Kevin McLaughlin

Chapter 31 - On Death Ground, Fight!

Alex led the way, the twenty-two people we’d rescued following close on his heels as we pushed south toward the center of the city, away from the coast and the oncoming horde of lobster-things.

I’d decided we needed a better name for them, but I couldn’t think of a good one. Eating lobster was never a big deal for me—I know, that’s like sacrilege for someone living in Boston, but I hadn’t been born there. I just went to school and settled there after. That’...

Chapter 30 - Here For Blood

Alex's plan involved sitting tight and waiting, so that we could get more information about our latest set of enemies. I was fine with that, provided we stepped in before anything truly awful happened to those captives. I didn't like the delay, but I had to admit he had a point. There was too much we didn't know about these new creatures. Gathering more intelligence was worth a short delay. Alex was a smart guy, and I was glad to have him by my side. He had been bright even before he g...

Chapter 29 - Clawful Evil

My hands and arms were sore, but Cliff the triceratops was worse off by a long shot. A few bits of fossilized bone had snapped off when I tossed him down against the pavement, and cracks spiderwebbed more than a few of his bones. The dino staggered back to his feet, almost looking dizzy. Once he had all four feet back underneath him he planted them like he was getting ready to charge again.

I shook my head. I wasn’t sure how much more of this either of us could take, but I was ...

Chapter 28 - Fifteen Impossible Things Before Breakfast

No shit, there I was, an undead triceratops bearing down on me, and all I could think about was ‘Jurassic World, eat your heart out!’ I mean, sure, those movies had awesome animatronic dinosaurs that looked super cool, and they mostly even had decent soundtracks.

What they didn’t have were actual undead dinos wandering around trying to stomp people into the pavement.

Cliff was headed straight for me, and while I was pretty tough to hurt, I lacked any sort of confidenc...

Chapter 27 - Cliff Banger

I’m not sure what I was expecting to find when we went outside, but it for sure wasn’t empty streets.

That’s what we saw, though.

The wind blew through the street, stirring up a few leaves and bits of trash, spinning into a small dust devil near the building across the road. Empty, dead cars were everywhere. What was missing were the people. Even on a slow weekend day, there were always people out and about on the streets of Boston, but not that day.

“Where is...

Chapter 26 - Tier Six

Sorry, folks! Thought this got uploaded last night, but it didn't. So, two chapters today to catch up! -Kevin

We reached my apartment without any issues. There’d been ten men down in the lobby, standing guard with a stack of improvised weapons. All of them looked more scared than anything else, but one of the guys who worked the front desk recognized me and let us in. We took the stairs to my apartment, which was still the same as I’d left it. I carried my ...

Chapter 25 - Greed Before Need

I gotta say, the applause felt really good. It was more than nice. It was like validation for all the shit I’d gone through since this whole mess started. Holy crap, was that really just earlier today that everything went to hell? It felt like it must have been weeks ago, so much had happened. So much had changed.

But there Alex and I were: we’d stepped up, stopped the threat, saved the lives of tons of people. Then, when the ants hauled Gary into their nest, we had ...

Chapter 24 - Into the Dark

The drop wasn’t far. It was a straight fall for about six feet or so, into a pile of sand. I slipped some, but my Agility boost kept me on my feet. Alex landed beside me a moment later, and I shot a hand out to his shoulder to steady him so he didn’t go down.

There were no ants immediately visible, but I knew that wouldn’t last. We needed to find Gary quickly or he was a goner. I pulled another of my precious chem lights from a pocket and handed it to Alex.

“Break t...

Chapter 23 - The Right Thing

We ran into a few more ants as we descended the steps past one floor after another. I stabbed each with my spear as we came across them, taking them out. Alex was two steps behind me, tapping each one in turn to collect the crystals. He had the right idea there. We were going to need as many of those stones as we could get our hands on. That much was obvious.

What felt more uncertain was where things were going. Was this the new normal? We were going to have weird monsters attack...

Chapter 22 - Midnight Raid

It was full dark by the time the fires burned down, and Tom said he didn’t want us to have to risk crossing the street to get to my apartment building. Personally, I thought he was trying to keep me around because he wanted to recruit me, but I was fine with staying near MGH for a little longer. Unlike my apartment, they had plenty of bottled water stockpiled, and even a fair bit of food, although Tom explained that was being strictly rationed.

He brought us to their cafeteria ...

