Lucky ordered Stu to take the lead, presumably so that he could keep an eye on him. Shrugging, he started making his way through the subway cars. He was feeling a little better now, with Lucky accompanying him -- sure, he was just a kid, and sure, he was still pointing that weird gun at his back, but it was better than being alone, in this dark, nightmarish subway system, surrounded by bodies and bloodstains.

  And there were plenty of both in these subway cars. Something terrible had obviously happened here -- everywhere he looked he saw some sign of a struggle. Some people had been chewed apart by zombies, and were missing arms and legs; others had tried to escape the cars by breaking the windows and trying to climb out. It was horrifying.

  Lucky, however, was not disturbed by any of this. If there was a corpse in his way, he simply kicked it aside. Stu supposed he was inured to these kinds of sights. Virge had mentioned that the outbreak had occurred ten years ago, which meant that Lucky -- who couldn't have been more than twelve years old -- probably had no memory of the world before everything had gone to hell. Corpses, zombies, and bloody scenes like this were nothing special for this kid.

  Stu found a discarded black jacket in one of the cars that looked like it might fit him. It was a little chilly down here, and his t-shirt had been shredded besides, so he picked it up and put it on. It didn't smell very good, but after all, beggars couldn't be choosers. A few minutes later he found a duffel bag that he thought might come in handy as well, so he emptied it out -- it must have been someone's gym bag; it was full of workout clothes -- and slung it over his shoulder.

  "You won't find anything good down here," Lucky told him. "The Wild Pack cleaned out these tunnels a few years ago."

  "The Wild Pack? Who are they?"

  "I can't believe you've never heard of the Wild Pack. They're one of the biggest gangs in Meku City."

  "I told you, I don't know anything about this stuff. Meku City? Is that where we are?"

  "Duh."

  "So the city is run by gangs?"

  "Mostly. The Wild Pack is one of the bigger gangs, but the Banshees and the Bad Guys have been getting pretty big lately, too. None of them can compare to the Pale Riders, though. There's thousands of Riders, maybe tens of thousands -- they have bases all over the East Coast, not just in Meku City. They're the closest thing to the law in some places."

  "Are they...friendly?"

  Lucky laughed. "None of them are friendly. We pay the Riders to keep the Wild Pack and the other gangs out of the Harbor, but they'd just as soon kill as look at us, like everyone else in this city." But then he stopped and added, "I guess you could say the Pale Riders are the least bad of all the gangs. They do their best to kill zombies and sometimes they help people in trouble. But they're mostly in it for themselves."

  "I see."

  They continued on, through the subway cars, Stu shining his flashlight into the darkness. He wondered what time it was -- it had been close to sunset when he had ventured up to the surface earlier, but that didn't really tell him much; after all, he was in another world, and he had no idea where Meku City was situated, equatorially speaking. He would have loved to have looked at a map.

  Hadn't Lucky mentioned seeing Lon Halos on a map? "This might seem like a stupid question--" Stu began.

  "All your questions have been stupid so far," Lucky interjected.

  "This may sound like a stupid question," he repeated, "but what planet are we on?"

  "What planet?" Lucky was incredulous.

  "Yeah, what planet? What do you call this world?"

  Lucky shook his head in derision, but answered anyway. "Earth. Boy, you really are an idiot, aren't you?"

  "Earth," he whispered quietly. That was interesting. But it was obviously wasn't his Earth; it was another Earth, a different Earth. Did that mean he was in some kind of parallel world, where history had followed a different course?

  He sighed. There was so much he didn't know. He hated Virge and Wayman for bringing him here, but he wished they would have lived long enough to answer some of these basic questions, at least.

  In any event, he may not have known the time, but he knew that he was hungry. He hadn't eaten in roughly nine or ten hours, and that last meal had been a single hot dog. He was tired, too, and still thirsty. And the stress of the situation was getting to him; he had been on high alert for the last several hours, and every muscle in his body felt tense.

  The door to the next subway car was closed, so he handed the flashlight to Lucky and, after struggling with it for a bit, managed to slide it open. Lucky handed the flashlight back to him. He shone it into the next car...

  ...And found himself face to face with a zombie.

