Safe Zone

by R. T. Martin

  No_Idea tried to follow, but N3V3RDIE was moving quickly, as if she intended to leave him behind. He caught up to her at the open door. She had already gotten the flashlight. He looked at their stamina bars—they’d each lost 12%.

  “Here,” she whispered, pushing the crowbar into his hands. “I’ll be in charge of the flashlight.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  She shrugged. “We could bash them with the crowbar.”

  “We’d have to be really close. We could get bitten.”

  “Right,” she said, sounding annoyed, as if she’d already considered that. “We’re going to go around them.”

  “What if they hear us?” No_Idea asked.

  “They’re not going to hear me,” she replied and darted into the office, leaving him behind.

  Chapter 5

  No_Idea followed, not knowing what else to do. The last decision he’d made on his own got them both killed. It would be best to follow someone who might have done this kind of thing before.

  When he caught up to her, N3V3RDIE was creeping to the left of the corridor, the same direction she’d tried to go when the zombies swarmed them. Staying low to the ground, they moved along the edge of the cubicles. They reached the end of the row and N3V3RDIE held up her hand, signaling No_Idea to stop. As she peeked around the corner, she made a “come this way” motion without looking at him. He crouched low and followed silently around the corner.

  “Looks like there’s an emergency stairwell on the other side of the floor,” she whispered.

  He heard the zombies’ groans clearly over the rushing of the wind. As they got closer to the center of the floor, the sound grew louder and clearer. His stomach clenched. He took shallow, quick breaths. The sound of his own breathing made him even more nervous that the zombies would hear them, which made him breathe even faster and louder.

  I need to calm down, he told himself. I need to focus. He looked at N3V3RDIE’s back as she snuck through the office. He tried to put everything else out of his mind—told himself to focus on just following her. She’s never found a game she couldn’t beat.

  That thought made him wonder if he would have to fight her for victory. There was no way he could win. He couldn’t possibly learn enough about gaming from this one experience to beat someone who had an undefeated record. He pushed the thought out of his head. What was important right now was getting across this floor to the stairwell.

  Debris blocked their path, so they made a right into a row of cubicles closer to the middle of the floor. No_Idea could hear the zombies, only a foot or two away, on the other side of the cubicles’ thin walls. They could easily push the walls down or burst right through at any moment. He glanced at his stamina bar—82% left. If they were to die here, it might be close to half gone by the time they got back, and they wouldn’t have even finished the first level.

  The groaning didn’t seem to bother N3V3RDIE. Neither did the distraction of the wind. She moved easily and efficiently. She wound her way around fallen cubicle walls, staying low to the ground. No_Idea was constantly afraid he would lose sight of N3V3RDIE and get lost, so he desperately tried to catch up the whole time. He kept following, mimicking her actions to the best of his abilities, but she was quick, not allowing time for an inexperienced player to catch up.

  It was probably only a few minutes, but it felt like hours before they got across the floor and into the stairwell on the other side of the floor. Once No_Idea made it through the door, N3V3RDIE closed it slowly, careful to make as little noise as possible. With the door closed, the stairwell was pitch-black. No_Idea couldn’t see N3V3RDIE or even his own hand in front of his face.

  “I don’t hear anything,” she said. “I think the stairs are clear.”

  No_Idea jumped at the light when she clicked the power button on the flashlight. N3V3RDIE moved it back and forth, scanning for zombies farther down the stairs.

  “I don’t see any of them. I think we’re good,” she said, staring down the center of the stairwell. “It looks like we’ve got about twenty floors to go. Let’s hope the way isn’t blocked again.”

  After three floors, the silence was starting to get to No_Idea. He thought, Okay, so she’s not a talker, but if we don’t get to know each other at least a little bit, she might leave me in the dust.

  “How long have you been playing games?” he asked.

  “Ever since I was a little kid.”

  Well, he thought, that’s a start. “You ever played one like this before?”

  “No, not like this,” she replied. “Most games aren’t quite so high-tech. This total virtual reality thing is . . . intense. Way more realistic than looking at a screen.”

  “Oh,” No_Idea said softly. “I meant zombie games. Have you played zombie games before?”

  “Yeah, a lot,” she said and spouted off a bunch of titles that No_Idea didn’t recognize.

  “Whoa.” Had she really won all those games? “Well, I’m glad you’re here. You’re perfect for testing out this game for L33T C0RP. I don’t know why I was picked.”

  “Yeah, me neither.” The tone sounded a little like an insult to him, but he ignored it. “I signed up for these trials. I was hoping to get more of a shooter game. They’re usually what I play, but this is good too.”

  N3V3RDIE was his best chance at completing this game, but she clearly thought very little of him. He needed to change that if he was going to survive. There must be a way to find some common ground between them. “You got any pets?”

  She stopped on the stair below his and spun around at him. The flashlight beam shone right in his eyes, and he stumbled to a stop, barely avoiding crashing into her. “Who cares if I have any pets? I don’t care if you have pets.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “I see what you’re trying to do—become friends so that I’ll let you win. But I’m not that stupid. I’m winning this game. That’s what’s going to happen. I win; you lose.”

  No_Idea paused for a moment. “Can’t we both win?”

