15 – We’re Going to be Alright

Andy sat on the stoop of his trailer, looking out onto the dark, wind-blown park. He could see the corpse of the gorilla-pug, but, thankfully, he couldn’t smell it; the breeze was blowing away from him. He sipped one of the lukewarm beers that had survived his binge the night before, staring at his status page and trying to decide what to do with his improvement points.

He’d come to the conclusion that, considering how few the other park residents had, he was either doing something very right, or they were doing something very wrong. It seemed like he’d won the competition for control of the “settlement” pretty handily, but it wasn’t because he’d been particularly clever or brave; he’d just run into the most monsters. Honestly, if he hadn’t killed Sheila by stabbing her with a mop handle, he might not have gotten the “spears” skill, and then he might have died from one of his other encounters.

He nodded, looking at the spear leaning against the trailer beside him. He still needed to get James to fasten the new spearhead to it. Thinking it over, the spear was an ideal weapon for fighting stuff that was horrifying as hell, assuming you didn’t have a damn gun. It was perfect for keeping monsters at bay while still posing a threat—defensive and offensive. Sure, swinging a club or an axe could do a lot of damage, but those weapons lacked that reach advantage. No, all in all, he was happy with the spear.

With that thought in mind, he put two of his six points into the skill, bringing it to four. It was a very strange sensation to blink your eyes and then suddenly have days and days of “memories” planted in your brain. They were weird, indistinct memories, featuring Andy doing spear drills in a kind of featureless, blurry, dreamlike surrounding, but they were memories, nonetheless.

He remembered the feel of the spear in his hands and the tension of his muscles, but he didn’t remember any sweat, pain, or even real fatigue. He remembered being instructed, but not by whom. He couldn’t recall the words being said, but he had distinct memories of being corrected and shown the proper way to do things. Even the drills were indistinct, and the opponents he practiced against were dim, shadowy figures—like placeholders for real people.

Despite the artificial nature of the memories, Andy knew how to do things. He remembered hundreds of hours of repetition, planting his feet, adjusting his grip, and striking over and over and over. He could feel the trained muscles in his arms and back, the strength of his hands, and the rough calluses he’d developed. “Insane,” he mumbled, rubbing his palm with his thumb.

Beyond feeling like he was losing his mind, Andy came to another conclusion: improvement points were not to be taken lightly. When he’d had two points in the spear, he’d felt like he knew how to fight with it. He’d felt like he understood what made a good spear, how to handle one to defend himself, and how to hurt something with it. He’d felt competent. Now that he had four points in the skill? He felt like he could beat just about anyone’s ass as long as he had his spear in his hands.

Of course, feeling like you can do something and being able to prove it were two different things; plenty of fighters thought they would win, only to find out the hard way how ill-prepared they were. The important point, though, was that with four points in the skill, Andy felt like he was someone who’d been practicing and studying the spear for years. That being the case, he had to assume that each of those improvement points represented months or years of effort.

“So,” he asked the wind, “have I just been getting lucky with improvement points, or is the System spoiling me?”

When no answer came his way, Andy spent two more improvement points on his “will” attribute. You could call him vain or impulsive, but when he and Eduardo had concluded that an average for a stat was probably five, Andy had decided right then and there that he’d put at least one point into his will. Why would anyone be below average at anything if they could fix it so quickly?

Then he’d thought about it some more, sitting there sipping that warm Mexican beer and contemplating how he’d dropped out of school, among other “failings.” Compared to many, Andy knew he hadn’t done a lot to cultivate his willpower. If he were honest, he’d admit that seeing that attribute as his lowest on his character sheet hadn’t surprised him. So? Why settle for average? Maybe he ought to see what life was like with a bit more damn willpower.

After putting those points into the attribute, Andy sat there and stared into the dark, really listening to his mind, really feeling his body. Would he have a physical reaction like when he’d put the points into speed? He was curious and excited, so much so that he almost missed it. Like a warm knot of muscle unwinding in his chest, tingling in a slow wave as it propagated through his body. Then it was over. He felt good but not really any different.

“Huh,” he muttered, setting his beer down. Maybe it was something that wouldn’t be obvious but would start to show itself as time went on. “Two more.” He pulled up his status sheet and stared at the section with his attributes and skills:

Perception: 6

Will: 6

Strength: 6

Vitality: 8

Speed: 8

Improvement Points: 2

Notable Skills or Spells:

(* denotes active bound abilities)

Spears: 4

Sneak Attack: 1

Shadow Vigil: 1

*Piercing Dusk – Bound: 1

Andy decided he wouldn’t mind more points in any of his attributes, but he wasn’t necessarily unhappy with them. Now that his will was solidly above “average,” he didn’t feel like he should rush anything as far as they were concerned. Then there were his skills. His spear-fighting ability clearly outstripped his knowledge of his other skills. A higher sneak attack skill would surely be helpful, but so would either of the other ones, too, as far as he knew.

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Understanding the value of those improvement points, Andy decided to hold off until he’d gained another level. He was a level four Umbral Warden now; what if he earned new skills at level five? He had no reason to believe he would, other than his experience with some games. Five, ten, twenty—those numbers tended to represent milestones. He had no idea if the System operated like that, but he didn’t think it would hurt to be a little methodical, a little restrained. It wasn’t like he was operating in a total vacuum. The System had said he could unlock new abilities; it just hadn’t said when or how.

