“Yes, we can speak to them.”
“But can you contact them. I mean, can you actually, physically touch them?”
Dwight had made it nearly to the end of the sofa, but he didn’t seem to be creating any distance between himself and the stranger. He couldn’t see the stranger walking, or moving in any way, but he couldn’t seem to get any further from this increasingly frightening person.
“As I said. It is a new technology. But to answer your question truthfully, yes we can contact the players. It is how we defeat them.”
“So if you defeat them in the game, you defeat them in real life, too don’t you?”
The flash of red came once again to the stranger’s eyes, but instead of answering, his lips tensed into a firm, aggravated line.
Dwight knew he shouldn’t ask the next question that formed on his lips. But for some reason, he couldn’t stop himself.
“And from what I saw of the game, aren’t the players fighting against vampires on level 13? Is that what the creators of the game are?”
“You should not ask so many questions!”
This time the anger was obvious, and the stranger’s eyes turned a blood red. He raised his arms above his head with dagger sharp fingernails pointed toward Dwight. His mouth opened and released a grotesque howl while displaying a set of sharpened fangs. As he flew at Dwight, the video game store owner realized that he had definitely asked one too many questions, and now it would cost him his life. He crouched down and covered his head, as if that small act could ward off a vampire.
~*~
While Dwight spoke with the stranger, Rabbit slowly made his way to his game console. After Dwight asked the stranger about the VR rig, Rabbit placed the headset on his head, and donned the gloves needed to play the game. When he had played with the three boys from school earlier, he had saved his game at various stages, so that he could re-enter the game at any point he chose.
He logged in, and started the game at the end of level 12. After only a few moments, he was into the darkness of level 13.
The now familiar white dot appeared, quickly became a set of fangs, and whipping past Rabbit. When it was past, Rabbit found himself back in the simulation of main street in a small town. As he looked around, he noticed a few details that had been there earlier were gone. Rabbit began to realize that the level was being created from the mind of the person playing the game. Since his three teammates weren’t with him this time around, their detailed thoughts of what the small town looked like were not included.
But if it were really created out of his mind, then this wasn’t just a simulation of any small town. It was a simulation of Shannon Hills. In fact, it was Shannon Hills.
Instead of waiting for his attackers to come at him, he took off at a run toward where he knew Dwight’s video store would be. When he reached his street, he turned down a gravel back street and ran to the window of the back living area. Looking through the window, he couldn’t see Dwight, but he could see the stranger. It must have meant that Dwight wasn’t actually part of the game, since he wasn’t wearing a VR rig. But somehow, even without the equipment, the stranger was still a part of it.
“You should not ask so many questions!” he heard the stranger howl just before his eyes turned blood red.
With his gamer’s superb leaping ability, Rabbit jumped up and through the window, hoping he wasn’t shattering the real thing. In a lightening quick move, he pulled a vial of holy water from the tool belt he wore, and threw it at the face of the stranger. The stranger was still focused on the spot where Dwight would have been crouching, and never saw the vial coming. It struck the stranger square in the face.
~*~
Dwight heard the howl of his attacker change into a howl of pain, and never felt the blow he expected to come. He looked up through the arm covering his head and saw the stranger clutching at his face. The skin seemed to be melting away before his very eyes.
~*~
Rabbit reached to the back of his outfit, beneath his black cloak, and brought out his last remaining wooden stake. It was sharpened to a fine point, and looked like it could cut through steel.
The stranger staggered backwards, still clutching his badly burned face, and trying in vain to wipe away the holy water that had done so much damage. He tripped over a stool, and fell onto his back.
With the stranger defenseless, Rabbit didn’t hesitate to step over the stranger and plunge the stake into his heart. The stranger’s red eyes flew open, and his hands jumped from his face to the stake, as if trying to prevent it from entering his flesh. But it was too late. The look of shock on what remained of his face said as much, as the red light dimming from his eyes confirmed it. The stranger was dead.
Rabbit glanced over to the game console and saw the back of a small boy, sitting in the chair, wearing the VR rig, his hands twitching at the controls.
~*~
Dwight saw the stranger fall backward and land on the floor. He also saw the stranger’s hands grasp at his chest, just before his red eyes went dark. Dwight was as confused as ever, and didn’t understand what was happening, until he looked at the game console, and saw his nephew sitting in the chair wearing the game headset, his hands encased in the VR rig gloves and actively playing the game. Then he understood: Rabbit had just saved his life.
He wanted to take the headset off of his nephew, but he wasn’t quite sure if Rabbit was done playing the game. So instead, he simply stood back and watched until the boy went completely still.
~*~
Rabbit saw a shadow fall across the boy sitting in front of the game console, and knew that Dwight was still alive and standing over him.
Suddenly the room around him began to morph slightly, and he felt a nauseous sensation as he slipped from his standing position into the chair he had been looking at. He found himself staring at a blank game console, still wearing the headset and gloves. When he looked around and saw Dwight standing over him, he knew the game had shut itself down, and he was back in the real Shannon Hills.
