by Max Brooks
I broke through into the darkened room just in time to see a fresh bonebag emerge from the caged flame.
“Say good night, hotshot,” I said with a chuckle, diamond blade flashing.
After smashing the spawning cage, I poked my head through the doorway to watch my dispensers claim their last victim.
I made sure to go back the way I came, because, like fire, booby traps have no loyalty, then set to work disassembling them. The war was far from over, and both arrows and dispensers still had a lot of work to do.
My next trap involved a dispenser and a small, previously unused item called a flint and steel. It was a C-shaped piece of iron and a flint chip that, when struck together, caused a small, temporary blaze. I’d accidentally made one a while back, but couldn’t think of a use.
I did now.
When placed in a dispenser and then set next to a pressure plate, it acted as a kind of rearguard land mine. Remember, in addition to spawners, there were still random patches of darkness that created the occasional mob.
Just as I was setting my first trap, the groan of a zombie filled the passageway. I looked up to see the undead attacker lurching from out of the gloom. I backed up a few steps, but not so far that I risked losing contact. The zombie came on, slow and dumb and completely unaware of the danger.
“Don’t stop,” I encouraged. “Come and get it.”
It stepped on the pressure plate, which activated the dispenser, which sparked the flint striker, which set the green ghoul ablaze. Burning like a torch, it growled and gurgled toward me.
“Burn, baby, burn!” I chanted, retreating just as quickly as it advanced. After a few seconds I saw that fire wouldn’t finish the ghoul. It weakened it, though. I only needed one strong chop.
Good enough, I thought, placing more striker mines in the passageway behind me. And they did their job splendidly. I could hear the cries of burning ghouls echoing through the tunnels. “I’ll put all of you out of your misery soon enough,” I called, focusing on my next booby trap.
What this one lacked in imagination, it more than made up for in lethality. A pressure plate, a trapdoor, and a hole filled with lava.
“Hey, Blasty,” I shouted to a nearby creeper. “Over here!”
Weirdly, the living bomb turned in the other direction. “No, doofus!” I shouted, and raised my bow. “Here!”
I shot the creeper in the back, hoping, if you can believe it, for a less than lethal kill. The green, silent column turned back, locked on me, and slowly glided forward.
“Right!” I said, backing up past its invisible detonation range. “Here’s your target!”
The creeper swept over the pressure plate, then dropped through the trapdoor. Bobbing and burning, it silently surrendered to its fate.
“Shame,” I said, watching my foe disintegrate. “I could have used the gunpowder.”
I found my way back to the main cavern, specifically to a shaft that opened right up above a lava pond. Just as I was setting up my new horror show, I heard a growing cackle. A jackpot of two witches came around the corner, bottles of who-knows-what in their hands.
“Perfect!” I called to the approaching villains. “You, of all mobs, deserve what’s coming.”
With the flick of a lever, I sent a minecart racing down a powered rail. This new combination of wood, gold, and, of course, redstone, sent the automated missile crashing into the oncoming witches.
Cackling maniacally, they toppled right off the cliff, and into the liquid fire. “Who’s laughing now?” I shouted, realizing a second later that, in fact, they still were. “Yeah, well…I still get the last laugh.”
I hopped into a minecart, a stacked collection of tracks in my hand. Leaning forward, just like in a boat, I found I was able to make the cart move on its own. Placing new tracks in front of me, and connecting them to existing rail lines allowed me to zip along the mineshafts like a racecar.
If I hadn’t been at war, the ride probably would have been fun.
Soon enough, I thought, racing through endless tunnels. Once this whole maze is cleared, I’ll build a roller coaster down here. Wouldn’t that be cool!
Laying track as I went, and steering on a specific course, I checked off my list of victories. Spiders: gone. Skeletons: gone. Random patches of darkness: lit. Random passages: booby-trapped.
Just one more, I thought excitedly. One more spawner, and then I’ve won!
Coming to rest at the base of the zombies’ spawning chamber, I leapt out of the cart and ran like a maniac for the door.
“Guhhh,” growled a ghoul, poking its head out of the entrance.
“Stay!” I commanded, bashing it back inside with my shield. I wanted it trapped, not dead. Before it could regroup for another strike, I placed two glass blocks in the opening.
