by Angel Ramon
“Get away from me you freak!”
George stabs the undead in the head with his survival knife. More zombies come down the stairs. Dawn and George run back to get distance as they shoot the undead down. They manage to kill the zombies from a safe distance.
Pistol Ammo: 11
With the zombies dead, they make sure that no more are coming down. However, they do not anticipate zombies coming from behind. A couple of zombies bite George and Dawn on their shoulders. The two push them away and begin to run.
Condition: Caution (Level 2)
Pistol Ammo: 8
“Get off me!” George screams.
“Ambush!” Dawn screams.
“We gotta shoot them, George!” Dawn shouts ready to shoot until the number of undead grows greatly.
“No! There’s too many of them, we gotta save our bullets. Run, just run!”
George and Dawn run up the stairs hoping there are no more zombies to be seen. They’re in luck as they’re able to escape back to the lobby.
“Close the door, Dawn! That might slow them down just a bit.”
Dawn follows George’s orders and closes the door. The two of them run up to the Forever 21 store. George heads to the card reader and inserts the card.
“I wonder what hell we got to endure now.” George asks.
“I have no idea. Are you ready?” Dawn asks.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
The two of them wait for the shaft to open.
Chapter 8
Before George decides to enter the Forever 21 store, he wants to craft some more ammo beforehand.
“Hey Dawn, I’m going to get some more ammo. Wanna tag along?”
“No, I think I’ll investigate the store and see if I find the maintenance area. It’s a big store for sure.”
“You sure you’re not using that as an excuse so you can go shoe shopping.” George giggles.
“Haha very funny. Just go get your ammo. I’ll be waiting for you inside. Try not to take too long. There’s no telling when big bubba will be looking for us.” Dawn replies.
While Dawn walks inside of the Forever 21 store, George heads to the gun shop. Walking to the gun shop, George sees three zombies come out of the store.
“More of them? It seems every time I go to the gun shop these guys come out of nowhere.”
He takes out the three reanimated corpses with the remaining bullets in his pistol.
Pistol Ammo: 0
His pistol is empty, but he’s more concerned about his power weapons as he has a bad feeling that something big is still on the horizon. Walking in carefully, he doesn’t find any more undead or creatures. When he gets to the ammo crafting machine, he begins to craft some ammo.
You have inserted a jar of Gunpowder B.
+10 Buckshot Shells. Buckshot Shells: 17
You have inserted a jar of Gunpowder C.
+10 Magnum Rounds. Magnum Rounds: 20
+100 XP Gained!
Crafting XP: 1050/1100
Gathering his ammo, he is concerned with one thing and that is having a health item. He’s taken a few hits and wants to be prepared. George also understands that items are far and few between. Walking out of the gun shop, he runs back to the Forever 21 shop that is surprisingly only one level high. When he walks in though, he can see that it makes up for this with its huge size.
He sees where he’s located there is light but towards the right side, it’s dark. George begins to look for Dawn. Approaching the dress section, he is met with a couple of Lizardas that try to attack him. One of them jumps toward him but with his shotgun ready, he blasts it dead with a buckshot shell. The other Lizarda tries to jump onto him.
With his shotgun not ready to shoot, George throws his knife quickly towards the creature. The knife lands on the heart of the zombie. The lizard lands on the floor. George reloads his shotgun and blasts its brains before it can get up. After seeing his leather jacket get even more blood on it, he pulls the knife out of the dead Lizarda.
Buckshot Shells: 15
Another Lizarda tries to surprise him on his right side but he’s prepared and shoots it down with a couple of buckshot shots.
Buckshot Shells: 13
Looking around the dress section, he doesn’t see Dawn anywhere. He figures with the size of the store that he’s bound to find her. Heading to the plus size section, he finds some dresses that would look good on one of his ex-wives.
“I gotta admit for being a store for young women, they have exactly what my fat bimbo ex would have liked. God, I have no idea how I stood with that woman for so long.” He says while looking at an extra large fire red dress.
Despite all the dresses around him, he still sees no sign of Dawn. Instead only the sight of more innocent bodies remains. Getting out of the plus size section, he heads to the blouse section. Entering the blouse section, he sees a couple of spiders that are comfortably far. He loads in the slug shells, figuring that he wants to get them from long range.
Seeing the giant spiders crawling, he walks closer to get a better shot at them. When he’s close enough to one of them, he shoots it with a couple of slugs until it drops to the floor dead. He tries to get the sneak on the other, but it spots him. It attempts to shoot it with its poison but George is able to hide behind a cabinet of shirts.
The poison burns through the cabinet slowly. George peeks out of the cabinet and shoots the spider with one slug. It doesn’t kill the spider though. The spider crawls towards him as he’s reloading. He’s able to reload his weapon in time and the spider attempts to tackle him. One shot from George’s shotgun into the spider’s mouth is enough for the rancid green blood to squirt out of it.
Slug Shells: 7
“Oh man, that is disgusting! Looks like I hit its G-Spot. I thought only humans had their sweet spots. Too bad this one stinks.”
Once he sees the spiders are dead, he quickly runs from the section to avoid smelling the blood. He notices that he still hasn’t found Dawn yet.
