Travis's Journey Through the Apocalypse

Chapter 3

Murder town

Holy fuck! I just killed a guy. I watched the man fall to the ground, and as my fist pulled free, it made a wet popping and sucking sound. I looked around, and I was now fully ready to go! I was pissed off. Honestly, at that moment, I didn’t give a fuck about the dude I just killed. He hit me in the head with a fucking bat, maybe a punch or two I could overlook but a bat to the face. If I hadn’t leveled up, he could have killed me.

I looked around, and there were three people tied up on the floor in the corner of the room and another guy standing in front of me with a terrified look on his face. His eyes kept looking down at his friend lying on the floor, then back up to me. Then he turned and ran. My mouth dropped open. I stayed there, fists raised, in a fighting stance for a couple more seconds, lost in thought. It must have been a partnership of convenience or like-mindedness between two fucking asshole rapist fuck faces. They probably didn’t even know about the integration. They just figured the world had ended, so why not rape and murder wantonly.

Well, he should have Leveled the fuck up so his face didn’t crunch so easily. I laughed in my head at that for a second, but then I guess that wasn’t really fair. I had basically lucked into my 3 Levels. That title notification straight-up told me I was a lucky bastard. I looked around the room, and there were people in one corner. They were looking at me, fear clearly visible on their faces.

I probably looked like a fucking psychopath. I had one shoe on and one flip-flop. My foot had bloody bandages wrapped around it, and the blanket around my shoulders probably made me look homeless. Hell, we were all homeless now, no bills, no taxes, and that was kind of nice, but the no place safe, death waiting behind every corner thing was kind of a bad trade.

Yeah, they were clearly freaked out. I was also just standing there, fists raised. I put my fist down. That was embarrassing. Not the punching the dude in the face. That was badass, but the whole standing there just lost in thought for a couple of seconds, looking like a dumbass.

I put my hands up like I had a gun pointing at me and walked over to the people who were tied up. At first, they started scooting back toward the wall. Trying to get as far away from me as they could.

“It’s okay. I’m the good guy, or well… I mean, I’m a guy who’s not going to hurt you.”

That seemed to confuse them slightly, but they seemed less scared of me. They let me pull the gags out of their mouths and untie them. It was two women and an older man. It turned out the old guy was married to one of the women, and the other woman was his daughter. They’d left their house before it collapsed, but the rest of their neighborhood didn’t make it.

They ran into the two guys at a gas station near their house. As they were trying to figure out what was going on, the two men said they would help them and that they had a safe place to stay. Convinced them that there was safety in numbers, which seemed totally rational at the time.

Fuck, the world had gone to hell. When they returned to where the two men camped, they first knocked the old guy out. There had actually been four of them to start with. The old guy had a son around the same age as his daughter. When they hit the old man, his son took off, the fucking pussy. Ran into the street and got eaten. They didn’t know by what, but I was sure it was those rabbit creatures.

The two men proceeded to beat the three of them and tie them up. This happened all to the sounds of the son being ripped to shreds just outside the building. They said they hadn’t been raped, but the men kept talking about it. The old man’s knee was broken, and his head was split, but otherwise, he looked okay. The two women had bruises pretty much all over their bodies. They told me they had tried to escape last night, and the men had beaten them badly.

The old man’s name was Tom. He was an older gentleman, probably in his 70s, and looked like he had dressed quickly. What he was wearing was all nice shit, like high-end-looking stuff. He was probably pretty well off before the integration. He was slim and lanky. Tom had short brown hair and was clean-shaven. He looked like a strong breeze would knock him over. He looked so fragile that a fall would probably kill him. Honestly, I was impressed that Tom was still alive, but I still saw him as a waste of space. Tom would be more of a hindrance than a help when it came to survival in the near future.

His young wife’s name was Janet, and his daughter’s was Beth. Janet was definitely not Beth’s mom. At first, Beth and Janet looked basically the same age, and besides that, they looked totally different. Beth had chestnut brown hair like Tom, whereas Janet had blonde hair. Janet was probably in her mid to late 30s and looked like one of those trophy wives.

