Rain considered Gary’s question.

“This place of yours, the farmhouse, it is isolated?”

Gary nodded,

“Then it is the best place to be for now. Anywhere away from people and the undead is the safest choice.”

Something occurred to Gary that he should have thought of earlier.

“Isn’t there anything you can do?” Gary asked, “I mean, you came here through a portal, right? Couldn’t we use one of those things to portal to the farmhouse or something.”

Rain produced the spell book Morgan had been using.

“This contains all the spells that Delphine knew how to cast. I’m not a spellcaster, so until we find one, it’s useless. There aren’t any spell casters in your reality, are there?”

Gary shook his head. “Not that I know of.”

“There won’t be. Your mana hadn’t activated. If one of you levelled up and chose the spellcaster route, this might be useful, but even then creating portals is high cost magic.”

Gary nodded, then remembered something else

“Okay, what about that tent thing? The one that was half a dimension apart or whatever.”

“A Sanctuary. Only Annabel could create that.”

Gary grimaced, “Terrific.”

“Okay, so, look, you think the best thing is to get to safety, right?”

“I think the best thing to do is find a portal off this world. You were the one who insisted I help get these people to a safe place.”

“Right. Thanks.”

Sometimes getting Rain to volunteer information felt like getting blood out of a stone

“What’s the weird lady saying,” Fran asked as Gary returned to the group huddled around the van.

“She thinks the farmhouse is the best idea.”

“Like we can trust her, after what her friends did.”

“She helped, remember? She was fighting on our side.”

The group begrudgingly allowed that.

“Okay, look,” Jonathan said. “There’s the service station a few miles from here now, right? Why don’t we head there and see if we can get any more information, as well as food. Whatever else is going on, we’re going to need that. I think sticking together for now is the safest thing we can do.”

There were murmurs of assent to this plan. Just like listening to the radio, the idea of a service station seemed to have a magical effect on the group. Any little sign of civilisation that the world hadn’t gone to hell was something to be grasped at.

“There’s a Happy Traveller Inn there,” Peter said. “I mean, we could stop there for a night, couldn’t we? It might not be the worst idea.”

“They’re really expensive, them places. For what you get. And its not as if the location is all that great either.”

“They do a good English breakfast, though,” Jonathan said.

They reached a loose consensus. With the service station so close, everyone agreed it was as good a stopping point as any. After that, they could see what the lie of the land was and make their decisions.

*

A ten minute drive took them half an hour. The motorway was a mess of cars scattered and abandoned, forcing the two vehicle convoy to thread its way through rather than driving at full speed. There was only one crash on the other side of the motorway. Even more heartening, there were emergency services at the scene.

“Do you think we should stop to help them?” Gary wondered.

“I don’t think so,” Jonathan said. “We’d just get in the way.”

“True.”

The radio broadcast crackled in and out, dropping off for a few minutes at a time due to ‘technical problems’ and then returning to reiterate the Prime Minister’s speech.

Gary switched it off. There was no new information, and the reception was garbled.

“This is so weird,” Jonathan commented.

“What’s that?” Gary glanced sideways to see that Jonathan’s eyes were fixed on a point just in front of him.

“Just looking at my character sheet,” Jonathan replied. “I’ve been given a few different options for choosing a class, and I can upgrade my statistics. I’m not sure what the best choice is here.”

“What are your options?” Gary asked.

“Okay, so I can choose one of five different classes, which are Warrior, Rogue, Spellcaster, Devout or Outcast. There’s also something called Multiclass, but that’s locked. Then underneath each main class, there are half a dozen or so sub-classes, each with their own abilities, bonuses, special skills and so on. This is straight out of one of those roleplaying games the geeky kids play, right?”

“Or something like it,” Gary nodded. “The way I was told it, all those video games and so on that we’ve created, they’re reflections of how the world is supposed to be.”

“Say that again?”

“Okay, they told me that our world wasn’t running correctly. That it hadn’t been activated, and the mana potential and system were dormant. And all those video games and roleplaying games and stuff, they’re like memories of how things are supposed to be. If that makes any sense.”

