Ghouls'n Guns Read online

  Davidoff waited, listening to those footsteps as they drew close. A chanting arose from the ritual, growing louder by the second until all else was drowned out. Because of this noise and distraction, the woman walked past him before he noticed. With her back to him, she was defenseless however, and he took his chance. With the knuckle duster knife in hand, he jumped silently behind her and took a swing.

  His fist passed through thin air, meeting no resistance and swinging straight through the woman’s form. A cackle began at his back and he spun around. The woman was there behind him, a few feet out from the truck with her eyes glowing. She had used her unearthly powers to trick him, he realized, playing with his perceptions.

  Zeke jumped out, swinging the butt of his rifle at the woman. One crack from him would send her sprawling. However, she gestured with one hand and the truck rolled over, nearly crushing Zeke and causing him to stop his attack, tucking and rolling out of the way instead. She held out the same hand, next, and Zeke let his rifle go.

  Then the image of the flying truck disappeared. It had not moved; it was where it had always been. Once more, she was playing with their minds. But Zeke was confused, and the woman bent down, picking up his dropped firearm.

  “No!” Davidoff said as she cocked the rifle and aimed the muzzle straight at Zeke’s head, point blank.

  A born fighter, Davidoff was faster than her, however, and his own handgun was up before he knew it. He squeezed the trigger and sent the warlock flying, a great hole in her chest and all bar 30 HP evaporating.

  Immediately, the chanting stopped behind him. There was a second of deep silence and then a great cry went up. Davidoff cursed as Zeke jumped to his feet. Zeke grabbed his bolt rifle back up as Davidoff sheathed his knife and pulled out his luger, going double pistol once more.

  “Quick, get her blood,” he hissed at Zeke. “I’ll hold them off.”

  He turned his back on Zeke and the woman, and he watched as a dozen other figures began to stride towards him, their eyes blazing and their backs to the ghostly rent. The slit throbbed, harder and brighter than ever, seeming at once to reflect their anger and yet to feed it at the same time.

  There were various obstacles between the warlocks and Davidoff: a stack of crates, a pile of car parts and even a whole shed. These all vanished in the blinking of an eye, however, being raised up and thrown aside by a couple of the warlocks as that green glow bathed everything. Then a bolt of pure, green fire flew towards Davidoff, missing him as he sidestepped it, but setting the abandoned truck alight with a great waft of heat.

  Davidoff gulped down and dove for cover behind a nearby steel crate. Peeping out over the top, he began to fire, one hand after another braced against the vicious recoil. Most of the warlocks did the same as him, running for cover, but three of their number didn’t bother. Instead, they began a hideous, moaning chant and a shadowy orb lit up around them—it surrounded them entirely as they walked.

  Davidoff shot at them five times before running out of ammo. His bullets simply stopped in midair as soon as they reached that dark orb, however, and the warlocks carried on marching.

  “Fine, then,” he muttered. He looked over his shoulder and saw Zeke, his hands bloody, readying his rifle. “Bullets won’t work,” Davidoff shouted, holstering his spent guns and pulling out his second grenade. “Get ready to bolt!”

  With this, he pulled the pin from his grenade and lobbed it fully at the orb. One of the warlocks laughed aloud as the grenade halted in midair, a few feet from them. Then his laughter died as he comprehended what Davidoff had done. Bullets, once arrested, meant nothing, but explosives were something else entirely. They were holding it right where he wanted them to: directly in front of their own bodies.

  The three warlocks screeched and dropped the shield, turning to flee. However, the grenade went off with a large bang, knocking them all flying. One of them died outright, his corpse mangled, whilst the other two were knocked unconscious. The other warlocks, all around, emerged from their hiding places with fury written large on their faces.

  “Go, go, go!” Davidoff shouted, and he and Zeke started to sprint away. Objects flew all around them, mostly missing but occasionally crashing against them. A few pieces of detritus hit Davidoff in the back, hurting him and robbing him of 30 HP or so apiece.

