Chương 7: First Hunt

How did zombies see and hear? Think about it; they're dead. Literal corpses. Those milky-white eyes of theirs can't be seeing through light because they're opaque; light can't actually pass through. Even if it did, the optic nerves won't be transmitting and the brain shouldn't be working when it's literally rotting mush. Yet it does.

By the time the zombie I'd been stalking noticed my presence and tried to turn around, I'd already sprinted up to it, the bare balls of my feet silent against the corridor's concrete floor. Grabbing its head with both arms and halving its weight, I swung it around like an empty sack as fast as I could. Its neck struck the top floor railing hard, shattering bone and half-tearing flesh as everything below its shoulders hung suspended over the void.

Swinging one leg and slamming it over its chest, I pulled back with both arms while doubling my own strength. With a wet squelch but thankfully zero bleeding the head tore off, leaving the body to drop to the school yard below as my arms itched. Two more zombies were already approaching in their mindless, shambling way. The first got the torn off head in the face at fastball speeds, knocking it over and out of the fight for a few seconds.

The second tried and awkward grab which utterly missed as I vaulted over its head, grabbed its neck from behind, pulled it over my shoulder in something approaching a half-assed judo throw then stepped on its neck hard the moment it was down before grabbing its head with both arms and repeating my new zombie-killing maneuver. The itch spread further, like pins and needles after knocking your elbow against something hard.

The third zombie was up and about but not for long; instead of getting close I grabbed the nearest headless corpse from both legs and swung it like an oversized baseball bat, knocking my target off its shambling feet. After that, beheading it without allowing it an opportunity to get dangerous was easy enough and the itching sensation reached a peak then burst over.

Name: Maya Wennefer Bio: female human, 17y3m4d Powers [2/5 pts] Force Adjustment I Progressive Regeneration I Proximakinesis I Attributes [1/5 pts] Might 6, Agility 5, Reason 2, Vigilance 3, Ego 4, Luck 1 Half-expecting it already, the appearance of my mental character sheet was not surprising.

Between returning to the Music classroom, then climbing up to the lab and clearing the zombies right outside its barricaded door, and the trio milling around aimlessly twenty feet down the corridor, I'd taken out a dozen zombies in the past fifteen minutes. Most of that time had been coming up with ways to actually kill the things, since I didn't have any weapons after losing the spear.

That lack along with whether worse undead monsters than just zombies could track me had been my reasons for not going after Jerry and Mandy immediately... then I'd remembered that superpowers were far better weapons than an improvised spear. Recognizing the sensation of gathering energy pushing me closer and closer to growing in power had only confirmed the decision to go on a zombie hunt instead of searching for a weapon.

The three more classrooms down the corridor, computers, biology and the student research center, had been empty at the time the portals opened and the rest of the third floor was storage and maintenance. With zombies unlikely to climb stairs en masse, one would expect the floor to be free of monsters and yet not forty feet away another small group of naked undead stood, doing nothing. Two of them had been even looking in my direction for the entirety of the earlier confrontation and yet reacted not at all.

Compared to the day of the invasion when they'd hunted us students down on sight, their behavior was very different and made no sense. Fortunately, the zombies' lack of activity meant that I could afford to sit down and decide on which power-up to take. Well, not literally; the floor was still spattered with all kinds of gross things, from blood to rotting undead ickiness.

Leaning against the railing and scowling down at the hundreds of walking corpses and worse filling the school yard, I put another point into Agility. What I needed now was to kill monsters faster and with fewer mistakes, follow after two potentially fleeing people and, as much as I didn't want to admit it, flee from enemies too strong to fight. As before, my body responded to the decision with more changes.

The musculature I'd developed from those points in Might streamlined fully, more a swimmer's or gymnast's build than a weightlifter's, yet felt harder, more solid, the same strength packed in more efficiently and quicker to use. Every joint loosened further, my spine as easy to twist and bend as never before, a knowledge of exactly how far to push this new flexibility and how, a new... almost eagerness to do so paving over any uncertainty I might have had of doing so.

Because if you do not know you can do it and never try it, can you really be said to have the ability? Curious to test the changes, I bent back and grabbed my own ankles from behind with ease. Then, with considerable effort yet retaining perfect control, I bent far enough to look forward once more, head and shoulders between my legs. Getting up from the contortionist's exercise, I threw a few punches and grabs, my new sense of balance automatically correcting my now obviously, painfully wrong technique.