“I mean, it makes sense as much as anything today makes sense,” Jonathan whistled. “Damn, I should have spent some time playing Dungeons and Dragons instead of making fun of the nerds who did. I mean, I had friends who were into all this stuff, but I’m clueless.”

Gary chuckled, “Who knew the geeks would be proved right one day?”

“Right?”

“Oh, hey this is interesting...”

“What’s that?”

Gary kept his eyes on the road as he drove around a car that had swerved into a crash barrier. There was no-one inside. All the cars that he’d passed so far had been abandoned.

“There’s some history for each of the different classes, their backgrounds and stuff. How they fit into the multiverse and the war of the undead. Wow, this is a lot to unpack...Also apparently I’m now on a quest, to ‘Escort the Survivors to Safety’. It’s worth three hundred experience points.”

Gary felt a sudden pang of jealousy. He knew it was irrational, but hearing Jonathan talking about having choices over his class, getting experience points for quests and being able to read up more about what was going on felt touch unfair. So far he hadn’t been given any choices, just levelled up and there are your new stats.

“Can you see any of this?” Jonathan asked.

“All I’ve got is a character sheet telling me I’m a level two zombie,” Gary scowled. “I saw the other stuff but then I got switched over.”

“Right, right,” Jonathan nodded. “I wonder if there’s any way to reverse that?”

The same thought had already occurred to Gary.

“I’ll have to ask Rain, I guess,” Gary said. “There’s just been so much to absorb the last few hours, I don’t feel like there’s been time to catch up with everything.”

“Yeah, that’s another reason I think your farmhouse idea is a good one.” Jonathan nodded. “It wasn’t safe to stay where we were and we need somewhere to rest, recuperate and assess the situation.”

“Have you decided what class you’re going to take?”

Jonathan shook his head. “There’s too much information here for me to take in. I don’t want to make a stupid decision I’m going to regret later.”

At least you’ve got decisions to make, Gary thought.

He chastised himself for his sour thoughts. It wasn’t Jonathan’s fault, after all. Also, he had to remember if the admin hadn’t classed him as undead, then he’d be properly dead now. There was no way that he would have even made it out of the graveyard, shovel or no shovel, with all the dead rising around him. And even if he had by some miracle survived that, he wouldn’t have been able to help the people in the church.

On the other hand, the glitch hunters wouldn’t have come looking for him either. Which would have meant no massacre in the St. Mary’s.

Even if he could get in contact with someone to fix the mistake, was it the smart thing to do?

The truth was. there were massive benefits to his current situation. Being invisible to the rest of the undead was the main one. The fact that he couldn’t get infected was also a massive benefit.

But there were massive downsides. He was a risk to everyone around him, and he knew it. It wasn’t just that he could infect them, it was that the cravings he felt were not something he was sure he could control. What if at some point they overwhelmed him and he went full zombie? And what if he met someone who didn’t know he wasn’t undead, and they tried to kill him?

Also, he couldn’t level up without killing someone who was alive.

He shuddered as memories of the bodies he’d already dropped appeared in his mind. He pushed them away.

And then there was Rain’s half-conviction that he might be some kind of chosen undead-one. Gary was trying not to think about that too deeply. He doubted he was this messiah. He was just a mistake, a glitch. The idea that he was somehow going to kill the multiverse was ridiculous.

On balance, there were too many negatives compared to the benefits, Gary decided. If he could get this fixed, then he would. If that meant that he ended up getting killed by the undead, then so be it. He’d rather go out that way, fighting like a living person, than be stuck with his current situation.

Up ahead, he could see the service station.

He pulled off the motorway and drove into the parking area.

The station had four main buildings. There was the petrol station, all cheerfully lit greens and yellows, with a mini supermarket inside. Then there was the Happy Traveller, the Big Burger Bar and a Coffee Stop. The area was bathed in bright, welcoming lights and signs in red, orange and blue.

After the darkness of the events in the church and the past half hour of literal darkness, it looked warm and welcoming. Another sign, like the Radio 4 news bulletins, that civilisation hadn’t collapsed.

Without warning, all the lights went out, plunging the service station into darkness.