  There was no way to get back to the hole in the palisade, and the gate was covered—three warlocks stood barring it, their hands outstretched and green flame flickering all around them, a vicious looking halo. But Zeke had seen something and he called out to Davidoff: “Up there! Look!”

  Zeke reached a section of the wall, jumped up to grab the walkway’s lip and pulled himself up to it. Davidoff was twenty feet behind, running in zigzags to avoid the various bolts and projectiles being thrown at him. Looking up, he noticed a broken down gun turret on the wall section that Zeke had just climbed. A tripod stood with a hefty-looking, belt-fed machine gun on it. Sandbags stood all around, giving a little shelter, with spare ammo in a crate. The military must have left it behind when they evacuated the area. Now the warlocks had it, though they had not bothered to repair it.

  Why would they? Davidoff wondered. They are walking weapons, each one.

  Zeke bent down to work, taking a couple of tools from his belt, his back to Davidoff as Davidoff kept running. However, ten feet from the wall’s edge, Davidoff tripped over, hitting his shins on something hard and heavy. He flew over, tumbling, and then stopped dead in midair. He was forced into an uncomfortable, crucifix position. Like this, he was turned by an invisible force to face back the way he had just come.

  He had not tripped on anything; it was an underhand telepathic attack designed to bring him down. The warlocks had gone for his legs, toppling him as their psychic power lashed across his shins. Then, held still by the same telepathic force, he saw five warlocks walking towards him, their hands outstretched. Each one was pale and sweaty with the effort of holding him in place, but their will was too much; he could not move so much as an inch.

  They came closer and closer, moving slowly, clearly straining to keep him still. A dozen more warlocks lurked all around them, fanning out in a large crescent with their beady eyes all fixed intently on Davidoff. Some of them had light green flames flickering across their fingers whilst others were reaching out, summoning wrenches and lengths of piping to their hands to use as improvised weapons.

  They will kill me, Davidoff thought. And I have no way to resist. I will just have to hover here and take it.

  When the five holding him in place came to within ten feet, they stopped, raised their hands a little higher and screwed up their eyes. A force like a vice pressed in on Davidoff, constricting, hurting him and making it hard to breathe. The pressure mounted, and he wondered for the first time why it felt so intense, so real.

  It all adds to the realism, he thought. It makes the game what it is, so I can’t complain.

  But he was suffering nonetheless. His eyes felt like they were going to burst, and his muscles were pressing hard against his bones. His ribs and his jaw and his spine all felt like they were cracking, slowly but surely. At the same time, a couple of the warlocks wielding that odd, green light released their fireballs.

  They hit him with an awful coldness. Had he been able to, he would have gasped from it, like he had just plunged into an ice bath. They struck him one after another, after another, five all together. He watched his health bar lowering. The pressure from the hold he was in was depleting by around 1 HP per second, bringing it down by thirty so far. Each fireball caused Damage 30 or so—not too bad, but enough to kill him quickly enough if he didn’t escape soon.

  He checked quickly and saw that his health bar was down quite drastically: it was at HP 203 / 420.

  A couple of fireballs flew over Davidoff’s head, clearly aimed at Zeke, and he wondered how his friend was faring. If they managed to pin him too, they would both be dead within a couple of minutes. They would have to refresh the ga
me, admitting defeat after just an hour or so of gameplay.

  However, it was not to be. As Davidoff was despairing, a voice roared out from above, “Let my buddy go!”

  Zeke had mended the gun and he turned it on the warlocks now, swiveling it on its tripod. Davidoff watched for a couple of seconds as earth began to churn and fly, accompanied by a great whirring buzz of staccato explosions. Bullet after bullet came whizzing down, cutting through the warlocks, cutting through the ground, causing all hell. Then Davidoff fell, sharply. He managed to come up to a crouch, but he stayed on his knees, gasping down great lungful’s of air. The pressure disappeared instantly and he felt free and giddy, his head light as the continuous sound of gunfire vibrated all around him.

