Skills: Unarmed Combat

Abilities: Earthen Bulwark I

Spells: None

Notes: English, Zombie Common

Chakras:

Crown: Locked.

Third Eye: Locked.

Throat: Locked.

Heart: Locked.

Solar Plexus: Locked.

Sacral: Locked.

Root: Unlocked. 1 of 3 assigned: Earthen Bulwark I.

I looked at my stats in shock. I had gained two levels, a job, and a heap of unassigned points. Even more interesting, I had mana, and it was increasing. I could cast spells.

“I can cast spells!” I raised both fists in celebration. “I’m not an idiot anymore!”

I calmed myself, then examined my options. I had four free stat points to assign, and I knew they would start having a much larger effect, now that I was getting some decent numbers. Already at just level six, I had over forty strength. Seeing as I was a melee focused fighter, I knew what I had to do. One point went into strength. But then I felt conflicted. I could tank hard hits, especially now with nearly a thousand health. I was more than eight times as healthy as the average human. That was a shocking thought all its own. My eyes stopped on my most lacking stats. Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma. I didn’t know how they affected my life, not yet at least, but I knew they could be important. And this was real life, not a d&d campaign. I couldn’t go around with absolute dump stats like that. My mind made up, I assigned a point to each. After everything was said and done, I checked my stats one more time.

Name: Alabaster Blackwood

Race: Half-dead Human-Zombie

Faction: Blackwood Company

Job: Half-dead

Age: 20

Renown level: Unknown

Renown: 1169

Level: 6

XP: 69/130

HP: 840

HP regen per second: 0.30

MP: 80/160

MP regen per second: 0.03

Stamina: 500

Stamina regen: 0.17

Strength: 44*

Agility: 25*

Constitution: 42*

Wisdom: 8*

Intelligence: 8*

Charisma: 8*

Luck: 14*

Free points: 0

“I’m a freaking god.”

“Don’t go saying that, now.” Basil’s familiar voice drifted in from the hallway. I jerked and looked at the doorway. He was cleaned up and nearly looked like a living human. He smiled, and I was shocked to see he had all his teeth. Then I looked closer, and saw many of the teeth were mismatch, and one was even in the wrong spot.

“You know you have three canines on the top row?”

“Yeah,” he said as he probed the tooth in question with his tongue. “I kinda like the way it makes me look a little more feral.”

He smiled again, and his point was made, literally.

“I get it. Looks good. You clean up decently,” I said as I waved at him. He had also found some clothes, though he hadn’t been as lucky as me. The shirt was too tight, with the sleeves already torn off. It was ruffled, like a really fancy dress shirt for a black-and-white event. He even had a bowtie on.

“Thanks,” he said as he flexed his arms. The sight was still bizarre. One was a slim, womanly arm with delicate fingers, while the other was that of a bodybuilder, complete with testosterone hair on the shoulder.

“Man, you are a weird guy.”

“Thank you again,” he said with a toothy smile. “What do we do now?”

“That…” I trailed off with one finger pointed at him. “That is a good question. I guess we head out front, find a car, get down into town, and find out what’s going on.”

He nodded. “I don’t know what a ‘car’ is, but I’m a quick learner.”

Now that I focused, I could hear that he was actually growling, not speaking in English. But he still sounded like a posh British man with a hint of the streets on the edges.

“You really are. Let’s go.” I led the way to the foyer, then out the front door. It was situated next to the entrance to the grand ball room, yet no zombies had taken it. I guess I really was lucky.

We walked into the roundabout that hosted all manner of vehicles. Everything was expensive, but most of it wouldn’t be practical in the event of going offroad or needing to take a shortcut. In the end, I settled on a Range-Rover. I had always wanted to drive one. And, if I was being honest, I wanted to trash the fucking thing. Just absolutely wreck it. With the owner either dead, turned into a zombie and killed, or fled, it was mine for the taking. I walked over and failed to open the door.

“Do you need something to access the carriage?”

I looked at Basil, then realized he had figured out what the cars were. “Yeah, keys.”

“Like the kind at that little podium?”

I looked where his daintily pointed lady finger pointed to the podium in question. It was a valet desk. Why they needed a valet desk when half the vehicles were parked out front was beyond me.

“That’s it.” I jogged over and started to look. Vehicles chirped and beeped as I started pressing buttons. One Lamborghini roared to life as I pressed its remote-start button, and I groaned. “Oh, man. I really, really want to drive that one.”

“Then let’s take it.”

“We don’t know what the roads are like. It could be world war three out there, for all we know.”

I started muttering to myself after shutting the Lambo off. “Drive it next time. Leave it for later.”

Finally, I found the keys for the Range-Rover. There were eighty-some keys and fobs under the podium, so it had taken some time. It chirped, and I grinned like a kid in a candy store.