Glass? Yep, glass. I not only used it to seal up the doorway, but I also replaced the entire cobblestone wall with clear cubes. I had something very special planned for my slouching friends.
After finishing the first glass wall, I built a second, identical barrier one block behind it, and then filled in the space between them with water.
Why water, you ask? Because it was the only substance that could absorb the blast of TNT.
I hit upon the idea from that first explosive creeper. Remember how it had blown a hole in the bank of the lagoon? Well, I realized that the blast had only hurt the bank itself, while the shallow, underwater blocks were unscathed.
I thought I was being so careful. I’d even tested the water-wall theory in the cooled lava cave. And it had worked.
After filling this water wall, I placed stone steps up to the top of the spawning chamber’s ceiling, hollowed out a space above the roof, and filled the space with charges.
I thought I was being so careful.
Running a fuse of redstone dust all the way back to the bottom, I armed the last step with a simple wooden button. How poetically fitting that this button was the first item I’d ever crafted. Things were really coming full circle.
“You were my first threat,” I sneered at the zombies, “and now you’ll be the last.”
A dim hidden memory took shape as I leaned in to push the button, some kind of expression about another button and another great explosion. Strangely enough, the image of a mushroom cloud crystalized in my mind.
“Bing, bang, boom,” I said and pressed the small wooden square.
And then the world ended.
Or at least that’s what it felt like as the earsplitting concussion blew up the room, the zombies, and the torches that lit my “victory.”
“Yeeehaw,” I started to yell, but was suddenly smothered in a deluge of water.
The top level of the glass wall must have shattered, I thought, and backed up to get away.
Only I couldn’t back up. Something was blocking my escape. I turned to see gravel, an entire wall of the stuff, had fallen in behind me.
I looked up to see how far the barrier reached, and saw where the water was really coming from. My heart froze. I’d made a deadly mistake. I’d had no way of knowing how close the ocean floor was to me. I’d just assumed it was a mountain of rock.
Never assume anything.
The blast had not only ripped that floor wide open, but had also released a massive gravel deposit behind me.
Trapped. Drowning. There was no place to go but up!
So far.
So slow.
Cold. Dark.
CRACK!
Shooting pains through air-starved muscles.
Closer, but still so far away. My body ached, my lungs burned.
Swim!
CRACK!
Mouth open in a choked scream.
Just like before. The beginning and the end.
CRACK!
I reached for the glow, grabbing for breath, for life.
CRACK!
The end is the beginning!
CRACK!
I understand now. I get it!
EPILOGUE
; “I understand now,” was what I coughed to Moo. Half dead, splashing to the surface, I pulled myself painfully to shore at the feet of my loyal friend. “I understand everything,” I repeated, in answer to her knowing, “about time” moo. Gulping down breaths, I limped sluggishly toward her.
“It’s all coming together,” I told her, the two of us walking into the woods. “When I was down there, drowning in the deep, I kept thinking about how everything had come full circle, about endings and beginnings and how they’re one and the same.”
By this point we’d made it over to where the sheep family was grazing. “Everybody, gather round,” I announced. “I’ve got something important to say.” Of course they didn’t listen, but did it stop me talking?
“Keep going,” I began. “That was the first lesson I learned here, and now it’ll be the last.” I took a moment to let my words sink in. “I have to accept that I’m at the end of one adventure and at the beginning of another. I’ve got to keep going. I’ve got to leave the island.”
Before they could say anything, before they could pretend to not care by turning away to eat, I added, “No, no, hear me out. Like I said, I understand now. In fact, I’ve understood for quite a while. It’s that gnawing feeling I’ve had since finishing the second house. It’s why I’ve been acting so crazy since then. I didn’t want to admit the scary truth.”
“Which is?” mooed Moo.
“Which is,” I answered, “that after working so hard to create a safe space to answer the really big questions, I realized that the answers to those questions can’t be found in a safe space.”
I gestured out to the horizon. “They’re out there in the unknown.”
“Baa,” asked Rainy, as the sheep family all looked at me.
“Good question. Hopefully there’s more land, more people. Hopefully I’ll be able to find my way home.”
Moo let out a soft, sad “moo.” And that’s when my tears came.
