4 – Taking Action

Outside were two large animals that looked like a cross between a gorilla and a pug. “Holy shit,” Andy muttered. “Are those Sheila’s pugs?” They certainly had pug faces and were grunting and snorting like Sheila’s dogs, but they had to weigh a couple of hundred pounds each, and there was no denying the primate arms jutting out of their muscular shoulders. The two animals were circling each other, apparently intensely interested in the scents of each other’s butts. The bright side of that was that they seemed to have forgotten about Andy in his trailer.

He slowly lowered his blinds and stepped back, leaning against his kitchen counter. He had to figure out what the hell he was going to do about his situation. This wasn’t tenable. His mind kept returning to the System’s messages. He’d gained a level? He’d learned something about spears? Was that just a joke? Like, was the System effing with him about using a broom as a spear? He looked at the broomstick in his hand and realized it might not have been a joke.

He had a fundamental understanding of the piece of wood’s inferior nature. It was light, porous, and brittle. It wasn’t appropriately sized for him—easily two feet shy of being ideal. The tip was blunt and soft, and the only reason he’d managed to kill Sheila with it was because of the perfect, lucky shot and the way he’d put his full weight on the spear as he drove it against the wall, through her throat.

“Yeah, but anyone would know that stuff…” He trailed off as he continued to stare at the spear and realized he knew how he was supposed to hold it. He was supposed to grip it firmly but without making his arms or wrists tense. He was supposed to maintain a stable stance that balanced reach and mobility. He understood how to move and hold his body as he performed a basic thrust or a simple guarding stance. The more he examined his knowledge, the more he felt like he’d spent hours or days—maybe weeks—practicing the footwork of basic spear fighting.

“What the hell?” How was the System putting shit in his mind? He was pretty damn sure he never took a spear-fighting class, so that’s what was happening, right? Somehow, he’d been granted knowledge, and he hadn’t felt a thing. Growling, he threw the broomstick down and stalked toward the tiny storage closet halfway between his kitchenette and “bedroom.” He didn’t have a proper piece of wood to make a spear, but he had a mop, and the handle was a good deal thicker and six inches longer than the scarred-up broomstick.

He grabbed the mop and a roll of duct tape and returned to the kitchen, where he pulled open a drawer full of random silverware and knives. He wasn’t on board with having the System mess with his head, but he wasn’t an idiot; there were freaking monsters out there, and if he could fight better with a spear, so be it. Staring at the knives, an idea struck him.

At first, he’d intended to take the mophead off and then sharpen the stick to a point. Why content himself with a wooden tip, though, when he had several nice, long knives right there? He opened another drawer, dug around until he found a screwdriver, and removed the bracket holding the mop onto the handle. That done, he chose a nice, sturdy, eight-inch carving knife and fastened it to the end of the mop handle with a very liberal dose of duct tape.

He took a few minutes to add several sections of duct tape to the makeshift spear’s shaft, too. He did so for two reasons: he wanted to reinforce the wood, protecting it from cracking, and he hoped the tape would help him retain his grip if he got into a heated fight. With that done, he held his new spear up and nodded. “Better than a broomstick, I guess.”

With the spear made, the distraction of its construction was gone, and Andy’s mind drifted back to the fact that he’d just killed a monster that he was pretty sure had once been Sheila. He had to confront the fact that some unseen entity was telling him that he was in a battle for control of his trailer park. Of course, part of him wanted to grab his spear, wait until the coast was clear, slip out, and then make a run for it. Why did he care about the trailer park?

Where would he go, though? Tucson? If there were monsters in the trailer park, what was going on in the city? He could only imagine. Of course, he was worried about his mom, but what could he do? “No phones, no bike. Are there cars that still work?” he wondered aloud. Even if so, the drive from Arizona to Florida was no joke. He was looking at several days on the road, but what if this shit was going on everywhere? What were cities like Dallas or Miami going through? If half the population had become monsters—

A muffled snort outside his door reminded him that it wasn’t just people who were changing. “Jesus, what about alligators?” A voice in the back of his mind said to run for it. To find a bicycle or anything, and go try to find his mom. Another voice said that was a stupid idea. He had to wait and see what was going on. He had to find some kind of stability before he could hope to find and help her.

He didn’t have communication, wheels, or any damn idea of what was happening in the wider world. Hell, he didn’t even have enough food for a single, decent meal. With that thought, he walked over to the sink and turned on the faucet. It gurgled, and a few bubble-filled spurts of water came out, and then it was dry. Wasn’t the trailer park on a well? Shouldn’t there be a generator for the pump? Something was up with everything, something that had to do with the System or mana or…something.

