by Max Brooks
The zombie gave a quick, high-pitched growl I hadn’t heard before.
“Hey,” I said, putting my ear to the dirt, “what gives?”
Had it heard me? Were we having an actual conversation?
The sharp, harsh growls kept coming, like the creature was reacting to something, like it was in pain.
“You okay?” I asked reflexively. “Hey, I’m sorry if talking about weapons hurts your feelings or something, but, in all fairness, you are tryin’ to kill me so…” Halfway through my babbling, I noticed that the sounds were gone.
“Hello?” I called out to silence.
I thought I could smell something seeping through the dirt. Smoke?
Was the zombie building a fire outside my hole and trying to smoke me out? Could zombies do that?
I had to know. If sitting here meant dying of smoke inhalation, I had to take my chances out in the open. Heart pounding, I knocked out the dirt cube in front of my face, and blinked hard in the light of the square morning sun.
I couldn’t see the zombie, but I could still smell its rotten stench, now mixed with the strong scent of smoke. I tore out the second block and stepped cautiously onto the beach. I looked right, then left, then down, and wrinkled my nose. A chunk of putrid meat was hovering at my feet. I picked it up nervously, and winced at the utter grossness.
The fringes were charred like a burnt burger, and I didn’t need to ask where the smoky smell had come from.
I darted across the sand, thinking that this was a trap and the zombie might be waiting on the hill just above me. It wasn’t. The coast, literally, was clear. “Hey, Dead Dude!” I shouted, holding up the hunk of rot. “You forgot yourself?”
I waited a tense minute, hoping the chunk’s owner wouldn’t come slouching back over the hill. It didn’t. This bit of burnt grody guts had to be all that was left.
But why?
The sun. But didn’t daylight kill only vampires? Maybe in my world. “But,” I said to the chunk, “we’re not in my world, and I can’t assume anything.” And just as I said that, my eyes fell on my small, cliffside hidey-hole. Specifically, I noticed the two-block-long, one-block-wide ceiling of dirt. Why hadn’t it collapsed on top of me? What was holding it up?
I went back into the hole and punched out the two earthen blocks above my head. Then, moving away so they wouldn’t land on me, I put them right back in place. And they stuck!
“Cool!” I smiled, feeling a surge of confidence. Other than hyper-healing, the ability to stick dirt blocks to each other was a huge advantage of this world. It meant that I could build a shelter without nails or cement or whatever kept houses up.
That’s assuming, of course, that there wouldn’t be a natural sanctuary waiting for me somewhere out there. I hiked to the top of the hill, scanned the entire length of the island—checking the north and south slopes just to be sure—then heaved a heavy sigh of disappointment. There was no cave, no hole, no move-right-in fortress.
I noticed the cow, two of them actually, grazing at the bottom of the western slope, munching and mooing to their hearts’ content.
“Well,” I called down to them, my eyes now fixed on the trees, “at least I was right about the sun chasing those monsters away.”
The light had definitely banished whatever had been lurking in the woods the night before. But where had they gone? And for that matter, where had they come from? Did they walk out of the sea at dusk, or crawl out of the ground like in some cheesy horror film?
I’d probably know a lot sooner than I wanted to. Even though dawn had only been a few minutes ago, the sun was already halfway to noon.
“How short are the days here?” I asked the contented cows. And if they could have spoken, they probably would have answered, “Short enough to stop wasting time.”
“Thanks,” I said sarcastically, then turned to climb back down what I was now calling Disappointment Hill. For a moment I hesitated, wondering if I should build a signal fire. Isn’t that what people did when they were marooned on an island? Maybe, but I had no idea how to do it.
