Scary Out There (28 page)

From the other room came more gunfire.

“OH GOD! SOMEONE HELP! THEY'RE EVERYWHERE!”

“TAKE COVER!”

He found his parents in their usual spots in the living room. The springs in the sofa had long since given up their battle against gravity, and the two of them sank into the cushions as if rooted there. His father held a weapon that wasn't there. His mother moved her arms as if directing airplanes on a runway. Both wore immersive headsets that put them into the world of the game, but it also played on a huge TV screen above the web filled fireplace and on smaller screens in every other room, so they wouldn't miss a thing, even when they took bathroom breaks.

Ever since
Mantra of Madness
was launched six months ago, it had consumed his parents like a stomach slowly digesting
a heavy meal. The game's previous expansion packs had cost them their jobs, their friends, their bank accounts. This one had consumed what was left of their lives. The apartment was different before
Mantra
. Things were functional. Darren had a bedroom. But that bedroom had quickly become a storage space for all the stuff his parents didn't need anymore—which was everything. His parents had talked to him before. But now snarls and gunfire had replaced their conversations. Anything that didn't involve blowing away satanic alien zombies wasn't worthy of their attention. They treated Darren like an NPC in the real world. A non-player character. Computer generated, and soulless.

“Mom? Dad?” The first intrusion. He knew they wouldn't respond until the third or fourth.

“Mom? Dad? Can you hear me?” They shifted their shoulders uncomfortably, aware they were being summoned from somewhere outside of their current reality—but it probably only registered subconsciously.

“You burned your food, and you have to eat!”

“Did you wake him up?” his father said to his mother.

“No, another NPC must have woken the sleeper,” his mother said. “Damn computer.”

“That's why I hate this level. Too many civilians to protect,” said his father.

Darren tried again. “Did you hear me? Your food is burned.”

“There'll be rations at the next checkpoint,” his father said.

And so Darren gave up. Only once their mission was complete, and they realized that virtual food could satisfy only virtual hunger, would they leave the game long enough to gorge themselves. Right now they would eat only if he cooked it and put it in front of them. And as much as he hated doing that, he knew he would, because the only thing worse than watching them play was watching them starve.

He wanted to scream, he wanted to cry, he wished he could just bawl his eyes out at what his life had become, but the tears just wouldn't come. How had their lives come to this? The change had been gradual and insidious, like the weeds that had strangled their yard. Suddenly, this was the new normal, and there was never a moment to cry. He figured someday he would, and it would feel good. It would make him feel better. He would cry himself to sleep and have dreams without the sounds of an apocalyptic war.

Darren shuffled back into the kitchen. He looked at the wall clock, which had fallen from the wall and was now a baseboard clock. Its plastic face was cracked, and the hour hand was stuck at five o'clock, although the minute hand still ticked around the dial, as if in denial that anything was wrong. It wasn't only the digital clocks in his home that had lost their sanity. He considered putting the broken clock back up on the wall, but then considered the rest of the mess and realized that any cleaning he could do would just be large quantities
of zero. Best not to demoralize himself by trying. So, ignoring the squalor, he found a pan that was only slightly crusty, scraped it off, and cooked some larvae-free mac and cheese for his parents.

Back in the living room he gave them each the first forkful. Only after tasting it did they respond by taking the bowls from him. Then they would eat it in between the major action.

Before becoming entirely immersed in
Mantra
, his parents had gotten him his own headset. For his birthday. That's what they called it—a birthday present, even though his birthday had been two months prior. He had opened the box. He had looked at it. He had thanked them.

“Now you can play with your friends,” his father had said—as if the only way to play with one's friends was in a virtual RPG.

They had seemed satisfied. But he had never put the headset on. Seeing a window into that world on the TV was more than enough. Why would anyone want to be immersed in a satanic alien zombie apocalypse?

“Aw crap! Holloway is down!” his father shouted, nearly dumping his bowl.

On the screen one of their teammates had been taken out by something unthinkably evil. Darren had no idea who Holloway was in real life—this online game was global. The players could be from down the street or halfway around the world.

“Damn good player,” his mother lamented. “Gonna miss him.”

“Maybe he'll find us in his next iteration.”

Then on the TV, red eyed rats flooded from a sewer and chowed down on Holloway like piranha until there was nothing left of him but bones, armor, and weapons.

“Waste not, want not,” his father said, and their characters scavenged Holloway's belongings. Such was the way of the game.

Darren was about to leave and fix his own dinner when he chanced to spot something in the corner of the screen. A girl. Pale blue shimmering hair. Almost silver. She was looking out of a broken window of what should have been an abandoned suburban home. The weird thing about it was that Darren could almost swear she was looking at him.

•  •  •

Darren went to school the next morning. Darren came home from school the next afternoon. Darren avoided his friends, because what would be the point? It would be too awkward. He had to take care of his parents. Keep them from starving, or setting the house on fire, or leaving the water on, flooding the house out. You can't have friends with those kinds of things on your mind.

“Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad,” he said each time he returned home. It was more like a joke than an actual greeting, because they never responded unless they were on their way back from a
bathroom run or had taken off their headsets for some other reason. Then they would look at him with bloodshot eyes and slur something like “OhHeyHowuzSchool.”

“Good” was always his response.

On the TV was a long city avenue of high-rise apartment buildings. A different landscape from yesterday. Some skyscrapers had toppled, others were leaning into one another. His parents had split off from their team, or the rest of the team had died. They now walked down the street precariously, because death and dismemberment could be around any corner.

And from distant places, civilians wailed for help, or just wailed.

“OH GOD, LET IT END!”

“PLEASE! PLEASE DON'T EAT MY BABY!”

