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Now that would explain the “War of the Worlds” reference Thomas had made. I could only scowl.
It took me only a split second to process the fact that what Thomas meant was akin to an invasion. From where though? I knew it didn’t matter to me right now. However, the fact they were likely hostile in nature only became apparent as I heard muted explosions in the distance, and if I strained hard, I could hear the quiet screams. While I could live it up to me just imagining things, I knew, from the instinctual suspicion that I felt, it wasn’t the case. Myself, and more importantly, my family was in danger, and we needed to listen to the last piece of advice Thomas had given, that is, get into the basement and wait until he gets there. I had an inkling, that when he got here, we’d find out a lot more about our situation.
While my musings only encompassed a moment, it was certainly enough for me to pull out my handgun holstered to my side, load in a magazine, and, making sure the safety was still turned on, I grasped it in my hand. All around us people were bewildered as they began climbing back to their feet, many still staring off into the rift in the distance.
The more astute among them could sense the danger it posed, and they were the ones that had already started to flee the area, to get far away from the epicenter of the danger. Some were seeking shelter, and others were trying to get into their vehicles but found that to no avail, they would not start. So my EMP theory might be correct then? The one caveat to the whole thing is that if it truly had functioned like an EMP then I could hope the military would still be functioning. Hopefully, it wasn’t some other type of source, otherwise, I think civilization may have just been blown back into some horrible dark age.
Kaitlyn was the first to open her eyes. “Honey!” I yelled out in relief.
“A- Alex?” she mumbled out, some slight pain in her voice.
“It’s me, babe,” I attempted to comfort her. “Do you feel well enough to stand up and walk?” I attempted to get straight to the point. I knew that maybe it seemed heartless, but I wanted to get away from the Turnpike before things inevitably got worse.
She nodded slightly as she sat up, gripping her head with her right arm, she propped herself up with her left. “Ya, I feel fine, just a lot sorer than before whatever that was.” She looked at me as though wondering if I had some sort of answer to what just happened.
I shook my head, “The only thing I can say right now is that we should start heading back to the house, what’s up there isn’t something I want to be anywhere close to right now.” I said referencing the rifts.
My Dad was the next one to get up at that. Looks like he had woken up some time while I was talking to Kaitlyn.
As he slowly stood up on his feet and dusted off his clothes. He simply responded, “Well son, we best get moving then.” I knew that even though my father was acting tough, he still had his own fair deal of pain to deal with. But I could respect him for his resolve regardless.
Just then, we could already hear a fair sign of the chaos to come. “William!” a man yelled.
Looking over to the altercation I could see an expensively dressed man, who was yelling at a larger, albeit similar-looking man. A brother perhaps?
“You better not scuff up my suitcase as well! My suit is already ruined and I’m supposed to be meeting with a client in ten minutes!” the man continued to yell at the other man, who I could only assume was named William.
The larger William looked annoyed but didn’t even put up a fight, as he continued to load up the obviously hefty-looking suitcase into the gaudy Bentley. Unfortunately for them, unless that car had somehow been customized with a faraday cage, it was unlikely to ever start again.
We ignored the altercation as Kaitlyn had also climbed to her feet. My dad looked like he was looking for my car, but I only shook my head at him. “Dad, the car won’t work anymore. In fact, I’m pretty sure nothing electrical short of military-grade, will be working again.” I stated. “Pretty sure it was some sort of EMP that hit and knocked everybody out…”
“EMP?” my father asked skeptically.
I then watched as my dad pulled out his phone, and to my surprise, it was still working.
“Then why would my phone still work?” he responded.
I could only silently stare, before gesturing towards the multitudes of other people already trying to get their cars working, but failed.
“Well, your phone works, but the cars don’t. At this point, I have no idea what happened then.” I responded.
We then began to make our way over to the street that would take us back home. Sparing a quick glance back, I couldn’t see the dragon-like beast that had come from the rift. Much of the horizon was blocked by the thick tree cover, despite the rift being readily apparent. The only sign of the chaos that I could see in the distance were the plums of smoke that had begun to appear, and the slight reddish hue the horizon had started to take on.