  It drove in a large crescent, painting a semi-circle in the ground of churned earth and blood. Zeke was smart; he did not try to kill all of the warlocks present. Rather, he decided on repressive fire for long enough to allow Davidoff to recover. Rather than gunning down each individual group, he was spraying fire all around, pushing the whole lot of them back. He was causing mass panic, trying to make the warlocks rout.

  It was working. As Zeke regained full consciousness, he looked up and saw half of the warlocks sprinting away whilst five lay dead or dying in their own blood on the ground, including two of the ones who had held him with their telekinesis. Only a few (he counted four) remained, throwing fireballs or holding up shimmering, psychic wards. But even these were backing away, maintaining an orderly retreat rather than fleeing in outright terror.

  For all that these were powerful, scary people, they were untrained. They broke easily and did not attack very efficiently. Under a decent leader, and with a bit of training, they would be formidable; they would have easily killed both Davidoff and Zeke off, and however many other attackers came to their camp looking for trouble. They would be a grand army indeed, if ever they learned to fight properly.

  Davidoff shuddered as he stood. Let’s hope that never happens, he thought. Let’s hope they never get organized, never learn how to fight properly, or we will all be screwed.

  “Davidoff, come on!” Zeke shouted from the wall, the gunfire silenced for the moment. “I’ve only got a few rounds left, we need to get out of here!”

  Still dazed, realizing that he had been standing still on the spot in his confusion, Davidoff snapped out of his reverie. He turned and saw Zeke on the rampart, leaning down with his arm outstretched. Davidoff ran over to him, leapt up and grabbed his friend’s forearm. Zeke was strong indeed; he pulled Davidoff up in one, easy motion, swinging him onto the wall beside him.

  A couple of warlocks had rallied and were looking like they were going to attack once more. Three of them were focusing, looking like they were drawing on their power, while another one was running up to take cover a couple of hundred yards off.

  “You work the machine gun,” Zeke growled, pulling out his own rifle. He kneeled down before the sandbag wall as Davidoff took up his position at the gun. Davidoff used his bullets sparingly, scattering them before the warlocks to hold them at bay, to break their concentration and panic them. As he did so, Zeke spent a few long seconds aiming, first at one and then at another, sniping two of them with his rifle. He caught one full in the chest. He didn’t kill the man outright: the warlock remained at HP 33. But he was out of action and would likely bleed out soon enough, dying in a lot of pain. The other shot caught a woman in the head, blowing it to pieces and killing her instantly.

  The three remaining warlocks broke and fled, finally conceding defeat. They sprinted back to one of their main buildings and disappeared inside, no doubt to recover with the rest of their kind.

  “Come on, let’s go,” Davidoff said, light-headed but exhilarated by it all.

  “Do you want to log out soon?” Zeke asked as they jogged back to their car.

  “Not particularly,” Davidoff replied. “I’ve got the day off work tomorrow. I reckon I could do another couple of hours. Are you up for it?”

  “Yeah,” Zeke smiled. “I’ll call in sick tomorrow. This new game…” he said, looking around. “The detail, the realism… It’s something else, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Davidoff nodded, smiling. “Yeah, it is.”

  Chapter Five

  They eased their stolen car around the last corner before getting to the chemical plant. It sputtered and died. It was a heap of junk when they found it. On their way back, they had had to run through more than a couple of zombies, lurching through the street, and the engine had begun to smoke a few minutes ago. Now, Davidoff cursed as he pressed his foot down and felt no power coming out.

  “We will have to ask the doctor if he knows where we can get a new set of wheels,” he muttered to Zeke as the car gave out, dying at last.

  “Jeez, Davidoff!” Zeke said, pointing forwards. “Look!”

  A great orange glow met them as they turned the last corner. The chemical plant was up ahead, burning. Whole outhouses and buildings were on fire. The main building itself, the concrete block in which Dr. Finkelstein had his lab, was fine, but they knew it could not be good. The whole lot would soon be a heap of ashes, and they had yet to collect their reward for completing this mission.

  “Come on,” Davidoff said, opening his door and jogging out to check what had happened.

