These streets were such complete cookie cutter copies of one another that as I checked the next block from Jensen Court, I was confused if I had somehow done a loop. Looking at them from down the road by the exit of Jensen Court, it was like this residential district was just a series of identical cul-de-sacs. The only exceptions were the nearby gas station, which I made sure to steer clear from, and a large two story community center at the terminal end of the road.

  “This is going to suck.” My stomach tightened in worried anticipation of fighting forty-five hollows, my previous bravado having fled as reality set in. Yet I was not alone.

  “Hey baby, if you’re watching me right now, wish me luck,” I spoke aloud to the phone lady, but she did not answer. She didn’t need to though, I knew she heard.

  My cleansing of District nine started with skirting the edges of each cul-de-sac off the main road, checking to see how many hollows were standing out in the open like the ones from earlier.

  Four.

  That meant that forty-one of those suckers were either spooking around in dark backyards or worse yet, lurking somewhere inside the houses. I’d never been a soldier, but I’d heard the whispers of old tales from the Mediterranean Wars just how difficult fighting from house to house was. It would take me a long time to complete this quest, but time was the only thing I had to spare.

  The four hollows out in the open were the first targets I hit, since each one of them was alone and not in a group like earlier. I learned my lesson from before and did not Rambo charge my shuffling foes, instead opting to get as close as possible without being seen. When they turned their backs to me I’d make my move and ram my spear through them. Three out of four went down and out instantly from that move, the fourth however did not die right away. That particularly robust specimen didn’t mind having his spine severed in half and snapped at my ankles from the ground.

  I put him out of my misery with a size 13 boot to the head.

  With the easy targets down I sucked it up and started going door to door like a salesman of death. I thought I’d have to put my foot to work again and kick down at least a few doors, but every door was unlocked when I tried the knobs. That was a stroke of fortune for me, but not for the hollow residents I was able to get the drop on like a midnight thief.

  At one point I had to stop and collect myself, not because shanking a former human being in the back was traumatizing, but because I was getting too used to it, desensitized. I was on the final house of the final cul-de-sac, having gone through all the other houses, and I took stock of how many hollows I’d killed.

  The math wasn’t adding up.

  My notifications showed that I had a missed call, presumably because I had leveled up after killing the last hollow of my house hunting and that not only was I level four, but now I had a “skill point” available in addition to another stat point.

  Level three had required one thousand resonance points to level up, so between level three and my total experience in level four that meant that I had only killed twelve hollows at one hundred points a pop. If I killed twelve hollows, then simple math dictated that thirty three of the forty five quest requirement remained.

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  “But this is the last house…” I was talking out loud now, if just to hear a human voice, even my own. I didn’t count the whispers and whimpering of eyeless horrors nor those stupid “you’ve leveled up” calls as human.

  A dark thought occurred to me then, spurred by the empty children’s room I happened to stop in. The double bunk bed reminded me that I had not seen any kids yet and I didn’t know if that was worse than the fact that so many hollows were still out there. If there happened to be children among my targets, eyeless and gibbering, would I be able to strike them down with the same determination I’d applied to their parents?

  A trembling took my hand that was paradoxically appreciated and unwanted. I’m not a monster, I’m not like them, these things that are kept upright by some unnatural laws. I’m a human after all. I’d never kill a kid. I’d never kill a kid. I’d never kill a kid.

  Nails drove into my brain from the invisible spike of a sudden headache at my right eye socket and I collapsed to my knees, clutching my face. I’d never been one to get migraines, but if this is what they felt like, then I felt sorry for Sharon. The pain spiked again, a flare even worse than the first and I sank further to the floor, head pressed in the soft mat of a child’s alphabet carpet, and my stomach clenched. Dizziness seized me in addition to the pain and something wanted to come out. I tried to vomit, but I could only dry heave.

  The pain was overwhelming everything. I couldn’t think straight, except for ways to make the pain just lessen even a little bit. Smacking my head on the ground and knuckling my temples barely did anything and nothing couldn’t stop the tears from flowing, and spots appearing in my vision.

  An idea, fueled by desperation gave me a moment of clarity to drag out my phone and open up the store app. I had just enough points to buy something that might help, but between my eyesight blurring from tears and the thirty seconds it took for the item to materialize, that space of less than a minute felt like an eternity of waiting for the pain to end.

  When it finally came, the vitality booster was like an answer to prayer.

  The vitality booster was shaped like some syringe you’d find in a medical clinic and filled with a nondescript fluid. I would normally have hesitated jamming such a big needled shot with mystery goo into my body, but white hot pain overrode my better judgment and I slammed that sucker into the meaty side of my leg. The result was instantaneous relief.

  My body felt like I was melting into a warm puddle of goo and in my mind’s eye I imagined that a black sludge of pain and hurt was seeping out of my pores. When I opened my eyes, I still had a body, but the black sludge had not been my imagination. A heaping of black fluid, similar to the kind the hollow’s exuded when stabbed, was smeared under my nose and all over the carpet. It had no smell, but I hurriedly wiped the stuff off like it was some sort of deadly contagion.

  “Ugh, thank you, God.” I’d never felt so appreciative for a little syringe with a big needle than I did then. Not only was the pain in my head totally gone, but I guess that the vitality booster also affected the cut on my chest and the smack I took to my back, since there was zero pain at those places either.

  Getting back to my feet, I tested that I still had motor control and feeling in my limbs and that I was all there, including a little pain when I pinched myself, so it was not like I had just taken a load of dope that was merely covering the sensation of pain. I was fully healed.

  “Best one thousand points I ever spent.” I’d have spent a million to make whatever that was stop. Did it have something to do with that black goo that came out? I know none of those hollows bit me in my fights with them so far. All of my wounds had been inflicted from weapons.

  Nah, this was too above my head right now, I needed to just refocus on the current quest.

  The thought of that put a damper on the warm feelings the booster had given me. I left the room and bad vibes behind, stepping out into the cul-de-sac and then the main street. There were only two places left the remaining thirty two hollows could be and neither one seemed appealing to just waltz to.

  On opposite ends of the main road from one another, they waited and beckoned for me to explore them. The gas station and community recreation building, twin towers of despair and the unknown.

  I only got a glimpse of the beast at the gas station, but that had been enough to help me make a decision. Memories of putrid, wriggling flesh flashed in my mind as I started toward the recreation hall and hoped I would not find a similar welcome committee.