"Bang—!"
The sharp crack of the Glock 17 echoed through the narrow streets of Chicago, reverberating off brick walls and shattered storefronts.
"Bang! Bang!"
Two more shots followed in rapid succession, the muzzle flash illuminating Ethan's face for brief, strobing moments in the gathering dusk.
The report was deafening at this close range—sharp and violent, the kind of sound that made your ears ring and your heart jump even when you were the one pulling the trigger.
Ethan squeezed off three rounds in quick succession, his grip tight on the textured polymer frame. The recoil slammed through his hands like a sledgehammer striking his palms, the force traveling up his wrists and into his forearms with each shot.
His palms stung from the impact, the webbing between his thumb and forefinger aching. His fingers nearly went numb from gripping so hard, trying to control the weapon's kick.
Jesus, this thing has more punch than I expected, Ethan thought, gritting his teeth.
The first bullet tore through a zombie's skull with devastating effect.
The 9mm round punched through the forehead, the hydrostatic pressure causing the cranium to crack and rupture. Bone fragments and brain matter exploded outward, splattering against a shattered storefront window behind the creature. The zombie dropped instantly, its strings cut, its body crumpling to the pavement like a discarded puppet.
One down.
The second shot hit another zombie center mass—right in the chest where a human's heart would be.
But zombies didn't need functioning hearts.
The bullet tore through dead tissue and shattered ribs, but the creature barely seemed to notice. It stumbled slightly from the impact, its forward momentum disrupted, but it kept coming with that relentless, mindless determination that made these things so terrifying.
Shit, body shots don't work, Ethan noted with cold clarity even as he fired the third round.
The third bullet clipped a zombie's arm as it reached for him, the round tearing through the limb and sending the creature spinning backward. It traveled maybe half a meter before hitting the ground, twitching and convulsing as damaged nerves fired randomly.
But it was still moving. Still trying to get up. Still dangerous.
"Damn… that kick's no joke," Ethan muttered, shaking out his wrist as he maintained his grip on the weapon.
The Glock was powerful—more powerful than he'd anticipated. The recoil made precision shots hellish, especially when firing rapidly. His hands ached, his aim had been compromised by the weapon's kick, and he'd wasted a round on a body shot that accomplished nothing.
If not for his prior time at a gun range—a few sessions years ago when a friend had dragged him out to a shooting range for "bonding"—and his above-average reflexes honed by years of street fighting, he probably would have dropped the weapon entirely.
Note to self, he thought grimly. Head shots only. Everything else is just wasting ammunition.
The last remaining zombie from this group stumbled toward him, its movements jerky and uncoordinated.
Half its jaw was missing—torn away in whatever attack had killed and turned it—leaving exposed teeth and bone that gleamed wetly in the fading light. Its remaining eye fixed on Ethan with that characteristic blank stare of the infected, showing no recognition, no humanity, only hunger.
Ethan didn't hesitate.
He holstered the Glock quickly—no time to aim properly, and he couldn't afford to waste another round—and gripped the tactical folding shovel he'd strapped to his backpack. The weapon had served him well over the past hour, becoming almost an extension of his arm.
The zombie lunged, its good arm reaching out with clawed fingers.
Ethan sidestepped and swung the shovel in a brutal downward arc.
CRACK!
The reinforced metal edge connected with the zombie's skull like a sledgehammer hitting a rotten melon. The sound was wet and crunchy, accompanied by the distinctive cracking of bone giving way under extreme force.
The creature's skull caved in, the frontal bone collapsing inward, fragments of skull driven deep into the brain tissue beneath. Black blood—thick and congealed, nothing like the bright red of fresh human blood—splattered across the pavement in a wide arc.
The zombie dropped instantly, its body going completely limp.
Ethan gagged slightly at the stench that rose from the corpse.
"God… it never gets easier," he muttered, fighting the urge to vomit.
The smell of the infected was something that defied description—a combination of rot, decay, and something chemical that made your eyes water and your stomach turn. It was the smell of death itself, concentrated and amplified.
Without waiting to catch his breath or recover from the brief fight, Ethan immediately broke into a sprint.
Keep moving. Never stay in one place. Never give them time to surround you.
Those had become his survival mantras over the past hour.
He vaulted over a fallen trash bin that had been knocked over during the initial panic, his boots clearing the obstacle cleanly. He wove between overturned cars with practiced agility, using them as cover and as obstacles to break line of sight with any zombies that might be tracking him.
His boots splashed through puddles of grime and blood that had pooled in the uneven pavement, sending up small sprays of dark liquid that he tried not to think about too hard.
Don't think about what you're running through. Don't think about whose blood that used to be. Just run.
From the nearby apartment buildings—tall brick structures that lined this particular street—survivors peered down through cracked windows and broken blinds.
Ethan could feel their eyes on him even though he didn't look up.