No wonder it had taken such extremes to slay zombies earlier. Force Adjustment II: adjust forces and force-like effects from and on you by a factor of up to five, selectively. Automatic trigger vs harm. Progressive Regeneration II:: slowly recover from harm, the faster the more hurt you are, the longer such harm lasts and the more you've been similarly hurt. Proximakinesis II: exert total forces up to your maximum strength on touch, divided and controlled as easily as your own limbs.

The choice of which power to upgrade with my two points was harder, but in the end I went with Force Adjustment simply for the, heh, force multiplier. My need for a weapon to deal with more dangerous enemies and to deal with zombies faster simply outweighed my current need for healing or utility. Finally certain of my ability to deal with the monsters we'd met so far, I started my clean-out of the top floor.

xxxx xxxx The flabby, ginormous, grey-skinned punch sunk into my stomach and launched me twenty feet away despite the force it applied being reduced by a factor of five. Still doubled over and retching, I landed on a trio of normal zombies that proceeded to bite ineffectually at me while the fat zombie ponderously advanced. Throwing off the weak grips of the small fry I charged to meet the bigger threat, my fist sinking into a belly that would have made a sumo wrestler proud, to little visible damage.

Then the very rounded corpse, already several hundred pounds in life but now bloated out of proportion and, unfortunately, its clothes in death pimp-slapped me. A meaty thunk, a brief flight, and I was waiting for my vision to stop swimming halfway down the corridor. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

Then the door to the maintenance closet shattered as a walking corpse so large it struggled to fit through the door frame came out and suddenly, all certainly of my ability to deal with the monsters went away. Cheek stinging from the last blow, I launched myself at the smaller of the two grotesques.

No matter what movies showed and some self-defense dojos claimed, if an enemy out-massed you by fifty pounds victory in direct confrontation was unlikely because hey, the bad guys could be trained in self-defense too and had more practice beating people than most people had defending themselves. With these huge zombies outmassing me by five hundred pounds each, I'd just stumbled upon the super-powered, undead version of that unfortunate situation.

Sending a normal zombie careening out of the way and with its rib cage caved in with a kick, I leaped over and behind my target and tried to judo-throw it to the floor. This failed because it had no neck to grab it from and the grotesque flabbiness I took hold off instead tore loose before its feet could leave the ground. Ducking under a retaliatory back swing - how the fuck was this thing so fast in melee? - I kicked at the side of its knee and was rewarded with a very satisfying crunch.

Not that the fat corpse was that affected; its feet were so wide its balance was only minutely affected and it wasn't as if it could feel pain. But a small opening was all I needed. Using its torso-sized arm as a lever, I pulled and jerked until the putrid, disgustingly smelling mass of flesh started rising.

Even with its weight adjusted by a factor of five, my legs strained, my back actually hurt, and it took a tremendous effort and the adrenaline rush of seeing the second bloated horror bursting free of the door frame and turning my way to lift the damn thing overhead; it had to mass over a ton! But size could be a liability in a fight if your opponent was clever, and despite some idiotic blonde jokes to the contrary - which I'd heard all during my freshman year - I was way smarter than a zombie.

Tilting only a little and getting out of the way, I did as weightlifters were told not to do and threw the ginormous weight sideways at the floor... where the bloated thing landed head-first. There was a really loud crunch, lots of black, rotten-smelling goo leaking everywhere, and fat dead number one was basically headless. A rush of post-kill energy far more than any normal zombie's followed, pushing me over the threshold for another power-up.

Without even pausing to think about it I put the attribute point into Might and the changes begun. Another couple inches of height pushed me halfway to seven feet, shoulders broadening to keep pace, bones growing thicker, muscles gaining sharper definition as most remaining fat burned away. The changes were smaller than before, probably because going from six Might to seven was a proportionally smaller increase but maybe also because my Agility was higher?

Pretty hard to be agile if you become an over-muscled bodybuilder. The intense, burning aches were new. Were they because I'd physically strained myself so much only seconds before? No way to tell - and no time. Taking advantage of my momentary inability to act while the changes were underway, the second fat zombie grabbed me by one leg and swung me into a line of lockers.

Metal crumpled like a beer can underfoot with a deafening tortured whine, my vision shook then stubbornly refused to focus, and several jagged bits dug painfully into my back. Then the monster swung me all the way around, slamming me face-first into a bare wall.