  It had been standing on the other side of the door, only a few feet away, and as soon as the door opened it threw itself at Stu, trying to bite his face off. The only thing that saved him was his own clumsiness -- he tripped and fell while attempting to back away from the zombie. This gave Lucky a clear shot, but the kid had been surprised, too, and he did not have the presence of mind to raise his gun and open fire immediately. It was only after the zombie fell upon Stu that he finally thought to aim the gun, but by then, Stu and the zombie were rolling around on the floor, and the whole car had gone dark, anyway, after Stu had lost his grip on the flashlight.

  The zombie, according to the legend hanging over its head, was a Level 4, like the last one he had encountered. It was snarling and grasping and desperately trying to bite him -- its jaws snapping, its bloody, ulcerated face coming dangerously close to his own. He could smell its rot and putrefaction.

  Stu raised his arm to protect his face, and the zombie bit into it. Fortunately the long sleeve of his jacket protected him, and with the zombie's mouth now latched on to his sleeve, he was able to fling its head back, heave it off, and wrestle himself free. The zombie got to its feet; Stu remained on the floor.

  "Lucky!" he shouted. "Shoot it!"

  The kid nodded, raised his gun, and pulled the trigger. Stu expected to hear a huge, deafening noise, but instead all he heard were a couple of metallic thwips. What the hell kind of gun was Lucky using? It sounded like a toy.

  Something slammed into the zombie, though, causing it to jerk backwards -- once, twice. But they must not have been head shots, because the zombie was still on its feet, and now that it had seen Lucky, it started going after him instead. The kid opened fire again, aiming for the head, but missed three times, the pellets he was firing ricocheting off the walls of the subway car. One of them broke a window.

  Stu, still on the floor, grabbed the zombie's leg, causing it to fall forward, just a few feet shy of Lucky. Lucky, aiming down, tried shooting it in the head, but his gun must have jammed or something, because nothing happened. He swore.

  Stu released the zombie's leg and scrambled to his feet. The zombie got to its feet as well, lunging for Lucky, but Stu managed to grab it by the back of its shirt and drive it head-first into a window. The glass shattered, and the zombie's face was badly lacerated, but it kept fighting. It spun around, and Stu was forced to grapple with it again, face to face. Once again doing his best to avoid those snapping jaws, he pushed against it, causing it to fall backwards. He landed on top of it.

  "Lucky!" he shouted, as the zombie flailed about wildly. "My knife!"

  Stu's knife was in the duffel bag, which had fallen from his shoulder during the scuffle. Lucky snatched it, felt around inside, and finally pulled out the knife. Stu pulled back. "Now!"

  And the kid, without a moment's hesitation, drove the knife deep into the zombie's eye socket. It gurgled for a moment, then stopped and went still.

  Panting, Stu climbed off the disgusting, rotted creature. A screen popped up in front of him:

  This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

  Level 4 Zombie defeated!

  Assistance Penalty

  Access Menu?

  He frowned. Assistance Penalty? He quickly opened up the menu and started searching around for some explanation, but there was no glossary or help menu or anything else that might help him understand this aspect of the system.

  He could guess what it meant, though -- he had received half credit, or perhaps no credit at all, for killing this zombie, because it was Lucky who had delivered the final blow. Interesting.

  He could worry about it later. He closed down the menus. "You all right?" he asked the kid.

  "Yeah," Lucky said, slicking back his wild hair. "He didn't bite you, did he?"

  "He did," he said, "but he didn't break the skin."

  "Let me see."

  Stu retrieved the flashlight and rolled up his sleeve. It was a little red, but the zombie's teeth hadn't penetrated through the sleeve.

  "Good," Lucky said, relieved. "I would have had to kill you, otherwise."

  Stu was reminded of the mercy-killing Virge had given Wayman. He shuddered. "They really like to bite, don't they?"

  "That's how the infection spreads," he said. "Saliva."

  "Like rabies?"

  "Yeah."

  Stu frowned again. The zombie they had just killed had been spraying its spittle all over the place; he might have gotten some on his face, or maybe even in his eyes or mouth, during the struggle. He asked Lucky if he would be okay.

  "They have to bite," the kid said firmly. "They can spit in your face all day; you won't get infected from that. The virus has to get into your blood." He paused. "Well, that's not the only way to get it, I guess. You can get it from a bomber, too, if you're too close to one when they blow up. And some mutates spit a kind of venom that'll infect you right away if it gets on your skin. That's what Luna told me."

