Dr. Morbid's Castle of Blood (Masks)

by Hayden Thorne

  “Nah. I’m sure you’ve got natural talent in slaughtering things at a distance.”

  “That’s good to know, I guess.”

  “Hey, at least you’re not doing this for nothing. Look at me, all manly and stuff with this big-ass, overcompensating-for-something sword, and I don’t even get us any points.” I had to pause. “Oh, God, this game’s like my own life, isn’t it?”

  Ridley just looked at me glumly. “I guess we’d better move forward.”

  I so wanted that zombie baby back.

  * * * *

  Ridley and I hacked our way through a couple more ambushes, but we tried a different tactic both times. Ridley zapped monsters in pairs, pretty much trapping them in force fields, while he methodically picked through those that he didn’t cocoon. Sometimes it was three monsters against one hero. Those he couldn’t tackle, I hacked at, and once those were killed, he “popped” one force field with a small power blast, freeing the monsters inside, so we could get at them. Then the process started all over again.

  It was annoyingly slow that way, and I was seriously getting all freaked out over the time, but with Ridley being the only “character” in the game that the program was recognizing, he needed to control the attacks as much as he could, and temporarily trapping monsters in those energy bubbles was the only thing we could think of. I guess one good thing about this method was seeing Ridley’s confidence as well as the strength of his punches increase. That was probably the only offensive power he had since he was a defense hero, but it was better than nothing.

  In the meantime, I kept an eye out for new weapons to take and for crossbows to show up in the carnage.

  The last group of monsters we destroyed attacked us right before another bridge, which was guarded by some generic-looking CGI dude in generic-looking peasant clothes.

  “He’s not going to talk to us,” I panted, leaning on my sword after slaughtering a massive, demon-possessed wild boar-like thing that had one eye. Was there such a thing as a mutant wild boar Cyclops? Because that was totally mental.

  “He’s in the way,” Ridley said, also gasping for breath.

  “Push the bastard off the cliff, then,” I said, shaking my head. “Serves him right for standing in the way and blocking traffic.”

  Ridley gave me a look. It kind of reminded me of the look that Mom would give me when she mentally threatened me with an adult-strength wedgie. On Ridley, the look pretty lost some steam because he wasn’t psychotic like mothers.

  “Okay, fine, let me see if I can talk to him,” I said, trudging forward and using my sword like a walking stick. And what a kickass walking-stick it made, too. All that was missing was an equally kickass backpack that hikers used—only totally juiced up or something to match the sword. If we were to come across another gypsy camp along the way, I was so going to ransack the hell out of that place and steal a cool pack. Who was going to arrest me, anyway? I was a non-entity in the game. So there.

  I glanced back over my shoulder to find Ridley busying himself with picking through the monster corpses for scrolls or weapons. He was really getting into the game, I could tell.

  I sighed once I reached the generic dude, staying quiet for a moment as I tried to take in details. Yep, he was generic, all right. Tallish, bulky (like all peasants or laborers were bulky, right?), dressed in clothes that you only see in Renaissance Fairs, beard the color of medieval men’s beards (what the hell shade was it—baby diarrhea?), small, shifty eyes. Not sure if those small, shifty eyes could actually see me, but they seemed to work okay.

  “Uh…” I paused, scrunching my face. How did someone address a CGI character in person, anyway? “Hi. How’s it going?” Oh, this was stupid. I felt my face burn even though I was sure no one could see me squirming and blushing and wishing that no one could see me. “Listen, would you mind stepping aside, so my friend and I can go through? We’re kind of in a hurry to get to the cursed castle.”

  The guy stood there for a moment, moving or shifting his weight and repositioning his arms the way these game characters moved while they waited in the background. And the movements were repetitive, which was pretty typical in games.

  I sighed, pursing my lips. I kind of figured it wasn’t going to work. I was going to turn around and talk to Ridley when the generic dude suddenly talked.

  “You need to wait here for reinforcements,” he said in a low, robotic monotone—again, like the way these characters sounded when they talked to your avatars. Or at least like in those low-end type of games that I was familiar with because those were all I could afford. You know, poverty-level schoolboy thing and stuff.

