If I stumble

they’re gonna eat me alive

Can you hear my heart

beating like a hammer?

— Metric, Help I’m alive

In the absence of glass, a window is just a hole. The bus had only holes. The windows had shattered long ago when it caught fire. The whole thing was blackened and bare, after the fire had consumed everything inside. Sarah grabbed a window frame and pulled herself upward. She felt the hands of zombies trying to grab her feet, but luckily, they fell short for a fraction of a second. Losing a sneaker to those fucking corpses would have been a problem.

Sarah stepped on the roof of the bus and assessed the situation. The zombies were already swarming around the vehicle, cutting any possible retreat. She could only go up now.

The bus had crashed against the wall of the building. Right abover her she could see a window in the second floor. It was closed and just out of reach.

OK. How do I get there?

She could try her luck at jumping, but she would most surely fall short, and plummet to the ground where the swarm of undead was aching to rip her brains apart.

The good thing was that she was not in a hurry anymore. If it came to that, she could stand there for hours, pondering the situation.

Another way of saying: awaiting death.

No. She would get out of it. The task was not impossible.

Just above the window there was an old AC unit. If she could somehow get a hold of it, she could step on it and try the window of the third floor, or maybe hang from it and kick the one in the first floor, in an attempt to break it open.

She unfastened her backpack and grabbed the rope. The zombies kept murmuring nonsense, groaning and drooling. There must be like one or two thousand already, occupying the whole block, piling up around the bus. If I don’t act fast, they will get to me by just stepping on their fallen comrades.

The rope was too short to loop it around the AC. She would need to anchor it somehow, and hope it was secured tightly enough not to detach itself under her weight. And these boobs certainly weigh a lot.

She tied the dead man’s gun to one end of the rope and threw it up. After a few attempts, she could make it pass over one of the AC unit’s nooks, but when she pulled, it came down immediately. It was too light.

After a thorough review of her equipment, and a survey of everything around her, she realized that the only thing she could do was use the backpack with everything inside. The combined weight of all of it, plus the bulk of everything pressing between the unit and the wall, might do the trick. The downside was that she could just lose everything.

The zombies were growing restless and some of them were already being smashed by their peers. One fell down, then two, then more. The others climbed on them, their arms raised in an attempt to get a hold of Sarah. Once more, a chill ran down her spine. She thought of conjuring her firearms but what good would it do against so many zombies? It would be like throwing a glass of water at hell itself. She would run out of ammunition before clearing a visible spot in the swarm.

She threw the backpack up. She failed. The backpack fell down amongst the undead. She pulled the rope before they could grab it. I need to be more careful. She shot it again. She failed again.

It was only in her seventeenth attempt that she was successful. She pulled hard to check that it would resist. It did.

Sarah started climbing.

It was not a heartwarming position, having abandoned the protection of the bus to hang right above the thousands of zombies gathered in front of the building. She looked down and regretted it. She kept climbing until she could reach the AC unit. She pulled herself up, and lay on her chest on that tiny, dirty surface.

There was a noise. A very ugly noise.

The thing was yielding.

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

She frantically untied the knot she had with such a tight grip. Her hands hurt as she tried to bend the rope to her will. She succeeded when the AC unit was already on a 30 degree slope, and she was sliding down when she started securing the rope to the pipe behind the unit. Then she bent the pipe over itself so that the rope would not slide out, sending her to the floor.

I wish I would have applied more points to Strength.

One thing she had noticed was that the character selection turned out to be pretty much irrelevant in terms of basic traits. Any task or the accumulation of a few skills would give the player enough points to offset the initial advantages for their characters. Once again, she lamented not having chosen a character with the ability of Flight. Skills were much more defining than traits, at least in this alpha version of the Anderworld.

Sarah finished the tightest knot she could make in such a short timeframe, grabbed the rope with one hand, and grabbed the backpack with the other, as firmly as possible.

Then the AC unit yielded.

It detached from the wall, and plumetted to the floor. Two zombies that were looking up eagerly, waiting for her to fall, received it instead. The device smashed their faces and fractured their necks. The rest of the undead ignored them and kept looking up with hungry eyes.

Now came the part where she tried to smash the closed window.

I definitely should have chosen the fairy. Or at least put everything in Strength.

