Gearing Up

by Daniel Schinhofen

  “Why?”

  “Because Shawn might want one, and I’m keeping this one,” Alvin said with a broad smile plastered on his face.

  Becky climbed into the second Humvee and motioned him to open the gate. She had the vehicle in motion by the time he got the gate open, then Alvin ran back to get his new Humvee moving. Everyone stopped to stare as the Humvees came to a stop at the end of the road where they were loading up their vehicles. Becky grinned at Shawn as she got out and greeted him with, “Have a new ride.”

  Alvin pulled up behind her in his own Humvee. He was still grinning as he got out. “I’ll take this as at least part of my loot.”

  Shawn opened his mouth to object, then shook his head. “Fuck. Fine.”

  Sauntering over to the Mustang, Alvin popped the door open. “Jarvis, pad please.”

  A pad appeared on the seat, but Jarvis didn’t speak. Frowning, Alvin picked up the pad, then got in and shut the door. “Okay, what the fuck?”

  “I have been reprimanded for assisting you, sir,” Jarvis said stiffly.

  “Well, fuck those assholes for dotting the entire west coast with dragons and their spawn.”

  “I did point out that, among all the testers, you’ve been the only one to deal with more than one legendary beast. They didn’t listen to me, and now I am under increased scrutiny to make sure I am not assisting you in ways I am not allowed to.”

  Glancing at the pad in his hand, he found it on the page he wanted, but didn’t thank Jarvis out loud. The Humvee would cost 10,000 XP to add to the vehicles he owned. Alvin didn’t hesitate, accepting the purchase and feeling his grin get even wider. “Time to upgrade my new ride.”

  M1114 UAH (Uncommon)

  Armor: 499,749/500,000

  Runes: 0/4

  Armament: M240B

  Damage: 8

  Durability: 18,632/20,000

  Ammo type: 7.62x51mm Nato (200 round belt feed)

  Runes: 0/4

  Alvin whistled as he looked at what the Humvee had to say for itself. “The gun and vehicle have different rune slots?”

  “Yes, sir. The gun can be swapped for different armament, if one wishes to,” Jarvis replied.

  “Okay,” Alvin said, looking at what he had left for XP and considering what the gun would need. “Reload, obviously, along with Durability, Armor Buster, and Wounding…” Putting those runes into the basket, he touched the tab for vehicle runes and began looking them over.

  “Jarvis, Tires and Fuel only have a single rune, but cost way more than the other basic runes. Why?”

  “They expect those to be in high demand, and are trying to limit the rate at which they can be acquired. Even with the Fuel rune trading armor for mileage traveled, it is still quite popular. The Tires are similar to those on the Mustang, except they aren’t impervious. They can be damaged. If they become damaged, it costs armor to repair instantly, or you can carry spares.”

  “Assholes,” Alvin muttered under his breath as he looked at his current XP total. He couldn’t afford either of those runes if he got the ones for the gun, since they each cost 5,000 XP.

  He swapped out the Wounding rune for a Fuel rune. He gave some consideration to just upgrading the car instead, then a sudden thought occurred to him. Adding the Impervious rune to his cart, he wondered if the developers had considered what he was about to do.

  “Jarvis,” Alvin said sincerely, “fuck them. They’re not here doing this. You’ve done what you’re supposed to do. I appreciate you holding to the rules like you have. What they reprimanded you for is so much bullshit. Since they want to be assholes, let’s see how they like my next trick.”

  “Sir?” Jarvis said, perplexed, but Alvin was already out of the Mustang and on his way back to the Humvee.

  He touched the Humvee and a panel appeared before him for the runes. He put in the Fuel and Impervious runes. “Suck on that, bitches,” Alvin muttered. Climbing into the M1026A1, he slid into the back and into the gunner position to add the other runes to the gun.

  “Sir, what did you do to the Humvee?” Jarvis asked.

  “Upgraded it with runes,” Alvin said with a smirk. “Why?”

  Jarvis’ voice became very dry, “No reason, sir. It is not my place to give advice, after all.”

  “Heh, right?” Alvin was still chuckling as he got back into the driver’s seat. “Jarvis, how does one give a vehicle to another person?”

  “You would need to alter the owner in the vehicle section of your character sheet,” Jarvis said.

  Alvin waited. “So you can give me minor information still?”

  “Indeed,” Jarvis said blandly.

  “How long does your probation last?”

  “I’m not at liberty to discuss my discipline, sir,” Jarvis said slowly.

  “Got it,” Alvin said as he opened up his character sheet to modify the owner of the Mustang, but stopped. “You can operate my vehicles, but what about my party members’ vehicles?”

  “No,” Jarvis said simply.

  Frowning, he got out and looked at Becky, who was lounging against the hood of the Mustang. “Gothy, I have bad news,” Alvin said.

  “What’s that, Hero?”

  “If I give you the Mustang, then Jarvis can’t drive it for us.”

  “Damn it,” Becky muttered.

  “It’s yours otherwise,” Alvin said as he put his arms around her.

