Chapter 3: CHAPTER 2

Ray

Ray opened his eyes slowly, discovering that he was hovering a few inches above the ground. Unfortunately, he didn’t have much time to wonder at his circumstances as he was dropped bodily onto the ground.

“Assholes, at least warn a guy. Fuck,” he muttered. Then he froze. The last hour or so had been a whirlwind of information, events, and revelations. And it suddenly began to sink into him a little bit. The reaction was mild at first, his hands began to tremble. Then to shake. His pupils dilated, and he curled up into himself, knees flat on the rough pavement as his whole body shook in silent sobs.

He was a star ship captain for fucks sake. Not a hero. Not a soldier. He did some time in the military, but once his two years were up he was out. He never saw combat, even though he had heard stories and came close to being deployed once.

This was on an entirely different level though. He knew that he was having a small breakdown, and not in a very safe place according to those alien bastards. There was no way to avoid it, unfortunately, so he only contained the noise as best he could. There were threats everywhere now after all.

For a few moments, he was a pitiable, tear, and snot soaked wreck. But he couldn’t stay that way forever. Slowly he gained control of his emotional state, bringing himself back into the reality he now faced.

Taking a few deep, silent breaths, he brought his head up … only to stare into the twin pits that had once held eyes. Long ago decayed away.

With a small yelp, he rolled backward, falling on his ass.

The legless thing that had once been a human had been cut in half at the belly button. It slowly, and damn near silently, drug itself forward towards him while its emaciated arm and hand grasped at the air between them. It wanted him. It wanted him so badly Ray could almost feel the undead things' need. Its rotted mouth was missing teeth even as he watched in fascination as it crawled closer, one terrifyingly quiet inch at a time.

Ray couldn’t help but drink in every detail he could about the long-dead woman. Pale, sun-bleached skin was stretched taut across every ich that remained of her frame. The skin was so thin in places raw bone could be seen, particularly on the skull. The ratty chunks of cloth that remained of her clothing told Ray that, even to his inexperienced eye, she had been crawling around for quite some time.

Blinking out of his stupor, he quickly looked around to attempt to locate any other dangers. He was standing in the middle of a suburb alleyway, just off of what looked to be a main street. Seeing no immediate threats nearby, he refocused on the undead woman crawling towards him.

“You poor lady,” he muttered. Picturing having his multitool in his hand, it rapidly appeared. Coalescing out of some kind of pale light, he felt the cool grip of the item in his hand nearly as soon as he had pictured it in his mind.

He fiddled with the tool for a moment, using a handy display to select what he thought looked like a crowbar. Expecting the tool to be deployed out of the handle, he was surprised when the entire tool shifted into a futuristic-looking silver prybar.

“Well … that’s new. Issuing technology above our development level my ass. We never had these things,” he grumbled.

Returning his attention to the creepy crawly, he stepped just out of reach of the grasping hand. Raising the bar, he swallowed nervously, then brought it down on the zombie's head.

The first strike bounced off its skull, causing Ray to stagger to one side. In the short moment, after he attacked, the undead woman lunged forward far more quickly than she had been moving before, teeth snapping with a clacking noise that echoed in the alleyway.

Twisting to one side it narrowly missed his ankle.

Ray didn’t know how tough this survival suit was, but those claws looked sharp, and this suit didn't seem like the sturdiest piece of clothing. he wasn't eager to test the durability by letting that creature gnaw on him.

Irritated at his failure, and more than a little pissed off, he brought the prybar down violently on the creature's head, caving it in. The zombie immediately began to spasm, so Ray did the only natural thing that came to mind. He hit it again.

Repeatedly.

After the fourth strike, it lay still, the malevolent sockets that had been watching him still giving off a creepy feeling of being observed. The clacking teeth were silent now, however. Ray stood above the motionless re-dead body in viscera-splattered relief. He had done it. He had killed one! Now he just had to stay alive long enough to plant this beacon thing. Anything past that point he would figure out if, and when hopefully, he got there.

Glancing up both sides of the alleyway he didn’t see anything moving. As the corpse didn’t have anything on it of worth, he approached the rear of one of the houses. Peeking in the window, he saw it was packed shoulder to shoulder with standing, still as death zombies.

He quietly backed away. Houses were going to, apparently, be a very bad idea to try to loot for now.

He mulled over his next steps. Those alien morons didn’t even give him any food or water. How he was expected to survive long-term, in a zombie-ridden apocalypse, with no supplies he didn’t know. Kind of like this whole thing had been an impromptu decision and poorly planned out. And they had been the patsies.

Ray headed down the alleyway towards the street. While it was daylight out, and fairly warm, he watched every shadow and crevice like it contained an army thirsting for his blood. Because it probably did.

Thinking about the others as he moved as quietly as he could, he realized that they hadn’t been dropped with him. There was strength in numbers, why those alien bastards didn’t choose to ensure they were dropped together was beyond his ability to fathom.

“Fucking assholes, this whole thing stinks like a used car scam,” he grumbled to himself.

Ray checked a few more houses as he explored the main street of the suburb. He occasionally caught glimpses in between the homes of massive, towering buildings on the horizon. Based on temperature, building style, and the clear house numbering, he guessed he was somewhere on the East Coast of the North American Republic. Possibly Boston or even New York.