You know, all she does is read fitness blogs, work out, and fuck an old guy, probably shit like that. Trophy wives always rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe it was the fact that I thought if being a trophy wife was your goal in life, then you were probably a shitty, vapid, and shallow person. Or maybe it was the fact that I secretly always wanted a sugar mama. I mean fuck! Who likes to work all day? Hey, I’d fuck for rent.

It’s just that now none of my land ladies ever offered. On the other hand, Beth had bangs and long hair that framed her face. She looked like she was fit but not like Janet. Beth was probably in her early 30s to late 20s. Looked like she played some volleyball in high school or something. But nowadays, she ran a little here and there.

They were pretty fucking grateful I’d come along. Apparently, the dude that I killed was a pretty fucking creepy asshole. That made me feel a little better about smashing his face in. Speaking of the guy whose face I’d smashed in, he was on the ground, and brain matter was oozing out of his skull. The three were obviously disturbed by the body. They kept glancing at the body as they were telling me what had happened to them.

“Should we find somewhere else to talk?” Tom nodded.

“Yeah, if you don’t mind. If we stay in this room much longer, I might be sick.” The blond woman, I think her name was Janet, said.

“Oh yeah, we don’t want that. If you puke, I’ll puke, and it’ll become a whole thing.” Beth looked at me like she totally understood where I was coming from as she nodded at my words

There was another room with a partially collapsed doorway adjacent to the door I’d first entered through. I looked through the doorway into the room, and the room inside seemed mostly intact. There were definitely some pieces of the ceiling lying on the floor. Everything in the room looked like someone had put them in a cocktail shaker, shaken them up, and then poured them back into the room. The place looked like it had been some kind of clothing store before the end or, well, the integration.

“Why don’t we talk in here, you guys? Looks like we’ll be good. The ceiling looks fine, mostly. Think it’s as good as we’re gonna get.”

The trio all nodded, and the four of us made our way into the small room. Once we were all in the room, they all stared at me like, so what now? I decided now would be a good time to offer these guys some water. I gave them two bottles to split from my total of four. I had drank about half of one bottle, leaving one full bottle and the partial I’d been sipping from. Dam, I was going to have to restock sooner than I thought. Beth was the first to speak,

“So, do you know what’s going on out there? We just thought we finally got the big one.”

“I know, yeah, I thought the same thing. I don’t really know how to tell you this, but, well…you didn’t see any signs?” I asked them.

“No, what signs?” Janet said.

“There are signs posted on every other corner,” I told her.

“Guess we missed them, but why the fuck are you talking about some signs? Are they from the government?” Beth said.

“I guess you could say that. Well, “A” government, I think. Now this is gonna sound fucking weird, but okay, here it goes.” I answered her, then took a deep breath and blew it out, letting my cheeks puff out.

“Well, so, we’ve been integrated into the greater systems. Aliens came down to our planet, fucking terraformed it over fucking night, then took off. Now there’s apparently Mana and fucking stats, and we’re like all in a fucking game or some shit. But it’s not a fucking game. It’s all fucking real life, and we’re all fucking indentured servants and owe a fuck ton of money to some company, The Slag, or something. Fuck! That’s most of it, I think, my bad, but yeah, that’s pretty much the long and short of it.” I finished and blew a breath out.

They all looked at me. I mean they stared at me for like a good ten seconds before Tom threw his head back and laughed.

“Are you shitting me? The world ends, we get attacked, and the guy who saves us is a crazy person! Goddamnit! Goddammit, isn’t this my luck!?” Tom said.

“Oh, apparently, that’s a stat,” I told him.

“What the fuck? I hate to break it to you, kid. This isn’t a game world. There are no second chances, no reset button. My son would be fucking here if that was true.” Tom said and started to look pissed at me. Like I killed his fucking son.

“I know it sounds fucking stupid, man, and when I said it aloud, I felt stupid saying it. You know what? You don’t have to fucking believe me. All you gotta say is stat sheet.” As I said it, my stat sheet popped up in my face. “Goddammit!” I waved it away.