  N3V3RDIE scoffed and turned to continue down the stairs. They walked the rest of the way in silence.

  Chapter 6

  They made it all the way to the second floor without running into any barriers or zombies. N3V3RDIE turned off the flashlight before opening the door that led onto the floor. They were on a balcony above the lobby with a stairway leading down on their right and an identical stairway on the other side of the floor. Down the stairs, just to the right of them, a glowing, green door led out onto the street. Unfortunately, the whole first floor was packed with groaning and moaning corpses shuffling around aimlessly. There was no way they could make it to the door unnoticed.

  “That must be the way out,” No_Idea whispered, pointing to the door.

  “I know,” N3V3RDIE snapped back, though she kept her voice to a whisper too. “It doesn’t look like there are any zombies up here though. Look around. See if you can find a tool.”

  “A glowing thing?”

  “Yeah, a glowing thing,” she said, sharply. “Find one.”

  They crouched down and moved across the balcony, looking for any item that might help them get through the pack of zombies between them and the exit. After using up 2% of their stamina bars, they couldn’t find anything.

  N3V3RDIE jammed the flashlight into No_Idea’s chest. “Don’t turn this on,” she said, taking the crowbar from him. “Follow me.”

  “Wait,” No_Idea whispered. “What are you going to do?”

  “The only thing we can do. Bash our way through them.”

  He grabbed her shoulder, stopping her midstep. “Are you insane?” No_Idea asked. “We knew it was a bad idea to try bashing the five that were on that floor we had to cross, but you want to try to bash a couple dozen of them?”

  “You got a better idea?”

  “Yeah, let’s just give up,” he said, sarcastically. He gestured to the crowbar she was still clutching. “If you try that, we’re going to die and use another twenty-five percent of our stamina jus
t getting down here again. We can’t afford to take that chance.”

  “Okay,” she said. “How do you want to get over there?”

  No_Idea thought for a moment. “What if we can just get them out of the way?”

  “What do you mean?” She looked genuinely intrigued by the thought.

  “They run toward light and sound, right?”

  N3V3RDIE nodded.

  “If we turn the flashlight on and throw it and the crowbar across the lobby, the crash will get their attention and they’ll all run toward the light. We could sprint for it.”

  N3V3RDIE stared at him for a moment before she finally nodded again. “Okay,” she said. “On three.” No_Idea readied his thumb on the flashlight’s switch. “One . . . two . . . three!”

  No_Idea hit the switch and threw the light as far as he could toward the top of the opposite stairway. It landed with the light facing down the stairs. The crowbar echoed loudly as it landed only a few feet away from the flashlight, catching the zombie’s attention just like he’d planned.

  They shuffled toward the light and up the opposite stairway, leaving the lobby completely clear.

  N3V3RDIE ran first. No_Idea was a few feet behind her, sprinting down their stairway and toward the door. The second he touched the door, No_Idea was surrounded by blinding white light. For a moment, he was suspended in the white, and then large, black words appeared:

  Chapter 7

  The white faded away, and No_Idea found himself standing on the sidewalk outside of the building they’d just been in. N3V3RDIE was a few feet away. The safe zone beam was still shining in the sky, barely closer than it had been when they were on the rooftop.

  “What was that?” he asked. “That weird white light—and the words?”

  “We leveled up,” she said. “We’re in The Streets now. One level down, three to go.”

  He frowned. I can’t believe we’ve only gotten through one level so far.

  “We used more stamina than we should have,” he pointed out. “We should use a max of twenty-five percent on each level. We’ve already used twenty-nine.”

  It took him a moment to realize that N3V3RDIE wasn’t responding to him. He turned to look at her and saw that she was keeping her gaze on her sneakers.

  “What’s wrong—”

  “I used thirty-two percent,” she said. No_Idea looked at the bar in the top right of his vision. She was right, only 68% left.

  “We need to be more careful,” he said.

  Her gaze snapped up at that, and N3V3RDIE narrowed her eyes at him. “I know that.” She cleared her throat. “We need more supplies,” she said. “Any kind of tools we can use. Let’s look around.”

  They searched the area outside of the building for any glowing objects. No_Idea was too distracted by their dropping stamina levels to focus on finding anything, but after a few minutes of searching, he heard N3V3RDIE shout, “Nice!” He turned to see her pull something out of a trash can.

  “What did you find?” he asked. She held something large and rectangular with a window in the middle.

  “What is that?” No_Idea asked.

  “This,” she said, poking her head over the top of it, “is a riot shield.”

  No_Idea shrugged. “Is that good?”

  “These things are bulletproof. No zombie is going to tear its way through this!”

  “So what? What are we going to do with it?”

  She grinned. “We’re going to bash our way through the rest of this game.”

  Chapter 8

  They searched around a little more but didn’t find any other supplies. Just the riot shield, which N3V3RDIE was wielding with incredible confidence, carrying it like a knight headed to battle. Even No_Idea was feeling better about their situation. If they were to encounter a zombie or two now, maybe it wouldn’t be a problem.

  Whatever helps, No_Idea thought. A weapon would probably be better, but I guess a shield is good too.

