Chapter Twelve

“My zombie apocalypse plan is simple but effective: I fully intend to die in the very first wave.”

-Graham Parke

“So what the hell do you propose we do?” Liza looked up at the tall, smiling man beside her, waiting for his idea, and wished that she had been lumped together in this apocalypse with anyone else.

“I reckon we mow our way through.”

He lifted up the rifle in his hands and smiled down at her. She holstered the Glock with a sigh to indicate her thoughts on his idea. They were now around fifty feet away from any zombies they could see.

Maybe it would help her to think her way out if she had both hands available.

“No?” he asked. She shook her head.

“No, we don’t have enough ammo between all three weapons to make a pathway through all of them. Any space we make will just be filled, unless…” Liza trailed off.

Mow our way through.

His plan wouldn’t work, but his wording may just have given her an idea that would.

“Blazer, I need you to break into one of these cars,” she said with confidence. He didn’t look like he was willing to move, and instead raised up his rifle and levelled it at the horde, moving it left and right as he tried to pick a target. “Are you listening to me? Come help me with—” She flinched, gritting her teeth as he took a shot. The zombies worked their jaws and continued to come at them. With more determination now, if anything.

Liza was beginning to realise that their hunting prowess relied almost solely on movement and sound. Their eyes were milky and faded and she figured that they didn’t draw breath, so they probably couldn’t smell.

Which meant that the guy beside her was making the worst possible decisions, one after another. Sound was the enemy. She grabbed at the barrel and lowered it forcefully, glaring up at him and hating the fact that he was making her feel like some disapproving shrew. He yanked the rifle away from her with a frown, but kept it lowered.

“What?” he demanded.

“You’re a lousy goddamn shot,” she told him. “And do you really think one or two hits is going to make a dent in that? There are hundreds. Now, I hate to say this, but I need your help.”

He grinned again, his lips peeling back to show one wonky canine.

“It’s fun, love, you should try it.”

“Fun, or shooting? Because I’m pretty adept at both,” she tossed over her shoulder as she walked away, to the one or two remaining cars in the street. The last time she had looked at this road properly it had been lined on both sides with parked vehicles; it just proved that pretty much everybody had fled Fairacres at the first sign of trouble.

That car blocking off most of the road at the other end was still there, which showed that nobody had tried too hard to move it. The driver’s side door hung open, and Liza waved Blazer over as quickly as she could. He squinted past his rifle and let out another echoing crack, felling not one single monster.

“Stop!” she shouted, gathering up the fabric of his dirtied vest in her hand and yanking him towards the doors. “You’re wasting ammo, and you look like a twat. Get in the car. Find the keys.” She looked the vehicle over, an old two-door blue-grey Mazda, and made sure that the laughing boy let himself into the car and began searching in earnest.

“You gotta get in here too, love, it’s not safe out there with all the crazy bastards.”

Liza peered at him. “Zombies,” she said. “They’re definitely, obviously, zombies.”

“Zombies, vampires, werewolves. You know what they all have in common?” he asked, leaning his head out the door with a stupid look on his face.

Liza shrugged. Twenty-four hours ago the answer would have been simple. They didn’t exist. Now?

“They can all bite my fucking banger.”

She didn’t need to look at him to know he had grabbed at his own crotch when he said that. She turned back to the horde, suppressing a shudder. “Keys.”

They were coming straight for them anyway. The gap had closed to twenty feet and they had swallowed up the possibility of a couple of other cars, but Liza was certain that if any of them had the keys still inside, it would be this one abandoned in the middle of the road, not any of those still parked outside the houses.

“Anything?” she asked, lifting her rifle and sighting at them. A couple of stragglers at the front of the group could get picked off, and they were moving in unison in such a way that if she missed because they were moving, she would probably snag a different one instead.

But she didn’t want to waste ammo on a drop in the ocean until she knew it was necessary.

“Nothing,” Blazer announced finally. “Looked everywhere. No keys.”

“Yeah, that would have been too easy, in retrospect,” Liza said, and went for it.

Five gunshots, the noise ricocheting almost painfully around the abandoned residential road. Three perfect headshots, one blown off ear, and one neckshot.

Headshot COMBO! x3

80 UP

80 UP (+10)

80 UP (+20)

270 UP

She was getting slightly better at hitting moving targets. But she would prefer if the skill came to her more quickly than it was.

When she met with Celia again she would see if there was a way to upgrade a gun to make it easier to aim, somehow.

“Blazer, I’m gonna need to hear good news from you soon,” she said. There was no true panic in her voice — after all, the road behind the car was fairly clear of zombies, except for perhaps one or two faraway stragglers that weren’t going to be an issue anytime soon.