Whatever the case, he was three-fourths of the way to level five and decided to wait. “Is this what willpower feels like?” He chuckled, picked up his half-empty bottle, and stood. He put the beer on the counter, pulled his leather gloves on, and stepped outside. Spear in hand, he walked toward the gate. There was a maintenance shed near Bernice’s trailer, and he was pretty sure he’d find a shovel there. Andy intended to bury some corpses.

***Special Quest: Dispose of the corpses in the Sleepy Saguaro Trailer Park, helping to stave off corruption and despair. Award: Experience toward your next level and a personalized System-generated award. Accept? Yes/No.***

Andy was still pissed at the System and he didn’t intend to thank it, but he wasn’t upset that it was going to reward him for something he was about to do anyway. What really bothered him was the fact that it had known that was what he was about to do. Why was he surprised? How could he doubt that it could read his mind? The damn System had just put years’ worth of spear training in there. To test the theory, he thought, yes.

The text flashed and faded away; he’d accepted the quest just by thinking about it. Could an entity be inside every living person’s head? Could it do that on multiple worlds at once? Wouldn’t the distance and time difference make it impossible? He supposed he didn’t know, considering mana was a force that could, apparently, contradict the rules of physics. Even so, Andy thought it made more sense that there was something like a local copy of the System hanging around and, once in a while, it would upload what it did to the “main” System.

He caught himself thinking of the System as a computer or a program and wondered if that was a mistake. Wouldn’t that make more sense than some all-knowing entity, though? Before he could theorize further, Andy found himself at the shed and spent a few minutes perusing the contents—fertilizer, weed killer, a stack of pavers, and lots of gardening tools, including a few decent shovels. Andy picked the one with the longest, stoutest handle and made his way over to Lucy’s.

Her trailer was dark, the door was shut, and he didn’t see or hear any sign of her. He figured she’d want to be there when he put her brother into the ground, but he also figured digging a proper hole would take a while. He knew all too well how damn hard the ground was in that area. He walked around the trailer to the front end where they’d left Steve’s sheet-wrapped corpse. It was still there, along with some little trinkets that hadn’t been there before.

On the sheet was a small framed picture of a pair of kids, probably five or seven years old. Beside it was a folding pocket knife, and beside that was a folded black T-shirt. Andy could just make out some bold red lettering—a band name, if he were guessing. Lucy must have been reminiscing with her brother’s things. He took the shovel and scraped a wide section of gravel aside, and then, bit by bit, he chipped away at the hard soil, digging a grave for a guy he’d hardly known but had stood by him in battle.

“Sorry, Steve,” he said as he dug. “I hope you know I realize I’m lucky. If that spider had come for me first, I’d probably be the one lying under that sheet.” His shovel wasn’t quiet as it bit into the hard, rocky soil, but he was on the end of the trailer by the living room, and the bedrooms were on the other end. He figured he wasn’t making enough noise to wake anyone up. He figured wrong.

When he’d only dug down a foot or so, he heard the trailer door open and close and, between one shovelful of soil and another, he heard sneakers crunching on gravel. He looked up to see Lucy standing there, a steaming mug in one hand. She wore an oversized blue hoodie and jeans. “Sorry,” he grunted, stabbing the shovel into the ground.

Lucy shook her head. Andy could see her face pretty well in the moonlight. He wondered if his higher-than-average perception and Shadow Vigil made a difference in that regard. He couldn’t really remember the exact wording of the skill, but he thought it had something to do with being more aware in low light. The point was, he could see her expression, and somehow she was making it plain to him that she hadn’t been sleeping; he hadn’t woken her.

He nodded and got back to his work. Lucy leaned against the trailer and sipped her coffee. Andy could smell it and wondered how she’d gotten it hot. She watched him work for a good ten or fifteen minutes, then she approached and held out a hand for the shovel. Andy knew damn well he could dig faster than she could, but he also knew it would be pretty shitty to deny her a chance to help bury her brother.

He took off his gloves and held them out. “Sorry, they’re sweaty.”

She took them and wrinkled her nose a little. After a moment’s hesitation, though, she put them on, offering him another nod. Andy backed off to the pile of gravel he’d made and sat down, enjoying the cool breeze on his sweat-soaked shirt and hair. Lucy dug, and she surprised him with how she carved the earth with that shovel.

Sure, he could dig deeper and faster, but he probably had sixty pounds on her. To her credit, she drove the shovel into the soil with her foot, slicing into the hard soil. She tore out one shovelful of stubborn ground after another, expanding the hole Andy had started. The minutes dragged by, and she kept pushing herself. Her face was red, and her hair was plastered to her head with sweat. Still, her eyes were determined, and she dug with ferocity, grunting with each strike of her foot.

Andy knew better than to interrupt someone who was in the zone, working out some inner demons through their efforts. He just watched over her for another fifteen minutes or so, and when her breath grew ragged and she was struggling to toss the dirt far enough to clear the hole, he stepped in and put a hand on her shoulder. She flinched, but when she locked eyes with him, she didn’t look away. She stared for several seconds, and then her face crumpled as she began to cry.

“Hush,” Andy said, putting his arm over her shoulders and pulling her against his side. Honestly, he did it for himself as much as for her. Everything still hadn’t sunk in. Hadn’t he just woken up a little while ago, hung over and ready to waste the day watching streams on his phone? He gently patted her back while she sniffled into his sweaty shirt. “We’re going to be alright,” he said, and he knew he was talking to himself as much as Lucy.