Under his uncle’s watchful eyes, Gary kept digging.

“Now come one, Gary,” his uncle chuckled, “There’s no need to get extravagant. Three feet deep will be more than enough, thank you very much. We don’t want to be here all night, do we?”

Gary gritted his teeth and carried on piling the earth into a mound beside him. He’d already completed over half of the grave. He needed to buy some time.

“Aren’t you going to tell me why?” he asked. “Why you killed all those people?”

Uncle David lowered his voice so that the captain and the soldier couldn’t hear him.

“Why, Gary? Why? Because it was fun. That’s all. You have no idea the things I’ve had fun doing... And now, with this new system, oh I am going to have so much more fun!”

Gary slowed down his digging and drowned out the voice of his psychotic uncle to focus on his character sheet. He was facing three problems. His uncle, a 3rd level magician and two soldiers armed with automatic weapons. Even if he could take his uncle out of the equation, there was no way he’d be able to take the soldiers out as well.

He needed an edge.

Three things had changed on his character sheet. Firstly, there was the addition of the stats that he hadn’t been able to see before. That didn’t do him any good, however. Then there was the addition of a section further down called “Evolution Paths”, of which six were listed. Each of them had a series of locked boxes next to them, apart from the first, called Tank.

Tank: This evolution path will increase your toughness, hit points and combat ability. Progress along the tank path will turn you into the meanest, toughest zombies around!

The tank path was the only one that had been unlocked, giving Gary the hit point and combat bonus he’d received when he’d levelled up. Gary guessed that as he levelled up, he would gain evolution points to pursue the paths, unlocking further powers as he did so. Juliet had informed him that the evolution of the undead was randomised at lower levels, but now he’d be able to choose - if he could just level up first.

None of which helped him right now since he was sitting at 2150 experience points and level 3 was 3000 experience points.

He skipped back up to the titles section. According to the information listed, he could claim two of the five titles available and each gave him some kind of bonus.

Shovel Master!

You really love that shovel, don’t you? You have practised and practised using the humble shovel as a weapon and gain a +20% attack bonus when fighting with your shovel. In addition, you can make a Sweeping Blow, hitting as many adjacent enemies in a row equal to your level, up to a maximum of 5 in one blow! A Shovel master has also realised the many ways in which a shovel can be turned into a lethal weapon of destruction – try using your shovel as a throwing weapon and see what happens.

Claim title, yes/no?

Interesting, but it wouldn’t be much use to Gary right now. His uncle and the soldiers were too far apart to be considered adjacent.

Denier of Your True Nature!

For some unknown reason, you seem intent on denying the natural order of your impulses to eat living flesh. Equip this title to gain a +10% bonus per level when resisting your urges through willpower. (Though, really, what’s wrong with you? Weirdo.)

Claim title, yes/no?

Useless, Gary thought.

His uncle was whispering and giggling as he described the things he’d done to his forty victims. Once he’d finished with that, he outlined his plans for the survivors that Gary had brought to the farmhouse.

Candidate for the Messiah of the Eternal Night!

The Shiranti have a prophecy that one day champion will rise to bring eternal darkness to the multiverse and, guess what, you’re a prime candidate for that! Yes, it could be you who brings all of this to an end, leaving only the undead to roam the multiverse and after a while, even they will wither away to dust. Ahh, wouldn’t that be nice? No more fighting, no more death and destruction, just peace. If you claim this title, you will gain one additional evolution point per level you advance.

Claim title, yes/no?

That was both interesting and worrying - not that Gary could think about the long-term implications at this point. What was unclear here was if he would gain an extra evolution point for the level he had already gained. If yes, then there was a chance he could get out of this hole by applying that evolution point to the paths available. If no, however, then it would be a waste of of one of the two slots he had available to claim a title.

It would be a risk if he claimed it, and one that might not pay off. In which case, he’d only have one title left to add.

He was getting to the end of digging his own grave, and his uncle was losing interest in talking anymore. He was more concerned with getting to work on whatever villainy he had planned for the survivors.

There were just two more titles left.

Traitor to Your own Kind

Something is wrong with you, you know that? You’ve been killing your own kind relentlessly. Normally this is just not on, but since you seem so intent on killing other undead, you gain a 10% +1% per level experience point bonus for killing the undead. Your current score stands at 76 kills, giving you an XP bonus of 7,500 x 11% (level 1s) and 200 x 11% (level 2s) equal to 849 experience points. Current XP bonus is 12% of standard experience delivered. By claiming this title, you will be awarded the experience points gained and gain 12% experience for killing undead.

Claim title? Yes/No!

“Fuck, yes!” Gary said.

Title claimed: Traitor to Your Own Kind. 849 Experience points awarded. Gain 12% of usual experience for killing the undead.

“Eh?” his uncle asked, disconcerted by Gary’s sudden enthusiasm for what the game he planned to play with Gemma and James – which from what Gary had gathered was something to do with eyeballs and making them eat them. Just, you know, for fun.

Gary checked his character sheet. His experience level stood at 2999/3000.

Are you fucking kidding me?

There was one last title left.

Grave Digger

You are an expert in grave digging, and as a result gain 10 experience points every time you dig a grave for someone.

Claim title? Yes/No.

Hell.

Fucking.

Yes.

Gary’s two titles now read Traitor to Your Own Kind and Grave Digger.

He looked up at his uncle from the three foot deep grave he’d dug.

“I’ve finished.”

You have finished digging your own grave.

Gain 10 experience points.

Experience points 3009/5000

You are a level 3 Zombie!

Claim additional title now!

Claim Evolution Point bonus now!

 

*

 

Elsewhere…

 

Juliet grimaced as her line-manager told her it was time to clock off for the day.

She’d been watching Gary for the last twenty-four hours as she’d kept him on hold and conducted her investigation in accordance with the administration rules. If anyone checked, there was little to nothing that she had done that would be seen as unusual. At least to a casual observer.

Of course, if Internal Standards took a close interest, she was screwed, as she’d broken at least one of the primary rules. Juliet prayed that when they did their random spot checks, they didn’t catch her up in the net.

She looked over to the gigantic sign on the wall of the open-plan office where the three primary rules were in place:

Admins may not change the system.

Admins may not interfere.

Admins may not advise.

If anyone ever listened back to the conversation between her and Gary, they’d have picked up on at least two occasions of Juliet giving advice. The Admins had a strict non-interference policy. And that was before they even saw the actual rule she’d broken.

Unable to put it off any longer, she stretched and disconnected from the admin screen as Gary claimed his titles.

You’re on your own now, Gary, she thought.

She left the office and passed through the security gates. She was halfway through the front door of the admin building when a voice called out to her?

“Miss? Miss, just one second!”

Juliet froze as the security guard called out to her.

Surely they couldn’t have found her out this soon?

Breathing slowly, she turned to face the security guard.

“Miss, you forgot to hand in your pass.”

Juliet breathed out.

A simple mistake.

She smiled unevenly and took the pass from around her neck and handed it to the security guard.

“Sorry, Bill, I was thinking about something else altogether...”

Bill smiled as he took her pass.

“No problem. Looking forward to the weekend, am I right?”

“Oh, definitely.” Juliet nodded.

Bill turned away and returned to his booth as more of the admins checking out for the weekend appeared. He hung Juliet’s pass in the correct place, along the wall with the others.

It was a simple card that gave her access to the doors and offices beyond, bearing her photo, her name and her ID number:

Administrator 551

 

 

---

 

Author's note: Thanks to everyone for the title suggestions!