by Dante Steel
The fires all around them gave illumination to the vampires, and Gary almost wished he couldn’t see their faces. That siren had been terrifying, but the vampires were even more so. They might not be zombies, but they were just as ugly, as decayed. With a face so pale it almost glowed in the dark, eyes set unnaturally far apart, his veins darker and visible, the creature was one of the ugliest Gary had ever seen before. The vampires had black veins like the siren, their skin stretched tight over their bones, and their teeth were all razor sharp, at least a hundred in their overcrowded mouths. Being bitten by one would leave twin puncture marks. No. It would tear out your skin and leave you in agony as your skin and muscle would be ripped away. Hell, they might have enough strength in their jaws to bite clear through bone.
Gary wasn’t about to let any of them find that out.
Just then, Elena cried out. One of the vampires had managed to bite her arm. Gary yanked the vampire away from her, but the vampire’s teeth were too imbedded in her arm. Elena was jerked along as well, connected to the vampire’s teeth still. Gary had to yank out the vampire’s fangs one by one to free her. He tried to send those teeth as missiles to attack the other vampires, but that didn’t work. He quickly defanged the vampire, and Elena smashed its toothless mouth with her other arm. Her injured arm hung by her side.
Fuck.
Hoping she wouldn’t mind, Gary, who remained flying, managed to fly Elena over to the other two ladies. Nicoletta’s fire still burned, but before, she had been adding more length and heat to them. Now, they were just burning on their own. She was burned out.
Honestly, so was Gary. He landed by the women, hoping that by not wasting energy on flying, he could telekinetically move the vampires that much more easily.
But the vampires were still coming. The horde wasn’t dealt with entirely.
“Is this every last one of them?” Nicoletta asked.
“I doubt it,” Gary said. “It’s too early in the game.”
“Vampire War,” Olivia muttered. “This is just one battle in the war.”
“This is insane,” Elena said. “If I get my hands on Haru, I’m going to kill him.”
“You and me both.” Gary killed two more vampires and then gave Elena a potion.
She drank it, and he couldn’t see what it did, too intent on killing vampires two at a time.
“All right. Let me out of here,” she said.
“No,” Gary said. He was sweating from both the fire and the battle.
“Nicoletta, dim the fire in a spot so I can get free,” Elena begged.
“No. Vampires will get in.”
“You guys, we have to fight!” Elena said.
“We are,” Nicoletta argued.
“I’m not!”
“I can fly you out,” Olivia offered.
“Don’t,” Gary started, but Olivia was already holding onto Elena. She brought Elena down outside of the fire. The two collapsed instead of landing on their feet, and the vampires descended on them.
Fuck!
Gary didn’t care if he was tired. He dragged vampires to the fires five at a time instead of lifting them into the air. He did his best to bring them down faster and faster, and Nicoletta was throwing out a few small fireballs, pitching them like she would a softball. Her aim was decent even if the size of the fireballs were tiny. They were enough to cause the vampires to burn, and that was good enough for him.
Gradually, the cluster around the two girls were all dealt with. Although fifty or so vampires remained, they dashed off.
“Fuck me,” Gary said as he rushed over to check on Elena and Olivia. “If that was just one battle, I don’t want to take part in the war.”
Chapter Fourteen
The vampires were so fucking impossibly fast and strong and devastating. Gary could hardly believe what brutal killing machines they were. He hadn’t seen a ton of vampire movies or read a lot of vampire books, but he knew the drill about them. The garlic, the sun, the coffins… Seeing them in real life—well, in the game that was now his real life—that was insane and terrible. Gary hoped he would never see a single one again, but he knew that wasn’t going to be the case. Vampires were here to stay, and it wasn’t a good thing for them. Not at all.
Gary had been appalled to discover Olivia had been hurt. She had landed awkwardly on her ankle, and a vampire had nearly yanked her arm clear off. Nicoletta had held Olivia still, and Elena had wrenched the arm back into place. Gary had winced at the terrible sound of bone on bone. Olivia hadn’t made a sound though, and she sat back up, tenderly moving her arm but swinging it faster than Gary would’ve thought she might’ve.
She shrugged. “I had my arm pulled out of the socket before. It happens. It’s not easy for me to push it back in by myself. Thanks, Elena.”
“Don’t mention it,” Elena said stiffly. “But, ah, thanks for letting me out of the fire.”
“Thanks for keeping most of them at bay.”
“You could’ve flown back.”
“I wasn’t about to fly with my arm hanging like that,” Olivia said. “Besides, like I would’ve left your side. Give me a break, girl. I know you hate me—”
“I don’t hate you. I just don’t want you to touch my boobs.”
“Can I touch your ass then?”
“No.”
“Come on. You just thanked me for helping you.”
“No.”
“Man, what does a girl have to do to get some love around here?” Olivia gripped.
Gary grinned but knew better than to say anything.
“We need to find a town,” Nicoletta said. “Pronto.”
“I need to be heading off,” Olivia said, sounding regretful.