Clearly, things were not boding well for those in the city.
“We should get moving” I stated as it became apparent the evidence of fires on the horizon was beginning to make both my father and wife uneasy.
They both concurred, and we began making our way back home at a brisk pace.
The walk back, considering everything that was going on, was largely uneventful. We passed by numerous individuals and families standing outside their homes looking into the distance. Some looked injured, a likely side effect of that EMP-thing. Everyone was in varying degrees of contemplation over the event. Some looked bewildered, others were in the process of trying to pack things into their cars, only to discover that their vehicles would not cooperate, while others just watched the horizon. Staring off into the distance.
After about a mile or so, we found ourselves approaching Main st. That was when the screaming began.
All of us immediately came to a stop.
It wasn’t just some random happenstance scream, as it soon became apparent. As ahead of us we could see the Shrewsbury Public Party, and adjacent to that was the local town cemetery. The cemetery itself wasn’t all that large, at least, comparably. It likely held near a thousand different tombstones.
My wife appeared hesitant, but my father on the other hand had an entirely different look on his face. He was earnestly looking for the source of the scream, and to some, they may confuse his look with one of simple detection, or despondence. However, I knew otherwise.
My father was always the type to stop and help people. It’s why hardly ever had any cash on him, he would always give it away to anyone who asked, even to the disdain of members of our family, he still went out of his way to help others. I could even remember when Thomas and I had been younger, and my dad had picked up a homeless man hitchhiking along the freeway. The stench was terrible, but we never heard my Father complain about it.
The face he had on now was the same look he had when he would see somebody in need, and I immediately knew he was about to rush in and help.
After the events I distantly witnessed occurring in Worcester though, I was more than hesitant to rush in the direction of any screaming. The one caveat happened to be that the screaming was coming down the same street we needed to go through to reach the house. We were only a half-mile away, but it appeared as though we were already going to be encountering some issues.
My father began to jog forward, and I helplessly followed him, I was the one with any actual weapon after all. Kaitlyn continued just behind me.
In only a matter of moments, we were close enough to witness the source of the screaming. Just past the library, we saw several individuals contending with a mass of… people?
On closer look it became apparent it was anything but that, and as a gentle breeze pushed the smell towards me, the stench almost knocked me off of my feet.
There were literal, god-forsaken, zombies streaming from the cemetery. The entire street looked as though it was already swarming with hundreds of them, however, most appeared to be converging onto the library and several other buildings in the area, where there appeared to be quite an amount of people held up. While most in the buildings had already boarded themselves up, the rest of the people had found themselves stranded out in the open, and with the individuals in the buildings refusing to let them in, lest they risk letting in the undead as well, they found themselves surrounded.
Already I could see that several dozen had succumbed to the advancing, and shambling swarm. With nearly a dozen of them left, the survivors had found themselves being pressed up against the side of the library.
My father looked towards me, “Alex,” he said. He turned back to the dozen or so survivors, and that was all he needed to say. I knew my father was about to run into the fray, and likely die trying if I didn’t back him up.
As luck would have it, if you could even believe such a thing existed considering the circumstances, a majority of the dead were distracted, trying to break into much of the surrounding buildings, and cars. Wherever people were able to barricade themselves. There were perhaps a few dozen converging on the destitute group.
My father began making his way forward. I looked at Kaitlyn, “Stay close to me,” I said. With my sidearm in hand, I followed after my Dad, who had managed to actually grab a discarded, and evidently dented bat off of the ground. At least that might help a bit, I thought. I then turned towards the undead in front of me.
It was sort of funny actually. In the back of my mind, I had already rationalized and prepared myself for encountering monsters. However, dealing with the living dead was something else entirely. It was definitely a popular pop-culture topic, and I, along with I’m sure millions of others had engrossed myself in tales of the undead. Never in my life did I believe that I’d ever actually need to deal with them as a reality.