Chapter 21 - Coals and Embers

The goblins were still building their fort. They spotted us; I felt sure of that. But they didn’t advance toward us, so I let them be, too. There was no sense borrowing trouble. I was confident there were more than enough dangers lurking in the growing shadows without seeking out trouble.

As the sun set, I was seeing more signs of monsters pretty much everywhere I looked. Strange bird-men flew over the river, landing on the top of the Museum of Science. Something that looked li...

Chapter 20 - Fading Daylight

We didn't chat much as we made our way back through the train tunnel. I didn't have much to say, and I guess Alex was keeping his thoughts to himself, too. Nothing attacked us, although I was vaguely aware of being watched from the shadows once or twice.

We passed right by the train. I barely even gave it a glance. There was too much loss and pain still wrapped up in that place.

By the time I got back to where I left the tarp, the stupid pill bugs had gotten their act toget...

Chapter 19 - Respect

The flames raced forward, eating away at the webs as they rushed up each strand and fiber. The webbing filled the entire stairway all the way to the ceiling, so for the most part the flames went up, lighting up the whole area as they blazed their way toward the ceiling area.

They hit something big on the wall, something that crackled and spat as it burned. It took me a moment to figure out what it was through the fire, but I figured it out quick enough. That was an egg s...

Good news about Accidental Necromancer!

Cool news on the publishing front! The ink is still drying on the contract, but I've signed a three-book publishing deal with Aethon Books for the "Accidental Necromancer" series!

If you don't know them yet (I figure you probably do, though), Aethon is an amazing publisher that does a great job with SF&F in general, and does a ton of work with LitRPG. I very much wanted their marketing acumen behind this series, so this is something of a feather in each of our caps.

They've as...

Chapter 18 - Dark and Crispy

Sure enough, long before I started seeing daylight, I was starting to see webs on the walls. At first there were just a few, a wisp of web t

Sure enough, long before I started seeing daylight, I was starting to see webs on the walls. At first there were just a few, a wisp of web tacked to a wall here and there. Soon enough I ran into my first fully-wrapped dead thing, though. It was a ratkin, near as I could tell, and it was completely sheathed in webbing, and very obviously dead...

Chapter 17 - The Rat King

There was something up on the platform. Something big, or bigger than the ratkin, anyway. It rose from a pool of shadow near the wall, strutting closer to the light, and I got my first good look at the ‘Rat King.’

He was another ratkin, at least in terms of shape. He had the same rat head stuck on a furred humanoid body, the same sharp claws and teeth, same tail. But that’s about where the similarities ended.

This ratkin was a good foot taller than the others. It stoo...

Chapter 16 - Prisoner of War

I made excellent time as I pressed on. Between all the boosts those crystals had given me, I was in amazing athletic shape now, and I used all of that to move quickly past the train I’d been riding with Amanda. I picked up the blood trail moving deeper into the tunnel from where it started at our train car, and followed it on down.

The tunnel was a straight shot, and between the two glow sticks I finally had what felt like plenty of illumination. I pushed the speed mor...

Chapter 15 - Deeper Into The Darkness

First I set my backpack down on the tracks in front of me. I sipped some more water, draining the rest of my first bottle, and put it away. Then I fished in all my pockets, emptying them of every crystal I’d gathered up.

Even before that last wave, I knew I’d gathered up a ton of stones. There’d been seven grey ones and ten clear crystals. But that final fight added so many more! I stared down at the mound on my backpack, trying to count them all up under the chem ...

Chapter 14 - A Chittering Wave

Still feeling strangely flushed after the double increase, I got back to my feet and looked down at the three dead human bodies. I didn’t want to look. Didn’t want to see if one of them was Amanda. But I’d put it off for as long as I could. It was time to take action. Gritting my teeth, I went and examined all three closely.

Two of them turned out to be men. In the dim light from my glow stick, as tattered as the bodies had been, I hadn’t been able to tell before...

Chapter 13 - I’m Not Lunch!

Got some cool news, folks! The Accidental Necromancer series was just picked up by Aethon Press! They’re a REALLY good publisher of LitRPG stories, and I think they’ll do the series justice. They’re also very interested in books 4-6 for Selena’s tale, if the first ones do well - which I expect they will. So we will probably see some more about Selena down the road. :) In the meantime…

I stood there staring at the row of seats for probably longer than ...