  They wound their way through the streets, heading in the general direction of the green safe zone beam. Pieces of rubble and broken cinderblocks covered their path, causing them to cross streets and intersections in a random zigzag. They walked through piles of garbage and broken glass and weaved around burned-out cars. Some buildings were covered in scorch marks. Burned scraps of paper drifted through the air. The sky still looked more like smoke than clouds, and the blood red light was shining a little brighter right now.

  Was this afternoon in this apocalypse? The dim light colored the rubble around them red. No_Idea felt chills crawl up his spine at the thought of being in a city completely devoid of people.

  Just as they approached a park with a rusted-out playground, they heard groaning. They ducked behind a car for cover. No_Idea stayed down, but N3V3RDIE looked over the top for the source of the sound.

  “Huh,” she said, standing straight up and moving around the car. “It’s trapped.”

  “What?” he asked. N3V3RDIE pointed to where the sound was coming from. There, stuck inside a dusty jungle gym dome, was a zombie unable to get out. It shuffled forward until it bumped into the bars, then turned around and started in a different direction with the same result.

  “Hmm.” N3V3RDIE quickly walked toward the jungle gym and crouched to pick up a rock. She cocked her arm back.

  No_Idea grabbed her arm.

  “Seriously?” he said. “Is that really necessary? We need to maintain stamina—we can’t kill a zombie for fun.”

  She looked at him, then back at the zombie, and considered for a moment before she shrugged and dropped the rock. “Okay,” she said, “let’s go,” and set off down the road.

  Great, he thought. This is who I’m relying on to get me through the game?

  No_Idea wondered what would happen if a zombie killed him but not N3V3RDIE. He had no doubt that she would continue without waiting for him to catch up, and what if she finished before he did? Would he still have a chance to beat the game, or would only the person who finished first be released from the dead city?

  I really should have asked the Game Runner, he thought, but it was too late. The Game Runner was gone, and No_Idea’s only chance of survival was someone who was better at gaming than he was.

  They walked in silence. No_Idea had already made the mistake of trying to engage in friendly conversation once. He didn’t bother to try again, so he was surprised when N3V3RDIE said, “That was pretty smart to use the flashlight and the crowbar to distract them in the lobby.”

  “Thanks,” he said, a little taken aback by the compliment. “Did you really think you could bash your way through them?”

  “I thought that I would be able to get through—wasn’t sure about you.”

  “Oh,” No_Idea mumbled. Great.

  They walked for about an hour toward the glowing green beam, making lefts and rights according to where the beam was in the sky and where they could get through the crowded street. No matter how far they walked, it never seemed to get any closer.

  They rounded a corner to find the road blocked by a giant wall of crushed cars stacked on top of each other. No_Idea imagined that someone had stacked them to prevent the advance of hundreds of zombies.

  “Do we try to go over it?” No_Idea asked.

  “I think there might be an opening,” N3V3RDIE said, pointing toward the right side of the wall. “Look there. It doesn’t reach all the way to the building. We can get through.” She was right. There was an opening on that side of the car wall, but it looked like there was another stack of cars just beyond it.

  When they got closer, they saw that there was, in fact, another barrier of crushed vehicles, this one with an opening on the left side. Together, the two walls formed a sort of narrow walkway. As they approached the opening in the second wall, N3V3RDIE slowed down, so No_Idea did the same. As they approached the opening, No_Idea heard it—the groaning. There had to be zombies just around the corner. N3V3RDIE gestured for him to be quiet again.

  She slowly approached the makeshift
doorway and, with her back against the cars, sneaked a quick peek around the corner but snapped back immediately. She stepped toward No_Idea, leaned in close, and whispered, “Eighty,” into his ear.

  Eighty?!? There were eighty zombies on the other side of the wall?

  “What are you doing?” he whispered when she turned back toward the opening of the wall.

  She looked back at him and held up the riot shield.

  “You’re going to try to plow through eighty of them? How is that even possible?”

  She smiled. “Get behind me and stay close. Don’t stop running until I tell you to.”

  Yeah, No_Idea thought. She seems confident enough. This might actually work. She plays these games all the time and wins. If either of us could do it, it’s her.

  Still . . . eighty zombies.

  N3V3RDIE stepped out into the opening and positioned the shield in front of her. No_Idea did his best to look over her shoulder through the window. The zombies shuffled around in the middle of the street.

  “When I say ‘go,’ we’re going to run as fast as we can at them,” N3V3RDIE explained.

  “Okay.” No_Idea had felt relatively confident about this plan until he was looking through the shield window at the zombies. Being this close to this many zombies made him worry the plan was about to fail.

  “Ready . . . go!”

  N3V3RDIE charged at the zombies at full speed. She braced the shield against her shoulder and ducked her head down like a football player getting in position for a tackle.

  The zombies heard her shout and turned as a group to charge right at them. No_Idea ran directly behind N3V3RDIE. When she slammed into the first zombie, he crashed into her back at full speed. The zombie fell down and she pushed on, hitting another one, but this one didn’t go down as easily.

  The zombies in front of the shield couldn’t bite them, but they swarmed around the sides, racing in from left and right. One grabbed No_Idea’s leg.