“Dawn! Where can you be? I bet she’s in the shoe section, oh women.”
Walking to the shoe section, he looks around for Dawn but doesn’t see her to his surprise. Looking through the boot section, he comes up empty. Then he goes where the stiletto heels are located. Despite the good looking shoes around, Dawn is still nowhere to be found.
“Dawn! Where are you? If you’re around, let me know.”
All of sudden, nothing but silence is heard and that is when he realizes that Dawn is really missing. He is close to the darkened section of the store. He fears that she might have gone missing or even captured by Mr. Z. Before he makes it to the other side of the store, he is approached by a couple of giant froggers. One of them jumps and slashes him, hitting him good.
Condition: Danger
Not taking any chances, he dives back as the other frogger tries to spit poison at him. He shoots a slug into the mouth of the frogger. The poison barely misses him as he’s able to go land on the floor as it runs above him. After landing on the floor, he pulls out his magnum.
Slug Shells: 6
The other frogger hops towards him and tries to use slash him again. This time George shoots two magnum rounds into the mouth of the frog, killing it.
Magnum Rounds: 18
“Damn, what kind of zoo is Hybrid running here? I hate to think that this could be the future of our world if Hybrid wins.”
With both giant creatures dead, George goes and grabs his flashlight. Entering the darkened section of the store, George turns on his flashlight to see better in the store. As he’s walking towards the men’s section, the quiet nature begins to scare him a bit. He turns around quickly just to make sure nothing is trying to surprise him from behind.
“Whew! It’s just my imagination playing with my head.”
When he walks further into the darkened part of the store, he sees a huge horde of zombies up ahead. Turning back, he sees more of them coming from behind. With no time to panic, he loads in the Dragonf
ire shells. George waits for the zombies to get closer and then shoots a couple of Dragonfire shells. The flames overtake the zombies and begin to burn them.
Dragonfire Shells: 8
George has no time to relax though as the other group of zombies gets closer to him. He shoots a Dragonfire shell at the horde and some of the zombies begin to burn. However, he sees more undead breaking through the flames. Before he can shoot another Dragonfire shell, Mr. Z shows up and breaks through the horde of zombies.
“Looks like my friend is back! Take this!”
George shoots a couple of Dragonfire sells at the superhuman. Mr. Z kneels down in pain, giving time for George to run.
Dragonfire Shells: 5
He doesn’t even bother staying as he knows Mr. Z will continue to get up no matter what.
“Damn I better find a way to take this monster out! Too bad I have no idea how to.”
George continues to run until he gets to the handbag section where he tries to hide. He can see the flames still burning on Mr. Z. A minute later, the flames begin to die out and the monster gets back up. He hides under the bags trying to avoid being spotted. Mr. Z walks while it punches everything in sight in anger.
George can see the door to the maintenance section, but he doesn’t dare run. Seeing that Mr. Z is heading towards his direction, he crawls silently away from where he was to the other cabinet of handbags. Mr. Z walks to the cabinet where George was and punches it down to the floor. All of the handbags fall and to Mr. Z’s shock, George is nowhere to be found.
“Take this sucker!”
George shoots two Dragonfire shots at Mr. Z forcing it to take a knee once again. Seeing the superhuman down, he rushes to the door leading to the maintenance area. He flashes his flashlight to find the door and make sure he doesn’t trip up anywhere. Reaching the door, he finds that it’s locked.
Fumbling with his lockpick, George tries to get the door unlocked. His nerves due to Mr. Z cause him to drop the lockpick repeatedly.
“Gotta calm down no matter if a giant is trying to scare me… Come on George you got this…”
Fighting with his nerves, he manages to get the door unlocked and looks behind him. To his relief, the superhuman is nowhere to be found.
Lockpicking Skill increased to Level 13!
With the door unlocked, he quickly closes the door behind him. The hallway is nearly pitch black. With his flashlight, he shines on the hallway. He sees two possible ways he can go. Not sure where to go, he takes the left path. Running to the left path, he rushes through the hallway.
He begins to feel a bad sensation in his body as he’s unsure where he’s going and he might get lost. The only source of light is from his flashlight. He approaches a part of the hallway that is under construction and is ambushed by zombie hands that pop out of the wall.
“Oh crap! You gotta be kidding me, are these guys trying to give me a heart attack?”
He falls to the ground and sees the hands trying to reach out to grab him. With the hands unable to go all the way to the floor, George decides to crawl under the hands. Crawling under the hands of the zombies, he makes it to the other side of the dark hall. Flashing his light, he sees many electrical and water pipes running through the ceiling.
He continues to run keeping in mind that Mr. Z is probably still on his tail. When he reaches the end of the hall, he sees a couple of doors. One of them leads to the electrical room, but the door is locked. He can hear the screaming of Mr. Z close by. He opens the other door which leads him to the lunch break room for the maintenance crew.
Entering the room, he finds a place to hide in a closet. Entering the closet, he can see Mr. Z breaking the door down with authority. He can see the pale stone cold faced monster walking in his direction.