What I did know how to do, though, was dig. Using nothing but my hands I punched out enough dirt blocks to spell the word “HELP!” Maybe a low-flying airplane or even a high-flying satellite will see it, I thought. Someone’ll come along. I was still clinging to the idea that somebody was going to swoop in and save me, that all I had to do was last a night or two until they did. I might have accepted that this was a whole new world, but I didn’t stop to consider what that really meant. I would though, later, when I got myself lost at sea…again.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
With a watchful eye on the sun, I trudged back down the eastern slope. I thought about building a dirt hut out from my hole in the cliff. But when I looked at the narrow opening, I figured it’d be a lot safer just to burrow deeper. That way I’d have a whole hill between me and danger, instead of a few flimsy dirt walls. But how to do that?
I couldn’t tunnel through stone with my bare hands. Could I? Don’t assume anything, I reminded myself, raising my fist to the smooth gray wall. You already have a “distance punch” superpower. Maybe that punch can break rocks.
Turns out it can’t.
“OW, OW, OW,” I yelped with each hit. Yes, it’s true that this world lets flesh do damage to solid rock, and yes, after battering for a while it did look like I was making progress. The gray cube didn’t crack, though, not like it would in my world. What I saw were little, multicolored mini blocks spreading out from my impact point. But the moment I rested my bruised, aching hands, all the damage to the rock sealed right back up.
“Aw, man!” I shouted and angrily decked the rock again, which forced out another painful “OWWW!”
Apparently I wasn’t the only thing in this world with hyper-healing.
“What do I need to take you out?” I asked the silent, mocking stone.
Some kind of tool was the obvious answer, like the castaways in all those stories. But they usually had a whole shipwreck of supplies, or a hatchet, or at least a talking volleyball.
What did I have? Fuzzy memories and a backpack full of nothing.
Well, almost nothing.
I tried hitting the stone wall with things I’d collected: saplings, dirt cubes, even zombie flesh. For all I knew, this world gave any one of them the power of a jackhammer. None of them worked, but the sapling gave me the idea to try ripping a piece of harder, stronger wood from the leafless trees behind me.
I went over to the closest trunk and punched out the bottom section.
“Timmmberrr!” I shouted, then let out a confused huff.
Not only was the tree still upright, it was standing with nothing connecting it to the ground.
“Look,” I said, negotiating with the suspended column, “blocks and zombies are one thing, but gravity!?”
The floating trunk didn’t move.
“Okay”—I nodded, throwing up my dice-shaped hands—“your world, your rules.”
A few seconds later, I saw how true those words were.
I tried bashing the cubed log against the cliff and got nothing more than a sore hand.
I winced and, without thinking, started to pass the log to my left hand in order to give my right one a break.
“Wha…?” My square eyes widened as my left hand opened to reveal a luminous grid. There were two lines, up-down, side-to-side, dividing my palm into four sections. As the shrunken log fell into the bottom left section, the glowing image of four stacked wooden planks floated up from my open right hand.
“All right,” I said nervously, not sure if what was happening was good or bad. I tried slowly closing my fingers. The planks grew solid just as the log in my left hand vanished.
“All right!” I said with growing zeal.
In addition to the ability to heal quickly, punch things from a distance, and stick blocks to themselves without supports, somehow this world allowed me to transform raw materials into finished products in seconds. Ho
w long would that task have taken in my world? How many hours of chopping, measuring, sawing, and sanding? And that’s assuming I already knew how to do any of that. This world let me be a master crafter just by changing hands!
What can I make with these, I wondered, passing the stacked planks to my left hand. This time a tiny wooden mini-cube floated above my right.
“A button,” I breathed. Not the kind for clothes, but the kind you press. Head spinning, literally dizzy with new discoveries, I could only imagine what would happen when I pressed it. Would the button transform whatever it was stuck to into something completely different? Would it transform me? Or maybe it would raise up a giant, gleaming fortress that held a white-haired spirit who would answer all my questions and teach me how to use my powers. Hadn’t that happened in a movie?
I closed my hand on the button, grabbing it from the air and sticking it to the suspended tree.
…was this the key to sending me home!?