  "Luna?"

  "My sister. But mutates are the rarest type of irregular. You don't see 'em very often." He started examining his malfunctioning gun. "Stupid thing."

  "What is that, anyway?"

  "What does it look like? It's a gun."

  "I've never seen a gun like that before."

  "You've never seen a railgun?"

  Stu knew about railguns, from video games and movies, but he had never seen one in real life. "Where did you get it?"

  "Took it off a dead soldier in Lawrence Park. It didn't work, but I fixed it." He slapped the gun a couple of times with his palm. "I mostly fixed it."

  The conversation ceased when they both heard a faint groaning echoing through the underground. "We made a lot of noise just now," Stu said. "We'd better get out of here." He pulled the knife out of the zombie's eye, picked up his duffel bag and flashlight everything else, and hurried into the next car, with Lucky following him. The door into the next car after that was closed, however, and when he shone his flashlight through the window, the beam fell upon a skinny, naked zombie, who turned to look at him. The zombie was perhaps thirty feet away, but as soon as it spotted him, it closed the gap between them in an instant, moving so fast that it blurred. The zombie's face was suddenly in the window, scrabbling at it, trying to break through the door to get to Stu. The title hanging over its head read, "Level 3 Speedy."

  What the hell was a speedy? But there was no time to think about it; he quickly backed away, astonished (and terrified) by the thing's quickness. "Not this way," he said, as the "speedy" on the other side of the door started snapping and snarling.

  Lucky was looking out a window and frowning. "I think we're in trouble," he said quietly.

  "Trouble?" Stu directed his flashlight out the window, where the kid was looking, and saw that there were at least three zombies shuffling around outside the car. Like the "speedy", they all perked their heads up when the flashlight beam fell upon them, and they started trying to get into the car.

  "Shit," Stu muttered. They couldn't stay where they were -- eventually the zombies would find a way in. But they couldn't move on to the next subway car, either, because of the super-fast "speedy" zombie. They could start backtracking through the subway cars, he supposed, but...

  He glanced at the window, the one that had shattered during his fight with the zombie. It was on the opposite side from the zombies who were now trying to get in, and he didn't see any additional zombies on the other side of it. He used his foot to smash through the remaining glass, then threw the duffel bag through it. "This way," he said.

  "You sure?" Lucky said doubtfully.

  "We've gotta move," he said, "or we'll be trapped here."

  The kid accepted that with a nod. He slung his gun over his shoulder and started climbing out the window. In a second, he was safely out; Stu followed him a moment later.

  The tunnel was a little wider here, which meant that there was more room to move. Together, the two of them started jogging down the gravel path adjacent to the subway train. There didn't appear to be any zombies on this side, but...

  "Is this the way you came in?" Stu asked.

  "No," Lucky said. "I don't recognize any of this."

  They soon reached another intersection, of sorts, where the tunnel broke off in three different directions. Stu would have liked to have followed the tunnel which contained the subway train -- he thought it might lead them to a platform -- but Lucky vetoed the idea. "We're here to kill the Brute, remember? I'm not leaving here until it's dead."

  "What about the zombies?" Stu complained. "This place isn't safe."

  "This is Meku City," Lucky snorted. "No place is safe."

  Stu couldn't exactly argue with that. So they forged ahead, down a different tunnel, following the tracks into a deep, almost claustrophobic darkness. The only sounds were their footsteps, grinding against the gravel.

  They had walked perhaps two or three hundred yards when they started hearing a different set of sounds -- the sighs, moans, and groans that Stu had come to associate with zombies. They were coming from somewhere up ahead.

  "Let's turn back," Stu whispered. "Try that other tunnel."

  "I don't know if--" Lucky began, but he was interrupted by a sudden shriek coming from behind them. Whirling the flashlight around, Stu spotted a zombie, about twenty feet away -- a female zombie, a "Level 3" -- which they must have unknowingly walked past. It was just now rising to its feet, and its scream had alerted the other zombies further down the tunnel...who, Stu now realized, were much closer than he had had thought.

  This was bad. "Let get out of here," Stu said, and both of them immediately turned around, rushing past the female zombie -- she tried to stagger after them, but wasn't fast enough -- and heading back to the intersection.

