Chương 2: Systematic testing

"No." I folded my arms under my breasts and glared down at the annoying boy.

"I refuse to believe magic works like a video game."

"But it's showing me my character sheet right now," Jerry insisted while pointing at empty air, the crackling of apparently magical lightning over his fingers accompanying his words.

"It even has stats like strength, endurance and-""And we can't see any of that ourselves," I shot back, not for the first time.

"Yes, we can see your new taser hands but why would magic come with a character sheet? How would magic come with a character sheet?" It was far more likely that Jerry was having a mental breakdown after the events of the past hour and seeing what he wanted to see. Since we were still holed up in the old school lab hiding from literal flesh-eating zombies, I couldn't exactly hold it against him... but complaining was better than accepting reality had shifted to accommodate his wildest dreams.

"I dunno." He scratched his head and frowned, suddenly far less confident than before. Fortunately, his electrified fingers didn't tase him to oblivion.

"I know it's far-fetched, but maybe the super-advanced magical civilization it came from added an illusory user's manual, or something?" Something heavy beat against the lab's door with a meaty thud, making all three of us jump and eye the entrance warily. After holding our breaths for a minute while several more thumps rattled the door, we all sighed in relief and relaxed, if only a little.

The bookcase, desk, several cardboard boxes loaded up with lab paraphernalia and two dozen nails Jerry had enthusiastically hammered in with his new favorite tool seemed to be holding up well against the zombies' attempts to get inside and eat us all.

"Maya, could you check your cell for a moment?" Mandy asked in the silence that followed, eyes fixed on her own smartphone so she wouldn't have to look anywhere else. Biting her lip and scowling in either anger or frustration, she'd been fiddling with it non-stop since we'd finished the barricade.

"I left it back in class with the rest of my things, why?" It was either something serious or a coping mechanism, since the other girl hadn't stopped to fix her messed up hair once during our rest stop. I seriously considered following Mandy's example, but that would leave all the decision making to Jerry.

"Wanted to check if you had a signal because I don't." She kicked the nearby wall probably harder than she'd meant to, cradling her bruised foot afterwards.

"Tried to get some news, any news, but it's useless. Network's probably down."

"It could be magical interference messing with technology!" the resident nerd exclaimed, face lighting up with eagerness.

"Or-""Or maybe everybody's panicking, trying to call everybody else at the same time, and the system can't handle the traffic," I drily shot back.

"In any case, we have more immediate problems." Pacing around made bruised muscles ache, but also made the small lab with the single small window on the far wall feel less claustrophobic.

"We can't stay here. Not for long. No food, no bathroom, we can't see what's going on outside..."

"But we're s-safe here..." Mandy trailed off, realizing that no, we really really weren't. The door could hold against one zombie, but what about more? What about whatever had caused the explosions across the city? I shuddered at how much bigger than just us or even the school this whole thing was and looked at the makeshift barricade once more. One thing at a time, Maya.

"Jerry, what can this... magic do?" I asked, the boy's fingers drawing attention every time they crackled with electricity.

"Anything to get us out of here?"

"Oh, lots of things!" the wiry brunet was happy to talk about it, smile widening.

"It shows your stats, which you can increase, loads of skills you can get, it tracks your health, stamina, magical power, the works!" He waved his hands around and the sparking intensified.

"I picked the shocking touch skill and have been trying to level it since but no dice."

"... right." Lots of things to unpack in that bit of info but first things first.

"When you say you can increase stats..."

"You get points to spend on your choices." He beamed at me.

"I boosted my Intelligence and it worked! I can think faster, solve math better, and get my shocking touch to work more easily."

"Color me impressed." That he got something directly applicable out of it. It was a zombie apocalypse; I'd have picked strength or speed.

"Any ideas on how Mandy and I can get magic too?" Fingers crossed that it didn't work like a game.

"Oh, that's dead easy." He laughed, the absolute goofball.

"You have to kill a zombie for the EXP." Crossed fingers, why did you abandon me? xxxx xxxx"... remember, we only want one so we gotta be fast," Jerry rambled for the tenth time, but we were so nervous we didn't call him on it. Mandy had even taken to biting her hair and holding a metal stirring rod so hard her knuckles creaked. As for me, I'd dropped into the same hyperfocus as last year's tryouts that had left me losing my lunch after winning a place on the team.

Hopefully the same wouldn't happen this time because barf and zombies? Talk about the worst combo ever. This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. The others were pulling back the bookcase holding the door shut so I picked up my weapon of choice and got in position. Just stick the landing, Maya, just stick the landing... god, that was soo gonna hurt.

Maybe clued in by the sounds of our preparation, a walking corpse slammed into the door and nearly knocked Maya and Jerry both off their feet. The suddenly very flimsy-seeming panel of wood was pushed back and a huge body forced its way inside. All three of us recoiled not in fear but in disgust; the stench was absolutely revolting and the visuals even worse. In life, the naked man would have weighed three hundred and fifty, maybe four hundred pounds and his corpse had considerably bloated in death.