They looked at me like I was fucking crazy, swinging at midair like that. “Well, go on, just say it. You’ll fucking see what I’m talking about and won’t look at me like I’m fucking crazy. I already feel fucking crazy enough with what I’ve been dealing with recently. Don’t need you guys looking at me like I’m insane.”

Beth looked at her family and said, “Stat Sheet.” And her eyes went wide. She took a step backward and almost fell over. She reacted better than I did the first time I saw that kill notification, didn’t fall on her ass.

“Holy shit, Dad, check this out. The guy wasn’t lying! I’m a Level 1 Human, and it says my stats, and that’s it.”

“Seriously, don’t mess with me right now, Beth.”

“Dad. Check this out.” Said Beth

“Fine,” Tom grumbled and said, “Stat Sheet.”

Tom did fall over and landed on his ass. That made me feel a little better. Until he let out a small yelp of pain. Oh, fuck, right, his leg was broken or something. Janet reached him the fastest. She bent down and helped Tom find a place to sit. Beth looked at her father with concern clear on her face. Tom, Janet, and Beth had a full freak-out session for about 20 minutes. At one point, they were all yelling different things at me, and I’m pretty sure they weren’t actually questions. Just bursts of anger redirected at me. It felt weirdly good, like I was dealing with this whole thing better than they were. After a while, it got quiet. Everyone seemed to be contemplating some deep shit in their heads.

I decided to check on the blinking exclamation mark in the corner of my vision.

“Level up! Congratulations, you were Level 4, and now you’re Level 5! Three stat points have been awarded. Kill, get stronger, and fight for money. These are all hallmarks of a great gladiator. Keep it up, you little killer.”

I pulled up my stat sheet. It turned out I could just think the words “Stat Sheet” with intent, and my stat sheet would pop up. There was probably some other shit like that I’d have to figure out on my own. Maybe I’d have to spend some time trying a few different mental commands and see if anything else would happen.

I had three free points to spend and noticed there was a new tab at the top of my sheet. It said, “Battle Log.” That was new. Well, maybe it was there earlier, but I was definitely way too excited about getting stat points for the first time. I totally could have missed that.

I focused on the Battle log tab, and a new page popped open. It no longer displayed my stat sheet but had a bunch of different entries. “You have killed Level One Human” was the first entry. The one below read I did damage with a punch, and it did critical damage to a vital area. I scrolled through the list of entries, and there was an entry in the log that read, you take 35 damage from Tarzackien Death Wolf. Okay, so it was like a log of all attacks and damage during the times I was in combat.

Oh, and it turned out the blackberry bush was actually called a mutated European blackberry bush. I assumed it was a ninja turtle-like mutation, not a natural mutation over hundreds and thousands of years. If that was the case, then Bebop and Rocksteady were genuine possibilities.

Stay away from farms for a while. No hunting for chicken eggs. Ha, oh, and that thought led me down a dark path thinking about mutated chickens. They would probably have a lot of aggression towards humans built up over the years. Yikes!

“What are you thinking about?” Beth asked me.

“Huh? Who me?” I said, a little startled by Beth’s words while I was lost in my sheets.

“Yeah, it looks like you’re looking at something I can’t see, so I assume you’re checking out your stat sheet,” Beth said.

“Oh yeah, I unlocked an aspect called Battle Log. Apparently, when you’re in combat, it keeps track of everything that’s happening as a sort of record for you, I guess. Kind of useful, actually. At least I figured out the name of this thing that attacked me earlier.”

“You got attacked?” Beth asked concern showing on her face.

“Oh yeah, I got fucked up by a blackberry bush. I was running from some wolves, and these were like fucking massive, undead wolves, demented and shit. Super creepy!

I hid in this blackberry bush, and it fucking started trying to kill me.” She looked at me open-mouthed. Guess I didn’t really realize how crazy that story was until I said it out loud.

“Are you okay?” She finally said after a little bit.

“Yeah, my foot is fucked up, but I cleaned it out and wrapped it, so hopefully it’ll start to heal up. Who knows, if this world is anything like video games, then maybe putting points in Constitution might actually help me heal faster.”

I did have three stat points to use. Maybe I should try my theory out? Beth had said something, and I missed it, caught up in my own thoughts. “What was that?” I said.

