Sneak peek excerpt: Zombifier

Chapter 1:

Inside the door with the peep hole on the linoleum by his and her running shoes where their jackets were hooked, sat two boxes. A box of KN-95 facemasks and one of nitrile gloves. On the table where their phones, wallets, sunglasses and wireless earbuds waited, sat vaccination cards with frayed edges and worn creases.

In the den, the young couple sat and fiddled with thumb sticks, triggers, and buttons while a nonsense scenario unfolded on screen.

“Lamest apocalypse ever,” Eliza, the girlfriend said.

“What,” Kyler, her soon to be ex-boyfriend asked.

She was talking about the new SARS-related pathogen which had the world holing up indoors for the past sixteen months. “The pandemic. I hate it.”

“Yup,” Kyler said.

The videogame was something about space travelers wandering a forest and fighting robot zombies while dodging tribal cultists. She’d gotten too good at making robot-zombies die. The novelty of it all evaporated except for the real stress test: cooperative mode—with her action on the left half and his action on the right of the dividing line. Who was she kidding? The totality of its narrative and thematic depths were plumbed clean. They’d each experience the hundred plus hour story twice over, going on a third.

Her avatar got swarmed and beaten into submission with stars spinning around its prostrate body. “Revive me!” A countdown until ‘Death’ ticked as it writhed in grayscale.

“I can’t risk it.”

“What,” she gawked.

“I go for the revive, I die.”

“So?”

“Do you want to lose the progress?”

“I’m dying for fucks sake!”

She heaved out a breath. Then put her control down and twisted her head toward the kitchenette where what was left of the takeout sat pungent with grease and sauce.

“Where are you going? I’ll revive you,” he said with his attention glued to the virtual action.

“Don’t bother. I’m hungry.” She shook her legs and padded around while the numbness in her legs and the ache of her sit-bones subsided. She rolled her shoulders as she ambled to the streetside window. Through it, she saw the city that never sleeps in total stillness. Parked cars, the neon glow of the streetlamps and the copper haze of light pollution above the rooftops. She saw herself in the window silhouetted and his reflection. The sound of his virtual gunfire sputtered and clicked empty. Her favorite part of the game was this phase where the bullets ran out. Do or die time. Chips were down. Nothing to do but Rambo his way to the next level with whatever he had left, be it blade, fire bottle, or landmine.

She yawned. Screw watching, she’d rather be doing.

 By now, well after the game’s romance faded, the zombie grunts and moans of agony sounded lustful. And the squelch of the knife stabs sounded like punching fruit or sex. Eliza felt the twinge of desire drip down her insides. When she turned to see him sitting like a slouched wax doll, vegetative except for the manic frenzy of his hands as his avatar committed atrocities. The sight of him doused the embers of her lust like a bucket of cold water.

No matter how buff and sexy the player, that dead-eyed trance—the face of a gamer enraptured dried the girl’s nether regions like a raisin in the sun. This was the first time she’d seen the truth of the pastime: no matter what the charm boy or the spunky vixen on the screen did, the human on the sofa sacrificed all sex appeal for the duration of the ritual.

“Hey,” she shouted.

“I see it,” he said and reacted to a virtual zombie.

She shook her head, grabbed her phone and snapped a few pics. Then she stood just at the corner of his eye stripped down to her lingerie, sat beside him. With an eyeroll and finger gun to her temple and took selfie after selfie. Satisfied with the series of pics she compiled them into text message attachments and sent them to his phone.

She dropped her clothes in the corner of the bathroom and turned the shower on.

Wrapped in a towel, with wet hair, smelling of coconut and eucalyptus, Eliza emerged. There Kyler sat, transfixed. She leaned her elbows on the back of the sofa. He just might do the Rambo thing…again. He was close. The scene was tense. She took a deep breath and—he smelled rancid. She crinkled her face and sprang back from the sofa and coughed into her hand. Her soon to be ex, Kyler was going on six hours today, three of which she joined in. He’d be at eight before the night was over.

