Day Fourteen, concluded
We’d grown careless. Our packs full, armed and confident, we’d walked along, and I remembered the feel of wanting a confrontation, wanting to find a shambling corpse approaching so I could cut it down without fear. We’d banished the fear that had infused our thinking since the siege of the farmhouse. I remember the predatory need that had taken over, the need to assert that we were hunting, not fleeing.
But we’d seen no one. The streets were deserted, and soon we passed out of the town, and back along semi-rural roads, following the river. Beyond it, the cultivated fields stretched as far as we could see, dotted with farmhouses and outbuildings, silos and the occasional wind turbine. Crows spiraled in the cloudless sky.
We’d walked quickly, drinking sodas and chewing on beef jerky. By late afternoon I’d begun to see signs we were approaching another town. Streetlights appeared again, and the asphalt we traveled showed signs of recent repair. The town’s welcome sign said the population was just over twelve thousand people. Where could all of those people have gone, in just these few days? Surely, there would be groups of survivors, refugees like Julia and I. We needed to find them, and, to my way of thinking, our current mode, of walking confidently, drinking from plastic bottles and talking, would allow any watchers to know we weren’t the walking dead. Long-range snipers were my only concern, that day.
The dangers of the unseen dead seemed remote, the weight of ammunition in our toolbelts making our vulnerability to the dead seem like a thing of the past. Now, my mind said, the danger had shifted, coming from our fellow survivors, who, like the person barricaded in the doomed farmhouse, might be inclined to take no chances.
We paused at the river in the evening, unwilling to enter the town as darkness fell. Finding a bridge as we had the evening before, we’d settled in for a few hours sleep. I’d taken off my toolbelt, and crouched by the water’s edge, sloshing cool river water over my arms, dispelling the lingering heat of the day. It felt wonderful to sit and rest, and I’d begun to consider taking off my shoes, to wiggle my toes around in comfort before I slept. Julia had begun a fire, using a dose of lighter fluid to light dried wooden debris we’d collected on our way. I remember looking back at her as she removed her socks, wriggling her toes in the open air, flexing her ankles around with a sigh of relief. Soon, I remember thinking, I’d do the exact same thing, and get some sleep.
The grip around my wrist had jerked me back to the present, and I found myself yanked forward, my face and arm submerged completely by the force of the tug. Staring into the water, my free hand sliding in river slime as it tried to arrest my motion, I’d looked at the figure of a man, standing on the river bottom, his face a shimmering construct of translucent layers, a body bloated to maximum proportions with the water the tissues had absorbed. It’s eyes, pale and opaque, and stared at me, and it peeled back its lips to an impossible degree, revealing gray teeth made long by receding, transparent gums.
Still submerged, I gasped, and began thrashing in panic as I drew river water into my mouth and nose. Finding purchase with my free hand, I pulled back, flinging my head up to take one desperate breath before being pulled under once more. In that moment above water, I’d heard Julia’s screams, but they were cut off, muffled completely, as my head ducked under once more.
A fierce, frightening pain coursed through me as the apparition buried its teeth into the base of my thumb, clamping my hand into its mouth. I felt the flesh part, and the impact of teeth on bone. Seeing through the water-bloated cheek, I could see my thumb trapped within, and I felt the black tongue of the creature run along the injury as blood welled into the water.
Julia’s weight heaved back, dragging me from the water once more. The creature was tugged up, near the surface, opening its blood-soaked mouth to take a deeper bite, its hands locked around my wrist. With a scream of horror at the sight, Julia raised her gun, the gleaming barrel catching the setting sun, dazzling me. I remember my own screaming, the pain and shock of it, the compounding fear at the weapon so close to my head. The shot was an explosion, visible in the fading light as a nimbus of fire surrounding the weapon, engulfing her hand for a moment, blowing back through vents and enveloping my face. The sound hit my eardrums as a shock of pain, a physical impact my brain didn’t recognize as sound at all. As the creature’s skull disappeared into a gray mist, the casing, hot and fast, bounced from my cheek as it was ejected from the chamber.
A moment of ringing silence, of deaf scrambling away from the water’s edge. Afterimages of the shot filled my vision, and my ears began ringing, blocking out all other sound except the heights of Julia’s terror. Holding my hand up before my eyes, I’d traced the outline of human teeth, and blood welled from the depths in pulses, my fingers quivering above. Shouts and gunfire swirled around me, and I looked, left and right, at figures dragging themselves from the depths of the river.
Yes, my memory of the events of that night returned in force.
I've been neglecting to blog about development of Megiddo, but that's only because I've been so busy with other projects. The game continues apace (albeit a slower pace that a few weeks ago...).
I've mostly been developing the rules based on solo-playtesting of scenarios, in recent weeks. I've made maps based on my own house, and have been playing the Clear scenario on it, in a number of different ways. The first thing that became obvious is that the game plays much differently in a tightly-wound environment like a house, than it does in streets and alleys, which was where my previous tests had taken place. In a house, the dead are way too fast for comfort. I ratcheted down the movement from 3 to 1, and will go back and replay outside scenarios with these rule changes soon.
In Megiddo, the dead tend to pack themselves away just as they do in the fictional story, and stay motionless until disturbed or roused somehow. With a movement of 3, I'd often find that clearing houses is nearly impossible. I'd open a door to an upstairs bedroom, and find it empty. Moving to the closet, I'd open the door, and stumble backward as a zombie is revealed. If my shot misses, the zombie would usually be able to close and start attacking before I get another turn. I guess clearing houses is best done in pairs. Even so, with a movement of 3, this leads to other problems.
Like I mentioned, zombies stay inert until roused. Gunfire serves to do that very handily. Each shot, while often dispatching the zombie in front of you, heightens the chances of zombies literally coming from the woodwork. This necessitates more gunfire, and so on. The escalation isn't assured, but it makes for an interesting twist I've not seen anywhere before.
Another aspect of the game I invented on the spot is the idea of weapon readiness. when holding a two-handed weapon (like a shotgun), you need to let go for a moment, in order to open doors and such. This switches your weapon status to unready, but can be quickly switched back for a penalty, in an emergency arises. This small penalty really heightens the tension, and I found myself pausing to begin a new turn, so as to have my full resources ready, should danger be revealed. After the zombies begin to appear, this pause isn't feasible, since you have to spend your time wisely to survive. This makes the process of exploration feel very different, depending on your weapon. If I've got a handgun, it doesn't go unready, since it's a one-handed weapon, and I've got two hands. A small change, but one that really adds tension.
Another thing I've found is that making maps of your own house for the purposes of zombie survival is sort of creepy. When my character opens the door to my office, I always find myself glancing back at the door in real life. Just to be sure.
