I woke up again startled, and wondered briefly if the universe didn’t know how to make the transition between chapters easier than to kill me or make me black out. Oh, yes, fourth wall, sorry. Forget about that.

I opened my eyes, looked around wondering where I was and for the briefest of times I prayed everything about the zombies had been a dream. It was dark but I could faintly see the interior of the Zombinator and cursed silently. Someone had moved me to one of the beds when I blacked out and I was facing one of the walls. It took me a few minutes to remember everything that had happened the other day.

Shit. I needed a coffee.

“Oh, shit,” I yelled and then started to hit my head against the wall. “Shit, shit, shit, shit.”

“Adam!” said my brother from behind. “Are you okay?”

“I forgot the coffee!” I stopped and looked at him crying. “I bought everything else, even the duct tape and I forgot the coffee. I can’t believe the last coffee I’m going to taste was that shit that came with the house!”

Knight stared at me openmouthed and after a second punched me in the arm.

“Ouch!” I said. “What was that for?”

“I thought you were dead or transforming in one of those things and now you are joking?!” he snapped at me.

I looked at him more intently. Knight appeared very tired, ragged and confused. He wasn’t mad, he was scared and didn’t understand what was happening. Not much difference to me I guess. I didn’t have answers to what was happening.

“Sorry,” I said lowering my voice. “I know we have priorities but if I don’t take this as a joke I think I will go insane.”

His face became more relaxed and I tried to get out of bed. It was still dark outside and I couldn’t see much outside but we were the only ones in the Zombinator.

“How much time did I lose?” I asked getting up and walking towards one of the tiny windows. “Where are the others?”

Knight blinked slowly and answered. “They are outside trying to see what is happening in the city and you lost only a few hours. It’s almost sunrise.”

“Well, at least I hadn’t lost much,” I nodded. “Wait. Why have we stopped?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because someone decided to pass out while the zombie apocalypse started and we didn’t know what to do?” he said angry.

“I told you to keep running!” I yelled.

“I thought you were…!” he started to say but then stopped, lowered his head and sighed. “Look, it doesn’t matter that we stopped. We are far out of the city and the zombies stopped following us after a while.”

I looked at him tilting my head in a silent question. “Well, at least that’s something.”

I walked towards the door and opened, but the air was cold, colder than I thought it would be. I walked back inside and fiddled with the clothes in the closet until I found a jacket. I was about to put it on when I remembered my new magic powers and equipped it directly under the dumbfounded stare of my brother.

For increasing your VIT over 50 points you have obtained a new ability. Breath of the world

For increasing your INT over 50 points you have obtained a new ability. Mana absorption.

For increasing your WIS over 50 points you have obtained a new ability. Inspect.

For increasing your WIS over 100 points you have obtained a new ability. Philosophiæ naturalis.

For increasing your CHA over 50 points you have obtained a new ability. Empathy.

I stopped to look at the announcements windows for a second but I didn’t have more time. I face palmed. Things just kept happening around and I didn’t have the time to focus in every little thing that popped out.

“How did you…?” started asking Knight.

“Priorities, brother, priorities,” I said without looking at him and walked out of the Zombinator.

The night was cold and dark, creepily dark, but at least the purple clouds were gone which I thought was something good. There were no lights around. We were completely at dark, nothing in the Zombinator was on, probably to not draw too much attention. I could only see that we were in some sort of grassy area, probably in an open field. I started to move around when Sam appeared from behind the RV.

“Adam!” he said with surprise and ran closer to me. “Are you okay? I thought I heard you yell but…”

“I’m fine,” I cut him smiling. “Knight is being a mother hen, but everything is fine.”

Sam chuckled. “Don’t be like that, when you passed out we thought you were dying or worst…” he said without looking directly at me. “We had to stop to see if you would…”

“Yes, yes, I know,” I said quickly. “Just tell me where we are.”

He looked around and then at me. “It would be best if I show you.”

Sam guided me to the other side of the Zombinator, he was carrying one of the crossbows that I bought which told me that we weren’t as safe as Knight seemed to believe. And then I saw it. We were somewhere high and the city could be plainly seen in the distance.