“Love, I’m telling you, there’s nothing,” he snapped back. Liza lowered her gun and huffed out a sigh.

“Maybe … there’s something I can do.” She nodded for him to get out and aim his nearly useless gun at the approaching zombies while she climbed into the car.

“I told you, there’s nothing in here. Unless you know how to hotwire a car?”

She chewed her lip. “I guess, in theory, but … no, not really,” she said. “But if all the components are already present, then maybe I do.”

Mazda 626 (2000)

UP to Next Level

Repair?

77/100

100

Features

Weak Body

400

Empty Slot (Unlock)

100

“Hotwire!” she snapped to the interface in front of her, smacking the wheel with the flat of her palm. “Stupid game.”

Blazer began to shoot, and from the rapid gunfire followed by the hissed cursing, Liza didn’t have to look over to see that her time to figure this out was running low. There were two options, and repairing it would do nothing but fix the dents.

You have unlocked a slot for a new feature for this item.

What would you like to add?

Hotwired (temporary) — 400

“Yes!” she screamed. Blazer let out a strangled noise as his rifle began to let off hollow clicking noises instead of gunfire. “Get in. Get in, now!” she yelled out to him. He was frozen, a couple of feet from the horde and staring at the grasping rotted hands. “Get in!” she roared, slamming her door shut as the engine turned over, as if by magic.

Jolted back to action by the rumbling car behind him, Blazer darted to his right, driving the butt of his rifle into the closest zombie’s sternum. The rotting flesh caved in and the boy screamed, dropping the gun like it had a fat spider on it, and circling the car before heaving open the side door and leaping inside.

His breaths came short and heavy, his eyes wide and darting. He looked over to Liza, who was smiling at him, her hands on the steering wheel.

“What the fuck are you doing? Gun it, love. Hurry the fuck up,” he gasped.

“I’m waiting for you to tell me how amazing you think I am for hotwiring a car,” she said.

A zombie fell onto the bonnet and gargled wetly, reaching its hand to slam against the windscreen, and Blazer let out a shout of pure primal fear.

“Not so funny now that they’re close up, is it?” she asked.

“You’re amazing, you’re fucking incredible,” he stammered, and sucked in another breath at the sight of the main body of the horde. “You’re the most capable woman I want to be in this car with right now.”

“Eh,” Liza said, throwing the gearstick into reverse. “Good enough.”

They squealed backwards and the zombie rolled off the bonnet. When she got to the curb she curved forwards again, closing the gap to the horde and causing Blazer to let out the sound of a boiling kettle briefly before she straightened up and took them backwards again.

She reversed maybe an eighth of a mile and then stopped suddenly, enjoying the sight of the terrified boy beside her.

“We’ll need to fortify it for this,” she told him, popping open the door again. “Help me out. Bring over the biggest glass shards from the broken windows, and any wood you find — but preferably metal.” She hopped out onto the street, but he stayed put. “You listening?”

“Keep … keep going,” he said. “Just turn around; let’s go to London.”

“But our friends,” Liza said. “I’m gonna show you how to fortify a car. OK?”

“Fuck,” he muttered, and then punched the dashboard hard. “Fuck!” he cried, shaking his fist and grimacing at the pain from his punch. “They’re coming. Get in the car.”

“Give me one second.” Liza could see the obliterated motorcycle she had noticed earlier on. The dented body would integrate into the body of the car if she had correctly interpreted the game’s rules. Like alchemy, nothing could just be created from nothing. She could strengthen glass with glass, metal with metal. She lifted the bike’s body with all of her strength and hurled it as close to the car as she could.

Back inside the car, a few quick eye movements later and the ex-bike had vanished. Blazer opened and shut his mouth in confusion, but said nothing.

“Thank you for not driving off,” Liza said lightly, and checked out the car again.

Mazda 626 (2000)

UP to Next Level

Repair?

77/100

100

Features

Hardened Body

900

Hotwired

N/A

“Hardened Body!” she said, turning to present him with a high five.

Blazer looked pale, and ignored her hand, so she let it drop. He had come pretty close to death just then, so she forgave him for not grabbing any glass. She slammed the door shut and settled into the seat, hands on the wheel. “Seatbelts on.” No response.

She turned with a frown. “Seriously, dude, this is gonna suck. Put your seatbelt on and say a prayer.”

He clicked his belt into place wordlessly, robotically.

“There’s a boy,” she cooed. “Now let the only woman you want in the car with you take you for a spin, huh?”

She was already thinking about all the amazing things she could do to pimp out this car, or any other vehicle they found. It may as well be this one, she reasoned, as she had already sunk points into it to hotwire and strengthen the outer shell.

“What are you waiting for?” Blazer growled, regaining some of his colour. “Pedal to the metal, love.”

