Stu wasn't sure how many experience points he had acquired by killing the two zombies -- the system didn't give him that information. Although it seemed to follow video game tropes generally, with its stats and skill points and so on, the ICON system was also rather rudimentary in some ways; for instance, there was no gauge or set of numbers telling him how long it would take him to reach the next level. This was annoying. Was it even worth killing small-fry zombies like the Level 2 and Level 3 he had just wrecked with his new baseball bat? He had no way of knowing.

  He wondered who had designed this stupid system. If it had been a part of a real video game, he definitely would have given it a bad review.

  Their progress remained slow. Lucky, who was still limping along on his bruised ankle, suggested that they leave him behind, but Luna wouldn't hear of it. "I'm not going to leave you alone out here, you little brat," she said. "This whole neighborhood rots."

  "I can take care of myself."

  "Yeah, sure."

  "I'm not the one who got caught by the Wild Pack," he reminded her.

  "No," she returned. "You went chasing after the Brute instead. Nearly got yourself killed."

  Stu rolled his eyes. The two of them were a lot alike -- both were stubborn, argumentative, unwilling to back down. On the other hand, they really did seem to care for each other. Stu, who had no siblings, found their arguing kind of charming.

  It took most of the day, but they eventually arrived at the outskirts of the Dealership. Stu was not surprised to find that the Dealership had been built over an actual dealership, a car dealership, which (according to the giant sign over the highway) sold Telluride gliders and Spectra motorcycles, among other things. The dealership's big office building was surrounded by a shantytown of tents and ramshackle wooden buildings, spread out over the pavement of the parking lot, and which was surrounded in turn by a thick wall of crushed automobiles, which stood at least twenty feet high. These were impressive fortifications; Stu wondered how they had managed to stack all these vehicles up. There must have been hundreds of them.

  The only way into the Dealership was through a gap between the cars, and this was protected by a heavy-looking iron gate, which swung on its hinges. The gate was wide open at the moment, however, which Stu suspected was a bad sign.

  Indeed, as they drew closer, it became clear that there was something amiss here; there were shouts and screams coming from within the settlement. This was followed by gunfire.

  Were they too late? Stu, still clutching his Excalibur baseball bat, glanced at Luna, who merely shook her head and muttered, "Shit."

  "What do we do?" Lucky asked worriedly.

  "What can we do? They're already under attack."

  "We can still warn the Pale Riders, in Beggar's Town."

  "They're probably already on their way. Don't forget, Madhouse set this whole thing up. He wants the Pale Riders to show up. He wants to kill as many as he can, with this Living Hell mutate."

  "There has to be something we can do," Stu said. The fate of the Dealership was not really a serious concern of his, but he didn't want to see innocent people get killed, either, and he needed the Pale Riders to help him get to Lon Halos. If Madhouse succeeded in ambushing and killing them...

  They began to hear a low rumbling in the distance, coming from the north. "The Riders," Lucky said. "You're right. They're on their way."

  "We might be able to stop Madhouse from releasing the Living Hell, at least," Stu said. "Nail said he had it locked it up in some kind of cage, right?"

  "That's not a bad idea," Luna said. "But where's the cage? Could he have already smuggled it into the Dealership?"

  They heard more screams...and then, suddenly, a monstrous, echoing roar, which sounded like a cross between a lion and a croaking reptile. It had come from inside the Dealership. "I think that's the way to bet," Stu said. He pulled his Midnighter out of his belt and handed it to Luna, who didn't have a weapon. "There's only a few rounds in there," he told her. "Make 'em count."

  "What about you?"

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  He held up the bat. "I have this."

  She looked at him in disbelief. "You're crazy." But she accepted the gun from him anyway.

  Lucky already had his railgun out. "Ready when you are," he said.

  He nodded at both of them. They nodded back, and together, the three of them headed for the Dealership, jogging through the open gate -- which, Stu now saw, had been broken open, probably by some big vehicle ramming into it. The situation became apparent to them almost immediately: the Wild Pack were running rampant through the settlement, kicking down the buildings, tearing up the tents, chasing after women, and brutalizing anyone who got in their way. The path of the vehicle which had broken through the gate was obvious; it had left a trail of destruction in its wake.