The city didn’t look exactly as we left it. The buildings seemed dark, like if all the lights had gone out, which it may have been what had happened, and in some of them bright fires were burning. Brief flashes of light tinted the city from time to time. There was noise, not much, but a constant stream of something between shots and yells could be heard from where we were.

“It looks really bad,” I said after looking at it for a minute.

John, who was a bit ahead of us looking through some binoculars, turned around when he heard me and smiled.

“It was worst,” said Sam. “At the beginning you could only hear weapons being fired constantly and then when the military arrived…”

I looked at him. “The military came?”

“They are gone now,” answered John coming closer. “A few helicopters went to scout the situation in the city and then flew back to wherever they came from. I doubt they liked the situation.”

I whistled and John offered me the binoculars. Through them the city didn’t seem very different. There was something that was clearer, some power cables were cut and flashing from time to time. There was electricity but everything was dark which probably meant that the zombies or the people fighting the zombies had destroyed a good chunk of the power lines. It was looking awful anyway.

“And I guess the TV doesn’t work anymore or we would be seeing this inside,” I said giving back the binoculars.

“It stopped a few minutes after you passed out,” Sam said. “The radio is also not working even when John tried some of the emergency channels.”

I looked at John. The decision to take my neighbor with us had been a spur of the moment. Mostly I trusted him because the first time he tried to save me and probably died shortly after me. That said something about him and apparently it had been useful. For now.

“If the military is still active after all of this and they are still trying to do their job they will try to establish a communication line,” said John looking again at the city. “But so far no luck”

“And then what?” I asked.

“They’ll try to save as many people as possible,” he answered. “Probably bring them to a safe place.”

I snorted. “I’m not sure they are going to find either.”

“We have seen survivors, actually,” said Sam.

“Seriously?” I asked staring at him.

“Yes, there were some cars abandoning the city a few hours back” he answered looking back at the city. “Not many, but there are people that managed to get out alive after all started.”

I nodded slowly. Those were good news I guess.

“That still leaves the question,” said Sam slowly looking intently at me. “What the hell happened?”

I sighed. I knew this was coming but I was dreading the moment that I had to explain the time travel thing. I looked at both of them and I could feel the confusion and curiosity leaking out of them. I promised to give them answers but…

How the hell do you begin to explain that? More to the point, I didn’t really know a lot more than them now. The system or whatever this screens are is probably the only thing that they hadn’t discovered yet and I didn’t know if they could use it yet. ARGH. Usually, right about now my brother tries to take control of the situation and I can relax but now with him having a fit… I had to do it myself.

“I don’t really know a lot more than you do, honestly,” I said scratching my head.

“Bullshit,” said Sam quickly. “You bought all this stuff, and you told me what was going to happen,” he said pointing at the Zombinator. “You knew this was going to happen.”

“I… yes.” I answered. “But not in a very conventional way, I…”

A grunt stopped whatever I was going to say. The color went out of the faces of Sam and John. I looked around trying to find the place from where it came and prayed silently it was just a dog or something else.

The first thing I saw where the glowing purple eyes flashing in the darkness. It was one of them coming from the direction of the city and towards us. It was far away still but running faster than a normal human could. I took the binoculars back to inspect it better, after all I hadn’t had the opportunity to see them very well yet. The zombie didn’t look to different from a normal human, it’s clothes were ragged, but there were no bounds or missing pieces, just the glowing eyes and a face that screamed death.

It looked oddly normal. I mean, you could tell it wasn’t human just by the expression it had on its face. It looked more like an animal than anything else and the glowing eyes were a dead giveaway, but under other circumstances it might have passed for a human.

Ghoul Lv. 5A Ghoul is a creature born from the chaotic energies of the Void corrupting a living being.

Tainted by the touch of death this creatures gains strength, agility and vitality beyond the capabilities of their race at the loss of everything that made them human.

Now they remain as husks of their former self with the only objective of spreading the corruption that grows inside them.

I read the new screen quickly. Shit. It seemed like I misinterpreted, they weren’t zombies. They were from a cult and were just trying to spread the good news of their faith. Yes, okay, it was a bit different than other religions because they spread their faith by killing people and brainwashing others but…

Actually it was a lot like other religions.