“I do too, but they need a place to stay that’s safe. We can’t leave them here all alone. What if another horde of vampires comes?”
“I didn’t say I was leaving now, did I?” Olivia flew up high into the sky and glanced all around. “Ah. Over to the east. I’m not sure if it’s a town, but it’s something worth investigating.”
“Lead the way,” Gary said.
Still flying, Olivia lead them. She and Nicoletta had drunk potions, and Gary gave another one to Elena and drank one himself. He didn’t want to waste his potions, but they were up against vampires. They had to stay at peak shape if they were going to survive this.
And they would survive this. Games were meant to be challenging but beatable. No one would want to play a game that was unbeatable.
As they headed along, they killed a few bats and some strange alligator-type creatures that were made of sand. Gary was grateful for that because they were easy kills, easy experience points.
Experience points. He hadn’t even checked after the vampiric battle, and he almost didn’t want to know how many levels he had gone up because it had to be an insane amount. He’d check later, once they were settled.
After a little bit of traveling, Elena called, “Thanks, Olivia and Nicoletta. For not abandoning us.”
“Never,” Nicoletta said, giving her a hug.
“She gets a hug?” Olivia joked.
Elena sniffled and waved Olivia down. The three girls all embraced, and it was touching and sweet, and Gary, for once, didn’t get a hard-on. He was just glad that they were bonding, that they were friends.
Olivia marched with them afterward, occasionally flying up to make sure they were still heading for it. As it turned out, the spot was a bunch of ruined buildings. Several houses had been partially burned.
“Hey, there’s a book here,” Elena said. She handed it to Nicoletta.
Nicoletta set a small fire in her hand and gave the book to Olivia to read.
“Blah, blah, blah… Nothing interesting… okay, here we go. ‘The war has started in earnest, and Momma is scared. She cries every night. Daddy went off to fight. I don’t think he’ll come home. The United States has fallen already. We will next. We all will fall to this terrible darkness.’”
“So we aren’t in the US,” Gary s
aid.
“Where are we?” Elena asked.
“Does it matter?” Nicoletta countered. “It’s not as if we can change this world back to what it had been before.”
“I don’t know.” Gary pointed. “Over there, I found a lost ocean. If we’re in Europe, that must be the Atlantic Ocean. Maybe we’re in England.”
“Still not sure it matters, but keep reading,” Nicoletta said.
“‘South America has fallen. Australia. They say down south, Antarctic, is still alive and has light, some. Some light. It’s not like they have lot of light there. The nuclear waste zone…’ Hold up. Nuclear waste zone? There’s no way in hell there’s actually radiation in the air for you to breathe, is there?”
“Haru wouldn’t,” Gary started, but then he hesitated. Would he have?
“I don’t think we have to worry about that,” Elena said. “There’s bats and other creatures. They wouldn’t be able to survive radiation poisoning, and it’s not as if they have three heads. We should be fine.”
“Okay, good. Although you would look hot even if you had a third boob,” Olivia joked.
Elena just rolled her eyes, but she did smile.
Gary grinned. Progress maybe.
“Read on,” he urged.
“‘World War Four has destroyed the world. New creatures have taken over. They’re strong and so fast. I think they’re vampires, but no one wants to call them that. We have no choice but to move underground.’” Olivia slammed the book shut. “Well, no shit, Shirleys, oh, and Sherlock. We haven’t been able to find any towns because the towns are underground. This barren wasteland is just a barren wasteland.”
“Let’s go find us a town,” Gary said with a grin.
Olivia kept the book, and they didn’t have to go far until they found a large rock with worn indentations forward and back as if the rock had been moved countless times. Elena slid it to the side, and sure enough, there was a hole inside.
Gary insisted on going first. Elena, of course, joked about him wanting to protect them, but it was the truth. He felt obligated to keep her safe, to keep them all safe. He didn’t want anything to happen to them. They all meant so much to him. He would even die for them.
The hole dropped him onto stairs, and he climbed down. Eventually, the darkness gave way to flickering torches at even intervals on the tiny pathway. The stairs opened into a large room.
A tavern.
Gary grinned. “First round’s on me!”
The girls were right behind him. Gary grinned as he claimed a stool at the bar and glanced around. The NPCs there were all rather skinny, as if wasting away, and they were all pale enough to look like vampires’ cousins.
A bar wench who still had massive boobs despite her impossibly thin waist came over, and he ordered two ales, one each for himself and Elena. Nicoletta and Olivia stayed with them as they drank, but he couldn’t tell if they had drinks back home in their real bodies. He didn’t know what pressing matter they had to attend to. Maybe it was just sleep. Maybe it was something with work or Nicoletta figuring out her future. Gary hated that he didn’t know every detail of their lives, and he hated that they had to go at all. It was selfish of him, but he wished that all of them could be in the game with him.
He was just like a guy, wanting to play out some twisted fantasy with all of them happy and with him.
After Nicoletta and Olivia hugged them both and left, Gary ordered them a second round.