"OW!" But I wasn't helpless, not any more. A sharp kick against its grip broke something, the vise-like hold loosening just a little, so I repeated it again and again until the fat zombie dropped me. Rolling away from an attempt to stomp through my torso that cracked the floor instead, I got up in a shaky, punch-drunk stance and glared at the enemy. This one was less flabby and bloated than the other one, more sheer size and misshapen muscle in what couldn't possibly have come out of a human corpse...

except magic so nothing was actually impossible... unfortunately. The next couple of minutes we tried to beat the shit out of each other, me because huge threats were an obstacle to searching the school for my friends and other survivors, the zombie presumably because it was hungry. Not that I wasn't hungry too; I just wasn't going to eat undead anything.

The big guy was superhumanly strong and tough but inaccurate and lacked tactical thinking, while I was fast enough to dodge most of its attacks, survive the rest, and just strong enough to deal some damage. Could I have become strong enough to match him had I put all attribute points into Might alone? Possibly, but if the cost was becoming a bloated mountain of muscle like this thing I didn't want to.

A glancing blow sent me sweeping the floor for a dozen feet and gave me what was probably a cracked jaw and the sudden thought that boxing was totally the wrong sport for me. No bruises on my bruises, thank you very much. Too bad the boss zombie seemed to be as good at it as any meathead jock... maybe it had been one of them before being twisted into a monster? Trying to get up led to a sudden snapping sound but no accompanying pain... or none I could feel through the dizziness and blunt trauma.

Looking around in alarm I saw... a broken broom? Oh, a supply closet had been broken open... by my head hitting the wooden door and proving the harder substance.... better not describe it to Mandy like that when we met again, I'd never live it down. As the monster advanced again, I got an idea. Nothing of the closet's contents looked actually helpful... but its shelves were sheet metal.

Getting up and grabbing one with both hands it felt solid, tougher than my own flesh, so putting both feet against the wall, I pulled. The metal screws held for a second before snapping, three feet of metal shelf pulling free. With a weapon in hand, I charged. I didn't even try to swing it at the boss zombie. I reduced my weight while multiplying my bare feet's traction during the charge, moving faster than I ever had before ducking low and tackling the zombie's enormously thick legs.

Upon impact I simultaneously increased the force applied by me while simultaneously reducing the reaction force from the zombie's bulk that would slow me down. As studying for that physics test reminded me only two days before, each action has an equal and opposite reaction... but what if you magically reduce the reaction while simultaneously increase the action? Instead of bouncing off the larger mass I kept going, scything its legs from under it as the impact was magnified by a combined factor of twenty-five.

This did bad things to my left shoulder if the sudden numbness was any indication, but it absolutely wrecked the monster's legs. While it struggled against its own ginormous bulk to get up and failed, I got up and swung three feet of steel to the back of its neck until the metal shelf crumpled and the monster was headless. The moment it died a wave of energy flowed into my exhausted, beaten, aching limbs, not quite enough for another power up but close.

At the same time, the dozen or so normal zombies peripherally involved but unable to influence the battle in any way went into frenzy. For a moment I thought they'd flee, but then reality reared its ugly head; undead do not flee. They're mindless. No, the zombies started melting. Their sunken eyes weeped rivers of red, skin sloughed off like so much mushy paper, foul-smelling goop dripped from the rapidly growing tears that exposed twisted muscle like slimy, runny wax.

The goop on the floor sizzled and smoked against everything it touched, like acid.

"No, fuck you!" I protested.

"This is not fucking fair!" I'd grown stronger in the hours since Mandy and Jerry had to run from a trio of skinless, caustic freaks, leaving me for dead. There were not three such monsters here; there were a dozen, and the crazy mutation was still spreading further away. I hadn't grown that much stronger, so I tried to run. About half the skinless horrors blocked either end of the hallway, more joining their ranks as their transformation finished; there was no way around, only through.

Then an absolutely huge Chinese-American guy that had to be nearly seven feet tall sprinted around the corner and charged into the freaks from behind with a baseball bat. Instead of swinging it at them he just pointed as if holding a gun, the bat glowed and crackled red, then a glowing crimson orb the size and speed of a fastball struck one of the freaks in the back. It immediately lost motor control, going down in a convulsing heap as if electrocuted. More red orbs struck down skinless monsters, opening a path.

"That won't hold them for long!" the familiar voice of a senior jock shouted, though I couldn't quite place his face.

"Come with me if you want to live!"