  Their first priority was finding out where the Living Hell was being kept -- and from the path of the vehicle, and the sound of the roar they had heard earlier, it was probably on the other side of the dealership's big office building. But Stu couldn't ignore the scenes of chaos unfolding right in front of him. One of the Wild Pack gangsters, not twenty feet away, had just slammed the butt of his rifle into the face of an old man, causing him to fall backwards and spit blood; infuriated, Stu called upon his Speed Freak-speed to race up to the unsuspecting bully and strike him with the baseball bat. He was careful not to use his full strength this time, but the blow was enough to knock the man down, sending him flying into one of the tents.

  The old man looked up at him. "T-Thank you," he stuttered.

  "Don't mention it," he said, and with Lucky laying down a bit of covering fire, the three of them raced on, wending their way through the settlement, doing what they could to stop the Wild Pack's predations as they headed for the other side of the dealership. Lucky shot one man in the leg, to keep him from assaulting a young woman, while Stu used his bat to batter anyone who stood in their way. As they were turning the corner around the building, they suddenly found themselves face-to-face with a shotgun-wielding man, dressed in blood-stained leather armor. He was grinning maniacally, and he had his finger on the trigger.

  Once again, Stu called upon his speed, tensing his muscles, which caused the world to slow down around him. Dropping the bat so as to have both hands free, he slipped to one side, took two quick steps, and seized the barrel of the man's shotgun, aiming it upward just as he fired, which caused the slug to sail harmlessly over their heads. Using his strength, he proceeded to rip the gun out of the man's hands and whirl it around, slamming the stock into his face and knocking him out almost instantly.

  He slung the shotgun over his shoulder and retrieved his bat. Luna and Lucky were staring at him again. "He had us dead to rights," Lucky said, amazed. "How the hell did you do that? How did you move like that?"

  "I'll explain later," he said. He really was going to have to explain it to them at some point, he realized; he couldn't keep brushing them off forever. They had already seen him do a number of incredible things, and the more skills he acquired, and the stronger he got, the more questions they were likely to have.

  They started moving again, but Luna, who had been bringing up the rear, suddenly skidded to a halt. "That's my glider!" she shouted, pointing.

  Stu saw it as well; the sleek convertible was parked about forty feet away. A much bigger vehicle, however, sat just beyond it -- a semi truck hauling a big red shipping container. The truck was a monstrous thing; it had been painted black, graffitied over, and decorated with skulls and crossbones. Some kind of battering ram had been attached to the grill.

  "That truck," Luna hissed. "That's the Death's Head."

  "The Death's Head?"

  "It belongs to the RNT's. Bastards. They're all in it together."

  They heard another roar, coming from the vicinity of the truck. "They're keeping it in that shipping container," Lucky said, his eyes wide. "The Living Hell."

  And that was when they spotted Madhouse, coming out of the dealership building and barking orders at his followers. "The Riders are at the gate!" he shouted at a pair of men stationed at the back of the truck. "It's now or never! Blow the locks, and get the hell out of the way!"

  The men complied, each one of them pulling down on a lever, which caused the back of the shipping container to fall open. This done, both men immediately ran off, as fast as their legs could carry them. In fact most of the Wild Pack gangsters seemed to be retreating from the Dealership now; they had no desire to stick around and watch the Living Hell annihilate the Pale Riders. Madhouse himself was heading for Luna's glider.

  "Don't even think about it!" she screamed at the man. She raised Stu's Midnighter and fired three quick rounds, before Stu could even think to stop her; unfortunately the bullets went high, and Madhouse, suddenly alerted, was able to take cover behind a stack of cinder blocks. And some of his men returned fire, forcing Stu, Lucky, and Luna to find cover as well; the three of them were scattered. The situation was chaotic.

  But then the shooting stopped, because a titanic, reverberating roar had just issued forth from the shipping container. A single reptilian leg, ending in three white claws -- each of which was longer than Stu's arm -- emerged from the shadows, followed by a huge, alligator-like snout. The creature sniffed the air for a second, then exploded out of the container -- a gigantic beast, which looked something like an alligator and something like a dragon, with blazing red orbs for eyes and two decaying, stunted wings growing out of its back. Its body was covered in silvery scutes, which made it look like it was wearing armor, and it had two bull horns sticking out of its head. The monster was just as big as Nail had described it -- it was at least forty, and maybe even fifty feet long, from its nose to its tail. It was bigger than an elephant. The ground shook when it walked.

  It looked around, reared back on its hind legs, and roared again, even louder this time. The sound was incredible; the air itself seemed to split and tremble.

  Stu looked up at the designation the ICON system had given it, which was floating above its crocodilian head.

  Level 25 Mutate

  He stared at the words in disbelief. "Level 25? Holy shit."