“Roger that,” she said, and blew out a breath. The little car’s engine chugged along happily, and Liza put it in gear and then slammed her foot on the gas.

The Mazda roared forward. They approached the horde at what felt to her like a snail’s pace. They weren’t going to make it. They were going to get bogged down in a mess of rotting flesh and they were going to get overpowered.

“Please, little car,” she said. “Hurry up.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Blazer yelled, holding onto the seat on either side of him, knuckles white. “Go faster!”

“What do you think I’m doing?” she cried back.

The first zombie rolled up onto the bonnet and then, to their relief, up and over the top of the car completely, flying through the air before landing with an almost comically wet ‘splat’ on the road behind them.

“Fuck you, zombies!” Blazer said, flipping his middle finger at the twitching creature.

Liza whooped, but they were far from out of the woods yet. A fact she was reminded of as she looked at the hundreds in front of them. Their speed wasn’t high enough. It couldn’t be. But there was no time to think about the things they could have done differently.

That was the moment that they ploughed into the thickest part of the horde.

Neither of them could help but yell out at the top of their lungs as they bowled over and rolled under the zombies like pins, cutting through the masses of hungry grabbing arms and clacking yellow teeth like a butter knife through caramel. The speedometer dragged backwards through the numbers they had already cleared, despite how desperately Liza kept her foot to the floor.

The decision to fortify the car had been an important one, because the body was getting dented left and right even with 400 points spent on hardening it up. She had no doubt that without that extra effort, they would have been in far more trouble.

“Think of something,” Blazer grunted.

“You think of something, I’ve done all the thinking so far!” she cried back. The speedometer slowed further. They continued to plough zombies, and they were making their way speedily through the group, but there were a couple hundred more to carve through and they barely had any power left in them.

What would Celia do?

She let her eyes flutter shut, and then opened them, and a frown cut through her face.

“Love, we really … we really have to think of something quick.”

“What makes a car go faster?” she asked.

“The fucking … the fucking accelerator,” he stammered.

“Nitrous oxide, exactly,” she said, drumming on the steering wheel. “Nitrogen and oxygen. In the air. Come on, system. You get me, I get you. We’re friends now. Let me have this.”

One of her brothers, Tobias, had always been really into cars. One time when she was a preteen he had let her sit in the garage and watch as he installed a NOS booster to the gorgeous old car he’d been working on for years. Liza had thought back to that moment regularly; it represented one of her favourite things about growing up in such a resourceful family: the ability to swap skills back and forth as casually as conversation.

The information might save her life now.

She unlocked a slot with her eye movement, and rapidly scrolled to the important menu. They were down to 20mph and things were looking dire. The undead in every direction scraped and slammed at every single inch of the car that separated them from death.

“What … what are you doing?” Blazer asked. “What are we gonna do?”

“Give me a second, this is maybe … a stupid idea.” Or maybe an amazing one.

Mazda 626 (2000)

UP to Next Level

Repair?

77/100

100

Features

Hardened Body

900

Empty Slot (Unlock)

100

You have unlocked a slot for a new feature for this item.

What would you like to add?

NOS Booster — 800 (Nitrous Oxide)

“It’s in the fucking air!” she screamed. “Nitrogen and oxygen; what else do you want?”

“What are you talking about?” Blazer yelled, squeezing the seat underneath him even tighter as they crunched erratically through two dozen more corpses.

“I’m trying to add a NOS booster but the system won’t acknowledge the nitrogen and oxygen to make nitrous oxide,” she said faster than she had ever spoken before.

“The game? The headset? You can do shit like that?” he asked, gripping at his seat. “Can you just add shit for real? Anything? I couldn’t fucking figure it out.”

“What would you do?”

“Check if the car has a turbocharger.” He wiped off his forehead. “Can you do that?”

“Fuck!” Liza replied, concentrating hard on the car and willing some kind of more detailed specs page up. A vague light rippled across the dash in front of her.

Mazda 626 (2000)

Known in Japan as the Mazda Capella, this mid-size car was introduced in 1970 as an alternative to the larger Luce and smaller Familia. [View more information]

Hardened Body

Mid-Size

Weak Glass

Turbodiesel engine

[View full features list]

“I don’t know. Turbodiesel engine. I don’t know,” she told him; she had never read that fast before, it almost gave her motion sickness.

“Well turn it the fuck up!” he cried, his voice cracking.

She unlocked the option and, breathing hard with panic, brought up the menu again.

“Now what? I need to know how it works to use it! I need to know exactly—”

“Spin the fan faster! It’s a fan — just spin the fucking fan!”

Mazda 626 (2000)

UP to Next Level

Repair?

