Chapter Three: The First Rule of Survival

The glass cracked again.

Jake stared at the pharmacy entrance. A thin line had spread across the door they'd barricaded, branching out like a spiderweb. On the other side, pale limbs scraped at the glass, looking for a way in.

Ethan tightened his grip on the fire extinguisher.

"How many did you see?"

"Three."

"Great." Ethan swallowed. "I saw four."

Jake looked at him. "Four?"

"One was bigger than the others."

"And you thought bringing them here was a good idea?"

"I was being chased! I didn't exactly have time to shop around."

Under different circumstances, Jake might have laughed. Instead he looked around the pharmacy. Narrow aisles. Boxes and bottles all over the floor. A fridge humming near the back wall with its door hanging open. The place smelled like disinfectant, dust, and something metallic underneath.

Two exits. The front door was taken. The other one, marked EMPLOYEES ONLY, sat behind the counter.

"What's back there?" Jake asked.

"How should I know?"

"You picked this place."

"I picked it because the monsters were trying to eat me!"

The glass cracked again. Neither of them had anything to add.

Jake moved toward the counter, keeping low. Ethan followed with a limp in his left leg. His hoodie was torn at the shoulder and blood had soaked through the fabric.

"Were you bitten?" Jake whispered.

Ethan glanced down. "No. Something caught me with a claw. I think."

"You think?"

"I was busy screaming."

Jake almost smiled. Then Ethan stumbled, and Jake caught him by the arm before he hit the floor.

"Thanks," Ethan muttered.

"Don't mention it."

Jake helped him behind the counter. He had no medical training beyond the first-aid class everyone sat through at university, but the cut didn't look deep. He found a clean cloth in a drawer and handed it over.

"Press on it."

"Are you a doctor?"

"No."

"Then why do you sound like one?"

"Because you're bleeding on my shoes."

Ethan looked down. "Oh."

He pressed the cloth to his shoulder, and Jake slipped through the employee door. The room beyond was cramped and dim. Shelves of cardboard boxes, cleaning supplies, spare stock. A second door led to a narrow delivery corridor. Jake tried the handle. Unlocked.

He went back to Ethan. "There's a way out."

Ethan let out a breath. "Beautiful. I knew I liked you."

"You've known me thirty seconds."

"I'm a fast judge of character."

"That's going to get you killed."

"Probably."

The easy answer bothered Jake more than a joke should have. Ethan wasn't pretending things were normal. He was just holding himself together one dumb comment at a time.

A huge impact shook the front of the store. The shelves rattled. Something heavy hit the door, followed by the sound of metal dragging across concrete.

Ethan's face changed. "That's the big one."

Jake peered through a gap in the shelves. A shadow moved beyond the cracked glass. The smaller creatures had stopped attacking the door. They stood on either side of it with their pale heads tilted toward the street.

Waiting.

Then the larger one appeared.

It moved on four limbs, but its back rose nearly as high as a car. Thick plates covered its shoulders and spine. Its head was narrow, with a blunt armored snout and a mouth full of uneven black teeth. It lowered its head, and the smaller ones moved aside.

The hair on Jake's arms stood up.

"That's not a normal animal," Ethan whispered.

"No kidding."

The creature hit the entrance and the door burst inward. The display rack flew backward, scattering products across the floor. The smaller creatures poured through the gap, moving so fast Jake could barely follow their limbs.

"RUN!"

They sprinted through the employee door. Behind them the pharmacy turned into crashing shelves and shrieks. They hit the delivery corridor, and Jake shoved through the back exit into a narrow service lane between brick walls. A metal gate stood at the far end. Past it, another street.

Ethan got there first and grabbed the bars. "It's locked!"

Jake seized the chain. The padlock was thick and rusty. He pulled at it anyway, like wanting it badly enough might help. It didn't.

Behind them the delivery door slammed open. One of the smaller creatures stepped into the corridor. Its smooth head turned toward them.

Ethan raised the extinguisher. "Please tell me you have a plan."

Jake looked at the lock, then the creature. "I have a few bad ideas."

"Pick one!"

The creature charged. Jake grabbed a metal trash can and threw it down the lane. It hit the creature in the head. It barely slowed, but the noise made it veer sideways.

"Now!"

Ethan swung. The red cylinder smashed into its head with a hollow clang. For a moment nothing happened. Then the creature staggered.

Ethan stared at the extinguisher. "I did that?"

"Keep doing it!"

The creature recovered and lashed out. Ethan got his arm up just in time, and the blow sent him crashing into the wall. Jake heard the air leave his lungs.

The creature turned toward Ethan.

Jake didn't think. He grabbed a long wooden handle leaning against the wall and drove it into the creature's side. The handle snapped. The creature turned on him and tilted its head.

Jake had seen that before. The thing in the café had done the same thing right before it killed him.

For one awful second he was back on the floor behind the counter, unable to breathe, watching the world go out.

Then it lunged. He threw himself sideways and the claws tore through his jacket and raked across his ribs. Pain burned down his side as he hit the ground. He rolled onto his back, gasping.

The creature came at him.

Move.

His body wouldn't.

Move!

A blue flash lit up the edge of his vision.

(THREAT DETECTED.)

(HOST CONDITION: COMPROMISED.)

The creature raised its front limbs. Jake scrambled backward. Too slow.

Then a burst of force hit the creature in the side. It twisted in midair and slammed into the brick wall hard enough to shake mortar dust loose.

Jake stared.

Ethan stood a few feet away with one hand stretched out and the other clamped on his shoulder.

"What the hell was that?" Jake shouted.

"I don't know!"

The creature dragged itself upright. Ethan looked at his hand like it belonged to someone else.

"I swear, I didn't..."

The creature charged again.

"DO IT AGAIN!"