Eliza narrowed her eyes at the selection of clothes in her closet. Her eyes shifted right and left and right again and fixed on a black leather short skirt. She slipped into fishnet stockings and lacey black bra and a Crimson bit of silk which flattered her curves. With black Doc Martens on her feet, looking like a million bucks in her leather skirt, logo T, a bold blazer and studded black fingerless gloves she spun in the mirror and winked at herself.

Her hacktop, lockpick kit, burner phone, a pair of jeans, converse, a spare T shirt, and a kit of travel size personal hygiene products which included spare facemasks and pairs of nitrile gloves in her messenger bag with the cross strap fastened, she slipped open the window and climbed out and down the fire escape.

Tonight was a milestone. She’d planned it a week ago. First, she saw the ad on a social event app she checked for the first time in eleven months. It was a basement party with an internet famous DJ. That night a week ago she started texting back and forth with a distant colleague from her time in the tech industry.

Her phone chimed with a text from him

Message from Calvin: We still on?

She sent: Where are you?

Calvin sent: I’m there. Waiting on you. Everything ok?

Eliza sent: I’m late.

Calvin: Pregnant?

Eliza: What???

She pocketed her phone and with her head craned around she watched for any sign of Kyler in her apartment window. She descended a flight of steps. Pivoted around and down another. She reached the bottom platform and leaned her head to eye the ladder and guess how far to the ground. With her lower lip curled and her teeth bared, she chewed the tip of her tongue and filled her lungs to steel her nerves before she lowered herself onto the rungs. On the ladder, with three contact points, she put her phone to her ear as it dialed Calvin. “What is this pregnancy line of questioning? I’m behind schedule.”

“Oh,” he sighed. “Right. Silly me.”

She walked her feet down, and snapped her free hand down a rung and moved her feet again. Then leaned her body around to see below. “You’re worried?”

“No,” he said. A squeal crept into his voice. He collected his nerves on the other end, “Just be careful on your way, okay?”

The two-foot-one-hand ladder-thing was a nice trick, she thought, but not worth the risk, tonight. Like she’d want to be dancing on a broken or twisted ankle or worse. “Can I put you on hold for like two seconds?” she said as she tapped the HOLD icon and pocketed her phone. With both hands on the ladder and took step by step.

She hustled off the ladder, took him off hold and brought her phone up. “I’m always careful. See you soon.” She stepped into the copper tint of lamplight and searched for her gig economy lift.

A synth and bass thumper of a rhythm invited dancing and people with bottles and cans of booze. Most sipped, swigged, and swayed in the syncopated and primal way that people with simplistic movement styles do. Some got along fine with one or two good moves.

Calvin, she was impressed to find, took her by the hand and set his other on her shoulder-blade. She recoiled with a grin, eyed the crowd, and put her bag down along the wall.

“Planning a stay,” he asked.

Eliza noticed it was larger than most, smaller than some, and the same size as a few. “Maybe.” She smirked at him. “Don’t know where.” She followed him to the periphery of the dancing crowd, reprised his embrace and did the rock-step of a swing dancer, she did her best to match his lead. Her heavy boots bogged down some of her footwork.  He lifted her hand, she spun. He opened up the embrace rocked back, he spun and caught her hand again in a gentle move. Then, his hand on her back, the other hand in her clasp, he walked with some authority for a few steps deeper into the crowd where he cast off that formal stuff and with her arms around him and his around her, they just moved with the music. She saw him trying to talk, but his words were lost in the noise. She gestured to her ears. His grinning lips kept moving and his face contorted a moment later he waved a hand and stuck out his tongue, crossed his eyes. She laughed from deep down inside.

After the first stint on the dance floor, she sipped a hard iced-tea labeled in blue and yellow at an out of the way spot by the wall. Her studded jacket hooked by it’s inside loop on two fingers of her loose fist.

“How have you been,” she asked when he returned with a clear bottle of golden beer.

