Stu's Brick Wall skill was similar to his Night Vision skill, in that both of them provided him with a countdown timer, which he could see on the periphery of his vision. Two minutes passed, as he held the door shut against the horde of zombies...then three, then four. He watched the timer as the seconds ticked down, and grimaced.

  Where were Lucky and Luna? Had they been attacked by zombies on their way back to the glider? Maybe they needed more than five minutes; maybe they needed ten.

  All the while he remained rooted to the spot, his palms pressed against the door, holding back the zombies on the other side of it. How many were there? A dozen? Two dozen? And how many were irregulars? He worried about that Level 8 Bomber he had seen earlier; a bomber of that level was almost certainly capable of knocking down the door.

  The seconds continued to tick down, the timer now turning red. Five, four, three, two...

  Shit.

  At last, the timer ran out, and his Brick Wall skill deactivated. Instantly, the weight of the zombies pressing against the door returned, and his shoes -- which were covered in blood -- lost traction, causing him to slip over the tiled floor. Scrabbling to stay on his feet, but realizing that it was a losing battle, he grit his teeth and simply threw the door open, while throwing himself behind it. Five or six zombies immediately burst through, but they all landed in a heap, on top of each other, which gave him the second he needed to retrieve his aluminum baseball bat and head for the other door. But his shoes were still slippery, and like an idiot, he slipped on the floor and landed flat on his back before he could make it to the exit. By the time he got back up on his feet, the huge, bodybuilder-zombie he had seen earlier -- this one was a Level 5 -- had flung itself over the other zombies and was reaching for him, blood and spittle flying out of its mouth as it snarled.

  Stu hit it with Excalibur, but he didn't have time to aim, and he didn't have the traction necessary to put his full weight behind the blow. He ended up hitting the zombie in the shoulder, which was enough to buffalo it to one side for a second, but it quickly recovered and lunged for him again. It managed to grab him by the shoulder, pull him down, and use its weight to tackle him to the floor. Stu landed on his back, with the Level 5 on top of him, dripping blood and sweat.

  Panicking -- he did not want to be on the floor right now -- he tried to muscle the zombie off, but it was strong, and heavy, and it was all he could do to keep the damn thing from biting him. Finally, he seized it by its thick, bullish neck, squeezing it as hard as he could. Stu wasn't sure if these ghastly things needed air to breathe, but the zombie's eyes bulged, anyway, and its limbs seemed to lose some of their strength. Digging his fingers in even deeper, he felt something give within the zombie's neck -- perhaps he had crushed its windpipe? -- which caused the zombie to make a gurgling, choking noise and give up the fight completely. He flung it away, but the ICON system did not give him the familiar "zombie defeated" message, which suggested to Stu that it was not dead, but only injured.

  He would have liked to have finished it off, but more zombies were crowding in on him now. One of them, a woman wearing a tattered tank top, and who had shards of broken glass embedded in one arm, tried to grab for him; he managed to slip around her, but he was unable to avoid her glass-encrusted arm, which slashed him in the neck. He gasped at the sudden pain, but he was too busy fighting to worry about the wound -- another zombie, a Level 3, dressed in a suit and tie, was now snarling in his face. Whirling around, he grabbed the back of the Level 3's neck and shoved him into the female zombie. Both of them ended up in a tangle on the floor.

  The next zombie to throw itself over the pile was a big Level 4, who was missing one eye. Stu slammed his bat into its skull, killing it instantly.

  Level 4 Zombie defeated! Critical Bonus!

  But even more zombies were coming for him now -- a filthy, bloody mass of arms and legs, all scrabbling over each other to try to get to him. He couldn't fight off this many; even with his enhanced strength, speed, and defensive capability, sooner or later he would be overwhelmed. He had no choice now but to try to make a run for it. With the coast momentarily clear, he headed for the exit on the other side of the room -- taking care not to slip and fall this time.

  He had just placed his hand on the door handle, and was about to fling it open, when something suddenly slammed into him with tremendous force. His face struck the metal door he had been about to open, breaking his nose and instantly causing blood to start gushing out of it, all over the front of his shirt.

  Though dazed, he remained conscious. What the hell had just happened? He stumbled to one side, turned, and found himself face to face with a Level 5 Speedy -- a female, wearing pink leggings and sneakers, her matted blonde hair tied up in a ponytail. She had apparently just slammed into him.

  Level 5? Oh, shit.

  She was the most "intact" zombie Stu had seen up to this point -- although her clothing was covered in silver-stained blood, there were no ulcers, scabs, or scars on her arms and legs, and no marks on her face. Her eyes, however, had that weird, silver tint to them, and her teeth were stained with blood. Perhaps she had only recently turned, or perhaps there was something about irregulars that kept them fresher longer.

  He didn't have time to ponder these questions, however. This speedy had hurt him badly, hitting him hard and leaving him barely clinging to consciousness. He had managed to retain his grip on his bat, somehow, and he tried to hit her with it, but she had no trouble avoiding it -- she simply tilted her head to one side, causing the bat to sail past it. Then, moving so quickly that even he couldn't follow her movements, she latched on to his shoulders and tried to bite his face.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  He had no idea how he managed to do it, but somehow he was able to get the bat up fast enough to protect his face, and she wound up biting that instead. He slammed one fist into the bat, while it was still clenched between her teeth, which caused her to stagger back a step and drool out a mouthful of blood.

  But all this barely slowed her down. Stu, weakened, and still dazed from that colossal blow, was unable to stop her when she came flying at him again, and this time she bowled him over completely, tackling him to the ground.