Chapter 12 - She Wasn’t There

There were two concierge staff in the lobby, helping usher the kids through the doors, and four more adults. All six of them were armed with some sort of makeshift weapon, either a baseball bat, big knife, or a big stick. None of the grownups present were the kids’ parents, unfortunately, so I still had work to do.

Once we were all inside, I waved to Tom and he dashed back across the street into the building we’d come from. He made it back okay, and I turned to the guy who se...

Chapter 11 - Home At Last

I couldn’t help but feel an enormous weight leave my shoulders. We were back in an area of relative safety, with other adults who could help me get these kids home. There were still more unanswered questions left than I could shake a stick at, but at least that was something. I followed Gary across the entry hall to a nook off on one side. He reached into a box and his hands came up filled with plastic water bottles.

“Who’s thirsty?” Gary asked.

Twelve hands shot up...

Chapter 10 - Finding a Bastion

I raced down the tracks, quickly catching up with my charges. I wasn’t even tired, another sign that the Stamina boost from those stones was really working. Manuel was way out ahead of the pack, too. At a guess, that was his Agility at work. I needed to get myself some of those…!

A quick peek over my shoulder told me that the goblins were still in hot pursuit. They hooted and howled as they ran down the road alongside the tracks. The road kept going all the way across the bri...

Chapter 9 - Goblins Howled

We pushed ahead through the rail tunnel and must have hit a bit of luck, because no more monsters popped up trying to kill us. I had a little hope that whatever we’d run into down there was maybe limited to just that spot, but some of that was dashed when we ran into another train.

Just like ours, this train was dead on the tracks. There were no lights, not even the emergency ones. No signs of life at all. I opened my mouth to call out but closed it again before I did. If there...

Chapter 8 - Kids with Superpowers

The ethics of whether or not I should hand strange objects to children turned out to be the least of my worries. Now I had eleven kids who all wanted to become the superhero or wizard. Since I’d already given Manuel a couple of stones, it was hard to argue that the risk was too high.

Oops.

I did have one thing going for me, though, and that was I simply didn’t have enough of the things. I had eight crystals left, and there were ten kids who seemed to all want one. When ...

Chapter 7 - The Courage of Children

There were more of them this time, way more. They rushed in too fast for me to count them easily. One scuttled along the wall, trying to get past me to the kids, so I swiped at it, using my spear like a bat. The blow sent it flying a good five feet down the passage, although it didn’t seem badly hurt.

I flipped the spear around and stabbed one, killing it. More were coming, though. I dropped the stupid messenger bag; it was only messing up my strikes. Not carrying it gave me a ...

Chapter 6 - Merging Stones

We’d barely made it twenty feet before I heard scuttling sounds from somewhere up ahead. By that time, I knew those sounds. I’d heard them a few times. Three giant bugs came around the corner, scurrying across the thin sand toward me. They were only a few feet back, and I still had one of my hands full.

“Back up, everyone! Hurry!” I said.

The kids backed away, clearing a little space behind me. I set Emmy down. “Make sure to watch her.”

“I’ve got her!�...

Chapter 5 - Gonna Be Gross

The crack was a tight squeeze for me, but thankfully the passage on the other side was a bit bigger than the entry. I was able to stand up inside, and while the ceiling wasn’t that much above my head, it was high enough I wasn’t going to be scraping my scalp, provided I walked with care.

It was easier for the kids. Once I was inside they all bundled along behind me, stepping inside quickly. Manuel brought up the rear, holding his fast-fading glow stick aloft like it was a tor...

Chapter 4 - Kidnapped

The flare went out about five minutes after we got moving. As it started to gutter, I grabbed one of the glow sticks from my bag, cracked it, and tied it to the end of my spear with some of the spare gauze from the first aid kit. Manuel had picked up the other glow stick, the one Gerald gave Amanda. It was starting to fade some, but gave us a little more light. At this point, I figured anything helped.

I moved with some caution. The rat creatures had come from this direction, aft...

Chapter 3 - My World Shattered

(Hope you enjoyed these first three chapters!!! This gives us a good start on the story. There is a LOT more to come on this one, obviously, and I'll be putting up the same five chapters a week from here on out - just wanted to give everyone a REALLY solid taste to get the story going! Hope you enjoyed it!)

Knife in one hand and flare in the other, I looked for Amanda and saw her at once. She’d stepped in between the kids and the monsters stalking them. Amand...