“Crap he’s actually gonna find me. This can’t be it…”
Mr. Z grabs the closet and rips it off from the frame. When it looks for George, he is unable to find him and walks out of the room. George tries to keep himself on the ceiling as he uses his feet and hands to stay attached to the wall. As soon as the monster walks out of the room, George treks down the wall carefully. Catching his breath while his heartbeat is still racing, he looks through the break room.
Walking through the room, he finds a healing item on the table.
Picked up a Green Herb.
You have combined a Green and Red Herb to create a Super Herb.
You have used a Super Herb.
Condition: Fine
“Ah… that will take the sting off it.”
He continues to look around the room and sees a locker that he can open. Looking inside, he finds nothing inside. There is a locker next to the one that he just opened. It’s locked, but he uses his lockpick to unlock it. He finds an item inside.
Picked up a First Aid Spray.
Continuing to look around the room, he doesn’t find any keys or anything to open the electrical room.
“It looks like I’ll have to go to the other side after all and hope trenchy is not waiting for me.”
He leaves the room and begins to walk to the other side of the hallway. Approaching the section where the hands were popping out, a few naked undeads break through the wooden wall landing on the floor. George runs back and loads in the buckshot shells.
With his shotgun, he easily kills the undead with only three shots. A couple of them break in half due to the impact of the buckshot shells. One of the undead who breaks in half tries to grab and bite George’s right leg.
“Oh no, you don’t!”
Buckshot Shells: 12
He steps on the head of the zombie, killing it. All of the other zombies are already dead. With his flashlight still on, he continues to walk down the hallway. He is careful to look around to make sure Mr. Z is not close by. Seeing the coast is clear, he keeps his flashlight on and keeps moving. He notices that his flashlight is starting to shut off on and off.
“No, not now. Come on you stupid light!” He says tapping the flashlight to get it to light brightly again.
With the light working good once again, he heads to the right side of the hallway that he ignored before. Walking through the hallway, he sees the path is rather linear. Turning the corner, he bumps into a frogger that slashes him when he’s not expecting it.
Condition: Caution (Level 1)
After taking a surprise attack, he shoots the frog as it tries to open its mouth. The buckshot shell with its high impact pierces through the frog and kills it right away. The green blood from the frog splatters all over the wall. Luckily the smell is not nearly as rancid as the giant spiders.
“Dawn! Where are you?”
“Help!” A feminine voice screams.
“Dawn is that you?” George shouts.
Rushing to the door in front of him, he finds himself in the transformer room. In the room, he sees a bunch of big transformers that help route and distributes power throughout the mall.
When he walks towards the back of the room, Dawn can be seen trying to run from something.
“Dawn!”
“George is that you?”
“Yeah, what’s going on?” George asks.
“That monster is back!” She replies.
George sees that Dawn is unarmed and is running for her life. He pulls out his magnum and begins to shoot the superhuman in his head. After a couple of headshots, the monster is still standing as it tries to punch George. He’s able to dive away from the huge punch. Mr. Z punches one of the transformers causing it to become electrocuted.
Magnum Rounds: 16
Mr. Z walks back and takes a knee as it’s fighting the electricity that goes into his body. Dawn sees her Desert Eagle next to George’s feet.
“George! My gun is next to your foot. Grab it and throw it to me.” Dawn yells. George grabs the Desert Eagle and throws it.
“Here you go!”
Dawn catches her gun and reloads it. George tries to shoot but sees that he has to reload his magnum. While George is reloading, Mr. Z tri
es to get up. However, Dawn begins to shoot it in the head. Mr. Z gets up and begins to go after Dawn who dives out of the way from its right hook. George finishes reloading and shoots three headshots getting Mr. Z onto its knees.
Magnum Rounds: 13
Dawn reloads her Desert Eagle as Mr. Z looks dead in her face.
“Looks like just another failed Hybrid experiment.” Dawn says while aiming at the monster’s head.
Dawn shoots the monster in the eye. The impact is powerful enough to pierce its brain. Blue blood comes out of the head of the superhuman.
“Nice shooting there. It looks like trenchy has finally kicked the bucket.”
“I would like to agree, but this is only one of many.”
“What? You mean, there are more of these freaks?”
“I’m afraid so… I managed to find out that six of these guys were made.”
“So there are five more of these bastards roaming?”
“Yup and where they’re located is another question entirely.”
“I tried looking for you in the store. I’m glad I found you safe and all, but how did you end up here? Or was trenchy the culprit?”
“Actually no. There is something even worse in this mall. I can’t say exactly what it is because it’s possible that Hybrid came up with a new freak to research. It looked like a pig and a bear meshed together into one. It’s really ugly, actually uglier than my ex-boyfriend. It also has tentacles that come from its stomach.”
“Doesn’t sound friendly at all. If I had to guess, it sounds like Hybrid is trying to bring the myth of the ManBearPig to life.”
“I heard of that myth. I bumped into the creature when I was investigating the mall. It nearly grabbed me with its tentacles. Not even my Desert Eagle weakened it. I got a bad feeling that we’ll have to face that monster before we can escape this mall.”
“I hate to say it but I agree. Especially with our luck.”
“I did see the chief of the Brewster police department here and he helped me when you weren’t around.”
“That’s good but where did he go and how do you know him?”