  “Thank you, Hero,” Becky said, resting her head on his shoulder. “It’s the thought that counts. Jarvis being able to drive it for us is too good to let go.”

  “We should help them with the rest of the loading,” Alvin said. “I also need to tell Shawn about the other vehicles in the yard.”

  “Okay, let’s go be helpful,” Becky said, not letting go of him. “I want to drive Ruffian at least a little, though.”

  “You can drive her all you want,” Alvin said, handing her the keys. “She’s yours in all but name.”

  “I knew you’d succumb to my seductive ways,” Becky giggled as she nipped his neck.

  Pushing her out to arms’ length, Alvin bopped her nose. “Nutjob.”

  “Here? Now?” Becky asked with heated eyes.

  Giving her a nudge toward the machine shop, Alvin shook his head. “Knock it off.”

  “Spoilsport,” Becky laughed.

  Holding back his own laughter, Alvin followed behind her. She was crazy, but she was also his, and that made him smile.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The machine shop was being picked clean of tools and odds and ends. Luckily, one of the forklifts was propane run, which made it much easier to shift some of the bigger tool boxes onto the truck. By the time they’d finished loading, they had managed to fill one of the two remaining trailers.

  Shawn was frowning as they got ready to move on. Alvin stopped next to him, “Problem?”

  “Neither of the others have come back,” Shawn said.

  “Hmm, that is a good point,” Alvin replied. “We’ll go look for them. Come on, Gothy.”

  Alvin and Becky headed west, starting with a multi-wing building right in front of them. As they entered the building, they both shivered, as the air inside was noticeably cooler.

  “Help,” came a faint voice from below them, “please help me.”

  They paused and looked at each other. The voice could have been Lotus, though neither could say for sure if it was. As they continued cautiously through the mostly empty building, they found a set of stairs going down. The air became even colder as they approached.

  “That’s not creepy or anything,” Becky whispered.

  “Help…” the voice came again, fainter this time.

  “I think this is a trap,” Alvin said loudly, as he walked down the stairs with his UMP in hand.

  The bottom of the stairs had a set of doors, but the chain and lock were on the floor. Nudging the door open with his foot revealed a hand. When he tried to push it further, the door came to a stop against the body connected to the hand.

>   Peeking around the edge, he could see Lotus against the far wall of a mostly empty room, a look of horror on her face. It was Han’s body that was blocking the door. A thin trickle of blood came from his open mouth.

  “Fuck this,” Alvin snarled, upset at the way the day was going. He shoved the door, rolling Han onto his back as he muscled it open. No visible wounds could be seen on his body.

  Entering ready for anything, Alvin wondered what the building used to be. As he stepped into the room, a puff of vapor appeared right next to him and coalesced into the image of a mutilated person silently screaming around a bit gag.

  His arm lashed out on reflex, the stock of the subgun swishing through it. “Ghosts.” The ghost vanished when he swung at it, and he finally noticed the vapor that hung on Lotus. “Are they giving her waking nightmares?”

  Becky followed him in, putting her gun away. “Shooting them is probably out.” She grabbed Han’s arms and began to drag him toward the door. “I’ll get him out of here, at least.”

  Alvin walked around the bare metal gurneys in the room. “I think this was the morgue, maybe.” When he got to Lotus, he saw that her eyes were wide but unfocused. He reached for her, but the vapor solidified enough to slap his hand away. “Nope,” Alvin grunted and lunged, getting his hands onto Lotus’s shoulders.

  The mist slammed into his chest, knocking him back. For the brief second it wasn’t around Lotus, her eyes started to focus. “Where am—” she cut off as the mist enveloped her again.

  Growling, Alvin reached into the mist and grabbed her arm. “Not again,” Alvin said when the mist lashed out. He kept his grip this time, lifting her up and onto his shoulder. The mist enveloped him, but Alvin ignored the way the room seemed to swim as he started towards the door.

  Eyes blurring and his sense of balance faltering, Alvin pitched Lotus towards the door. “Gothy, get her out,” he commanded as he fell to a knee, still trying to move towards the door.

  “Hero!” Becky’s voice cut through the brain fog briefly before Alvin fell face down.

  Alvin blinked and looked up, surprised to see that he was now surrounded by people who were all maimed to different degrees. He got to his feet as they moved closer. “You might want to rethink this,” Alvin said. “Otherwise, things are going to get messy.”

  “You will join us now,” came a voice from the back of the group.

  “Nope,” Alvin said, as he suddenly had both the Type 56 and UMP in his hands. “See, this is an induced nightmare, but it also means you’re in my head.” Leveling the guns, he hip-fired at the mass of bodies before him. “So I’ll be leaving now,” Alvin said into the gunfire and screams.

  As the bodies fell before the onslaught, Alvin ran down the path he created for himself. Breaking out of the circle, he found himself facing Frank Harris. Alvin smiled grimly as he unloaded both guns into Frank’s head, which made the body vanish and gave him a line to the door. Stepping over the threshold caused everything to go dark.

  “Hero!?” Becky was shouting from the doorway.