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“Mana.” Andy looked at his status page again—sure enough, ten out of ten. How had he gained the mana? Hadn’t it said two before? He supposed it was just a passive regeneration thing. Looking at the status display, he focused on the “improvement point.” What could he add it to? His attributes were pretty basic—things you might see in any number of role-playing games.

He wished he could say he was surprised that “will” was his lowest stat. His strength and speed were lower than his vitality. Did that make sense? He supposed so; he was a healthy guy despite some recent self-inflicted dietary abuse. He chuckled, looking at the pizza box and empty beer bottles. Could he add the improvement point to any stat? Could he add it to his “spears” skill? Would that be smarter?

“What if I don’t want to focus on spears, though?” He asked the question aloud, but in his head, he was picturing every RPG he’d ever played. What if there were skills for casting spells or acrobatics or, hell, flying? Should he save his improvement point for now until he had a chance to learn what was out there? How was he going to do that? It didn’t seem like the System was exactly generous with explanations.

Just to see if it was possible, Andy mentally moved the improvement point to his vitality attribute. He figured that was a safe experiment because if he couldn’t cancel the action, he wouldn’t exactly be upset at being healthier. He grinned when he saw his display change:

Vitality:

8 9

And then a message appeared:

***Congratulations! You’ve allocated an improvement point. It will become permanent when you close your STATUS page, so be sure you like what you’ve done! Remember, you can also apply your improvement points to skills and spells.***

Andy mentally unassigned the improvement point. He didn’t know what to do with it. Were they rare? Was he going to have hundreds of them eventually? He decided that one point wouldn’t change him all that much, and he wanted to see what would happen if he could make it to level two. Would he get more improvement points or just one more? Would he be able to improve his spear skill without spending points? “Too many questions,” he grunted.

One thing was for sure: he wasn’t going to find any answers hiding in his trailer until he died of thirst. He walked over to the little coffee table in front of the couch and grabbed the leather work gloves he’d tossed there when he got home the night before. Sliding his hands into them, he felt sturdier and more confident. When he reached up to slam the visor of his helmet down, that feeling only intensified. He grabbed his homemade spear and walked over to the door. “Am I really doing this?”

He took a few deep breaths, psyching himself up, and then flung the door open. Only one of the gorilla-dogs was visible, but it looked up with a snort and growl when the door opened. Andy didn’t know which one it was—Juniper or Rocco—but it didn’t matter; whichever one it was, it was ugly, and its eyes were angry and not the least bit sweet. It bared its teeth in a savage growl and leaped at him.

Despite never having any, Andy remembered his spear training. He set his feet, used the elevation to his advantage, and assumed a proper stance as he aimed his spearpoint at the only vulnerable point he could see on the muscular, savage-looking animal: its throat. Whatever had mutated the pug into its current monstrous form, it hadn’t changed its basic instinct. It wasn’t using its primate arms like an ape would. It used them to launch itself at Andy, but it led the attack with its mouth like a dog.

Standing above the monster with a spear, Andy had an easy reach advantage, and the knife-blade tip slid into the thick folds of extra skin like a skewer through a cube of marinated pork. The gorilla-dog was heavy, and it barreled toward him despite the knife driving deeper with every step. Andy gave ground in a controlled fashion, using the spear to keep the monster at bay. He managed to hold it at the door, but that was mainly because the damn thing was too broad to slip easily through the narrow opening.

It rasped a choking roar as its massive arms pounded on his trailer, rocking it back and forth. Andy pulled the spear back, sliding the knife out of the gushing wound, and then he drove it forward with a loud “Yah!” He repeated the attack three or four times, driving the knife blade into the monster’s neck and chest again and again.

The creature was enraged, its eyes crazed and wild, its slobbering mouth foaming with bloody saliva, but rage wasn’t enough to compensate for a perforated neck. It wasn’t enough to make up for gallons of lost blood. Its driving charge grew weak and listless, and its pounding fists stopped falling on the trailer’s siding, and then it slumped and slid down the metal steps. Andy didn’t know where its partner had gone, but he wanted to catch his breath before he faced it, so he darted forward and yanked the door shut.

He threw his back to the door, heaving for breath. He stood there, bloody spear in hand, his muscles twitching, shaking from the adrenaline rush of combat, and tried to listen. Nothing but distant sounds came to him. He’d done it. He’d killed another monster. “That’s the way we do—" More System messages cut short his impromptu self-aggrandizing:

***Congratulations on your strategic victory, Andy! You used your new skill and your environment to maximum effect! For your flawless execution, you’re being awarded an extra improvement point! Additionally, you’ve advanced from level 1 to level 2, earning another improvement point. Keep up the good work!***

***Your quest to compete for control of Sleepy Saguaro Trailer Park has advanced. You’ve made progress toward gaining control, earning contribution points toward a final reward. You’re currently ranked first for contribution! Others will see your name on reports like this.***