A few minutes went by with none of us able to come up with an answer to the ‘Why?’ hanging overhead, leaving us with little to do but watch on in complete and utter bewilderment.

It took me a while to truly accept that there was, in fact, a Gremlin barking incomprehensible orders at the Ghouls from atop a house-sized machine they’d apparently been building, floodlights casting the Goblin-like foreman’s shadow up the trees.

“There’s no way they can actually communicate,” Liz quietly scoffed before looking at me unsurely, “is there?”

“I have no idea,” I replied, still struggling to figure out what it was we were watching, “they certainly seem to.”

“We should stop them, right?” Millie pointed out as the Ghouls seemed to put the finishing touches on their Seussian contraption.

“May-” I managed to get out before the Gremlin, with a blood-curdling cackle, reached down and pulled a lever by his feet with enough force to almost send him toppling from his platform.

The sounds of a diesel engine rumbling to life rippled through the forest as the various parts of the machine began to shift and pump, the Gremlin having thrown his head back in a cartoonish fashion that honestly made me think thunder would inexplicably crack the sky.

Having completed their task, the Ghouls watched on in amazement as their device built up to its full potential like some massive V8 engine, spewing smoke and spitting sparks.

‘A drill maybe?’ I suggested internally, ‘Or a logging machine?’

As it turned out, it was neither.

“Whoa!” Millie exclaimed as a chunk of the machine shot off into the forest, the beastly roar of the device masking her voice, “Was it supposed to do that?”

“He doesn’t seem to mind.” I replied, nodding to the still evilly laughing Gremlin as yet another piece shot off, hitting one of the floodlights.

“Alright,” Liz said, “what’s the game plan?”

“I thought we were coming out to clear out a nest of Ghouls,” I chuckled, “not fight a piece of a mech.”

“That thing’s hardly a Metal Gear,” Millie scoffed, “just looks like an insane mish-mash of parts to me. Like something a kid would build after taking apart one of those pull-back cars.”

“Well, I’m open to suggestions,” I said, “because unless your idea is to run in there-”

I was interrupted by the sound of a shotgun firing a few feet away, prompting me to whip my attention around to see Liz had charged the distracted Ghouls and managed to put one down.

“We didn’t even do a count.” I grumbled as Millie shot out of cover to help Liz.

Knowing there was no taking it back, I tightened my grip around my axe and charged, half-seeing one of the Ghouls have what looked like an axel shoot out of the machine and through its face.

Liz and Millie had each other covered well enough by the time I’d joined the fray, allowing me to hook around the left while they held the right.

My first kill still hadn’t even registered the shotgun fire as I plowed into it, sending it to the ground with a mix of confusion and anger contorted across its face moments before I buried my axe in its head.

The ‘KILL +100’ pop-up worked as a better indicator that I could move onto the next nearest Ghoul than the twitching body at my feet, and there’s no denying the little bubble of the good chemicals in my brain at the notification fed my desire to go for more.

If I wasn’t actively in combat I might’ve explored that a little deeper, but my next target knew I was coming for him, and he had a friend.

The monsters, not exactly being the ‘stand there and take it’ breed, launched at me as soon as I got close enough.

Thankfully, for all the things the rollback had taken, I still had my reaction time.

Having hit the Ghoul on the right in the jaw with the base of my axe’s handle and sent it careening past me, I was able to swing from my shoulder, letting my right hand glide down the smooth wood as the weapon’s silver head swung down and split the second Ghoul’s skull.

Dazed from the blow, the first Ghoul took a moment to get back to its feet and face me, giving me enough time to pull the axe from the second Ghoul’s head as it slumped to the ground.

I’d hoped to decapitate the creature, but as I went to take my swing at the clumsy monster another large piece of the bizarre machine shot off with enough speed and force that my eyes struggled to follow the Ghoul as it was launched into the forest.

Mildly disappointed by the meagre ‘ASSIST +50’, I turned to find a new target only to find the rest had apparently made their way around to Liz and Millie.

I was ready to accept the fight was done and get some distance between me and the deadly machine when the child-sized Gremlin dropped on me, making me drop my axe.

With its arms wrapped around my face and neck and its legs around my chest, the fiendish little fucker started trying to take a bite out of me.

Doing what I could not to barrel into the still roaring contraption, I pushed the Gremlin’s face from my neck and tried my hardest to elbow it in the ribs to no avail, the thing’s emaciated frame allowing for it to easily dodge my blind flailing.

The creature soon gave up on biting, to my initial relief, only to start laughing maniacally once more and proceeding to head-butt me as hard as it could in the back of my skull.

To make matters worse, I’d managed to stumble back towards the forest and away from the potential help of the girls, all the while struggling to think past the cackling and the brain bashing I was taking.

That’s when the Gremlin made a mistake.

Deciding to retry its effort to take a bite out of me, the mental monster let up just long enough for me, in my semi-concussed state, to take a desperate swing behind my head.

I couldn’t believe it at first as my fist connected with one of the many bony parts of the Gremlin, but as I took a swing with my other hand and cracked something I could feel myself getting the upper hand in the fight.

The Gremlin’s grip loosened as I hit it again a few more times, my swings ungainly but with a good deal of weight behind them, allowing me to get some idea of my surroundings.

Upon spotting a tree in my peripheral vision, I ran backwards as fast as I could manage with my uncoordinated feet, and slammed into the hard wood with enough force to shake some snow from the branches and, from the sound of it, puncture one of the Gremlin’s lungs.

Ignoring the part of my brain that told me running into trees with my head was a bad idea, I grabbed the Gremlin’s arms and lumbered forward, turning at the last moment and crashing into another tree with my monster helmet.

Confident another blow would do me more harm than the limp Gremlin, I stumbled away from the tree, pulled the creature from my back, and, with a surprising amount of difficulty, tossed it to the ground, forcing a final, wet cough from its mouth.

The blurry ‘KILL +100’ and ‘BRUTAL +75’ had me breathing a sigh of relief as the machine inexplicably shut down, the thought of having to stomp on the Gremlin or something proving to be a step too far for me at that moment.

“Alistair!?” Liz called out as I made my way back towards the clearing, my shotgun-wielding paramour crouched on top of the dying machine while Millie peered through the trees, my axe in her hand.

“I’m here.” I groaned, rubbing the back of my head shortly before tripping up on a branch at the edge of the clearing, effectively distracting me from the small, warm wet patch in my hair, “You two okay?”

“We’re fine,” Millie said, visibly relieved, “where’d you go?”

“Gremlin,” I replied as coolly as I could manage, accepting the axe Millie was offering, “is that it? We done?”

“Seems to be,” Liz said, scaling her way down the silent machine and pretending she hadn’t just been screaming my name into the woods, “should be getting a notif-”

Naturally, the notification chose that exact moment to blast us with fanfare and a ‘QUEST COMPLETED! +750’ above the obviously broken Ghoul machine, followed shortly after by a much more welcome ‘+$800’ in my feed.

Smiling at the thought that we were going to be okay, I turned to face the girls on my right, “Did you two get pai-” I got out as we were all hit with another explosive notification.

LEVEL UP!

Please consult your L-UP! app to unlock LEVEL 2

“How about we just stop trying to talk for a bit?” Millie suggested somewhat amusedly.

I went to respond, then stopped and opted to simply nod, genuinely paranoid that if I were to open my mouth again I would trigger another loud notification.

Well, that, and the fact that moving my mouth hurt something shocking.

So, after silently looking over the mess we’d made for a few more seconds, we turned and started off towards the road.

Have to say, I was really missing Monster Mash.