“No, you’re right,” I said through the lump in my throat. “This is my home, too, and I’ll carry its memories in my heart, because even if I don’t find the answers I’m searching for, it’s the searching that really matters.”
There it was, the ultimate lesson of this world.
“I struggled so hard for a goal, without realizing that the goal is the struggle. It’s what makes me stronger, smarter, and better. Growth doesn’t come from a comfort zone, but from leaving it.”
—
A week later I had packed up everything I needed for a long voyage. Food, tools, a compass, and a yet-to-be-filled map. I made sure the garden was well-tended, and that the house would be ready to accept a new visitor.
That visitor, as you well know, is you. I hope you find my house comfortable, and if you want to build a basement music studio, I’ve left you the book, along with all the other manuals, in my bedroom. This book that you’re reading was the last item in the last manual I found, a combination of sugar-paper, leather from Moo’s late partner, and ink from the squid I killed way back but couldn’t find a use for. Figures.
These will be the last words I write before walking down the hill to my boat, before saying goodbye to my beloved friends. Please treat them well. Friends keep you sane.
I don’t know what’s waiting beyond the horizon, but now I’m ready for a bigger world. Maybe I’ll meet the authors of the books I’ve found. Maybe they’ll be castaways like me. Maybe they’ve intentionally left those books to help future travelers with their journeys, the way I’m leaving this book for you.
I hope what I’ve learned helps you find your way. Most of all, I hope you’ve learned that in this world of mines and crafting, the most important thing you can craft is you.
1. Keep going, never give up.
2. Panic drowns thought.
3. Don’t assume anything.
4. Think before you act.
5. Details make the difference.
6. Just because the rules don’t make sense to you doesn’t mean that they don’t make sense.
7. Figuring out the rules turns them from enemies into friends.
8. Be grateful for what you have.
9. It’s not wisdom that counts but wisdom under pressure.
10. Too much confidence can be as dangerous as having none at all.
11. Take life in steps.
12. Friends keep you sane.
13. Conserve your resources.
14. Tantrums never help.
15. Nothing clears the mind like sleep.
16. When looking for solutions, beating yourself up isn’t one of them.
17. Don’t dwell on mistakes; learn from them.
18. Great risk can come with great rewards.
19. Fear can be conquered. Anxiety must be endured.
20. Courage is a full-time job.
21. When the world changes, you’ve got to change with it.
22. Always be aware of your surroundings.
23. There’s nothing wrong with careful curiosity.
24. Take care of your environment, so it can take care of you.
25. Just because someone looks like you doesn’t automatically make them a friend.
26. Just because someone doesn’t look like you doesn’t automatically make them an enemy.
27. Everything comes at a price. Especially if that price is your conscience.
28. It’s not failure that matters, it’s how you recover.
29. When you’re trying to tell yourself something, listen.
30. Questions don’t stay put; you can’t just walk away from them.
31. Never put off the boring but important chores.
32. Sometimes you have to compromise an ideal in order to save it.
33. Books make the world bigger.
34. Revenge hurts only you.
35. Knowledge, like a seed, needs the right time to bloom.
36. Growth doesn’t come from a comfort zone, but from leaving it.
To Michelle and Henry,
who keep me from being
an island.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To Jack Swartz, who first introduced the Brooks family to Minecraft.
To the folks at Mojang, Lydia and Junk, for letting me play in their sandbox.
To Ed Victor, who, as always, continues to believe in me.
A BIG thank you to Sarah Peed, the Spock to my Kirk.
To my wife, my beacon, Michelle.
And finally to my mom, who, long ago, thought it would be a good idea to read a book called Robinson Crusoe to her son.
NOVELS
Minecraft: The Island
The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
GRAPHIC NOVELS
The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks
G.I. Joe: Hearts & Minds
The Extinction Parade
The Harlem Hellfighters
A More Perfect Union
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MAX BROOKS is an author, public speaker, and non-resident fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point. His bestselling books include The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z, which was adapted into a 2013 movie starring Brad Pitt. His graphic novels include The Extinction Parade, G.I. Joe: Hearts & Minds, and the #1 New York Times bestseller The Harlem Hellfighters.
maxbrooks.com
Facebook.com/AuthorMaxBrooks
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