  The main gate to the compound was hanging off its hinges, battered to pieces, and inside the compound’s walls, everything else had been hit just as badly. The various sheds, lock-ups and minor separate labs were reduced to smoking ruins, and the factory space had been toppled. It, too, was burning, though it was not too bad just yet—only the side farthest from the concrete building was ablaze, but they had no doubt that it would soon spread quickly enough.

  “It must have been in the last twenty minutes or so,” Zeke said, judging the fire. “Otherwise the whole building would have been consumed, and it would have spread to the main block.”

  They rushed into the concrete block and thundered up the stairs, their guns at the ready. They met nobody on the ascent. The stairwells were empty, as was every corridor. However, when they got to the floor below the doctor’s lab, they saw the first signs of blood. Bloody handprints were plastered onto the handrails and the walls, as though somebody who had been hurt had hauled themselves up here. There were patches of fresh blood on the floor as well. Halfway up the final staircase, they found the first couple of bodies, both torn to shreds so that Davidoff could not tell what parts belonged to which person.

  He heaved, his stomach contracting, as Zeke did the same next to him. The savagery was unbearable to look at. Then, in the middle of all that blood, flesh and offal, they noticed a few tattered shreds of cloth. “Overalls,” Zeke said, and Davidoff nodded. They were the factory workers from the other building, whom they had saved less than an hour ago.

  “They must have fled in here when the factory started to burn, taking the stairs up,” he said. “The walkway was broken, after all. We saw to that.”

  Davidoff and Zeke climbed around the mess, having to partially step through it. The stench was unbearable, once more showing the game’s gruesome realism and attention to detail. At the top of the stairs, they both caught sight of a pulped heap in the corner. It was once a head, though now only fragments of skull and brain remained. There was blood everywhere around it, and the double doors leading into the lab were coated red as well.

  Gagging, they pushed through the doors and found much the same inside. The corpses of the technicians who had died when they first came here to meet Dr. Finkelstein had been carefully pulled over to a far corner and covered in a large blanket. Now, five more corpses lay about, their limbs pulled away from their bodies and their organs spilling from great cuts in their torsos. Heads were caved in entirely and spines were cracked into pieces. Whatever had come to attack them had been savage and strong, beyond anything the two had yet met.

  As they stared around themselves in horror, an awful choking noise gurgled from the r
oom’s farthest corner. Davidoff and Zeke both jumped, startled, and raised their guns to point at the noise’s source. But they relaxed: there was nothing there to threaten them. A factory worker was slumped against the wall, her legs broken and a dozen deep cuts crisscrossing her body. Her clothes were torn open and she was covered in blood, but she was just about alive and they both hurried over to her, putting their weapons away for the moment.

  “Put pressure on her wounds,” Zeke said, but then he fell silent. Both men realized that there was no saving her. She had lost too much blood, suffered too much damage. But she gasped a little air into her lungs, coughed and spluttered some blood over her chin, and turned to look at them as they knelt beside her.

  “It’s, it’s… too late,” she whispered. “Go, find the doctor.”

  “He is still alive?” Davidoff asked, and the woman nodded.

  “With a couple of others,” she said, struggling to form words. “We held them back just long enough…”

  “Who? Who did this?” Zeke asked. “The ghouls?”

  The woman nodded again. “Y-yes… the doctor… got out…”

  “Where did he go?” Davidoff asked.

  “The forest, the compound… the forest… A map… there is… a map in his desk drawer. The woods… a lab… in the woods…” With these words fading on her lips, the woman died at last. Her head drooped limply against her chest and her arms dropped down to her sides.

  “God, what the hell is wrong with this game?” Zeke asked, though Davidoff knew that he was finding this whole adventure as thrilling as he was, as darkly entertaining as he was.

  “Quick, let’s get the map and go,” he said to Zeke, and they both rushed over to the main desk in the other corner. It had a little bar on its surface that said Dr. V. Finkelstein, MD, PhD. They began to pull open his drawers, rifling through the papers and odds and ends inside. Then Davidoff pulled the topmost drawer open, a slim one between the two sides of cabinets, and found the map.