Zombie Rebirth

“What do you suppose ‘Tutorial Points’ are anyway? Weird that we haven’t got a tutorial for that yet.” Kyra waved a hand in front of her face, trying to clear the air. It was rank with corpse rot.

Adam nodded, poking the next corpse. The TP counter increased in the side of his vision.

“I think we’ll get it when the time is right. I mean, realistically, we’ve cleared three rooms between the three of us. And it took three days to do.”

“Yeah,” Liz said from the side of the room. She had cleared her own room already. “But the mechanics of this stupid video-game-like system aren’t exactly clear.”

Adam shook his head. “We can only keep trying.”

The last corpse drifted into pixelated dust. He stood and brushed his hands on his ragged pants. “Man, what I would give for some intact clothing.”

Both women eyed him. They were exhausted and starving, but that did nothing to tamp down the reaction they felt. He was in great shape, and they all knew it.

“Whatever,” he said with a smirk. “Let’s find out what’s past the ogre’s den.”

Despite the surge of energy meditating and combat had given them, they were dragging. They needed food. Kyra’s stomach rumbled loud enough to make the others wince.

“Sorry,” she said with a hand to her abdomen.

Liz gathered her up into a side hug. “You have nothing to be sorry about, hun.”

Kyra looked up at the much taller woman, gave a half-hearted smile, then led the way to the exit. “C’mon. Maybe we’ll find a king’s feast on the other side of those doors. The ogre had to be protecting something.”

They gathered at the door. It opened smoothly, as if someone was regularly doing maintenance. For all they knew, someone was. That, or it was only as old as the tutorial, and magic was responsible for everything. They had no idea what to think.

“Another hallway.” Adam scratched his head. “Well, I guess we just keep going.”

They stepped through and the door slammed shut, startling all three. They whirled, only to find a smooth wall.

“Jeez, that scared the bahookie out of me,” Liz said, clutching her chest.

“Bahookey?” Kyra side-eyed Liz.

“What? I’m from the mid-west. We say ‘bahookie.’”

“The Scots say ‘bahookie,’ and it means bum.” Adam turned and led the way. The other two gaped at him. It took a long moment for him to realize they weren’t following. He turned to find them fifteen feet back, where he had left them. “What?”

Liz waved at him incoherently. He got the meaning anyway.

“I like linguistics, sue me.”

Kyra threw her hands up and walked to catch up with Adam. “Honestly, not even the weirdest thing this week. Who cares if a drop-dead gorgeous guy can tell you the entomology of a word.”

“Etymology,” he said off-hand. “That’s the study of words. Entomology, which is what you just said, is the study of insects.”

Liz shook her head. “I don’t know if I like you enough yet.”

Adam was confused. “Like me enough for what?”

“To deal with your pedantry.”

He put his hands up in surrender and laughed. “Alright, my bad.”

Just then, a door they hadn’t noticed opened a few feet in front of them with a bang. A smaller man stumbled out, dripping blood.

“Whoa!” Adam put his hands up, ready to fight.

Kyra shoved past him and caught the man before he crashed to the floor. He was about halfway between Kyra and Adam in height, slight of frame, with freckles, thick-rimmed black glasses, and a mop of untamed, sweaty, greasy brown hair. He gasped at seeing the three of them, then his eyes rolled back and he was out cold.

“Adam, secure the door. Liz, help me out,” Kyra was straining to keep from dropping the unconscious man. He was only a little heavier than her, but she still had virtually no upper body strength.

Both immediately listened to her. Adam scoped out the far room, finding it covered in puddles of green liquid, body parts, and more blood than could be explained by the corpses he could see. Despite seeing no active threat, he stood at the ready, blocking the doorway.

Liz grabbed the man and gently lowered him to the ground while Kyra cast a healing spell. His breathing went from ragged to smooth between inhales.

“Even if this is all I get from the system,” Kyra said quietly. “I’ll be thankful forever.”

Adam glanced back, unsure how, or even if to respond. Liz shook her head. They had only been a group for a few days, but it was clear to her that Kyra was having a profound moment.

After the man was situated and Liz was watching to make sure he wasn’t a threat, Kyra peeked around the side of the door frame Adam stood in.

“Gross.”

“That sums it up pretty well,” Adam said.

“Why are you standing here, though?” Kyra shook her head, still peeking into the gore-filled room.

Adam held up his index finger. “First: when our door closed, it disappeared.” He put up a second finger. “B: there are bodies in here.”

Kyra nodded. “And the third?”

Adam extended the third finger. “Trois: there might be goodies. We have no idea how long he’s been in here, if there are other people, or if there’s food.”

Kyra felt a little thrill down her spine. She dismissed it. “That was three more points on your third.”

Adam shrugged. “Counting is hard.”

Liz spoke up, though she refused to take here eyes off the unknown man. “What do we do?”

