Chapter 6

  As the day was starting to wane, Jake trudged through the rown streets. The once bustling city y in ruins, and its t skyscrapers were fyed open, exposing their steel boo the elements. Others were nothing more than deg skeletons against the gray, overcast sky. The eerie silence was broken only by the occasional creaking of a rusted sign or the howl of the wind.

  His boots ched on the carpet of rubble and gss, the sounds unnaturally loud in the absence of life’s usual cacophony. He’d been wandering through the desote city for about an hour now, but he still couldn’t get used to the sight of absolute desotion around him. He felt like a character in a post-apocalyptic movie. Everywhere he looked, he saw nature reg the city as its own. Vines cascaded from the sides of buildings, their leaves rustling in the never-ceasing wind.

  Weeds and grass sheir way through the cracks in the asphalt, sometimes reag as high as his knees. As Jake carefully picked his way through the tangled mass of vegetation, his eyes stantly sed the skeletal frames of cars and shattered storefronts around him for any sign of danger, which could be lurking anywhere. The memories of his very first enter with an ex-human mutant in the building where he’d woken up were still fresh in his head. He khere were more mutants iy—every now and then, his ears picked up distant cries of unknowures. So far, he hadn’t entered any more monsters, but sooner or ter, it would ge, that was for sure.

  His footsteps echoed iillness of the street as he made his way to one of the destroyed stores that lined each side of the street. He paused at the shattered storefront, his eyes sing the interior for anything of use. Amid the debris, he spotted a metal and a bottle of water. Adjusting his rucksack, which had beore a part of him than an accessory, he stepped into the store. The shards of gss ched underfoot as he made his way through the interior of the room.

  He stashed the and the water bottle in his backpack where some more tin s and pstic bottles were already stowed away. On his way through the devastated city, Jake had occasionally stumbled upon ed food and bottled water. He collected all of them, knowing very well that any find, no matter how small, could mean the differeween survival and starvation. He didn’t know where all the food and water came from. He figured it must have been the System itself that put the sustenan various ve pces for people to find. So far, he hadn’t met any other survivors, though.

  tinuing on, he made his way through the desote streets, his head on a swivel for any potential threats. Every now and then, he could hear the distant cry of some creature, making his skin crawl. His very first enter with the mutant in the oory house where he’d awakened had almost cost him his life. He’d beeremely lucky that the mutant had gotten stu the window frame. Irospect, his high-level Luck attribute had probably tributed to the fluke. However, even though he was now armed, he still wasn’t eager to meet any more mutants.

  Weaving through the byrinth of streets, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched, that unseen eyes were trag his every move. It robably just his imagination, but he quied his paevertheless, hoping to find a shelter somewhere a out of the streets for a little while. Being out in the open made him feel vulnerable.

  A sudden gust of wind whipped through the street, creating a ghostly wail as it rushed through the broken windows and twisted metal of empty building carcasses. Jake’s heart skipped a beat, a feral instinct to seek cover almost overp him. Even though there were no monsters, mutants, or any other predatory creatures ao be seen right now, he still wanted nothing more than to find a pce to take shelter a for a while to calm his nerves. He looked around and spotted a two-story building sandwiched between two skyscrapers.

  He began to move in that dire when a distant sound caused him to freeze—the faint, almost imperceptible echo of something not quite dead. His heart rag, he looked dowreet in the dire the sound seemed to have e from. He sed the surrounding buildings while his instincts were screaming at him to flee. At first, he didn’t spot anything suspicious, but then he saw a human figure walking dowreet toward him. It was too far away from him, so he couldn’t dis aails yet. Was it another survivor? Or an ex-human mutant?

  “Fuck it,” he muttered and ran toward the two-story house he’d noticed a moment prior.

  He burst into the building, pausing briefly at the entrao take ierior. Notig a flight of stairs oher side of the room, he dashed toward it. He raced up the steps, and after reag the half-nding, looked back. Whoever—whatever—he’d seen ireet hadn’t reached the buildi. He climbed the rest of the steps to the sed floor and found himself before a closed door. It wasn’t locked, and he burst through it into a spacious room. He came to a sudden stop when he realized a huge hole gaped in the middle of the floor.

  What the hell happened here?

  Hugging the right-hand wall, he circled the ragged hole and reached one of the windows fag the street. He peered cautiously around the edge of the window frame, keeping his body as cealed as possible. Carefully sing the area outside, he searched for any signs of movement. The street below was eerily quiet, the only movement ing from the swaying of the vines casg down the buildings oher side of the street. He strained his ears, listening for any out-of-poises that might indicate he was being chased.

  For several minutes, nothing happened. When he was just starting to rex, a figure came into view. As soon as he g it, Jake saw that it was no survivor. The creature walking dowreet looked very simir to the mutant he’d entered earlier—its face had a huge maw filled with razor-sharp teeth, and its hands ended in long curved cws. Jake ducked below the windowsill, hoping as hell that the mutant hadn’t noticed him.

  A full minute passed. No sound reached his ears from the street. If the mutant had noticed him and burst into the building, he would surely have heard it or seen it get into the house through the gap in the floor. Carefully, he got to his feet and peered over the edge of the window frame. The mutant was still shuffling dowreet, moving slowly and quietly, paying no attention at all to the small building Jake hid in.

  Taking out his PDA, he poihe camera at the mutant to s it. When he pressed the button, a piece of info about the creature popped up on the s. It was called an ex-human walker, it was an ordinary mutant, and its level was 1. Below the mutant’s stats saying he o upgrade his PDA to see more useful information about mutants, items, and whatnot.

  How do I upgrade my PDA, though?

  The mutant passed the building aually disappeared into the distance. Jake sat on the floor, leaning against the wall behind him. He checked the map on his device. He still had quite a lot of distao cover to reach his mission’s location. Only he wasn’t all that keen oing there. The mere thought of fag a single ex-human walker had filled him with terror, prompting him to take refuge in this house. The idea of fronting fifteen of these creatures, along with a mutant known as a shambler, was absolutely unthinkable. He believed that the shambler was most likely even more dangerous than the walkers, making the prospect of entering them a resounding “No!” in his mind.

  He decided to stay in the house for a little bit to calm his nerves. Still, he knew he couldn’t hide forever. In order to survive in this new dangerous world, he would have to overe his fear and learn to fight for his life. After a few minutes, he stood up. Hugging the wall, he walked around the hole in the floor. He took the stairs to the first floor, but before leaving the building, he decided to look around for anything of use.

  The only thing that he found was some kind of autoior. He sed it with his PDA and learhat it was called a stimpak. It tained a mixture of various healing agents and stimunts, allowing the user to boost their body’s natural regeive funs. The stimpak Jake had found was of on rarity, so it could heal some minor injuries as well as kill iions of damaged tissue. He stashed the autoior in his backpad headed toward the exit of the building.

  He stopped at the entrao take a look around. Wheurned his head to look in the dire the mutant had gone, he was surprised to see that the mutant hadn’t gotten all that far. The walker stood glued to a spot about a hundred yards farther dowreet, its body half-turo him. It just stood there, staring at one of the skyscrapers for some reason.

  “What the hell?” Jake muttered, w what had attracted the mutant’s attention.

  The walker must have spotted him from the er of its eye because it suddenly turo face him. The muta go with a screeg scream before breaking into a run toward him.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  At first, Jake thought to get bato the house behind him but decided not to, because trapping himself in a fined space probably wasn’t such a good idea. So he stepped out into the open instead, pulling his handgun from its holster. Heart hammering, he poihe on at the quickly approag mutant and squeezed the trigger.