Bugging Out

"I should get going," Anus Mic Guyver shrugged. "I can't waste any time, or Randy might turn and attack you."

"Very funny," she tiredly quipped. "Don't die out there."

She sat down at the table in the kitchen as Anus snuck over to the screen door.

I stayed in limbo no matter how much I struggled. What freakish parameters restricted me? How did this world expect me to respond? Was I actually bugged so hard, I couldn't do anything except wait and die? My heart thumped faster and faster.

Then, I realized I should've responded.

"Bye."

Like I slid out of a trash compactor, I slunk to the hardwood floor. I felt humiliated and so stupid.

Groans escaped my lips from the tremendous mental exertion I went through. When I recovered, I managed to see Anus close the door behind himself. By the time I stood up, he was gone.

'Rat bastard,' I furiously thought. 'I should be controlling you, not the other way around. Mark my words, I will escape your control.'

With this newfound spare time, I asked Randy, "Why's Anus's name pronounced "Ah-nus" instead of "A-nus?" And why's "Mic" pronounced "Mike" instead of "Mick?" Oh yeah, you probably think I'm weird since you don't know how his name is spelled. It's…"

I froze mid-sentence. Randy blankly stared into the air, like time froze.

"Hey," I said, waving my hand in her face. "You there?"

She gave no response.

Terrified, I followed after Anus. I spotted him crouched outside the screen door. He wasn't moving and parts of him frizzled like static. A thick cloud spilled out from his ears, stretching and distorting in black and white before completely vanishing high in the sky.

His body locked up stock still, as did the rampant zombies in the streets. It was like…

"Time stopped? Is it because he crashed or something?" I lifted my hunter cap and ran my hand through my hair. "There's someone playing my custom character and I don't know how he shunted me into this body for him to play with. He must have some way of interacting with the game options. This world is so incorporating, it's nearly indistinguishable from real life..."

I opened the door and took a step out when the first zombie I spotted started twitching. Frightened, I pulled my leg back in and it froze once more.

"What in the…"

I tried a foot and a toe for the same response.

"Goddamn it… Must be some kind of reactive trigger caused by my ability to still move while the game shouldn't be processing."

Unable to search Anus, I backed away from the door and walked past Randy. It made no sense to fret about something I couldn't change. If I couldn't control things externally, I should have done it internally with the body I received.

I pulled down the long pole holding up the curtains on the window above the sink. I left the curtains on the sink and put the long pole atop it. I pulled my knife from my holster when I realized the string tying it in place had slipped off onto the floor.

"Weird… It must be because I'm so bugged out that the system wants to reject my input. Or… I really suck at tying things..."

I picked it up and thought of tying it with the butcher knife to the pole when I realized how incomprehensibly dumb it was to make a spear with a chopping instrument instead of something with more of a point.

I set aside the butcher knife on the counter and put my gun back into the fast draw holster. From my backpack, I brought out the paring knife. I wrapped the long string around the handle of the knife and the end of the long pole. I finished it off with a few knots along the handle, though I thought it could slip off, considering my lack of experience.

"What a damn joke. I'm going to die at this rate. No, at this rate, I'll get scrubbed from this world if he resets this world. Goddamn it. Goddamn it."

Too much. It was too much. I sat down and collected myself.

"You can do this. You can do this. You don't need a computer or a comfy chair. You don't need electricity. You don't need Door Pass to deliver food. You don't need clean running water, and you sure as Hell don't need coddling."

Hyping myself up, I rubbed my face and stood up. With a simple knife spear in my hands, I walked into the next room. It looked like the dining room, with three basic chairs on each side of a long table. It wouldn't surprise me if the owner of the house made it themself.

I glanced around and saw to my right some bushes and trees outside two of the three windows with their curtains open. In front of me, I saw a long couch against the wall, with two windows with their curtains open and another closed. Light shining through the window made it hard to make out the house some distance away. A side table sat next to the couch, with another long couch perpendicular to the former.

This probably was the living room, which stretched a little more to my left to include a desk and chair against the far wall, and shelves faced them along the wall closer to me.

There was a dead potted plant in the corner, forgotten during the Cataclysm, and an open door next to it had a shower and sink vaguely visible in the darkness.

On my left, I saw a long table along the bathroom wall, with two doors at the far end. The left one was open, with a chair and desk at the far wall, and a dresser on the left side of the door.

Being daytime, the Sun provided warm light on my skin. I could see a road and houses outside that room's window. There weren't too many zombies, so I breathed a sigh of relief. Then, they started moving again.

"Damn it," I muttered. "Is it too much to ask for more time?"

I ignored the bottle of soy sauce, jar of peanut butter, butter knife, and drinking glass on the dining room table and proceeded to the living room.

There, I found a radio on a rack, though I discovered it had no batteries. I put it in my bag, and discovered nothing else, even with all the furniture and coat rack in the corner on my right.

