“It’s eating him!” hissed Oliver.
Caleb threw up in his mouth.
This isn't real. It can't be. I've never seen something so disgusting, even on the darkest bowels of the internet. And I've seen some stuff.
“Go. Go. Go.” Oliver urged, prodding the backs of Caleb’s legs at jackhammer speed.
But Caleb was frozen in place. The figure bore down on the customer with a feverish hunger, tearing bloody chunks from the customer with its bladed hands until there was nothing left but a fractured skeleton. The creature of pure, mindless consumption even chewed through its own face covering. The walls were painted red with the poor man’s insides. Caleb even thought he saw the chewed and half-digested remnants of a Squish Burger in there.
“What is that monster?”
It looked like a tortured Scraper, but Caleb knew that foggy nightmare world was fiction. And yet here it was. To see its bloodied and bladed tonfas scraping against each other in this dull grey world of menial servitude seemed nonsense. Caleb slapped himself, but the obscene view remained. He knew it wasn’t an actual Scraper. On closer inspection it bore little resemblance except for the blades and bloody rags. And yet he had to call it something.
“I know what it looks like,” Caleb said. “But only god knows what it actually is.”
The Scraper, now with a crimson grin of gore plastered across its face, seemed to enjoy tearing apart the customer.
Oliver pulled at the bottoms of Caleb’s pants. “Let’s go.”
The Scraper’s head snapped up to lock eyes with Caleb and Oliver. It shrieked, and the vent shook with the force of an earthquake.
Caleb shuffled forward as fast as he could. He could feel his knees bruising and his arms ached from being forced into such an unnatural position for so long.
The Scraper’s scream continued, and the steel vent started to buckle and bend underfoot like it was tissue paper.
“It’s not gonna hold!” Oliver screamed.
He wished his own bad luck into reality. Oliver’s hand fell through a loose metal sheet as he put his full body weight into it, and he tumbled to the floor, scraping across the wall of the broom closet as he fell.
We were so close!
Caleb watched in horror as his manager disappeared from view, and soon he joined him in a messy heap on the floor of the room.
The drop took all the wind out of Caleb’s lungs. When he gasped for air, he tasted blood. Not his.
The pair had landed directly on the bony remains of the Scraper’s dinner. The impact had thrown the creature to the door, but it was recovering quickly. And it wasn’t happy.
“Agh, I’m being eaten! I’m bleeding!” Oliver convulsed on the floor like a salted slug.
“It’s not your blood. It’s not your blood.” Caleb held Oliver steady. “Focus. Focus. It’s coming.”
The Scraper shook off the blow, then flexed its blades. It was delighted - 2 extra courses.
“It’s all about timing,” Caleb said, with zero idea but as much certainty as he could muster. “We’ve got to dodge its attacks.”
“I’m not fighting that thing.”
“No, if it touches us we’ll die instantly. We just can’t give it the chance.”
“Timing, you say? My wife said I have zero.” he shrugged. “We took tango lessons.”
Caleb couldn’t help but laugh. When certain death was staring you down, what else could you do?
“Well, I’m pretty good at DDR. Follow my steps.”
The Scraper lumbered forward, putting Caleb in its sights. It screamed once more, then flexed its claws exactly like it did before. As if it was running through pre-determined animations.
Good, Caleb thought. So it’s predictable. That means we can avoid it.
“You think you can side-step?” Caleb asked.
“I’m just trying not to piss my pants, if I’m being honest with you.” Oliver said. It sounded like a joke, but Caleb felt the same way.
The Scraper ran towards Caleb, teeth bared and blades behind its back in a sick mockery of a Naruto run. Just before the creature gored Caleb into mush, he sidestepped and sent the Scraper stupidly lumbering into the wall. Caleb remembered to input the movement a solid second before he needed to, and his body eventually complied to complete the action. It was clumsy, but it worked.
The Scraper shook its head, just like before, then ran through the scream-and-flex animation again. With Caleb in the clear close to the door, it was Oliver’s turn to save himself.
“Remember,” Caleb shouted. “We’re slow. You’ve got to think about dodging a second or two before you need to.”
“Okay…” Oliver nodded. The Scraper readied its attack, then pounced. Oliver juddered in place, then took a comically slow and heavy step to the right. Caleb knew how bad it felt, but he couldn’t believe how bad it looked.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Of all the game genres to be stuck in, he thought. Why couldn’t it have been HuniePop?!
Oliver stumbled into Caleb on the other side of the room. They turned tail and ran out before the Scraper got a chance to retarget its attack.
Caleb shut the door. He noticed there were three copper hooks pointing upwards at chest level: one on either side of the door and one in the middle of the door.
“Are there any wooden planks around here?” he said. “We can trap it in there!”
Oliver looked around. “I can’t see anything.”
“Hold the door shut.” Caleb commanded.
They had found themselves at the foot of a long, white hallway. Septic yellow lights flickered from recessed points in the ceiling, lighting the way for countless identical doors.
“I don’t think we’re in Squish Burger any more…” Caleb said. The further away from the manager’s office they got, the less and less recognisable the world around them became. The environment was slowly but steadily changing, and the longer they spent in each room, the less likely they were to live to see the next.
The Scraper pounded angrily on the other side of the door.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
“Hurry up!” Sweat streamed down Oliver’s forehead as he struggled to keep the beast at bay.