I took the crossbow that Sam was carrying, preparing to shot, and made a mental note to have one in my inventory at all times. But it wasn’t necessary for me to do anything. My neighbor was already preparing to shot, aiming his rifle at the zombie. There was a loud shot…

And he failed. Well, the arm of the ghoul exploded into tiny bits which I suppose it was not that bad considering he was still far from us and running at that speed. The loss of the arm didn’t seem to stop the ghoul, though, if any it made him run faster and grunt louder.

“Shit,” cursed Sam.

I realized then he was still here.

“What are you doing?” I asked him. “Get in the car Sam!”

He looked at me confused. “What?”

“The black guy is always the first to die, get in the car!” I yelled and pushed him towards the Zombinator.

I turned towards John. He was still aiming at the ghoul but not shooting.

“What…?” I started to ask but stopped when I saw it.

The sun was starting to rise and we could see it better. The arm of the ghoul was growing back really fast. Half of it was already back and only a few seconds had passed. Shit. If these things could regrow limbs that fast, survival was going to be really difficult.

“Oh, c’mon, that’s cheating!” I shouted without thinking.

Both John and I aimed our weapons at the ghoul but he was too fast. In a second he jumped over my neighbor, arms extended first like a leopard jumping for the kill. I moved out of the way trying no the get caught, but John couldn’t. He fell to the ground with the ghoul and used his weapon as a way to restrain the ghoul from attacking him. They both fought in the ground for a few moments before he managed to push the ghoul out of the way and tried to get up.

The ghoul got up faster but didn’t attack. It seemed dazed, like if it didn’t understand how that attack hadn’t work. The arm had grown back completely but it wasn’t exactly the same, it looked scared almost as if his skin had been burned. He recovered quickly and growled at us. It was like if it was trying to seem menacing, almost like if it had some intelligence. But it wasn’t intelligent, not like that, it was a predator and it knew how to hunt, nothing more.

I aimed at him and an arrow flew past by to bury in its chest. It wasn’t mine and it distracted me for a second. I saw them walking around the Zombinator, Sam with a crossbow and my brother with a bat.

Shit. My opportunity to kill it was lost because the ghoul started to run towards Sam. It still had the arrow sticking out of the chest but that didn’t stop it. I saw it fall over Sam when Knight put himself in the middle using the bat to push its arms back.

I was scared, my brother was strong but he couldn’t survive that. He was about to die and I knew it. I didn’t know if I could aim well enough with the crossbow to hit the ghoul and not him. I didn’t know what to do.

Then the sun rose over the horizon. At the moment it seemed like something simple, not something important or transcendental but then the skin of the ghoul started to burn. The ghoul yelled. It didn’t sound like a normal yell. It sounded very high pitch almost like when you scratch a blackboard but it made him move back from my brother just a bit.

Enough to not hit my brother I hoped.

The skin was burning but it wasn’t killing it. The skin was healing faster than it was burning. I didn’t have more time. I aimed and shot. The arrow flew directly through his head and the ghoul fell to the ground.

You have received 10 exp points for killing a ghoul.

I breathed loudly. It was over.

And we were fucked because one zombie alone almost killed us.

“Aim for the head! Haven’t you seen any zombie movie ever?” I yelled to Sam and then muttered. “It seemed easier in the movies.”

John chuckled and put a hand on my shoulder. “In the movies they aren’t as strong as this,” he said and looked at me like if waiting for an answer.

“Yeah, I guess,” I said. “And I think is time I explain what I know.”

He nodded and we walked to the Zombinator, but just before I forgot I went back and looked at the ghoul.

“What are you doing?” asked Knight breathing loudly and getting closer to me with the bat still in his hands.

“Looking for loot,” I said quickly without bothering.

There was nothing around which I guessed was not that weird, after all in normal games there’s not always loot. I did take a moment to take the arrow from the head and cleaned it in its clothes.

I looked at my brother and said. “Let’s go back inside.”

We entered inside and I found a place to sit close to a window. While I glanced through it trying to organize my thoughts the rest followed me and sat in some of the other chairs. How the hell do you tell a story like this? I asked myself that question for a while.

“Well,” said Sam looking at me. “Are you going to say something?”

I stared at him and asked. “What do you want to…?