All part of the ambience.

But then, as Darren watched the scene, he saw her again. The silver girl. How could she be in two different landscapes? This time she was peering out from behind a pillar. And she was beckoning to him. She wore a glistening gown that was tattered and shredded like everything else in that world.

“Mom, Dad—do you see that?”

“Keep your wits about you,” his father said to his mother. “We could be walking into an S.A.Z. ambush.”

“The girl—do you see her? There on the left with the silver-bluish hair.”

“Huh? What? Just an NPC. Stop distracting me.”

But still she beckoned. So Darren did something he had never dared to do before. He put on his headset and turned it on.

The effect was instantaneous. The retinal projector erased all visual cues from the outside world. He was immersed in the dark, fiery, terrifying world of
Mantra of Madness
. He felt dizzy and nauseated. He wanted out—but he fought the feeling. When he turned, he saw his parents. He had seen their avatars before, but had never really paid attention. Now, in three dimensions, they were impressive. They looked like his parents, and yet not. His mother had larger breasts, a slimmer waist, and her hair, which had gotten tatty and mousy, now bounced like a model's. His father looked like a steroid injected bodybuilder version of himself.

“Well, look who finally decided to join the party!” his father said proudly. “About time you checked out the character we made for you! I've been leveling him up for when you were finally ready to play.”

“Stay behind us,” his mother told him. “This place can be dangerous. We'll protect you.”

It was the first time they had actually noticed him for weeks.

He looked around. The girl was still there. She had moved to a different pillar farther away, but she was still beckoning to him.

Darren willed himself forward. The game obeyed his mental commands.

“No!” his father shouted behind him. “Don't go after that! You can't get points for killing that!”

But Darren ignored him.

“If we have to come rescue you, I'll be really pissed off!” his mother said.

He rounded the corner to see the torn fringes of her gown slipping into a dark doorway. He followed. The doorway opened on a set of emergency stairs that led up and up and up, until finally he emerged on the top floor of a skyscraper. The view was startling. All around him a city was on fire. Non-player characters were hurling themselves from rooftops to keep from being torn apart by satanic alien zombies.

The girl stood at the edge, but there were no creatures on this roof, and she didn't look like she was jumping. She smiled at him.

“You came. I knew you would come.”

“Who are you?”

“That doesn't matter. What matters is that you're finally here.” She moved closer. He reached out to touch her face. Even though he knew she was just a projection on his retina, he could swear he could feel her skin. So soft, so warm.

“This is a horrible place,” she said, a tear dripping down her cheek. “You can see that, can't you?”

“Yes. . . .”

“That's why I need you to save me.”

Darren laughed. He was amazed they put this amount of programming into an NPC. Unless of course she was the kind of NPC around whom the plot turned. Not just an extra but a principal in the story. How ironic if he came across a key element of the game that his parents had missed!

“Save you how?” he asked, ready to play along.

She didn't answer him right away. Instead, she leaned close and kissed him.

He knew it was virtual. He knew it couldn't be happening, but it didn't stop him from reacting as if it were real. And he wanted more.

“I'll tell you a secret,” she whispered in his ear, and he could feel her breath as she did. “Your mind wants to tell you that this is pretend . . . but you don't have to listen. And when you stop listening . . . that's when it really gets fun.”

And what she did to him next . . . He knew it wasn't happening anywhere else but in his head, but that didn't matter. Because it was far more real than anything that had ever happened to him in his life.

•  •  •

He was hooked—but in a very different way from his parents. Day after day he would enter the game, leave his parents to fight monsters, and run off to find the silver girl. He would even kill monsters himself if he had to—but only to protect her. He had to admit, though, that the most satisfying thing
was killing off other player characters. They would see him there, in his armor and with his laser cannon. They would think he was an ally, but then he would turn on them with a blast to the head. He would watch their digital brains explode and splatter the scenery. Their avatars would go down, and the rats would come. He wouldn't even take their belongings. He wasn't there to scavenge. His victory was in their fall. It could have gone on like that if the silver girl—whose name he still did not know—hadn't stopped it.

“They come back,” she told him. “You can kill them, but they always come back. And every time they do, the game creates a hundred new monsters to kill those of us who can't get out.”

Then, around a smoky corner of Armageddon, two players came. Darren recognized them right away.

“What the hell are you doing?” his father shouted at him. “Are you still wasting time with that NPC?”

“So what?” said his mother. “He's not in the way, and he's enjoying the game. Leave him alone.”

“He's not playing right!” said his father.

But his father's attention turned to a gaggle of decomposing attackers. His parents began firing on them, shouting orders to each other—and just like the silver girl said, more kept coming and coming.

“You see how it is?” she said.

When Darren looked at her again, her eyes were now as bright silver-blue as her hair. There was an intensity in her that
he could only guess at. He wanted some of that intensity for himself. He craved it. He'd do anything for it.

“Save me,” she said, as she had on the first day. “You know what you have to do.”

Yes, he did know.

When he removed the headset, it took a few moments to adjust to the “real” world. His parents were sitting there, immersed in their battle. He was almost startled to see how scrawny and malnourished they were. Without him feeding them, had they eaten at all?

He found what he was looking for in the kitchen and returned to the living room. He began with his father, figuring he might put up the biggest fight. But he didn't even gasp as the carving knife slipped between his ribs and into his heart. Neither of them saw it coming. How could they, when they were more interested in the zombie attack?

A minute later the zombies killed his parents' unmanned avatars, and they were being devoured by rats. But at least these players would not be returning to the game.

Darren reached for his headset, ready to return to the girl, but her voice called out from the TV. “No!”