“I’m ready,” I shouted to the heavens, my shaking hand reaching out for the all-powerful, all-important button.
CLICK.
“Right.” I sighed, hearing the wah-wah of a trombone in my head. “So much for all the answers.”
But looking down at the remaining wood, I said, “But maybe you’ve still got a few.”
I spread the three planks out among the four spaces in my hand, and got nothing. But as soon as I took one away, the other two—sitting one above the other—projected the image of four long sturdy sticks.
“A club!” I shouted, grabbing them from the air. Putting three in my belt, I swung the fourth like a demented Neanderthal. “Me strong! Me have weapon!”
Then, still in character, I looked back at the stone wall and growled, “Me also have rock breaker!”
I should have quit experimenting right then and there. I should have gone back to digging out my underground shelter. But, big surprise, I didn’t.
“Just a few more experiments,” I said, turning my back to the rock wall, “and then I’ll get to work.”
Since the one remaining plank was only good for making buttons, I slipped it into my belt and started bashing down the rest of the suspended tree.
I divided the new planks among all the four sections of my hand, and gaped in wonder at the ghostly image they produced. This cube seemed to have all kinds of tools hanging from its sides. “Here we go!” I shouted, grabbing this new game changer. It didn’t matter that the tools were as painted-on as my clothes. The whole workbench, or “crafting table,” was a tool. Its top was laid out in nine sections that looked and acted exactly like my left hand.
“Aw, yeah!” I sang, doing what would now become my signature victory dance. I hopped a few times, spun once, hopped again, then reached for my remaining wood planks and threw them on the table.
“Let’s get crafting!”
My first few results were, let’s just say, less than stellar. Placing two planks side by side got me a thin, almost full block-wide square. Placing the square on the ground and stepping on it got me the same anticlimactic CLICK as the button. Three planks across got me six half-cube-thick slabs. Doubling them to six planks got me two similar slabs but with square holes cut in the corners. I placed one down on the ground, walked around it, stepped on it to no effect, then tried to punch it back up again.
Instead of shrinking into my hand, the slab tilted upward like a hatch. Awesome, I thought, now I don’t need hinges.
And this theory was further proved when I tried a combination of six upright planks, and got three full-size doors.
I set one down on the ground, saw that it remained standing, then reached out to open it. And yes, the freestanding door swung open with a totally normal creaking sound.
Now, I know what you’re thinking, okay? Why not just quit the crafting and get right to work making a house for this door, or, at the very least, dig a rabbit hole in the ground and cover it with the hatch? Believe me, I thought about it, and I really was going to get to it eventually. But I couldn’t stop without making the hand tools I saw on the sides of the crafting table. I mean, if this world had put them there, then they had to exist. So why wasn’t I able to make them?
I felt like those hand tools were just one more combination away. After all, I’d made so much progress, and even picked up another lesson in the process: Figuring out the rules turns them from enemies into friends.
“Just a few more tries,” I promised, placing a plank on every section of the table. When that got me nothing, I happened, by sheer chance, to take the middle one out first.
Instantly the image of a box appeared, and I don’t mean a box-shaped something, I mean an actual box. I put it down in front of me, and opened the hingeless lid. It seemed to be a fixed version of my pack with just as many compartments.
“Figures,” I huffed. “Tons more storage and nothing to store.”
And on the subject of emptiness, my next experiment—three planks in a V—got me four empty wooden bowls. Instinctively, I pictured filling them with all kinds of soups and stews. Mouth watering, I reached for an apple.
For the first time, though, my hand refused to move, and a second later I realized why. I wasn’t hungry. This world only let me eat when I needed to, not when I wanted to. “Well, that’s not fun,” I told the apple. “But at least I’ll never waste food…if I find any more.”
Looking at the leafless tree trunks, I wondered if I shouldn’t try searching for more apples before it got dark. But before I did that, I really had to get moving on that shelter. But before I did that…
Just one more try.