  “Oh, my God!” I yelped, jumping back and instantly holding up my sword in front of me. “He talked! Ridley! He’s possessed!”

  “It won’t take long. Be patient,” he said. He didn’t look at me like he saw me or anything. He continued to do those repetitive movements like a good, obedient CGI character.

  Ridley had run up to me by then, and we both gaped at the guy. Then we looked at each other, still gaping.

  “Whoa,” he breathed. “He heard you?”

  “I don’t know. He might’ve sensed me, though, because he started talking after I talked first. But I thought that the game can’t recognize me? I don’t get it.”

  “You need help. You can’t do this alone. Two characters are on the way,” the guy said, still moving and fidgeting and stuff. Add that to the low, lifeless voice and the fact that the character could communicate with us—I was surprised that I didn’t have a coronary right then and there.

  “Um—Althea?” Ridley stammered, leaning a little closer. I kept my sword in front of me, ready for slaughter.

  “I can possess characters now, but not all,” Mr. Generic Peasant said. It was Althea trying to reach us! “I can’t hear you still, but I can sense your presence.”

  “Damn. And I was hoping that we’d be able to have a back-and-forth conversation with her,” I muttered, sighing and lowering my sword. My breath caught in my throat. “Wait—what reinforcements? A couple of characters? What?”

  Ridley shook his head, but I saw that while he was just as confused as I was, he also seemed to be excited. “Don’t know, but I’m crossing my fingers. All we can do right now is trust her.”

  “Okay, but I’m seriously worried about the time. I don’t know how much we have left. I hope we don’t have to wait too long, or we’re all screwed.”

  “I wouldn’t worry,” Ridley said, slapping my shoulder and sounding way more chipper than he did before. “Althea said that the Sentries are now involved. Knowing that helps.”

  “They’re almost here,” Mr. Generic Peasant said.

  “Man, I hope this isn’t another trap,” I grumbled, turning around and gripping my sword firmly without raising it up in defense. “I’m really regretting messing around with the idea of giving Peter a souped-up video game for his birthday. Hell, I’m plain regretting that I’ve even heard of video games. After today, I’m giving up these damn things forever.”

  “Let’s hope it’s not another trap.”

  “They’re here!” Mr. Generic Peasant said, sounding oddly excited despite his low, robotic monotone.

  The area where we had our last fight was unsurprisingly free of monster corpses now. Nothing but a clear path flanked by snowdrifts, rocks, leafless trees, and bald shrubs stretched out behind us. For a moment, nothing happened. I was going to turn to Ridley and bitch about psychological manipulation in video games when a couple of figures appeared from the shadows of trees, walking quickly up the path toward us.

  I stared at them in shock. They were a couple of CGI characters, all right, both of whom were dressed differently from any of the characters we’d seen so far, which made me think that they were characters that were being actively played by someone out there. Both were female, with one dressed in green and dark gray, all slender and tall with black hair pulled back in a ponytail. She also wore a cloak with its hood hanging down in dark green, and sh
e was armed with a massive bow. As for her arrows, I’d no idea where she kept them, but this being a video game, I was sure that she had magical never-ending supplies of arrows that would appear somehow.

  The other was just as tall but was also bulkier, and she was dressed more like a knight—all in silver armor with a gray cape. She was a redhead, her hair curling out from under a silver helm. She held a pretty impressive-looking sword and a shield.

  Ridley and I exchanged confused looks, but we held our ground and waited for them to come closer. They didn’t give off any danger vibes, seeing as how they were obviously designed to be heroes.

  The two women stopped in front of us and took on the same monotonous movements as the Generic Medieval Peasant. They just stood there, swaying while turning their heads left and right, their hands still gripping their weapons.

  “Hi, Eric,” the archer said, her voice a low monotone as well. It was clear that the voice was from the game itself and was probably how the characters sounded like to each other. So freakin’ bizarre. “It’s Trini. I’ve been recruited to help.”