“I want to check the room, and see if there’s anything in here. Kyra, if you can stay here with Liz,” he said while looking down at his friend. She nodded. “I’ll clear it and loot everything I can. Hopefully, it’ll only take a few minutes. Oh,” he paused before entering. He looked down at Kyra again. His eyes were bright, almost feverish. “Kyra, please don’t let the door close. I don’t know if it would disappear, but I don’t want to chance it.”

Kyra nodded gravely, then took his position as he walked into the room. She sat with her back to the door, glancing between both the man and Liz, as well as Adam’s retreating form.

He stepped carefully. His shoes were falling apart, and he was certain the green liquid was poison. The remains of a massive spider, more than four times the size of the ones he’d fought with Kyra, were scattered all around the room. It was like the man, whoever he was, had taken his time dismantling the spider at each and every joint. He nudged one piece of leg, disgusted to find it was like a large tube with hair growing out of it. Black ichor dripped from both ends of the severed limb. It quickly turned to digital dust, with the rest of the body following in a rippling ring of dark gray smoke.

+20 Tutorial Points.

“Fascinating,” he said as he watched the body disappear. Then he picked his way across the room. It was thoroughly coated in all manner of fluids. There was the green of the poison, which smoked just the smallest bit when he crouched to observe it. Then there was the black ichor of the spider, and a lot of human blood. Surprisingly, he found no other bodies.

The hallway at the far side of the room was much like their own, with two additional rooms radiating from it. One was completely clear, and the other had a host of corpses. Four humans, so badly chopped up and decomposed he couldn’t even begin to guess genders. Curious, he tried to loot the human bodies. They drifted away, but he gained nothing.

“Weird.”

He made his way back to the survivor being watched by his friends. He had questions.

Kyra saw the look in his eyes as he walked back and immediately jumped up. She knew something was wrong.

“What is it?”

He looked down at the unconscious man before answering. “There are four corpses in the far room. Would have been the room Liz started in on our side.”

“Huh,” Liz grunted.

“At least, I think it’s four. They’re in bad shape. Like, Dexter bad.”

“Ew,” Kyra said as she wrapped herself in a hug. She rubbed her arms and stared at the small man. “Do you think…?”

Adam shook his head. “I don’t know what to think. I do know jumping to conclusions is dangerous, though. He could have killed them all, or he could have barely escaped some nasty in-fighting, or maybe he’s just lucky and he survived the first fight when they didn’t. We just don’t know.”

He looked at Kyra, seeing her clearly shaken up. He stooped down, wrapping her in his arms. She hardly noticed, just staring at the man. He sat, drawing her down with him. She sat next to him, still comforting herself.

“What’s up?”

Liz looked over, noting the haunted expression on Kyra’s face.

“I’ve seen him before.”

“Before? You mean, like, before the tutorial?”

Kyra nodded. “He worked at… at…” she trailed off. Then she shook her head. “Never mind. It probably isn’t him.”

Adam looked between the two women. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Kyra said. The firmness in her voice surprised all three of them. That was when the man groaned, coughed, and opened his eyes.

“Oh, gods. What happened?” Despite his small stature and unusual appearance, his voice was a pleasant tenor.

Adam stood, unsure what else to do. “You surprised us here. Did you kill that spider?”

The man nodded, closing his eyes once more. He threw an arm across his face. “Yeah.” He swallowed. “Yeah, I did. That was… not fun.”

“What’s your name?” Liz scooted a little away from the man, wanting a gap in case he tried anything.

“I’m Carl. Carl Strossenberg.”

“Hello, Carl. I’m Adam. Can you tell us what happened to everybody else in your room?”

Carl grew quiet. “They died.”

“Yes, I noticed that.” Adam looked at Liz, who stood and backed another step away. “Can you tell us how they died?”

“I woke up in a room with this weird spider-pig hybrid thing. It had eight horrible legs, way too many eyes, tusks jutting from a pig face, bristles… it was like God was hungover and slapping horrible things together instead of throwing up.”

“Descriptive,” Kyra said. She clutched the back of Adam’s slacks and peered around him.

Carl nodded. “I was lucky. There was only one in my room. I kicked it to death, looted it, got some daggers. I guess the others all spawned in their room with twice as many of the things. It was a slaughter. I found the key at the end of the hallway and opened the door, only to find that… bloodbath. I threw up, shut the door, and cried for like a day straight.”

Liz softened her stance. He didn’t look to be a threat to her. Adam was on the fence. However, he could feel the tension in Kyra’s grip. Her knuckles were practically white from the tension.

“Did you work at UTS in Dallas?”

Carl started, his eyes flying open and fixing on Kyra’s face. “You… you’re her.”

She swallowed. “And you’re him.”

Liz looked down at Kyra, then over at Carl. She adopted a fighting stance. “Who are you and why is she so freaked out?”

Adam had never let his guard down, but he shuffled a step back to get Kyra clear of any attacks.

Carl crunched up to a seated position. “I already told you, I’m Carl Strossenberg. Doctor Carl Strossenberg.”

“Kill him,” Kyra hissed. “He’s dangerous.”

Adam looked down at Kyra, then over at Liz. They turned their attention to the doctor.

“Well,” Carl said. “What are you going to do?”