Dungeon Crawler Carl (Dungeon Crawler Carl, #1)

by Matt Dinniman

Billy is dead. He was still in jail. He’d had a warrant for failure to appear, so they’d taken him in. He’s dead like everyone else in the world. I pushed it away.

I bet we see both Billy and Bea before the end of this. Shame about the neighbor lady.

“None of this shit makes sense,” I said. “But yes, I understand what you’re saying.

I feel that way often.

Dead was dead.

Ouch.

“Nor am I wearing a cloak that makes me look like I won a participation trophy at the special needs comic con, Carl.

That, was epic.

“The safe room door won’t open if mobs are outside,” Donut said. “We’ll be fast.” “That’s fine,” she said after a moment. “Just remember I can run a lot faster than you.”

Good old Donut.

Trapped in her pile of rubbish, abandoned by society, the war inside her head has seeped out of her mind and infected both her body and her surroundings. Now nothing more than a garbage troll, the Hoarder is a horrific reminder of what can happen to those who fall out of the light! Protected by her minions, she’ll do anything to keep her precious stockpile safe!

Sad description.

“Lo siento si fui una mala persona,” she said. She closed her eyes as tears streamed down the non-burned side of her face. The woman only had one, misshapen tooth in her mouth. “No quería que mi hija se enfermara. No quiero estar en el infierno. Por favor. Por favor envíame a Jesús.”

Heartbreaking.

He ate it, and the +9.8 EXP notification dinged over his head.

Who got the other two tenths?

If I’m gonna die, I might as well do it in the pursuit of a worthy cause.

A good way to go.

There will always be clues. Look for them.”

Always good advice.

A bigger, redder, WARNING. Remove this item before you jerk off.

The warning was probably unnecessary, am I right fellahs?

“Wow,” Donut said from my shoulder. “I’m feeling really ignored right now. Why is it always human this, human that? Why can’t it be ‘blood squeezed out of their human and feline bodies?’”

Now is not the time, Princess.

“I liked that show,” Chris had said as he worked. It was the first and only time I had heard him speak.

The only time? Ever? Oh no.

What was the point of living, if I couldn’t live with myself?

A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.

She’s a crazy asshole, but she’s our crazy asshole.”

Gotta take care of our crazy assholes.

Zev looked like an astronaut from a 1950s sci-fi comic. She wore a round, glass helmet filled with water. A pair of tubes snaked from the back of the helmet to a bulky backpack. The water bubbled like she was in a portable fish tank. The rest of her humanoid fish body was hidden inside of a white, mesh spacesuit.

I’ve been expecting something out of Lovecraft.

Ultra-nationalism.

Bad news.

I never got to know Yolanda Martinez as much as I would’ve liked to. But I didn’t have to know her very well to know who she was. I knew she was a quiet, sweet woman who’d been a nurse her entire life. She’d worked sixty hours a week for years to pay for her son to go to college. Her husband had owned a landscaping company. At only 4’11, the woman had a presence much bigger than her stature suggested. There was a warmth about her, something I’d never felt as a kid. Just being in her presence imparted a feeling of longing in me, something difficult to describe. Like I wished I could relive my childhood, but this time, I’d have her as my mother, and she would have never, ever left me. When the apocalypse came for Yolanda, she didn’t once waver in her dedication to her patients. She was quick to laugh, quick to smile. And even though Yolanda Martinez was just as terrified as the rest of us, she stood her ground against a force she couldn’t possibly hold back. She lived her entire life as a hero. She died as one, too.

Best damn part of the book so far.

I smiled. “Goodbye, Mrs. McGibbons.”

I hope not.

Donut: NO MISS BEATRICE LIKES COUNTRY MUSIC. THAT’S JUST AS BAD AS THIS. Carl: Yeah, that should’ve been my first warning.

Hey now, don’t disrespect country music, Carl.

Cheering. I knew, then, what this was. Goddamnit, I thought. I hated this place. I hated it so damn much. I looked up at the boss room door.

Oh no.