Dead Man Gaming

  DEAD MAN GAMING

  A LitRPG Series

  A.J. Markam

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  1

  I sat there in the cold and rain, hunched over a freshly dead body, my bloody knives making a squick sound as I pulled them out of the corpse.

  No, I’m not a serial killer. Hell, I’m not even a killer killer.

  Yeah, I know I just offed a guy – but did I mention that I’m dead, too?

  It’s not what it sounds like. I was inside a videogame – a videogame where everything seemed real, because all the images and sounds and smells were beamed directly into your head. A world of dragons, magic, monsters, and undead mofos like me.

  I never wanted to play this damn thing. I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want to be a dead guy, with the profession of a Rogue and thief, and I certainly didn’t want to be squatting over this dead dude in a dark forest in the middle of the night wondering if I should eat him to replenish my hit points.

  I can’t even believe I just said that. ‘Wondering if I should eat him.’

  How the hell did I get into this? I asked myself for the millionth time.

  But I knew the answer to that question immediately:

  I got framed to play the game.

  That, and I’ve got the absolute worst luck in the world.

  In the span of an hour, I went from a dead man walking…

  …to dead man gaming.

  2

  I can’t exactly say I was totally innocent. If I hadn’t done a lot of stupid stuff in my life, there would’ve been no way for them to frame me in the first place.

  I had a rough childhood. That’s no excuse, I know – but it’s a fact. My dad died from a heart attack when I was 13 years old. Basically left the family deep in debt, and me angry, alone, and scared.

  My older brother Danny shouldered the heaviest load for the family. He quit college at 19 and took over the family auto shop so he could support me, my mom, and my grandma. He never lets me forget it, either.

  Me? I turned down a darker road. I started hanging out with the wrong people, drinking, skipping school – all your regular juvenile delinquent style stuff. By 14 years old, I was boosting cars and selling them to chop shops.

  I was 17 the first time they arrested me. You want to know how bad my luck was? The gas gauge on the brand-new Corvette I stole was broken. I thought it had a tank full of gas, but it sputtered to a halt after ten miles.

  Guess who immediately pulled up to help me out when I coasted to a stop on the freeway?

  The cops. They were about ten cars back, saw the car slow down, and pulled over to help.

  First thing they did, naturally, was radio in the plates.

  The owner had literally just reported it stolen 30 seconds before.

  If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.

  I spent a year in juvenile detention, but under a new state law, the crime went down on my permanent adult record.

  One bad thing about prisons is that it’s really a training ground for future criminals, for you to expand your list of talents. I went into juvie a scared, stupid kid. I came out with about ten times more criminal contacts than I had going in.

  When I got out, a friend from inside hooked me up with his cousin Rod, who was a burglar. Rod became my best friend and mentor. He hooked me up with some people to teach me safecracking. That was my thing – I had a knack for it, a feel for the dials, a talent for picking locks. I was one of the best in the local scene.

  I did that for three years, and then my luck caught up with me again: I got caught a second time. I got stupid and took a job with a crew Rod didn’t know. Turns out there was an undercover cop on the team.

  This time, though, there wasn’t any juvenile detention. It was straight to prison for six long years.

  One thing about me is that I’m a pretty easy-going guy. I’m not out to prove I’m a badass, cuz I’m not. There’s a reason I crack safes and not skulls.

  Overall, I’m pretty happy-go-lucky. I’m also good at talking my way out of shit. Which became crucial to surviving prison and keeping my anal virginity intact, if you know what I mean.

  I watched dozens, maybe hundreds of new guys come through and get turned into prison bitches. I watched dozens of other new guys come in, fight, and then get shivved and put in the infirmary. If you didn’t have somebody looking out for you, you were basically just fresh meat for the dogs.

  Luckily I didn’t have that many problems. I had Rod on the outside paying off people here and there to keep me safe for the first year. The remaining five years was all me, though, and I was able to walk a tightrope between the gangs – which, let me tell you, was no easy feat.

  There are a dozen different gangs in prison, and trying to avoid getting on their bad sides was a fulltime job. MS13, the Crips, the Bloods, the neo-Nazis, the Asian gangs…

  But the worst of all were the Russians. They were the most violent, and the smartest. They were the ones everybody else was afraid of. Weren’t that many of them – I mean, we were in California after all, not Russia – but everybody left them alone. Even MS13 was scared of them.

  I had an ace up my sleeve, though: I knew Russian from my grandmother, who came here from the old country after my dad immigrated to the US and started the family auto business. She moved in with my Mom and Dad when I was little and helped out with my brother and me.

  I don’t speak Russian, exactly, but I understand it because I heard it every day of my life growing up. And because I knew Russian, I overheard stuff. I knew when shit was going down when nobody else did – and I got the hell out of the way. That’s how I got out with my skin intact.

  During the six years I served, I made a decision: once I got out of prison, I was never going back. I hated it. It was hell on earth. Smelled like a sewer, there was screaming all the time, the worst food you can imagine, with some of the meanest assholes in the world cooped up in one place.