“What are you gonna do now?”

“Now?”

“Yeah, I was just wondering what your actual plan was. I just mean, it seems like it’s getting later. Were you planning on staying here for the night?”

I thought about it for a second. I guess this was shelter, but that fucker did run off, and that guy knows where we are. If we stayed here, he might come back in the night, maybe bring a friend. Either way, it could be a bad place to stay for the night.

I mentioned as much to Beth, and by that time, Tom and Janet were both paying attention to our conversation.

“Shit. He’s right. Look, maybe there’s a house across the street or something around here where we can stay that’s close by.” Tom said. I nodded. It really looked like Tom couldn’t make it very far.

“Why don’t I go scout it out? You guys stay here. I’ll come back and get you when I find a place. Sound good?” Beth looked at me with a wary look in her eyes.

“Look, we’re obviously in a fragile situation. You could’ve easily taken advantage of us, and you didn’t, so I appreciate that. A little help, however, in our time of need would be greatly appreciated. I know we’re strangers, but… fuck look at my dad, look at his knee. If we get attacked again, we’re totally fucked.”

She was laying it all on the table. She recognized the perilousness of their situation and that I was probably the only person going to help them out. I could respect that level of honesty and vulnerability after what they’d just been through.

“we’re begging you, please help us,” Tom said, and then he got down on his knees, and Janet joined him. I ran over and helped them get back on their feet.

“Fuck! Okay, hey, get up, stop that. Your fucking weirding me out. Okay, I’ll help you out. I promise I won’t take off, geez. I really will go find us a place to stay for the night and come back.” Janet spoke up for the first time during this conversation.

“I think it would be safer if we all stayed together now.” I was a little overwhelmed by Tom and Janet’s begging, and I just said, “Fuck it, fine, let’s all stick together.” Janet squeezed Tom’s arm, and Tom gave her a small grin.

“Fine. If we’re all going to go together, we should probably head out sooner than later. Don’t wanna be looking for a place to stay in the dark. Sounds like a pretty good way to get killed.”

“I would have to agree,” said Tom, and the two women nodded. We all got our shit together. I gave the two women my blankets. It looked like they needed them, but Beth gave hers to her dad. She said he needed it more than her. We headed out into the street. I poked my head out of the door first, just to make sure we weren’t going to walk into a street full of fucking monsters.

The street was clear. I waved for the three to follow. We stayed as close to the burnt-out buildings as possible, trying to stay in the shadows as much as possible. The sun was going down, and we probably had no more than two or three hours till sunset. We went another three blocks, and I kept moving in the general direction of the hills. I figured my eventual goal was still to make it up there. We found a house where the second floor hadn’t collapsed. The first floor was a mess, and the stairs were trashed, but there was a fire escape outside the building that was still climbable. I told the three to wait out in the street while I went and checked it out.

Beth didn’t like that and decided to follow me anyway. I didn’t care if she wanted to come. That was her business. We made it up to the second floor and looked through the window. It seemed empty. Totally fucked up like every other house we’d seen, but the floor looked okay. It didn’t look like it was gonna cave through. I took my first cautious steps through the window and tested the floor.

It took my weight easily, so I climbed through the window the rest of the way, landing on hardwood floors. Like I said, shit was everywhere. There was one hole in the floor in the corner of the room, but that was about it. I was in a large living room-type area with several doors leading to other rooms and a hallway to one side. Beth slid through the window behind me, landing on the floor. She managed to land without making a sound, which I definitely appreciated.

I was thankful for that. The last thing we needed was to alert anything that was living in here that we were coming to fuck with its shit. I put my finger to my lips, indicating Beth to be quiet. She rolled her eyes at me and mouthed, “Of course.” I lifted my arms, waved with my wrists up and down in a calm-down kind of way, and raised my eyebrows. She just rolled her eyes again. I turned around and slowly made my way over to the closest door.

I opened the door slowly and looked inside. It looked like an office. Well, at least everything on the floor looked like shit that you would find in someone’s home office. I left the door open and then made my way to the next door. This was the master bedroom. The bed had partially fallen through the floor, but we could still grab the mattress if we wanted to. We would just have to clear all the bits of ceiling off first. That was fine.