  “I’m Dario,” the knight said, her voice the same as the archer’s. “Nice to meet you, finally. Well, kind of. This isn’t exactly how I look, though I wish.”

  I gaped at both, the only part of my body moving at that moment being my eyeballs as I stared at the archer first and then the knight.

  “Whoa,” I said after swallowing. “What the hell?”

  “I had to recruit them,” the Generic Peasant guy behind us piped up, nearly making me piss my pants. I’d completely forgotten that he was there. I wished I had a prescription for heart pills because this was getting way too much for mine. “I had to out myself to them. Trini, can you see two people there?”

  “Yeah, I can,” the archer replied. “Dario?”

  “I can see them both, too.”

  “They can communicate with each other!” I said and then paused. “Oh, of course, they can. If Trini and Dario are now involved, it means that they’re in the same room as Althea.”

  “And our identities as heroes aren’t a secret anymore,” Ridley said.

  “Oh, no. This can only mean one thing,” I whispered, turning to him, in case Trini and Dario’s avatars could hear us. “Once we’re done with the game, the Sentries will be zapping them both to clear their memories and save your identities.”

  He looked just as anxious as I felt. “I’m sure they know what they’re doing. They might be a covert group, but they’re not here to hurt anyone. Trini and Dario should be fine if they do get their memories tampered with.”

  “Yeah, but how much of an effect would that have? I’ve heard of repressed memory incidents. This might come back to haunt them, like, years from now.”

  Ridley sighed. “Eric, there’s nothing we can do. Someone made the decision to help us, and we have to play along even if we don’t agree with it. Let’s just get the hell out of here and then worry about what comes after.”

  I grimaced. “Man, you’re sounding like a mini-Magnifiman. That’s creepy.”

  “Testing, testing,” Trini’s archer spoke, but when she kept repeating those words another dozen or so times, I heard a change in her tone. “Guys, I’m getting Althea to change my voice, so Dario and I won’t sound alike, and you don’t have to look at either of us to know who’s talking. Testing, testing. A couple more notes higher, I think? Testing. Yeah, that’s it. That’s good.”

  Sure enough, the archer’s voice kept getting lighter and lighter till she sounded a little like a young girl, not a badass adult female warrior. But I could see Trini’s point. With the game coming with pre-recorded voices that were probably only two kinds—male and female—it’d be way helpful for us to know who was talking in the middle of a fight or just plain traveling.

  “Okay, is everyone ready?” Mr. Generic Peasant asked. “Trini and Dario are now locked in with Ridley, so you’ll all be earning points as a group. Eric, keep fighting as backup to help. I’m sure there are tons of things for you to do as a kinda-sorta ninja-esque character in the game.”

  “I kind of like that, now that I think about it,” I said, my mood lifting.

  “Let Dario lead you since he’s the knight and has the highest damage points. Trini and Ridley can work together for range offense and defense. You guys aren’t far from the castle now. It’s past the bridge.”

  I stared at the bridge and the meadow that stretched out beyond that. “Wow, so soon? How many kingdoms did we slaughter our way through? Three at most? This is a pretty short game if that’s the case.” Man, what a rip-off this game turned out to be.

  “In case you’re wondering, I was able to shorten the game time by deleting another ten or so kingdoms you needed to pass through. I don’t know how the next kingdom will look after what I did, but be ready for some crazy-ass action,” Mr. Generic Peasant said. “Our hacker didn’t really think about that. Score for me, bitches!”

  “If that’s the case, then we’re all below the skill level needed to hack our way through to the castle,” Trini piped up. “This is going to be tough.”

  “Then again, the higher the life points of the monsters we kill, the faster it’ll be for us to level up,” Dario replied. “Yeah, it’ll be tough to fight our way through, but if we’re all coordinated, we should survive all the way to the castle.”

  That totally didn’t sound good to me. Ridley would be a great help whenever he used his force fields, but still—I was the weakest one in the group that was made up of “characters” who were in over their heads. What the hell was going to happen to me? It was cold comfort that I couldn’t be killed, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I could only manage to kill one monster per ambush, considering the massive difference in life points we’d have between us.