  He hated this -- hated having zombies on top of him, dripping blood and screaming murder in his face. It happened way too often.

  Though still a little shaken, he was able to fend her off as she tried to bite him. That was when he realized that, though she was undoubtedly faster than him, she wasn't stronger than him -- she was unable to shake him off after he caught one of her wrists. While still on the ground, he pulled her arm forward, ripping it out of its socket, then flipped her over. Still holding on to her arm, he surged to his feet and threw her as hard as he could into the crowd of zombies, most of whom were still struggling on the slippery floor. She landed in the midst of them, snapping at her fellow undead like an angry dog.

  He headed for the door again -- still staggered, but growing stronger now, thanks to his Regeneration skill. His nose was no longer bleeding, and the cut on his neck had already sealed itself up.

  He threw the door open, but had time enough for a single glance back into the room behind him, which was filling up with zombies. Their ICON designations, which only he could see -- Level 2 Zombie, Level 3 Zombie, Level 1 Zombie -- crowded all on top of each other.

  And then he saw the Level 8 Bomber, behind the others; it was standing on the other side of the door. It was a male, and nearly naked; its enormous, distended gut, which was full of warts and ulcerous sores, was the biggest he had ever seen. For the briefest of moments, he made eye contact with the thing. It almost seemed to grin at him.

  Up to now Stu had been chiefly concerned with surviving this zombie nightmare -- he had never gone out hunting for zombies, nor deliberately set out to kill them, simply for the sake of acquiring skill points and raising his level. Sure, he liked the rewards, but hunting zombies was dangerous and he preferred not to put himself at risk.

  In that moment, however, it occurred to him that if he could kill that bomber, the explosive gases within its gut would almost certainly kill all the surrounding zombies and earn him a ton of skill and experience points.

  It was risky, especially with the other zombies already closing in on him, but he had few fractions of a second to work with, and getting rid of that bomber would be worthwhile, anyway. Quickly, he yanked a throwing knife out of his belt -- he had two or three of these left -- and activated his Dead Aim skill, throwing it at the zombie's gut. It was a long throw -- the bomber was about forty feet away -- but the knife sailed through the air and stuck in the bomber's abdomen, just above its navel.

  It didn't explode. Stu wasn't sure if it was because he hadn't thrown it hard enough or what, but the rest of the zombies were almost on him now and he couldn't stick around to see what might happen next. He threw the door open, got behind it, and slammed it shut.

  He was back in the lobby of the gym now. There were a handful of zombies shuffling around aimlessly in here, but nothing he couldn't handle -- they were all Level 1's and Level 2's. He raced through them, hitting them with Excalibur if they were in his way, and then burst out the front door.

  There were no zombies out here -- at least, none that he could see. But Lucky and Luna were nowhere to be seen, either. Where were they?

  He started running through the parking lot, around the building, back to the glider. Just as he was about to turn the corner, however, a massive explosion, so powerful that the shockwave lifted him off his feet, rocked the entire area. The explosion totally destroyed Curly's Gym, and indeed half the strip mall -- walls were blown out and the parking lot was blasted with debris, which continued to rain down for almost a full minute after the explosion. Stu, for his part, had been thrown clear, and sent skidding over the asphalt, but the blast had left him dazed and dizzy again. It took him a moment to regain his wits and recover his feet.

  The bomber. The Level 8 Bomber must have exploded--

  Level 8 Bomber defeated! Critical Bonus!

  Level 5 Speedy defeated!

  Level 3 Zombie defeated!

  Level 2 Zombie defeated!

  Level 2 Zombie defeated!

  And they just kept coming, the messages cycling through his vision one on top of the other. According to the ICON system the explosion had killed twenty-one zombies, including two high-level irregulars, and because it was his knife that had evidently caused the bomber to explode, the system had given him full credit for it. The final message read:

  Level Up! 20-26

  Gained 16 SP!

  Access Menu?

  Going up six levels, all at once, gave him a sudden burst of energy; in that instant, he could feel his strength and speed and vitality increase, as his stats increased. His head cleared, and he no longer felt dizzy.

  All this was less important to him than finding Lucky and Luna, however. Shaking it all off, and dismissing the ICON messages and menus with a wave of his hand, he continued through the parking lot, calling out for the siblings. A moment later he found the glider, still parked where they had left it, and with the Level 1 Speedy still splayed out in the front seat. Fortunately there didn't appear to be any other zombies around; the horde that had chased them into the strip mall must have been obliterated when the bomber exploded.

  He looked around, growing increasingly frantic. "Lucky! Luna!"

  And then he heard the sound of an engine revving, some distance away. Turning, he saw the red tail lights of a vehicle -- it might have been a Jeep of some kind -- come to life on the other side of the strip mall, a couple of football fields away. The vehicle's tires screeched, and it took off into Heart's Glow, racing into town and disappearing within the mass of buildings.

  Were Lucky and Luna in that vehicle? And if they were, where they were going? What the hell was happening here?

  Determined to give chase, Stu grabbed the speedy by his collar and dragged him out of the glider, throwing him unceremoniously to the ground. He got in the driver's seat, reached for the ignition...and stopped. The key was gone; Luna must have taken it with her. That was just like Luna.

  Shit. He banged the steering wheel with his fists.

  "It's too late," a quiet, unfamiliar voice suddenly said, floating out of the shadows of the trees behind him. Startled, he spun around, and found himself looking at a teenage girl, older than Lucky but younger than Luna, with long, straight blonde hair and a freckled face. She was wearing a leather jacket over a ragged blouse and skirt.

  One of her eyes was glowing red.