  And so I did what I should have done when I was 17: I vowed I would stay on the straight and narrow and never do another illegal thing my entire life, ever.

  So when I got out, a newly minted free man, I swore I would never break the law again. No way, no how. I was going to be a straight-A student, a choirboy, a model citizen.

  That lasted about 24 hours.

  But it wasn’t my fault.

  Well, okay, yeah, it was my fault – but I did it with the best of intentions. Swear to God, hand on a Bible, that’s the honest truth.

  3

  Rod picked me up from prison the day I got out. My brother and mom had to work at the auto shop. I didn’t mind; to be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to looking either of them in the eye, so it was cool Rod was the one to come get me.

  He was waiting for me in the parking lot when I got past the prison’s sliding metal gates.

  “Jimmy!” he yelled, a huge smile on his face.

  “Hot Rod!” I yelled back and laughed as he gave me a bear hug.

  He pulled back and grinned. “You look good, man, you look good. Didn’t bend over to pick up the soap, did you?”

  “No, but I heard a lot of stories about how many times you did when you were in prison.”

  He laughed as he pantomimed punching me in the jaw. “Same ol’ Jimmy.”

  We got in his truck and he drove us out of the prison parking lot.

  Rod seemed a little nervous. I chalked it up to being uncomfortable that I’d been in prison, and he’d been on the outside. Feeling bad that he was the one who’d been free.

  I didn’t see it that way at all, and I wanted him to know it.

  “Thanks for looking out for me when I was on the inside, Rod,” I said.


  “I’m sorry I could only pay ‘em off for the first few months, man. I would’ve done more, but times got tight.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I appreciate what you did.”

  He smiled tightly and stared at the road. “I appreciate you not saying anything about me to the cops.”

  “I would never do that, Rob. You know that. I’d never rat out a friend.”

  “I know,” he said quietly, and his nervousness got a little more pronounced. “I just… you could’ve caused a whole lot of people a whole lot of trouble to make life a lot easier for you on the inside. Hell, you probably could’ve gotten out of going to jail completely. But you didn’t… and I want you to know I appreciate that.”

  “It was nothing.”

  “No, that’s not true. It was a hell of a lot. Most people would have snitched. But you didn’t, and I want you to know, anything you need, I got your back.”

  “Thanks,” I said gratefully.

  “I’m glad you’re out, my brother,” he grinned, then shook his head ruefully. “Can’t believe you won’t let me throw a proper party for you, though.”

  “Unh-unh. Me and the fast lane are done.”

  In the last few months I’d made it 100% clear that I had no interest whatsoever in returning to my old life. In fact, I’d insisted my homecoming party be so clean a church lady could attend. No drugs, no gangster shit, nothing illegal whatsoever. Rod had agreed, though I knew what he really wanted was to take me out on a three-day bender in Tijuana.

  “Nobody said you had to become a Sunday school teacher though,” Rod griped.

  “I’m not a Sunday school teacher. There’s gonna be beer and booze at the party, right?”

  “You’re family’s Russian, dude,” he smirked. “You can bet your ass there’s gonna be vodka at the very least.”

  “Half Russian. My mom’s a SoCal girl born and raised, you know that.”

  “Speakin’ of SoCal girls, at least let me hook you up with some chicks,” he pleaded. “There’s this fine-ass bitch I been talkin’ you up to – ”

  “Not tonight. Maybe in a couple of days.”

  He sighed. “I’ve heard about it, but I never believed it till now.”

  “What?”

  “They say once some guys are inside too long, they start to go gay.”

  I laughed and punched him in the arm. “Shut the hell up!”

  He grinned. “You sure I can’t take you somewhere and hook you up with a couple of strippers?”

  “As good as that sounds, I’m just looking forward to seeing my family. They’re all that matters right now.”

  “I know what you mean,” he said quietly as we drove on down the highway.

  4

  The party was a mixed bag. It was great to be home, a cold beer in one hand and a paper plate of homemade cake in the other. But I got to admit, it was a little strange.

  My brother Daniel had never forgiven me for going to prison in the first place. When Dad died, Danny’d had to sign away all his dreams for the future so he could support the family – and then I went and screwed up my entire life, not to mention bringing down shame on the family name.

  So, yeah, Danny wasn’t exactly a barrel full of monkeys.

  He gave me a hug, though, and told me, “I’m glad you’re home.”

  My sister-in-law, bless her, was wonderful to me – and it was amazing seeing my niece and nephew for the first time. Five years old and two, born while I was still inside. I’d only seen them in pictures before.

  Just holding them made me realize how much of my life I’d wasted.

  My mom was a sweetheart. Fixed all my favorite foods, fussed over me the entire time, showed me how she kept my bedroom exactly the same as when I got sent away. She didn’t mention a thing about prison. I knew I’d broken her heart, and I didn’t want to break it anymore, so we just left the elephant in the room alone.

  All my old friends were there – minus the lawbreakers, of course. Kids I’d gone to school with before I shipped off for juvenile detention. To be honest, I was surprised they’d been able to round up that many people who liked me and didn’t have criminal records.