  “Man,” I grumbled. “Maybe I can run around like crazy, tire out all those advanced monsters, and let them lose their life points from exhaustion. Oh—no, wait. They’re CGI monsters. They don’t get tired. I will.”

  “Eric, I might not see you, but I can sense you kicking up the drama meter,” Mr. Generic Peasant said, and I rolled my eyes and flipped him off. “I sensed that, too, ass munch.”

  Chapter 9

  We all managed to squeeze around that stupid generic dude, whom Althea somehow couldn’t manipulate to get out of our damn way. What was up with that? She could delete a gazillion kingdoms and merge the last one with the place where we happened to be, but she couldn’t make a stupid generic peasant move out of our way? Whatever. But we trooped along, with Dario taking the lead as planned, Ridley behind him, Trini behind Ridley, and me taking up the rear because, you know, I was like the pathetic little non-entity in the group.

  If my sword could accurately reflect my standing, it’d be drooping in my hands, not straightened out in a big, hard line. You know, come to think of it, that’d also be a pretty accurate picture of my sexual relationship with Peter: a wilted sword. All that was missing was stuff like moss or black mold.

  Maybe I should get back into writing haikus again because that was, like, an inspired mental image. Depressing, but inspired.

  When we set foot in the new kingdom, the changes nearly steamrolled us over. It was like, BAM! This weird, invisible force swept over us like some kind of freak warm wind that felt more solid than airy. I mean, yeah, the land looked normal for a game, but the vibes were way, way off. I could feel that we were definitely in over our heads this time, and because of the deleted stages—or whatever the hell gamers called all those places they had to go through to level up—everything felt majorly cockeyed.

  I didn’t think that Trini and Dario felt anything. I mean, duh—they were only avatars. But Ridley and I sure did. We stood there for a moment, blinking, shaking our heads as though we were trying to unsee some pretty gross and totally inappropriate thing that we just saw.

  “Does it feel like we’re walking on a surface that’s sort of angled?” I asked, frowning at him. “Because that sure as hell what it feels like.”r />
  “Kind of, yeah. Took me a moment to get used to it. You ready?”

  I let out a breath and held up my sword, for what it was worth. “Yeah, I guess so. You’ll have to excuse me if I only manage to hack off some demon-possessed troll’s arm at best. At least I’ll make it easier for you to kill him off.”

  Ridley grinned but didn’t say anything, and when he turned to jog off, following Dario’s knight, I actually felt better. I still kept my grip on my sword tight, feeling myself tensing up like a coil that was slowly being squished right before letting it go for some pretty devastating spring action.

  Okay, so that was a weak way of describing it, but that was still a hundred times better than comparing myself to a Slinky.

  The meadow we walked through looked cool, which I figured was nothing more than a danger sign regarding the levels of carnage that we were now going to experience. I still had no idea how much time we had left, but in a way, it was good to stay ignorant because it only fed my determination to get to the dumb castle as soon as possible and save my boyfriend’s ass, so I could be all over it once we got the hell out.

  Since I was in the back of the four-pack, I watched Trini’s archer in front of me, wondering just how good she and Dario were as gamers if they were able to advance so quickly and catch up with us. I suppose it was safe to say that they freakin’ kicked ass. Then again, I had zero concept of time while stuck in the game, and what might pass for five minutes here could easily have been thirty minutes out there.

  “Heads up!” Dario called back after the road turned past a small forest-like collection of trees.

  “Oh, my God, here we go,” I muttered, swallowing, as we all stopped and got ready. “I’m so screwed.”

  Ahead of me, the knight held up her sword, Ridley’s fists glowed with a soft light, and the archer fitted an arrow—that appeared from nowhere, I swear to God. A series of roars suddenly broke the silence, and sure enough, from the trees a horde of zombie peasants came shambling out. Unfortunately none of them were of the torso-and-above-only species that I liked, which meant that there was no way in hell I was going to be able to outrun any of them.