I put another load of planks on the crafting table, adding a few more to change the V to a U.
At first I thought I’d just made another bowl, but larger and more oval shaped, like a tub or…
“A BOAT!” I shouted, yanking it from the ether. With it still miniaturized in my hand, I ran up and over Disappointment Hill.
“Hey, guys!” I shouted to the grazing animals. “Check this out! I got a boat!”
The sheep and cows glanced up casually, then got back to more important munching.
“And a heartfelt farewell to you, too!” I said, running past them to the northern beach.
I set the tiny model tub in the water and it instantly grew into a full-sized skiff. Climbing aboard, I couldn’t believe how stable it was. No rocking, no bobbing, totally smooth. Since there was no motor or sail, I figured the only way to get going was by paddling. I leaned forward to dip my hands in the water, and the boat suddenly began to move. All I gotta do is lean, I thought, smiling as the little craft picked up speed.
Escape! Freedom!
“Yeah!” I yelled, turning back to give my island prison a final goodbye. I intended to shout something snarky like “So long, suckers!” but stopped when I saw the last bit of land shrink to a speck on the horizon. I sat up slightly, slowing the boat. I squinted for land up ahead. There wasn’t any. I glanced back at the island. It was gone. I came to a full stop, looked in every direction, and saw nothing but sky and sea.
And that’s when reality set in.
What was I thinking? Where was I going? Escaping the island didn’t mean escaping the world. At least back there I kinda knew what I was dealing with. Out here it was all unknown. This is what I should have considered when carving my “HELP!” sign on the hill. Back when I was dry and safe.
What if there wasn’t any other land? Or what if the land didn’t have any people? Or what if the people were as dangerous as zombies? Or what if there were only zombies, and those other monsters I’d seen last night? Or worse?
Gulping down stomach acid, I spun around and sped back to the island. Only the island wasn’t there. Was I going in the right direction? I zigged this way and that, hoping for just the faintest hint of green.
Nothing.
I was lost.
“Stupid,” I hissed, furious with myself for making such a thoughtless mistake.
I’d been so eager to get home that
I’d blown my one chance to survive. Now I was right back where I started, helpless and hopeless. No way was I getting out of this one.
Sooner or later I’d eat my last apple then starve slowly under the baking sun. Or maybe I’d be eaten by a squid. Maybe one was coming for me now!
I could almost feel the hungry arms rising from the depths, ready to smash my boat and drag me under. Hopefully I’d drown before they tore me apart.
Drown…
“Panic drowns thought,” I whispered, feeling the strength in my words. The enemy wasn’t rising squids, but my own rising hysteria, squeezing my chest, clouding my brain.
“Panic drowns thought!” I shouted. “And I’m not going to drown!”
I reached into my belt, not for the apple, but for a cube of dirt. Fittingly, I still had plenty from the “HELP!” sign. I closed my eyes and inhaled its rich, grounding scent.
“Let’s go find the rest of you,” I told it. “We have to be close. There’s no current, and the breeze can’t’ve blown us too far off course.”
The breeze.
So far I’d only noticed it gusting east to west. I looked up to the clouds and matched their movement with the line of the setting sun.
“Now we know east and west,” I said with growing confidence, “and since we started from the island’s north beach, keeping the sun to the right means heading south.”
I put the dirt back in my belt and leaned cautiously forward…
…and there it was, the top of Disappointment Hill. I sighed in relief, leaning as far forward as I could.
The boat shot headlong onto the beach, smashing into planks and sticks against the sandy northern shore.
I didn’t care.
“Made it,” I whispered, wishing my body could let me kiss the ground.
“Moo,” called an approaching cow, its voice heavy with criticism.
“I know,” I said, getting out of the water and collecting the remains of my boat. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“Moo,” said the cow.
“You’re right,” I answered. “I’ve gotta think before I act, and that doesn’t just mean figuring out my next move. I need a clear, long-term strategy if I’m gonna survive this world.”