  There was one person I was expecting to be there who wasn’t: Rod’s little brother Leo. Leo was the baby of the family, nine years younger than Rod. He’d idolized us growing up, always wanted to be an outlaw like his older brother.

  I hoped to God he’d wised up.

  “Where’s Leo?” I asked, dreading that I was going to hear he was in jail.

  “Flu,” Rod said. “He told me to tell you ‘welcome home,’ but he didn’t want to get everybody else sick.”

  Rod was the only guy in the house who had ties to my criminal past. And he was obviously uncomfortable. My brother wouldn’t shake hands with him, look at him, nothin’.

  My mom was polite to him but that was about it.

  My grandmother actually spit on the ground when she saw Rod.

  Ah, Baba. Dad’s mom. She’s basically one of those stereotypical old Russian babushkas you see with a handkerchief on her head. Tough as nails, like all Russian women, but she always had a soft spot for me. She always hugged me, never spanked me. Slipped me candy when I was a kid, money when I was a good-for-nothing teenager, and cried when I went off to prison – both times.

  “You’ll be a good boy?” she asked me in Russian as she held my face in her hands. Her eyes were wet with tears. “You promise me you’ll stay out of trouble?”

  It killed me that I’d caused the people I’d loved so much pain and shame. Again, I swore I’d never do another illegal thing in my entire life.

  “Da, Baba, da,” I said in Russian. “Obeschayu.”

  Yes, Granma, yes. I promise.

  And I meant it.

  5

  They gave me a present – a brand-new cell phone with everybody’s numbers programmed into it. Mom’s, Danny’s, and the house phone. Shit, I couldn’t believe the technology in these things – imagine going to sleep Rip Van Winkle-style, and waking up six years from now. That’s the difference between what I’d had before I got out of prison and what I was looking at now.

  “Thanks, Mom,” I said, and hugged her and Baba. Danny just shook my hand and smiled grimly.

  It was about two hours into the party when Rod pulled me aside. He seemed even more nervous than when he’d picked me up at prison.

  “Yo, Jimmy… can we talk for a second?”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Just… let’s go someplace private.”

  We went out to the garage, between my mom’s beat-up old Honda and the mounds of junk that always accumulate in a garage when you have spare space.

  “What’s up?” I asked, a little unnerved. Rod didn’t get nervous like this – not ever.

  “I…” Rod said, his face anguished. “I need to ask you a favor.”

  Okay, that was a whole lot of drama over nothing.

  “Anything. Name it.”

  “This isn’t some little favor, man. It’s a big one.”

  “Dude, you’re more of a brother to me than my real brother. I’d do anything for you. What’s up?”

  “Leo’s not sick. There’s another reason he didn’t come to the party tonight.”

  I waited for the explanation, my heart dropping down into my stomach.

  “He, uh… the truth is, Leo got mixed up with some really bad people. Like, really bad. Started gambling, and now he’s 100 grand in to them. These are not the kind of people who let you skate on a debt, Jimmy. If he doesn’t come up with the money in a week, they’re gonna kill him.”

  I stared at him in horror. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

  “No. Unfortunately, I am not.”

  “Are you going to get him out of town?”

  Rod exhaled shakily as he stared at the ground. “They’d still find him. And if they don’t… they’ll kill me instead.”

  I stood there, unable to speak.

  My entire world had been turned upside down.<
br />
  When I finally found my tongue I said, “Dude, you know I don’t have anything, but I’ll ask Danny if he can scrape up some money, get a second mortgage on the auto shop. Maybe my Mom can – ”

  “That’s not what I’m asking you for, Jimmy.”

  I got an ice-cold feeling in the pit of my stomach. “What exactly are you asking me for, then?”

  “I need you to pull a job with me.”

  That’s what I’d been afraid he was going to say.

  I shook my head. “Rod – ”

  “It’s an easy gig, Jimmy, swear to God,” he pleaded. “I got guy on the inside. It’s a Browning with 300 grand sitting inside it, guaranteed.”

  A Browning was a brand of safe. Good, but not top of the line.

  I was an expert at cracking Brownings.

  “No.” It felt like a dagger through my heart to say it. “I’ll do anything I can to help you and Leo… except that.”

  “Jimmy, if you do this, I’ll give you the other 200 grand – you’ll be set up for years – ”

  “No. I’m sorry, but… no.”

  Rod started to tremble. He was on the edge of tears. “If you don’t do it, they’re going to kill my brother, Jimmy. Or me. I am begging you, man. Please. One more job. I just need somebody who I know has my back and I can trust. It’ll be an easy gig, and then you’re out for good. I swear to God, I’ll never ask you for another thing my entire life.”

  I winced.

  I hated this.

  I could feel all the promises I’d made to myself starting to slip away.

  “Rod…”

  “I hate to do this to you, and on the night you get home… but I got no choice. I got nowhere else to go.”

  I sank down on the hood of my mom’s car and buried my head in my hands.

  “Jimmy – ”

  “Just shut up and let me think.”

  Rod went silent, and I started to list the pros and cons in my head.