“Good,” he bobbed his head, waved the bottle, “Nice crowd.” He leaned on the wall beside her and tilted his head. “I’m consulting in San Francisco.”

“Oh,” she tucked her chin put arms across her chest. “With Grace?”

“And Max. Yeah.”

“Both of them? Go you.”

“It’s lamer than it sounds. Mostly remote.”

Eliza narrowed an eye, tilted and tipped her head as she asked, “What the fuck was that non-starter anyway? Y’know the London thing we never did much on.”

“I’m blanking,” Calvin said with a chortle his shoulders bounced as he laughed.

“Isn’t that so shady? I’ve been asking myself what we were doing You know what comes to mind? A whole lotta nothing.”

“Wasn’t it a cover up? For your dodgy uncle’s bunker?”

“You mean the one that was rumored to exist beneath London?” Her attention darted around.

“Rumored?” Calvin fixed his on her.

“Officially, and yeah. I know you know and…I want to leave it and him in the past.”

“Alright. How’s Kai?”

She tossed her hair with a flick of her head. “Fading into the past.”

“I was too, for a bit.”

She watched the other guests at the party. Most of them looked a year or two apart. She was disconcerted by how age-appropriate. Eliza and Calvin had about eight years difference though he acted younger and she felt older than her years. She looked him up and down. His, brown shoes, gray slacks, and a tweed blazer over a black wrinkle-free button down over firm and well-shaped shoulder muscles. She sipped her hard tea and held it at rest close to her mouth. “He’s home playing Zombifier,” she said with a sneer and narrowed eyes.

“I’ve heard good things about that one.”

“It held my attention through the pandemic. I can’t shake an eerie feeling though.”

“Eerie how,” Calvin asked with a brow creased in the middle and lined with something like worry.

“So,” she met and mirrored his affect, “I’m not crazy.” One arm across her chest, she let her other arm fall and the can dangle from her fingers. “What do you know that I don’t?”

“Just rumblings, really.”

“Like?”

“Where’s your phone?”

“The burner is with me, but the real one is home.”

“Here.” Calvin showed her his touchscreen cued to an article.

She leaned to read and used a finger of her drinking hand to scroll and nudged his hand closer.

The World’s Most Addictive Game Get’s an Upgrade

Pantheon Games’s Zombifier is no ordinary quadruple-A adventure game. It’s cryptic lore, top-notch A-list cast, and impeccable handling will be “receiving real-time 24-7 maintenance updates. They will not affect performance, frame-rate, or graphical fidelity in any way”. Pantheon says it plans to fine tune the game using active machine learning. In short, that means it will tailor itself to the player. Pantheon’s lead developer David Johns says: “Gone are the days when you choose the difficulty of your Zombifier playthrough. We’ve perfected our AI. Now the right difficulty chooses you. Get ready for something truly next level.”

Critics of Pantheon cite concerns of development crunch…

She skimmed the rest. “Holy shit.” She reread the article.

“A few days ago, A sender called WEEmandela sent me this article. Do you know a Digitalis?”

“Who?” She turned her face to him, Her jaw slack and gaze wide until a brief strobe flash lit those violet irises of hers and she blocked the glow with her can.

“What’s wrong?”

“When’s the upgrade due out?”

“September first.”

“That’s less than a week! So, Kai is going to get even more consumed by it. Then it’s really over.”

She watched and waited for Calvin to say something. He bowed his head and gazed around. Eliza swigged. She flexed and extended her fingers around the can. “Don’t know any Weemando. Digitalis I know of…they’re someone who might have ways of finding out.”

“So you know him?”

“Yeah. Something like that.”

He searched her face for more information then turned his attention to the dance floor and squeezed his eyes shut, ducked his head and after a beat lolled it over at her with a half-grin. “I didn’t just spoil your night, did I?”

She swigged again, squared her body to his, draped her arms over him with hands lace around the can behind his neck. “Nah, I think Weemando is who I have to thank for that.” She leaned a kiss to his cheek and led him deep into the dancing throng.