I flicked the safety off of my Glock as I raised, it, and with the first undead only being about twenty feet away, I discharged my gun. In quick succession, I fired off two shots. The first grazed the skull of the undead. Its glowing blue eyes had slowly begun to turn towards me as the second shot I had discharged hit the skull dead center. In a split second, I was awed as I saw a small blue crystal construct within the skull of the zombie explode in a muted flash of blue light. The body subsequently collapsed onto the ground.
That definitely confirms my theory, I thought. I was actually wondering whether or not what was in front of me was in any way comparable to the zombies you’d find in most fictions. One-shot in the head, and they’d be gone. As it turned out, the same bore truth here. However, the outcome was certainly different, I had no idea what that blue light was, but I have a sinking suspicion that the blue light had something to do with why the dead had managed to come back to life.
It was then I noticed the screen that had appeared upon the creature’s death.
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Notice: You have used a weapon outside the purview of the system. [Calculating…] You have received a ~99% debuff to your experience gain. [Calculating…] You have dealt ▗▚▙▚ points of ▟▚▚▞ damage to [Reanimated Decomposing Corpse] 1 experience point received |
It was eerily similar to the same blue screen that had appeared mentioning the system in the first place. Discounting that, much of what was said was extremely confusing, however, I got the discrete feeling I had somehow been cheated for using a gun.
Regardless, that did not matter right now, so I discounted the screen. What actually mattered was making sure that myself and my family got out of this alive. If that meant helping my father rescue a group of people that were likely to be fodder for a zombie horde, then I guess so be it.
I began to shoot several more rounds into the horde of undead. Some of my shots missed, but, I found to my pleasant surprise that most hit close to where I was aiming. It was a bit of a difficult adjustment to make in shooting moving targets, however, I managed well enough.
“Dad! If you can, try aiming for their heads!” I yelled out. Up to that point, my father had also been making his own way, he was at first kiting the zombies a bit, and trying to incapacitate them the best he could. As such, he managed to disable a few by knocking out their knees, rendering them mostly immobile. With the slight bit of direction, I could see my father change the direction of his hits. At first, it would take two or three hits to the head to cave them in, and in a sudden spurt of blue light, the undead would fall to the ground, dead. It was after a few of these that my father somehow seemed to be moving faster and hitting stronger rather than tiring out like I thought he would. Is it the adrenaline? I thought as I continued the discharge the remainder of my magazine. With the fifteen shots I had discharged, I managed to take out four of the dead, My father on the other hand was starting to make short work of them.
To my surprise, the noise we had been making hadn’t managed to draw in the zombies attacking the buildings, however, we had definitely garnered the attention of the mass that had been trying to make their way through the stranded survivors. To my disdain, a few of them had already managed to fall. As I drew closer, however, I could take stock of the ones that had managed to make it through long enough for our efforts to bear fruit.
There were four teenagers, three of them girls, another a boy, as well as a set of parents, and three grown men, one of which almost looked sort of like a priest with his black and white garb. It was the parents though, who had, through their ridiculous amount of effort, managed to keep their kids alive. Notably was a massive African-American man, who from the looks of things must have served in the military, because he was doing a masterful job at handling a majority of the undead and keeping them away from their small group. However, even for somebody as large as him fighting off over two dozen of the dead was going to be impossible to keep up. The signs of the fight were already showing on the man, as it was clear he was bleeding all over from cuts, scrapes, and some very obvious bite marks. God, I hope the zombies don’t actually infect people.
It was the woman I assumed was his wife that had rounded up the younger teenagers to help them stay away from the shambling horde. The other two men, quite stocky themselves were mostly covering the large man’s flanks, doing their best to assist him. However, using only their fists, it was apparent there really wasn’t much that the group could do to really survive the conflict.
It’s why the help of my father and I came at such an opportune moment. Our surprise advance managed to ease the pressure off of the group enough where they were no longer in danger of being overwhelmed.
Loading in an additional magazine from my pocket I hammered it into the grip and once again began discharging my rounds into the crowd of the dead. This time I began to take my shots methodically, and I found that I had taken down an additional seven before I had to reload. I only had two more magazines with me though, and it was clear I was going to need to be much more careful with my remaining rounds.