There was an en suite, but that was completely fucked up. Looked like the third floor had fallen into it. I returned to the living room and saw Beth give me the thumbs up with a questioning look on her face. I gave her the thumbs up with a smile and then made my way to the next door. This had been the kitchen at the front end of the house. I opened the door and took a step through the opening. Fuck! Holy shit! My eyes went wide, and I frantically reached for the door frame behind me. I managed to catch it and pull myself back through the doorway.

The only thing that let me know it had been the kitchen was the black and white tiles that still clung to the first five inches of floor that remained. The rest of the room and house were just gone. That was fucking close. I looked back, and Beth was grabbing my shirt’s back. Her eyes were wide, and she was breathing heavy shit. She’d obviously dashed across the room when she saw me start to fall.

“Thanks”, I said. “I think I’m okay now. You can let go.” She jerked her hand from my shirt. She looked slightly embarrassed. “I appreciate it. I almost took a tumble there.” She gave me a small smile. Still breathing heavily, she managed to get out between breaths,

“Fucking idiot.”

“I know, I know, I’m sorry. I should’ve been more careful.” She nodded and managed to catch her breath a second later. We walked over to the hallway together, but as we stepped closer, we realized it only continued for about five feet. It ended in a piece of the roof that had broken through the ceiling. “I think we’ll be pretty safe here. We’ll keep any noise to a minimum, and maybe we can make it up to the hills after your dad has rested a little bit, maybe a day or two.

We’ll also need to find more food and water by then. We don’t have much food left, and it doesn’t look like we’re going to find much in that department here.”

“True. Sounds like a plan to me,” Beth said.

“Okay, let’s go get your dad and Janet,” I told her.

“Thanks, yeah, I don’t wanna leave them down there for too much longer.” “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.” It had only been five minutes, but Tom was hurt, and I didn’t see Janet punching a rabbit creature in the face. As we returned to the window, I stepped out onto the fire escape and froze. I pulled myself back inside. Beth looked at me questioningly, then terrified. She saw my face and went to push past me to get out the window. I grabbed her, put my hand over her mouth, and wrapped my arm around her. I said softly but frantically in her ear, “Stop. I’m not gonna hurt you. I’m just trying to stop you from making a horrible mistake. I’m gonna tell you what’s happening, but you have to promise me you’re not gonna freak.” She didn’t nod or anything, just stopped struggling for a second to listen.

Janet and your dad are surrounded by a bunch of those rabbit things. Beth’s eyes widened, if possible, and Beth went into full panic mode. She tried to bite the hand that I was holding over her mouth and scratching at me to pull out of my grip. With my 16 fucking Strength, and her being Level One, there was really nothing she could do. She wasn’t going anywhere.

I kept telling myself I was trying to save her life. I’m trying to save her life. After about 15 seconds, Beth was still fighting like mad to get out of my grip. We heard Tom scream, and I just kind of let her go. She broke out of my arms and ran out onto the fire escape. She started running down the stairs. Fuck! Was I just gonna let her die? They were all Level One. At least I was Level Five and could probably do something, but those bunny creatures freaked me out. Hell, I didn’t even know if I could actually do anything.

If they were level fucking ten, they could eat me in one second! What if I jump down there, the hero comes to save the day, and they’re all already fucking dead. At that moment, I heard Beth yell, “Dad, I’m coming. Hang on.” That kind of snapped me out of my frozen state. I jumped out the window down the fire escape, and to my shock, Janet was punching a bunny in the face. She had it held down and was punching it repeatedly in the face.

Another bunny was biting at her ankle, and she was kicking at it. On the other hand, Beth was kicking bunnies left and right, but they were jumping on her and taking bites out of her. Tom was on the ground behind them. It looked like he didn’t have a bite on him. Janet and Beth were fighting back, and I waded into the fray. When a bunny jumped right at my face, I punched it, and the damn thing basically popped. I got splashed all over my face with blood. It even got in my mouth, and I had to wipe my eyes clean. I stood there shocked for a second until I heard Tom screaming again.