  The zombies were following, though. Risking a backward glance, Stu saw that they were being pursued by at least a dozen of them, in various states of decay. Some of them were merely shuffling forward as best they could, on their failing, rotted limbs, but others were running almost as fast Stu and Lucky.

  He grimaced. Being chased down this dark, subterranean tunnel by a crowd of zombies, who were likely to tear him apart if they caught him -- this was the stuff of nightmares. And what's worse, the zombies were catching up. Stu was tired -- he couldn't run forever -- but these zombies didn't get tired.

  And they were making a terrible racket, shrieking and snarling in all kinds of horrific ways. This was sure to attract the attention of any other zombies who might be down here.

  "This way!" Stu said to Lucky, as they finally arrived at the intersection. They threw themselves into the other tunnel, the one that Stu had wanted to try earlier. Unfortunately this tunnel had partially caved in, and there were big puddles of muddy water all over; they had climb around the debris and splash through the water, soaking themselves up to their knees...and the zombies were still following them.

  Stu was getting winded, but he forced himself to keep running. Lucky, who was carrying his big gun and his heavy-looking backpack, was huffing and puffing now, too.

  They were trudging through another knee-deep puddle when they were both surprised by a zombie, bursting out of the muck just to their right. Lucky, who was closest to it, reacted instinctively, smashing it with the butt of his rifle. It fell back into the water, while Lucky ran on, but more zombies were coming to life all around them now -- two, three, four. The situation was deteriorating rapidly.

  "Keep going!" Stu shouted at Lucky, to encourage him. But the panic in his own voice was obvious.

  Swinging the flashlight around, Stu suddenly spotted a pair of double-doors to his right, built into the wall of the tunnel. He had no idea what might lay beyond them, but anything was better than continuing down this seemingly endless corridor. "Over here!" he called to Lucky, and both of them veered to their left. Praying that the doors weren't locked, Stu slammed into them shoulder-first...and to his relief, they burst open. He grabbed Lucky and yanked him through, then immediately started looking around for some way to seal the doors behind them.

  They appeared to be in some kind of maintenance or power-generating room, which was very large; it was so big that Stu's flashlight couldn't find the other end of it. He quickly spotted an old janitor's cart, which he rolled in front of the door. Lucky then found a length of copper pipe, which Stu jammed through the door handles.

  He heard the zombies crash into the door just seconds later, banging and battering at it, all the while making those horrific, almost demonic sounds. Stu wasn't confident that the cart and the copper pipe would be enough to keep them out, so he started piling more junk in front of the doors, including a heavy metal cabinet, which he managed to topple over.

  Both of them had to stop to catch their breath after that. Stu wiped his brow with his sleeve.

  "Close one," Lucky commented.

  "Close," Stu agreed. He turned the flashlight into the room in which they now found themselves. "Where the hell are we?"

  "Those are dynamos," Lucky said, gesturing to a couple of huge contraptions in the center of the room. They looked like engines of some kind. "I wonder if there's any fluid left in 'em. Hey, check it out!" He had just spotted a hatchet sitting on a shelf. "The Wild Pack must have missed this room," he said, picking it up and examining it. "Looks like there's some decent supplies in here."

  He started opening up cabinets and rifling through the shelves, while Stu ventured a little deeper into the room, looking around with his flashlight.

  There didn't seem to be any zombies here, at least. He was just starting to relax when he suddenly heard something that sounded like a growl, coming out of the room's deepest shadows.

  He froze. "Lucky..."

  "What?" the kid asked distractedly.

  "I don't think we're alone in here." He backed away from the sound he had heard, which was growing louder. Lucky was hearing it too, now; he stopped what he was doing.

  Stu swept the flashlight beam across the room, looking for the source of the growl. It didn't sound human, whatever it was -- could it be another mutate? One of those monsters that had killed Virge?

  And then he saw it, stepping out of the gloom -- a gargantuan man, at least nine feet tall and hugely obese, with a pendulous gut and fat practically dripping off its arms and legs. Its skin was greasy and diseased, and covered in oozing, weeping wounds. It was nearly naked; the only remaining clothes on the thing were a pair of boxer shorts that had devolved into a sort of loincloth.

  The words "Level 10 Jumbo" were hanging over its head.

  "The Brute," Lucky whispered.

  "The Brute," Stu repeated, staring up at the monster. "Well, shit."