Rabbit stood and put his arms around Dwight’s waist. The two looked over at the body of the stranger, and watched as it quickly melted into a black sludge. The stench was horrible, and forced Dwight to open all of the windows, including the side window which, to Rabbit’s relief, was not shattered.
Rabbit stood in the middle of the room, watching his uncle, and finally found the ability to say his first words, “Game Over.”
~*~
Chainmail and Nerds
By
C. M. Bratton
“Reports continue to roll out that hostilities are continuing to increase, despite several attempts at negotiation. People are advised to...”
The TV shut off with a snap and I turned to see my girlfriend behind me – definitely a welcome distraction from the stupid and depressing news. She stood there looking down on me, in lots of make-up and a shiny dress. A short, shiny dress.
Yup, she was about to ask for something big.
“Honey, I was thinking maybe we could take a weekend road trip. Do a little camping, hang out with a few friends.”
As she said this, I couldn’t help but notice the mischievous gleam in her eyes and her dimples fighting not to appear. She started stroking my shoulder.
Uh-oh.
“Okay. That sounds fine. Any place in particular you wanna go?”
She started to blush and looked a little sheepish.
“Well, uh, Janie – you know, my BFF down in San Antone? – she and her husband are going to this thing in Houston and I thought, well, we could join them.”
“Cool. Haven’t been that way in a couple of years. But what thing?”
She paused way too melodramatically and I tensed in fear, but then I guess she figured I was buttered up enough because she blurted –
“The Ren Fest!”
“What? Hold on, you mean that place that those crazy survivalists and D&D weirdoes like to hang out?”
“Tom, they are not weirdoes. And yes, that place
. Come on, it’ll be fun.”
She said this last bit with a hint of a whine in her voice and I sighed. Living with an actress and self-proclaimed nerd, I knew I was in for a show if I refused. I also figured she had it all planned out, down to her jewelry, make-up, hair, and outfit.
Her outfit!
“You’re planning on dressing up, ain’t you?”
“Yeah, but honey, you don’t have to.”
“No, Vivien, no way! That’s just too much comic book geeky for me. You know that’s not my thing.”
“Honey, please.”
She wrapped her arms around me.
“We can camp and enjoy a weekend away from the city. Besides, don’t you wanna get away from all the scares and politics?”
She was right. We’d been on high alert ever since we started exchanging bombs with some navy out in the Mediterranean and the Pacific. Almost every day, the sirens went off, announcing the impending arrival of some big weapon or other, but so far, nothing had happened except a lot of bad traffic and angry people.
A trip sounded pretty good, actually.
“Fine. We can go. When is this supposed to happen?”
“Well, it ends next weekend, so we can go this weekend or the last one.”
“Okay, we can go this weekend then, I guess.”
She pulled my head down and gave me a deep kiss. I figured that made it a pretty good deal.
When she stopped, she went to the other room, grabbed her phone, and started chatting to Janie. I sighed, sat on the couch, and flipped the TV back on, changing it over to the sports channel.
“Tom!”
Vivian burst back in the room.
“You wanna go camping? They have a campsite there.”
She really was cute. I smiled at her.
“That sounds like a good plan.”
So a few days later, we took off on the five-hour drive down to the middle of nowhere where the festival was. Janie and her boyfriend lived only about ninety minutes from there, so they weren’t coming until the next day. That meant me and Vivian got to hang out by ourselves that first night, which is something we didn’t get to do too often. I might just have a good time, despite all the LARPers I just knew were gonna be hanging around in the trees pretending to be wizards and vampires and elves and Lord knows what else.
The things a normal guy like me does for love.
When we got to the campsite just outside the festival grounds, it was already dark and there weren’t really any lights – to help create a more authentic old-timey feel to everything, I thought. In fact, they only had running water and port-a-potties, no plugs for anything. Luckily, we already had our extra batteries, portable burner, and ice chest.
So the first night wasn’t too bad. We set up the tent fairly quickly (which we were kinda’ proud of) and had a good time trying to start a fire and watching movies on the portable DVD player. There were lots of other little campfires and tents set up, but it was still pretty dark, so I dismissed those shadowy figures holding swords in their hands.
That couldn’t possibly be true.
We had a few drinks before we finally passed out on our inflatable queen-size mattress, snuggled up and proud of our time in the ‘wilderness.’
The next morning, my girlfriend started getting dressed in her fancy medieval clothes.
“Whoa, hey, honey, I mean, the dress is okay, it’s pretty plain. But you don’t need that cloak. Or that – what is that? A mug hanging from your belt? And chain-mail jewelry? I didn’t know you had a matching bracelet and collar-thingy… and in rainbow chainmail!”
“Honey, this is what you wear to the festival.”
“Yeah, well I’m wearing this here t-shirt and these jeans. And my baseball cap.”
She pouted at me.
“You’re going to feel weird once you get there and everyone starts looking at you.”
“Well that’s just too bad, ‘cause I ain’t wearing anything else. And you need to take off that cloak. It’s too much. And the ears.”
“How about this? What if you at least wear a black t-shirt and those dark jeans you bought with boots, and I’ll just carry my cloak.”
“And the ears.”