Caleb shuffled down the corridor. He tried to sprint but his body just wouldn’t let him. His stomach wasn’t bleeding again, but his arms were bruised. His cheek stung - he figured he must have slashed it in the fall.
Shaking off his aches and pains, Caleb noticed something different about the door just to his right. Someone, probably another survivor, had haphazardly hammered wooden 2x4 planks across the door. They were just what he needed.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
The plank fastened diagonally at chest height wouldn’t budge. He inspected the door a little harder. A darker plank was placed horizontally near the floor. He tried to kick it, but of course this pathetic body wouldn’t let him. It glimmered - a telltale hint from the angels. He thought about grabbing it, and it was suddenly in his hands.
“A plank. Could be useful…” Caleb said, without even meaning to. The voice barely sounded his. It was deeper, richer. Like a hero’s voice.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
“Hurry!” Oliver had pressed his back to the door now, reminding Caleb of that poor customer. He limped back to the door as fast as he could.
“Get out of the way.” Caleb said. Oliver reluctantly let go, peeling himself from the door like a bandaid. The moment he was clear, Caleb placed the plank into the copper hooks.
The Scraper continued to try to break the door down, but the door no longer shook. They were a little safer now.
“Thanks,” Oliver said. “You did good.”
THUMP. THUMP.
“I think it’s getting tired in there,” Oliver pointed to the door.
“Hopefully. It should have a pretty full belly.” He said, dusting off his hands from the fall. “Let’s go find the others, shall we?”
They started to walk down the hallway.
“Does my face look scratched up?” Oliver pointed to his cheek.
“Yep. Same place as mine, right? I think we get identically damaged each time we get hurt.”
“Figures.”
They walked in silence for a few more paces.
“What do you think that abducted us, Caleb? They looked like aliens to me.”
“Aliens… Angels… Maybe we’ve always just been lines of code in a video game, and we’ve just been imported into a much worse one.”
“Shit,” Oliver coughed. “I’m gonna need a drink before I even try to process that one.”
Caleb looked at his feet. Black sneaker marks scuffed the vinyl floor in every direction. There had been others. Lots and lots of others.
“Hey, I’m sure the others are fine. Like you said, they were the resilient ones.”
“If they are even in here. Like I said, I don’t even recognise this place any more.”
Caleb smelled the corpse before he saw it.
“Stop,” he said, catching a glimpse of light from the corner of his eye. A gold pendant hung from the neck of the dead man.
“I’m gonna hurl,” Oliver doubled over against the wall.
Pulling his shirt over his nose, Caleb leant in close. The dead woman wore a police officer’s uniform in bright blue - albeit stained. The shining pendant was actually a pair of dog tags.
- ROXANNE MARTINEZ
1ST DIVISION,
BRAINLESS KILLAZ
0129389382
She was so badly decomposed, Caleb wouldn’t have been able to identify if she was even a man or a woman without the dog tags. Her nose was gone entirely and a cockroach chittered inside her left eye socket.
He pulled them from her neck and pocketed them - she slumped to the side.
“Hey Oliver,” Caleb said. “What kind of police department is called ‘Brainless Killaz’?”
“Sounds like the same kind of trash rap group my brother likes.” He wiped bile off his chin. “Unless we’re in a world that went to shit a long time ago.”
Caleb considered it. It wasn’t a bad assumption to make. The Brainless. It sounded like a euphemism you’d use if you wanted to avoid the word zombie at all costs. So long as they stayed brainless, he thought.
“Dog tags are more military, too.” Oliver said. Another good point. So wherever they were, it had a heavily militarised police force. Which also meant…
“See if she has a gun, bro!”
It was the happiest Oliver had ever sounded. Caleb started to unbutton her shirt.
“Stop, stop.” Oliver interrupted. “The holster’s going to be on her hip. Have a little respect for the dead, ya fuckin’ perv.”
Caleb moved down to her legs. Green and bloated flesh bulged from her ripped pants. It felt like a water balloon. Caleb tried to keep his breakfast down to locate the gun.
The M19 handgun was tightly tucked into a black leather holster. Caleb unpinned the holster and slid out the slender black pistol.
“Not bad.” Oliver cooed. “Has she got any ammo on her?”
Her left pocket bulged. Caleb reached into it to find a small cardboard box labelled M19 AMMO. It was almost too on the nose. Maybe we really are in a video game, he thought.
“Awesome.” Oliver said. “Now let’s keep moving. Before she wakes up.”
Caleb kept one eye on the corpse as they walked away, but she stayed down. He put the gun in the waistband of his pants and-
“Woah, woah, woah. Make sure the safety’s on first.”
Caleb looked at Oliver like a deer in headlights. Oliver grabbed the gun and, without wrapping a finger around the trigger, clicked a little dial on the side of the handle.
“There.” he said. “Now you won’t accidentally blow your own dick off.”
Oliver thought for a moment. “I’m going to keep this. I’ve actually shot a gun before.”
Deep, thudding footsteps echoed down the halls. Caleb ducked behind Oliver, who kept his hand tightly on the M11 by his side.
A huge, lumbering beast rapidly came into view.
“I’d say you were a sight for sore eyes, but I’m actually not thrilled about having two more asses to protect.” Dave said, scratching his head and laughing.
Maybe there’s hope yet…