I checked the dimly lit bathroom. A few flicks of the lightswitch confirmed the house had no power, so I made do in searching more carefully. No medicinal items resided anywhere, so this place was a bust. Little wonder why Anus left.

I grabbed three soap bars, a toilet paper roll, some floss, and a toothbrush still in its packaging. I usually would've grabbed everything and dump it in a pile to craft a bunch of items, but I didn't have access to the options in the menu. Manually crafting from piles of items stayed far out of my league at the moment.

So far, I had basic cooking gear, strings, and hygiene products. If I got some usable batteries for my flashlight, I could explore quicker and safer.

"These flip flops are garbage. There should be something better for my feet in this house."

I left the bathroom and crouched down. If the zombies couldn't see me, I could raid the rooms and get on a roll.

A sudden slam resounded from my left. I stopped and readied my spear. Anus turned the corner and straightened up when he spotted the paring knife in his face.

"Hey, they're coming!" he warned.

"Goddamn it. You piece of…"

A smash echoed behind him while glass tinked on the floor and low growls followed.

"You can keep me safe, right?" he nonchalantly asked. "We're friends, aren't we?"

"What numbskull would do that? I'm not risking my life for you!"

I backed up and prepared to swipe at any grabby hands coming my way. Anus just shrugged and glanced around the corner.

A pulsing, pale arm grabbed at his trenchcoat. As he backpedaled, the zombie swiped his arm.

"Come at me!" Anus declared.

I realized he lost his crossbow, so he had to pull his machete from his scabbard. He chopped at the offending arm which left a deep cut that oozed blackened blood.

The owner of said arm came over, being a rather tall and muscular zombie. It looked tough to beat.

Behind me, I heard a bang of another door. Randy stumbled into the living room and hauled her weakened body away from a zombie with a tattered mail carrier hat.

It roared through its gnashed ski mask from the window on the left and smashed head first onto the counter. The remaining glass in the window cut into its skin and caused blood to slather along the jagged points.

I took my chance to smash its head with the butt of my simple knife spear. It wildly grabbed with its bloody hands, but I kept my distance and smashed it over and over again.

Its growls turned to gurgling and it finally stopped moving. I gagged once a gust of wind pushed the metallic smell of old blood and rot into my nose. Only then did I notice how faint the scent in the house was.

Another zombie crawled on top of the body, its brightly colored Kippah striking with the shreds of its sable coat. It tried pulling its way in, but accidentally began yanking out the body.

I brought my simple knife spear back and stabbed at its eyes. I missed the first three strikes, but I judged the proper distance on my fourth thrust. It jammed into its veiny right eye, spraying some black goop onto the spear.

Although the zombie got pushed back by the force of the blow, it grabbed my spear. It took me a couple yanks to disengage.

"Gah, fuc—AHHH!"

I heard Anus scream behind me, to my right. The sound of glass breaking followed soon after.

I thrust once more, jamming through the bone, and twisted my simple knife spear in the zombie's head. After a few hard shakes to retrieve my spear, it shuddered and collapsed. The weight of itself and the amount of pulling on the first body brought both to fall backwards.

A third zombie bashed in through the window on my right. As it fumbled to get in past the sink, I jammed my simple knife spear in its left eye. The string snapped as I shook the long pole and the knife remained embedded in its face. Its neck creaked and its long knit scarf fell. Deep bites decorated its throat, though it kept coming in even in its fragile state.

It fell forward and bumped its head on the sink and then the floor. A splattering of blackened blood covered both, and the zombie struggled in its damaged evening gown, stockings, and leather sandals. I smashed its skull in like the first zombie. Its growling faded and a pool of detritus and blackened blood replaced what once was its head.

"Die!" I heard from behind me.

I composed myself and cautiously went back to the dining room. Randy slumped on the couch away from the window.

Anus chopped the last zombie's chest and left no visible damage to its hazmat suit. Still, the zombie promptly keeled over as black goop spattered out of its face.

"Whew, that was a tough fight. Gah, it hurts so much!"

Anus's right and left sleeves of his trenchcoat had tears halfway removing them. Claw marks seeped small amounts of blood, but a very obvious bite on his right arm should be to blame for his agony.

'What kind of bogus game logic is he running off of,' I thought. 'Actually, does it matter where I hit a zombie?'

Anus swung his machete over the zombie corpses. Within seconds, each body got diced up into an unrecognizable mess, with their clothing and items separate.

'The power of the player… Damn main characters,' I mentally complained.

He left the room to finish pulping the bodies so they wouldn't come back from the dead once more. In the meantime, I checked up on Randy.

"Are you alright?" I asked, to no response. "You have a first aid kit right there. Shouldn't you have something in there to help?"

Randy remained motionless. After a few more tries, I confirmed that I could not properly interact with other NPCs. I didn't have a proper command prompt or even recognition until Anus got involved. Being a bugged piece of garbage got on my nerves.

So, I decided I might as well check the loot. After all, finders keepers, right?