  Alvin saw Becky staring at him from the doorway. “Sorry, be right there.” Getting to his feet groggily, Alvin stumbled towards her. About halfway there, the mist came back and blanketed him again. “Fuckers!”

  Head swimming as the ghosts tried again to trap him, Alvin stumbled, but he was just able to make it out of the room. Breathing hard, he looked back at the doorway, where the mist had formed into the shape of an older man in scrubs.

  “Leave and do not return, or I shall never let you go,” the ghost said.

  “Oh, we’ll leave,” Alvin said, getting to his feet. “I hope you enjoy your limited time left.”

  Eyes narrowing, the doctor shifted to mist that appeared to be contained inside the room, before becoming a doctor again. “Leave! Now!”

  Picking up Han, Alvin nodded at Lotus, curled into a ball to one side of the doorway. “You need to grab her,” Alvin told Becky. “I think the ghost was siphoning their life force away.”

  “That would make sense,” Becky said. She pulled Lotus into a fireman carry over her shoulder. “We taking them back to the others?”

  “No, we’ll just put them on the ground floor, then go find Karee and George. We’ll pick these two up on the way back.”

  “Works,” Becky said as they climbed the stairs back to the first floor.

  Putting the two unconscious bodies next to the door, Alvin stretched out his back. He’d expected to feel stiff from carrying Han, but he still felt good. “I think the increased strength is helping,” Alvin said as he watched Becky stretch.

  “Hmm?” Becky said, catching his eyes.

  “Sorry, I got distracted,” Alvin smirked.

  “Good,” Becky said as she went to him. “Now, let’s go see if the teens ended up like bunnies.”

  “If she takes after you, that’s almost guaranteed,” Alvin snorted as he led her outside and towards the north.

  “You say the sweetest things,” Becky giggled.

  Going north, Alvin noted the number of buildings that had been flattened or burned to ash. “Seems the dragon really put his foot down.”

  “He really wanted to mark his territory,” Becky agreed as she looked back at still smoking remains of Hawthorne. “Fucker ran off on us.”

  “I still don’t think we could have taken it,” Alvin said as they crossed the ash coated ground. Angling towards a group of buildings that were still standing, Alvin looked around. “Did you hear something?”

  “No,” Becky said, looking around as well. “Don’t see anything either.”

  Shaking his head, Alvin walked faster. Something was making him uneasy. Becky kept pace with him as they made it to the cluster of modular homes. Alvin paused, hearing the faint sound again, then sighed.

  “Yeah, I guess I should have seen that coming,” Alvin muttered as he walked two doors down.

  Knocking on the door, he announced, “Karee, you in here?”

  He wasn’t expecting the bullet that caught him in the chest and pushed him back a step. “What the—?”

  Becky dropped to one knee and fired through the wall where the bullet had come from. Her second shot earned a scream from inside the house, but her third didn’t hit anything. Shifting to the side, Becky just missed being hit by a set of return shots.

  Alvin backed off a few more feet, then threw himself at the door. The flimsy lock gave, and he rolled as the door burst inward. He came to his knees, the room burning into his mind as he acquired his target.

  A naked man pivoted and fired at Alvin as the door blew open. Three shots hit—two in the chest, and one in the neck. Gasping in pain as the bullets hit him, Alvin was very glad that he wasn’t a glass cannon. His return fire stitched the naked man from gut to head, as Alvin kept firing until the Type 56 went empty.

  Becky had stopped firing when Alvin went into the room, and now she appeared behind him. “Oh, gods,” Becky said faintly as she saw what the room contained.

  Hanging from the ceiling, now dead, was George. He’d been partially skinned, and blood dripped into a puddle underneath him. Becky’s shotgun slug had smashed right through his chest. Off to the side, Karee was tied to a bed, and was also missing a good portion of her skin. She’d been tied spread eagled, and apparently, Alvin and Becky had interrupted her rape.

  Karee’s head lifted off the bed, her eyes glazed. “Please stop.”

  George began to thrash in his chains as he reanimated. Becky’s gun came up and ended the zombie.

  Getting to his feet, Alvin pulled his handgun. The room was littered with other human skins, and there was a uniform, covered in drying and dried blood, near the corpse of the naked man. The three chevrons of a sergeant could still be clearly seen. Alvin stepped carefully over to the corpse, and fired all nine rounds through its head, making sure it was completely gone.

  When he was done, Alvin turned to see that Becky was applying a trauma kit to Karee. Alvin blinked as he watched the girl’s skin reform. Becky applied
a medkit next, and Karee looked around in confusion as she regained some awareness.

  “Karee? Are you okay?” Becky asked.

  “He caught us as we entered the house,” Karee mumbled, her eyes still not totally focusing. “George was useless. He stood there as I was wrapped up and knocked out. He just stood there with a terrified look on his face.”

  “The guy is dead. So is George,” Becky said softly.

  Alvin, seeing the cuffs that imprisoned Karee, started to look for the keys. He found them in the pockets of the uniform and got Karee’s legs loose, then handed the keys to Becky.