Quiet, terrified people watching this lone man fight his way across what had become a wasteland in the space of a few hours. Watching someone actually moving, actually fighting, when they'd chosen to barricade themselves and hide.
He wondered briefly if any of them would survive. If hiding was a viable long-term strategy, or if they were just delaying the inevitable.
Not my problem, Ethan thought coldly. I can barely keep myself alive. I can't save everyone.
Ten minutes later, Ethan slumped against the wall of a convenience store, his chest heaving with exertion.
His lungs burned from the sustained sprint and the smoke-filled air. His legs ached from running on adrenaline for over an hour. Sweat soaked through his hiking jacket despite the evening cooling, making the fabric cling uncomfortably to his skin.
He pulled off one of his cut-resistant gloves and found a half-clean rag in his pocket—one he'd grabbed from the sporting goods store earlier. He used it to wipe gore from his jacket, grimacing at the stickiness of congealed blood and other fluids he didn't want to identify.
The rag came away dark and sodden.
I'm going to need new clothes, he thought distantly. If I survive long enough for that to matter.
A sudden sound—a low, guttural moan—snapped his attention back to immediate threats.
One more zombie lunged from behind a parked car, its movements faster than the others, suggesting it was a more recent conversion. It snarled—an inhuman sound that raised the hair on the back of Ethan's neck—and charged directly at him.
Ethan's body reacted on trained instinct now, the adrenaline and countless repetitions having created new reflexes.
He pivoted smoothly, using the zombie's own momentum against it, and drove his shovel straight down into its skull with all his strength. The blade punched through bone and brain with a wet crunch that he felt through the weapon's handle.
Then he yanked the shovel free with a sharp twist, the suction of tissue and blood making the extraction difficult.
The body dropped, completely limp, its brief unlife extinguished.
Ethan spat on the ground, his mouth tasting of copper and ash.
"That's ten… I think," he muttered, trying to keep count.
He'd lost track somewhere around zombie number seven. The encounters had started blending together—just an endless series of threats to neutralize, obstacles to overcome, lives that were no longer lives to end.
He unscrewed his water bottle—one of the ones he'd grabbed from the sporting goods store—and took a long drink.
The water was lukewarm, tasting slightly of plastic, but it was clean and it cleared his head a little. The cool liquid soothed his burning throat, washing away some of the taste of blood and smoke.
Ethan closed his eyes for just a moment, allowing himself five seconds of rest.
Five seconds. That's all. Then keep moving. Get to Emily. Nothing else matters.
And then—
A voice rang out inside his mind.
Not from outside. Not from any speaker or phone or other person.
Inside his mind.
The voice was metallic, emotionless, artificial—like a computer-generated voice from a science fiction movie, but somehow more real, more present, more there than any recording could be.
[Mission Complete: Eliminate 10 Level-1 Infected within 3 hours.]
Ethan froze, his eyes snapping open.
His hand instinctively went to the Glock at his belt, his body tensing for a threat.
"What the hell?"
He looked around frantically, spinning in a circle, checking every direction for the source of the voice.
"Who said that? Show yourself!"
But the street was empty.
Silent except for the wind whistling through broken windows and the distant groans of the undead blocks away.
No speakers. No people. No visible source for the voice he'd just heard.
[Doomsday Overlord System initializing…]
The voice came again, flat and mechanical, utterly devoid of human inflection or emotion.
[Commencing host data synchronization…]
"What the—" Ethan's voice trailed off as a sensation washed over him.
It felt like something was scanning him, reading him, analyzing every cell in his body. Not painful, but deeply unsettling—like being studied under a microscope by an intelligence that could see through flesh and bone to examine the very core of his being.
The sensation lasted only a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity.
[Beep—Detection complete.]
And then, without warning, a glowing blue interface flickered into existence before his eyes.
It hung in mid-air like a hologram straight out of a science fiction movie—translucent, luminous, covered in text and icons that seemed to float in his field of vision no matter where he looked.
Ethan stumbled backward, nearly tripping over his own feet in shock.
"What the—"
The interface displayed information in crisp, clear text:
HOST: ETHAN MILLER
ABILITIES: NONE
PHYSICAL STRENGTH: 13(Average adult male = 10)
SPEED: 14
ATTACK POWER: 16
Ethan blinked rapidly, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.
"What the… is this some kind of game stat screen?"
He reached out tentatively, his hand passing through the holographic display. The image rippled slightly at his touch but remained stable, responsive.
There were icons and tabs arranged along the sides of the interface—little symbols that reminded him of video game menus. A sword icon, a shield icon, what looked like a shopping cart, a character profile.
Acting on instinct more than conscious thought, Ethan tapped one of the icons with his finger.
A small text box popped up, expanding to fill part of his vision:
COMBAT STYLE: "STREET BRAWLER"
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