It was kinda’ mean, but geez, they were tacky.
“Okay. But you change now.”
So I grumbled, but did what she asked while she packed away her precious ears again and slung her cloak off.
“Is that a dagger?”
She started laughing at my face. I admit, I couldn’t help myself, so I started laughing, too.
I grabbed her hand, gave her a quick kiss, and we left our tent.
And entered a whole new world.
Everywhere I turned, people were wearing cloaks and chainmail and leather vests. They were doing swordfights in-between tents, and I know I saw some people cooking stuff on a spit.
And we hadn’t even gotten inside.
I was getting a little scared.
We got our tickets, one for “milady” and one for myself.
“I hope thou have a pleasant day, milord.”
What? I’d have to listen to fake accents all day… bad fake accents? I couldn’t believe I let myself get dragged to this place. I mean, these people were really serious about this whole medieval get-together. My girl was right… I kinda’ felt outta place in my jeans – but I sure as hell wasn’t gonna admit that to her.
Plus I’d never wear a cloak.
This had to be love, ‘cause why else would I go there?
So we got in and the place was packed with people. There were a lot of nerdy geeks with glasses walking around in fake suits of armor and oversized mugs of beer. Who were they kidding? They’d fall over if they drank that much. And knights with glasses? Oversized, hipster glasses?
And the women…
Well I gotta be honest. The Ren Fest might be the best place ever to watch some good cleavage going on. Don’t get me wrong, my girl is pretty stacked, but some of the women were just exploding out of their corsets or dresses.
Tell you what, after I got myself one of those big mugs, I started to relax. Everything just started to be funny to me. The guys in the hot metal hats and the women wearing wings – it was like Halloween, only a lot hotter outside. Since Vivian was having a great time shopping, I figured I could keep having me some real cold beers.
We finally stopped for some turkey legs and Vivian’s phone rang.
“Hello? Janie! Where are you? We’ve been here for a few hours already… What? Wait, wait, slow down. What happened… uh-huh… okay… are you kidding? Fine, fine, no, I understand. Just call me if something else happens, okay? Okay, bye.”
She hung up, looking both puzzled and frustrated.
“Where are they?”
“I don’t think they’re gonna be able to come today. There was some big thing on the news and everyone’s trying to leave town – which means there are tons of car accidents and traffic is pretty much at a standstill.”
“So what do you wanna do?”
“I dunno, but man, honey, I was so looking forward to hanging out with Janie.”
She let out a big dramatic sigh. That’s my girl.
“I guess we can just keep shopping and go see some of the shows.”
“Alright, sounds good.”
So we hung out for a few more hours and saw the sights. We were just thinking about leaving when we heard a commotion. We walked towards this group of people just in time to catch the end of a conversation.
“...and then the phone just cut off. And now I can’t get a hold of anyone.”
“So you’re saying that somebody actually fired on us?”
“Yeah, and..”
“Look everyone!”
Some guy was standing on a table and pointing south.
We all turned our heads just in time to see this huge glow light up the sky, like a giant firework had gone off.
“Oh no,” Vivian whispered. “That can’t be what I think it is.”
But it
was. A bomb.
The news started to spread and I thought people might start panicking. Instead, these weirdoes started to look excited! Several of them took out their swords and started taking imaginary swipes at the air. Some of the vendors started offering to sharpen daggers and other metallic things. These people with bows – some of them very wimpy looking – started bragging that they be the ones to act as lookout.
But Vivian and I just stood there, clinging to each other in shock.
A little while later, a large man stood on a nearby table. He was nearly seven feet tall with a huge chest, wearing nothing but leather pants, some armbands, and these two chest straps with swords in them.
I admit, he was pretty badass-looking.
“Attention everyone. We are holding a meeting in the tourney area. Please make your way there and sit on the bleachers.”
“Should we go, Tom?”
“I don’t think we have any other choices.”
We started walking to the big stadium where they had been pretending to have knights in armor race at each other on big horses. Soon we were in the middle of a large crowd of people, but things were still pretty calm, if loud.
When we got to the stadium, it was already getting pretty full.
“Front or back, Vivian?”
“Front. I wanna hear what they have to say. And if we need to get out, it’ll be easier from there.”
That’s my girl, sexy and smart.
We snagged two of the last seats in front. About ten minutes later of sitting and listening to the growing crowd whispering uneasily, several people came out to the middle of the field – riding horses.
Yeah, I was in hell.
Then the guy on the all white horse rode to front and center and started talking to us through a friggin’ megaphone.
“Lords and ladies, gentlemen and damsels, maids and knights, and assorted creatures from other lands. I am sorry to inform you all that the end is nigh and we may be all that is left.”
Some guy in the crowd – who was wearing jeans I saw – interrupted the ridiculous speech.
“Hey man! We’re not in some stupid movie. Talk real to us.”
The guy on the white horse looked a little shocked, like he was surprised we weren’t all into his fake accent and weird way of speaking. Plus, he needed to get to the damn point.
Another guy – not on a horse – came and stood next to the wannabe knight guy. The dude looked really old and he was wearing a cape with cowboy boots and spurs.