77/100

100

Features

Hardened Body

900

Turbocharge

850

“Yes … yes!” Liza cried. As she wilfully selected the option she turned to Blazer. “Hang o—”

The car lurched, leaving Liza’s stomach ten feet behind. They zoomed across the body-strewn tarmac, slicing through the last section of reaching, clawing zombies. They could barely hear their own screams, but the hoarse pain in her throat proved that she was.

“Thundering cocksuckers!” he screamed at the top of his lungs. Liza couldn’t help but let out a high-pitched laugh at his choice of words.

“Could not have said it better myself!” she said, yanking the wheel so that they drifted rapidly through the final undead.

Blazer leaned over and shoved the wheel to the right, and Liza held on tight so that they whipped around the corner and launched onto Main Street ... headed straight for the pileup on the train tracks.

“Left, left!” she roared, no idea if Blazer knew they were headed for the crash of their lifetime once they had cleared the horde and back in empty air, still hurtling at neckbreaking speeds.

Vehicular Manslaughter! x43

50 UP

50 UP (+10)

50 UP (+20)

[see 40 more lines]

Liza lifted her fist and whooped as they careened wildly down the narrow street to the left of the pileup, before coming to a roundabout and slamming her foot down on the brakes as the boost eased down to nothing.

She scraped the hair from her eyes and turned to Blazer, a newfound affection for the man beside her now that she had escaped the impossible with his help.

To their right was a grassy strip and a path that led to Fairacres West train station, and to their left were a couple of office buildings, and a winding path that led up the hill to their campus. Beyond was an industrial park. The road that curved to the right by the roundabout they had squealed to a halt at led to the cathedral.

“Hell yeah!” she cried.

He blew out a breath and shook his head, but then his face contorted and he started to laugh. She joined in, and they leaned back and let the giddiness of succeeding wash over them.

“That was by far the craziest thing I’ve done since this whole thing has started,” he said, leaning, spent, against the headrest.

“Oh, I’ve seen a fair few crazy things already,” Liza said. “Thieves, weirdos, criminals; the very worst of humanity already, it feels like. Some guys just tried to kill me in my own house.”

“What the fuck?” he asked, looking genuinely angry for her. “What did you do? How did you escape?”

Liza paused before telling him, but she felt like saying it out loud. Cementing it. It was her real life now, and Blazer had earned a secret after surviving with her. “I … I guess I killed them first.”

His eyes widened. “You did? You could just … kill someone?”

“It was me or them,” she said, sinking back into her chair and blowing hair from her face. “That’s how it has to be now.”

He shook his head slowly, in awe. “I didn’t think about it.”

“I had help. The zombies.”

“Fucking zombies.”

“Yeah!” Liza said. “Thundering cocksuckers, the lot of ‘em!”

He stared forward.

“It’s alright,” she said. “We have a huge advantage with our weapons. ”

“All I have is a rifle with no bullets,” he reminded her, pressing his fingertips into his temple. He had a sheen of sweat on his face that she didn’t remember seeing just a moment earlier; he must have really been nervous about what lay ahead, now that they had crashed through the great zombie barrier.

“Ammo has become the most important resource in the world for us. Life or death. We need even more if we want to stay alive.”

“I do want to stay alive.”

“I think the next step is to get to the cathedral, find the other survivors. Then we’ll figure out what the step after that is. Probably London.”

He remained silent, his hands trembling. At something she had said, or at some secret thought locked away beneath his boyband hairstyle?

“Did you see all those points?” Liza asked, bringing up the enormous scrolling list and then dismissing it, unable to trawl through it all quickly enough with her eyes. Instead she checked out her overall UP score by navigating to the plus sign she could see by her full health bar.

13,040 UP.

She leaned her head back and let out a laugh. “Look, look at how many points you have.” She nudged Blazer.

He had a really strange look on his face. Her own smile fell when she noticed it. “What? Did you leave your headset back at the—”

He had her Glock in his hands. When had he taken it from her holster? At some point she must have completely let her guard down, when he had leaned over to her.

He lifted it, let out a burdened breath, and then closed his eyes as he fired it.

Heat pooled across her abdomen. Then came the pain.

“You’re still a lousy shot,” she growled, feeling the blood leave her face almost instantly, and then the shock from being cut open by hot metal fill her from head to toe.

Blazer whispered something that might have been ‘Sorry, love’, but might have been something else entirely, and then popped the driver’s side door open behind her, and pushed her out into the middle of the road. Liza rolled neck-first onto the tarmac, in too much pain to fight back.

And the man whose life she had just saved jumped into the driver’s seat, slammed the door shut above her, and squealed away with all of her possessions, leaving her prone and bleeding out in the middle of a city filled with ravenous undead.