"I DON'T KNOW HOW!"

It was almost on top of him when Ethan flinched. The air seemed to squeeze. The creature's momentum snapped sideways, its front limbs hit the ground, and its body slammed into a stack of empty crates.

Ethan staggered.

Jake didn't wait for a third demonstration. He grabbed the back of Ethan's hoodie and dragged him toward the gate.

"Your mysterious new talent can explain itself later!"

He looked at the padlock again. The gate was old. One hinge had already started pulling away from the brick. He looked at the creature, then at the hinge.

"Ethan, can you make that thing hit the gate?"

"Are you insane?"

"Probably! Can you?"

"I don't know!"

"Try!"

Jake sprinted at the creature, picked up the broken handle, and smacked it across the armored plates on its back. The hit barely made a sound. But the creature noticed him. Its head swung around.

Jake ran.

His legs burned as he tore down the narrow lane, glancing back to judge the distance. The creature followed, faster than anything that size should move. Jake reached the gate and threw himself sideways.

The monster hit the frame. The crash rang through the alley. The weak hinge ripped out of the wall and half the gate folded inward.

Ethan stared at the wreckage. Then at Jake.

"You used yourself as bait."

"Seemed like a good idea at the time!"

"That's the dumbest thing I've ever seen!"

"You're welcome!"

They scrambled through the gap. Behind them the creature thrashed, its armored head stuck in the twisted metal. Jake and Ethan ran until the alley opened onto a wider street. Only then did they stop.

Jake bent over with his hands on his knees, struggling for air. His side hurt. He lifted his torn shirt and looked at the scratches across his ribs. Shallow, but still bleeding. He pressed a hand over them, and the bleeding slowed. Not instantly. Not like magic. But faster than it should have. The smallest scratches were already closing.

He remembered the hole in his chest. The blood. The dark.

Immortality.

A blue window appeared.

(COMBAT EVENT RECORDED.)

(SURVIVAL EXPERIENCE ACQUIRED.)

(ATTRIBUTE GROWTH: NONE.)

Jake frowned. "Seriously?"

"What?" Ethan asked.

"Nothing."

(NOTE: EXPERIENCE ALONE DOES NOT GUARANTEE ATTRIBUTE INCREASE.)

(QUALIFYING ACHIEVEMENTS MAY AWARD EXPERIENCE OR ATTRIBUTE GROWTH.)

The window vanished. Jake breathed out through his nose. So the System wasn't going to hand out a reward for every terrible moment. Fine. He could work with that, if he lived long enough to figure out how.

Ethan sank onto the curb. His face had gone pale and his injured arm was trembling. Jake crouched beside him.

"Let me see your shoulder."

"It's fine."

"You're shaking."

"That's a totally normal reaction to being chased by nightmare fuel."

"Move your hand."

Ethan shifted the cloth. The cut was bleeding again, but the skin around it looked normal. No dark veins. No strange color. Nothing that looked like the start of something worse. Jake let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding.

Ethan noticed. "What?"

"Nothing. Just making sure it wasn't worse."

It was a lie, but not a complete one. Jake had seen what the creatures could do. He had no idea if their wounds carried something worse than infection.

They needed answers. They needed somewhere safe.

He checked his phone. No missed calls. No messages. He tried Rebecca's number and the call failed. He lowered the phone.

Ethan watched him. "Someone you're worried about?"

"My aunt."

"Where is she?"

"South of here. A few miles."

Ethan looked at the smoke rising over the rooftops. "Then we should go."

"You can barely move your arm."

"And you look like you got dragged through a slaughterhouse."

"I did."

Ethan stared at him.

"Long story," Jake said.

"Yeah," Ethan muttered. "I'm starting to think all of ours are going to be."

A siren rose and fell in the distance. Then another sound rolled through the city. A deep, booming bellow that seemed to come from under the streets. Every window on the block rattled.

Ethan stood up. "What was that?"

Jake didn't answer.

Across the intersection, people were running for a subway entrance. Some carried bags. Others dragged suitcases or helped injured strangers. A police cruiser sat abandoned against a lamppost with its driver's door hanging open.

Then a man stumbled out of a storefront. Business suit, torn shirt, blood down one side of his neck. A woman ran toward him.

"Daniel!"

He lifted his head. For a moment he looked relieved.

Then his body jerked.

The woman stopped. Black veins spread out from the wound on his neck, branching under his skin. His fingers curled into shapes fingers shouldn't make. His jaw began to tremble.

"Daniel?"

He looked at her. Something moved under his skin. Jake's stomach turned. The man's eyes went empty. His mouth opened and a wet, broken sound came out.

Then he lunged at her.

She screamed. Jake took a step forward, and Ethan caught his arm.

"Jake, don't!"

The woman went down under the man's weight. People scattered around them. Jake fought Ethan's grip, staring at the two figures on the pavement. He could still hear her screaming.

Then the sound stopped.

The man raised his head. Blood covered his mouth. His gaze swept the street. For a second it almost looked human.

Then it landed on Jake.

The thing inside the man smiled.

A blue notification opened in Jake's vision.

(UNKNOWN BIOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION DETECTED.)

(HOST: HUMAN.)

(CURRENT STATUS: CONVERSION IN PROGRESS.)

(WARNING: CONVERSION MAY BE IRREVERSIBLE.)

Jake went cold to the bone.

The creature wearing the dead man's face got up off the pavement. And somewhere deep in Jake's System, another message started to form.

(HIDDEN CONDITION...)

It vanished.

Jake stared at the empty air.

"What was that?" Ethan asked.

Jake backed slowly away from the street. "I don't know."

But for the first time since he'd come back from the dead, he knew one thing for sure. Dying wasn't the worst thing that could happen to a person in this world. Sometimes something worse happened first.