Moving down the street he checked what seemed to be dozens of homes, each one the same. Quiet and filled with the dead. More than likely not safe to enter at all. Ray began to wonder if perhaps they were more active during specific times. Perhaps the horror movies he had seen held some merit and nighttime was far more dangerous.

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Looking into yet another white paneled single-level home, he was pleasantly surprised to find that this one didn’t have any obvious zombies loitering around. Deciding he had to take a risk and get some basic supplies, he cautiously tried the handle on the front door.

It was unlocked. This was either going to be a horrible idea or a great one.

Deciding that the blunt pry bar was a bit difficult to use in enclosed spaces, but deciding that destroying the brain seemed to be effective, he looked through the options on the multi-tool until he found a pointed chisel option. Selecting it, the tool flowed inward onto itself into he was holding a two-foot long pointed spike. What this was used for, he could only imagine.

But it suited his purposes just fine.

Advancing into the house slowly, Ray closed the door most of the way but left it cracked slightly. In case he needed to get out fast. He checked the closet in the entryway. Thankfully, nothing was hiding in there but coats and shoes. Closing it, he advanced into the living area.

The living room was well decorated. The sectional couch and appliances were fairly modern and up to date. Whoever had lived here had taste. As he passed the couch slight movement in the corner of the room made him freeze. A huffing sound from under the curtains told him something was there.

Ray wasn’t a doctor, but what came out from behind the curtain covering the front window could never have been mistaken for a person.

He had missed it somehow, standing there in the darkened room. With skin that looked like it had been peeled away, one layer at a time, revealing whipcord lean muscles and veins. Eyes burned out of its head, yet somehow Ray felt that those two hollow sockets could see him. The most terrifying part, however, was the mouth. Inch-long dagger teeth in a number that was fit more for a shark than a human filled the wider than possible mouth to the brim.

This house hadn’t been empty out of some esoteric reason you couldn’t figure out. It was empty because that thing had probably eaten everything worth eating inside of it. Including the zombies.

“You’re an ugly fucker,” Ray muttered, taking a stance with the sharp implement he was holding facing towards the threat.

The thing hissed at him, like some overgrown pissed off cat. The response startled Ray a bit. It was almost as if it understood the insult. Its empty sockets moved between Ray's multi-tool and his eyes. This only confirmed to the human in the room that it somehow retained some level of sight and intelligence. It was nothing like the other zombie he had seen. The thing's eyeless sockets narrowed.

Scratch that, it had definitely understood the insult.

In the split second Ray hesitated the creature sprang forward over the couch. Throwing himself backward, he narrowly missed the claws that flashed out. Expecting the taloned digits to bounce off the table he had been standing in front of, Ray broke out in a cold sweat when they effortlessly sliced through the dark wood.

Twisting its head around to continue tracking Ray, it quickly moved forward and opened its maw to take a bite out of him.

Instinctively, Ray thrust the spike forward while falling back onto his ass. The multi-tool pierced the roof of the thing's mouth and erupted out the top of its head in a spray of gore. There was no way in hell this thing had ever been a human. Not possible.

The creature struggled violently for a moment, dragging its claws down the sides of his survival suit before suddenly falling limp. Somehow … somehow Ray didn’t have a scratch on him. That thing had carved through the table like a hot knife through butter. But not only was his skin intact, but the suit was also intact as well.

Pushing the thing off him and extracting the spiked weapon, he quickly examined himself for cuts. There were faint scratches on his clothing, but no breaches. This stuff was far and away more resilient than he had first realized. While he couldn’t become complacent, this offered a level of protection that was nothing short of a full suit of modern body armor.

“Thank god, that could have ended badly,” he grunted after the self-inspection.

Ray continued his inspection of the home, clearing the kitchen, two bathrooms, and three bedrooms. Thankfully there were no more surprises. The back door was boarded shut from the inside, signifying that someone had at least made an attempt at fortifying the home before probably fleeing for their lives.

Heading back to the living room Ray froze. The body of the creature he had just killed was gone and the front door was wide open.

Freaking out a little, he closed the door and locked it using the deadbolt on the side. Double checking the closet to make sure no monsters were hiding, he huffed a sign of relief. This place was safe, at least for now, and would serve to have as a small base of operations. At least temporarily. He would need to find a much stronger building if there were more dangerous things out there than that bite-happy creature. And he had to assume that there were.

Ray got up and headed into the kitchen. He opened every drawer, cabinet, and container he could find and began piling it all on the counter. After a second brief search, he had everything that could be construed as food gathered in one location. Taking stock of it all he had nine cans of mystery food, eight bottles of water, a half a bag of rice, and a dozen freeze-dried instant noodles. A haul by any means.

He now had food, water, and a somewhat safe place to stay for now. Looking around for a bag to store everything in, he slapped his forehead. “Dumbass, you have the storage thing. Also, stop talking to yourself,” he grumbled.

Moving back over to the pile of goodies, he placed his hand on each pile of goods, moving it to his inventory. To his delight, they seemed to stack, taking up a single inventory space per item. He wondered briefly how far he could push such a system. He began playing with his inventory, stacking, dividing, and moving items. Exploring this odd ability. He was a few minutes in when a fuzzy blue screen popped up in front of him:

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