“We want to know what the hell is happening,” Knight cut me quickly. “We want to know how did you know that this was going to happen, and we want to know what are those things.”

I rolled my eyes. “Well, what you need to understand is that time is not a line, is more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff, and…”

“Adam,” he said serious.

I grunted annoyed, if he wanted to know everything fine. I did it, beginning with changing my clothes through the system under the openmouthed expressions of the three. I told them everything, how I woke up and I died, how John tried to save me the first time, how I stole money and spend the last 24 hours trying to find every scrap of resource that could be useful to survive.

Halfway through my neighbor stopped listening and started fiddling with the radio. I didn’t care if he believed me or not. I just continued explaining everything the best I could. At the end I was more drained than I had been with the fight before and just stared at them daring them to tell me I was crazy.

It took a few minutes before anyone answered.

“Like a game?” asked Sam still trying to process everything I said.

“Yes.” I answered simply.

“Why can’t I see those blue screens then?”

“I don’t know,” I sighed. “It said that you have to survive 24 hours to unlock it but mine was already unlocked when I traveled back in time so... I don’t know. Maybe it was a bug and probably you will be able to access it tonight.”

My brother got up scratching his head and sighing. He sat close to me.

“This has to be the craziest story ever,” said Knight. “But there are zombies out there and you can do that with your clothes so for now I’m inclined to believe you.”

I nodded and smiled.

“They aren’t really zombies,” I said. “They are ghouls, they are faster, stronger and can regrow limbs.”

“Yes, we noticed,” Sam said grimacing. “If our zombies are like that we are fucked.”

“Not everything is bad, they are not intelligent. Did you notice how he forgot about us when you hurt him?” I asked at Sam and they nodded. “Also the daylight hurts them.”

Knight flinched slightly. “Yes, that’s why I’m…”

…still alive. I thought when he didn’t finish.

“Yes, but It didn’t kill it, he was healing faster than the light was burning it,” I said. “The light might make them easier to kill but it’s not going to finish them off.”

Sam and Knight exchanged a glance and I tried to understand what they were thinking. Were they happy to be alive? Confused, scared? Angry because I didn’t told them anything and probably lost friends in the city?

Uh… That was weird. Why am I thinking that now?

“What now?” asked Sam looking at me.

I blinked and looked at Knight who was looking at me.

“Wait, you are asking me?” I asked.

They both stared at me.

“My plan ended right about now,” I said. “I just thought we will ran to some place that was safe and survive. I guess if this was a movie we would have to find the cure to the zombies but I doubt there is one… I doubt this is a sickness or a virus to begin with so…”

The keep staring at me.

“I have lots of books, music and movies there,” I said pointing to where I kept the laptops. “We won’t get bored for a while and we could… I don’t know. Play some D&D or something.”

They looked at each other and then to me again.

“What?” I asked. “I know it doesn’t sound very adventurous or anything but…”

“Wait.” Said John.

He was sitting close to the radio and wore a headset. He didn’t say anything and after a while started writing something on a piece of paper.

“The military has established a camp at this place,” he said giving me the note. “They just started transmitting and are calling for any survivors that can get there on their own.”

I read the note, there was a name and coordinates, and nodded.

“Bloodmoon Lake?” I read and stared at him. “Well that doesn’t sound sinister or anything.”

“It’s close by,” said Sam quickly. “Like an hour or so.”

“Wait, you want to go?” I asked.

He smiled. “These zombies, ghouls or whatever are a lot stronger than us right now, I don’t think we can outrun them.”

“Hey, the Zombinator can outrun them,” I said defensively.

“Whatever the case,” started to say Knight. “I think it will be better if were around more people. You know, just in case, your faith in this car doesn’t protect us for thousands of zombies on steroids. Just saying.”

“Oh, don’t listen to them,” I said petting carefully the wall of the Zombinator. “You are a beauty and nothing can stop you.”

They were staring at me again and I sighed.

“Fine I guess we should go,” I conceded smiling. “If only to find someone alive that still has a sense of humor.”

The crew of the Zombinator took their positions and prepared for the travel.

“Mr. Sam, set a course for Bloodmoon Lake,” I said with all the flair I could muster.

Sam sighed.