She kicked the wall and swung back. The pipe complained, the rope complained, and she caught a glimpse of the zombies down there waiting for her to fail. A sense of dread invaded her.

She swung forward and crashed against the window with both feet.

It didn’t break.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

She swung back again. She swung forward again.

The window withstood the attack.

Nononononono, please break, you have to break.

She swung back. She swung forward.

It resisted.

One more time.

She swung back. She swung forward.

Nothing.

Oh, come on!

She swung back. She swung forward.

The blinds cracked just a little bit.

Yesss!

She swung back. She swung forward.

Still outside, but the blinds had cracked a tiny bit further.

She swung back. She swung forward.

And again.

And again.

It took a few more attempts until the blinds finally broke and the glass behind them crashed. Sarah jumped into the apartment and used the switchblade to cut the rope, leaving the last few feet hanging from the pipe.

Safe for now... I think.

Unlike the apartment she had left, this one wasn’t prepared for an outbreak. The windows and doors weren’t blocked with planks and she found nothing useful. The guy in the bathtub had been a survivor; who knew why he had decided to kill himself when he was surrounded by weapons, rope, and all kinds of protection. In this apartment, however, ordinary people had lived, and they had fled to an uncertain fate when the outbreak happened. Or at least that’s what Sarah concluded.

She raided the pantry. It was empty. The people who used to live here had definitely fled.

Sarah thought for a minute. She would need to get to the hardware store while being on the ground the least amount of time possible — since she had no way to fly, she would ideally be jumping on the street to cross from building to building and then keep going throught the first floor of the new building, and so on. She briefly considered using the power lines, but she didn’t know if they still had power even though there didn’t seem to be any streetlights on, which at this time they should be. Better play it safe.

She needed to use the rope, but with a bit more preparation. Something that could serve as a hook or anchor, which she could use to affix to all kinds of openings.

After searching the apartment fruitlessly for anything that could serve as a grappling hook, she decided to raid the rest of the floor. She grabbed the hammer and the flashlight. She would also need some protection in case some of those apartments, unlikely as it seemed, were still inhabited by potentially dangerous people: Store switchblade. Retrieve pistol.

She found the task easier than she had thought. In the absence of people, any determined thief can do whatever they please, she realized; what deters a thief is not so much a good lock as the presence of neighbours who can alert the police whenever they hear a strange noise or see anything suspicious. Eliminate the people and suddenly a lock is just a brute force challenge. Her hammer and her legs were more than enough to solve it.

In another apartment she found several S-hooks that were stored in a bin. Those would do. She grabbed three and fashioned a grappling hook. She had no way to solder them in place but she used the metallic wire to more or less lock them in position; she then looped the rope around them and tied a complex knot. Once she was satisfied, she used the rest of the wire to fasten them even more.

Armed with her new hook plus some further provisions, Sarah headed over to a window leading to the opposite street. The bluish tint indicating the position of the flamethrower was still there. She would need to cross four blocks to get to the hardware store, since she had ran in the wrong direction when escaping the zombies.

The hardest part was not the climb, but exiting each building silently. She would often need to break windows and jump on resounding surfaces; sometimes she would need to open metallic gates. This would immediately call the attention of the zombies, reducing the time available for launching the hook and climbing up the next building.

I could use some Stealth right now, instead of being awarded with it at the end of this fucking task.

There was also the little detail about blocks consisting of several buildings, all of them separated from each other. She would have to cross from building to building by swinging from one window to another, or by jumping from rooftop to rooftop like the Spider-Woman. A third alternative struck her as more practical: she would take advantage of any clear on the street to make a quick run along the block and only jump into a building when zombies got too close for comfort.

The process took her more than two hours, and the sky was pitch black when she finally arrived at the hardware store. She hoped her flashlight wouldn’t die at that moment because she hadn’t found any replacement batteries.

The hardware store’s entrance was blocked by a steel curtain that was, of course, impossible to open. Sarah had to climb up a lamppost to be able to throw the hook and get a grip on the roof. She then came in through a tiny window located near the roof. Inside, she found herself looking at the floor. It would be a free fall of ten or twelve feet at least — nothing she hadn’t done multiple times in the past few hours. She executed a three-point landing and screamed when the flashlight flew out of her grip. It bounced several times on the hard floor, but somehow it didn’t break.