Unlike the other portal zombies that were wiry, mostly dry and seemed almost clinically odorless, the corpse had decayed badly and was preceded into the lab by the cloying smell of rot and rancid meat. The door was shoved even more widely open as he - it - shambled in and turned towards the two retreating teenagers. On one hand, following the plan we'd come up with was the last thing I wanted to do just then.

On the other hand, the horribly smelly monster was already crowding Jerry and Mandy back and with the door already wide open to accommodate its bulk more zombies would follow if we didn't immediately block it.... screw it. If I did nothing we were already dead anyway. Cursing all those responsible for the zombie apocalypse, I hefted my load and leaped off the tower of desks and chairs we'd built right next to the entrance.

The original plan was to come down like death from above, hit the zombie on the head with something sufficiently heavy plus my own momentum and get a quick and easy kill. Unfortunately, no plan survives contact with fatso zombies. Stepping on the upside-down desk mid-jump went on perfectly; honestly, we'd tried harder maneuvers in cheerleading practice. Aiming it was a bit harder but I managed. But the fucking bag of rot leaned forward at the last moment, trying to give Jerry the glomp of doom.

Instead of being hit in the head by thirty pounds of wood and metal plus a classified number of pounds of yours truly, it took the impact in its bloated shoulders. Something hard snapped, lots of soft things burst and squirted rot everywhere and the whole Jenga tower of zombie, desk and girl toppled with a hideous splat. Having managed to keep my balance through the whole thing out of some miracle, I was very nearly toppled when the burst blob started to struggle. Naturally, the hideous thing hadn't died.

Just as naturally, the commotion had drawn attention and a lot more guests had climbed to the top floor in the past hour.

"The door! Get the door!" I screamed as Jerry made to help, and he and Mandy managed to slam it shut a split second before something heavy thudded against it. They were pushed back an inch or two, but managed to regain the lost ground before the next slam nearly dislodged them again. Meanwhile, I had my own problems.

"Die! You! Stinky! Bloated! Bastard! Die!" I underscored every blow delivered with the best improvised weapon we'd found in the old lab, an old-style brass telescope that made a great substitute for a metal bat. And with a thorough beating that made an even more hideous mess of things - but mostly myself - the fat zombie finally went still.

"Maya help!" Jerry shouted as he and Mandy frantically shoved at the door that the trio of zombies just outside were steadily pushing back. I bet he was really wishing he'd put points in strength just then. Unfortunately, the three of us were not going to win a shoving match with three zombies, which left just one option.

"Get away now!" I shouted back at them as I pushed the bookcase over. For a moment it seemed as if they'd be caught under it, or that the zombies would manage to get in, or that something else would go wrong at the last moment, but nothing did. Jerry and Mandy leaped cleanly aside then several hundred pounds of wood and paper fell on the door and forced it shut.

Meaty thuds followed, lots of scrambling to pile up more weight for a minute or two, then the three of us walked just far enough to avoid the fat zombie mess and collapsed.

"We... we almost died!" Mandy said what all of us were thinking.

"Where the hell did that monster come from?"

"The Portal, probably," Jerry said and shrugged.

"It was naked like the others and boy, could I do with some heavy-duty brain-bleach just now."

"Shut up! You didn't have to re-kill it while it squirted grossness everywhere." For once I welcomed the numbness and shock caused by recent events; unlike the nausea and disgust, they let me keep my breakfast.

"But you did kill it," he argued then smiled.

"There's no way you didn't get your first level from that."

"You don't say," I muttered, noting the total absence of pop-up windows full of numerical stats. That clinched it; nerd boy was having a mental breakdown, superpowers or no superpowers.

"Now that you mention it, we-" I stopped, turned around and added the contents of my stomach to the mess around zombie fatso with extreme prejudice.

"Maya? Are you OK?" Yeah, seriously dumb question. No way any of us were in the same zip code as "OK". The until now absent nausea had arrived with a vengeance, my hands were shaking so hard it looked like I was being electrocuted, my everything felt like it was on fire - again! And why the fuck was I seeing double? Had I taken a head wound when I wasn't looking?

"Maya! Maya! What's wrong? How can we help?!" Yeah, definitely a head wound because I was finally hallucinating that character sheet Jerry had been waxing poetic about, and in colored boxes too. Well, mostly pink and yellow, which where horrible choices if you wanted someone to actually read the thing. Plus it kept flickering in and out, like an annoying pop-up the adblock extension kept having to swat down. It was rather funny - both funny 'ha ha' and funny peculiar, you know? Maybe I should laugh?

Except I couldn't. Hard to laugh while screaming your lungs out. Note to self; next time I listened to one of Jerry's plans, have Mandy kick me.