Elena didn’t touch hers, though. She was eyeing the people. Most looked battle-hardened and tired as if they had been through so much and seen too much. NPCs from the war, Gary assumed.
But some of the people looked distinctly different. They were clearly other superheroes.
“What the hell?” Gary muttered.
“They have to be other players,” Elena said. “That money-hungry son of a bitch. He made the issue available to the general public! How the hell are they going to make sure that Smaug can’t come through, too?”
“Maybe he has safeguards up, but honestly I don’t think we can count on that.”
“Ya think?” Elena shook her head. “You said Samuel August was a genius, right?”
“Yep, how he was able to enter the game on purpose in the first place.”
“Which means that he might already be here.”
“It’s possible. We have to keep a low profile. He won’t know we’re here.”
“True enough. I hope the vampires are too much for him.”
“I wish we could go back,” Gary said. “I would rather go up against supervillains again than have to worry about Smaug and those vampires.”
“Good point, but I don’t know if we can. It’s not as if we’re in a video game and can just plug in the right version to the console.” She sighed and rubbed her head. “I need another drink.”
“You haven’t finished your second.”
She picked up her mug, drained it, and slammed it back down. “Another,” she said with a giggle.
He laughed and ordered her another, but inwardly, Gary wasn’t smiling. He was nervous. He was worried. He was honestly afraid.
More than anything, he hated that he wasn’t home. He needed to go back. He wanted to return to everyday living. His apartment was gone, his job too, but maybe he could get both back. He could start over, and…
Where would the ladies fit in? Because here or there, in the game or out, he still wanted them in his life. He wanted to help them achieve their goals. He would help taste test Elena’s baked goods for her bakery. Hell, he would probably need to be a patient of Olivia’s in order to get re-adjusted to the real world after having been in the game for so long. She was studying to be a psychologist. As for Nicoletta, he could help her figure out her future as he figured out his because if this game had taught him anything, it was that he wanted so much more out of life than to be a garbage man. He wanted to do something amazing. He wanted to help people.
Honestly, he wanted to be a superhero, but that wasn’t possible.
So, his future was as up in the air as Nicoletta’s, even more so considering he was stuck in the game.
“What are you thinking about?” Elena asked. “You haven’t finished your drink.”
He was still on his second.
Gary glanced at the ale and frowned. “I’m not thirsty.”
“Because of what you’re thinking about. Tell me.”
“You need to go back. I need to go back. What’s the hold up?”
“I don’t know.”
“This isn’t fair to you. Not at all. You didn’t sign up for this!”
“I knew going in that it might take a while,” Elena admitted.
“You made it sound like Haru said it would be easy.”
“I insinuated that because I wanted it to be true, and I didn’t want you to worry. For whatever reason, it’s easier to go in than out. Haru explained it, but it was a lot of technical terms that went over my head, and I couldn’t begin to remember all of them.”
“But your mom.”
“We weren’t close.”
“You mentioned an uncle.”
“He lives in California, far, far away. If I’m lucky, I see him once a year. I didn’t think that it would be a huge deal.”
“But your job, your place, your friends,” he protested.
“You’re one of my friends,” she said. She leaned over and reached for his hand, squeezing it.
“You did all of this, came all this way, because of me.”
“Yes.”
Because of love. Neither said the word out loud, but Gary knew it was there, that it was true. She loved him. He loved her.
But he also loved Nicoletta and Olivia. Could she ever handle that? Was it even fair for him to ask her to?
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” he said. “Tell me the most embarrassing thing you ever did.”
“No!” She laughed. “You first.”
“Fine, but then you and we’ll go on from there. The
funniest thing you ever did. The most ridiculous thing. The most—”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“Maybe. All right, so this one time…”
Chapter Fifteen
Life here in the underground town took some getting used to. There weren’t as many rooms as before, and it was harder to have privacy, but Gary and Elena did find a room to themselves that night. The did sleep together in bed without sleeping together. Gary thought it for the best, but he did wake to hearing moans coming from the bathroom. He had grinned. Elena was pleasuring herself. He waited to slip out until she returned to bed, and then he masturbated while thinking about her touching herself. It didn’t take him long at all to come.
The strangest part about the town was that while they were in the wasteland, they couldn’t tell day from night. Down here, they could.
Two days after they discovered the town, which looked as if a regular town had been dropped underground within a massive cave, Elena was off exploring with the other girls, and Gary was trying to see what all he could do as far as his skill. He wanted to know how many items he could affect at one time and determine if the size and weight of the objects mattered.
Just then, footsteps sounded. Gary’s concentration was shot, and the cups and plates and silverware started to fall. He recovered most of the items to lay them on the counters, but one of the cups shattered, glass flying everywhere.
“Sorry,” he muttered before turning around.
Haru stood there, looking as prim as ever.
Gary glowered at him, instantly suspicious. Haru had never come to visit during the day before. Gary couldn’t help being alarmed, and he assumed the Japanese man had some poor news for him.
“Well, go on now. Spill it,” Gary snapped.
“You really must work on your manners. Your mother dying when you were young is no excuse.”