She toured the place, stumbling on something once in a while, trying to make a conservative use of the flashlight. Until she found a row of bigger, better flashlights, and dozens of packs of batteries. And then, with better lighting, she could inspect the store at leisure.

I could live here instead. But the task description included getting back safely, so Sarah guessed that was a no-no. However, nothing could stop her from grabbing some additional provisions while she was there.

She scoured every aisle, every nook and cranny, and picked up some treasures: a longer, sturdier rope; a professional grade grappling hook; a soldering mask; several kinds of glue; some barbed wire; a machete, a saw, a larger backpack, and a bicycle.

And as she walked around the building, she finally found the flamethrower.

There it was, in all its lack of glory. It was an unconspicuous thing; if not for the slight glow that her Perception used to isolate it from the environment, and that became visible when she wasn’t pointing the flashlight at it, Sarah would probable have walked past it. It looked no different from any other of the many contraptions present in the hardware store. It basically consisted of two parallel fuel tanks, a straight mounting with a strap to put it on your back, a hose with a trigger and an igniter. All of it in boring shades of brown, dark green and gray, which would make it useful in conventional combat but in a city overrun with zombies it mattered precisely nil.

As soon as she lifted the flamethrower, Sarah realized that something was wrong.

It was light. Way too light. It was empty.

Sarah felt her heart skipping a beat and turning inside her.

She had expected to be able to use the flamethrower on the way back. But without fuel, it was useless. Not only she had to do the whole process again, sneaking into the streets and climbing into buildings, but now she had to do it all while carrying the fucking flamethrower.

Unless...

Did she actually have fuel for the weapon?

If the weapons themselves crossphased between realms, why not the fuel?

Sarah invoked her Inventory. And then she realized that she had turned out to be wise in saving her mana and using her XP instead to exchange for currency back in the medieval village. Her Mana indicator had now changed. The relevant portion of her Inventory said:

Fuel 0060 ($30/x)

Depending on the thing’s consumption, that coin would have been too expensive if she had gotten rid of her precious mana.

In the zombie apocalypse, fire is like a deadly spell. Got it.

Now, if Sarah wasn’t wrong, flamethrowers are typically useful for a couple of shots before depleting their charge. She would have to be recharging it with mana (or fuel, here) all the time. She would need to be economical in her use of the flamethrower, despite there being so many zombies out there.

She couldn’t resist taking a test shot. She wanted to know how much fuel (or mana) she would be wasting every time she pulled the trigger. Going to a relatively empty corner of the store, she took a deep breath and did it.

A big flame lit up the whole place, shooting forward and extending in all directions when it reached the wall. Sarah couldn’t help gasping in amazement. The flame was much bigger than she would have imagined. When it ceased, some of the light remained: several articles that had been placed against the wall had caught fire. Sarah had pointed the flamethrower to an empty spot on the wall, but the flame had spread out so much that it reached them.

Fuck!

Sarah started looking frantically for a fire extinguisher. Luckily, there were several, aligned beside the main counter, with price tags in game currency.

The flamethrower seemed to difficult to control, which made it dangerous for whoever wielded it. Sarah would need to be careful with it.

On the other hand... splash damage.

Sarah grinned at the thought. She put out the fire and took a look at her Inventory.

Fuel 0059 ($30/x)

That’s neat, she thought. The amount of fuel consumed by the flamethrower was helpfully measured in... shots, or blasts, or something. This meant that she would have fifty-nine opportunities to fry some zombies. That would be fun.

Sarah attached a big flashlight to the soldering mask with some duct tape, and put the mask on. She put on the flamethrower as well and hung the backpack on the back of the bicycle. She was about to pry the curtain open with a crowbar to go outside when she noticed her Perception was still active and tingling madly.

There was one more object of interest inside the hardware store.

She turned off the flashlight and followed the bluish ghost. The object was small, and she had a good idea about what it was.

She walked across the store in the dark, following her Perception, until she got to where the object was.

The cover still bore her name: “SAJYA”. On the first page, the two sentences she had already read remained. But now there was a third one.

Take Maggot to the Sorceress.