Excerpt: Could You Please Stop Dying?

Building a robot hadn’t been as complicated as he thought it would be. He opened the toolbox and started rifling through, when there was a loud POP, and somebody appeared behind him. Craig turned around and came face to face with himself. Or somebody who looked just like him, albeit slightly taller and with traces of stubble.
The person who had just appeared cleared his throat and began to speak. “Do you know that what you are doing,” He motioned to the boxes. “will begin a chain of events that will slowly but surely lead to the fall of humanity, the collapse of civilization and eventually destruction of the very Earth itself?”
“I didn’t actually know that.” Craig answered.
“Well, I just thought you should know is all.” The other person said.
Craig nodded at him. “Thanks.”
“Right.” He walked to the door of the warehouse, then paused. “Oh! That’s how that happened!” Then he left.
-
“NO! THE SHOTGUN!” Frank screamed, as he kept the infected villager at bay with the empty rifle. “THROW ME THE SHOTGUN!”
The merchant fumbled about in his coat pocket before tossing a packet of shotgun rounds to Frank.
“SHOTGUN! THROW ME THE GUN!” Frank cried. The merchant pulled a handgun from his pocket and threw it towards Frank, missing completely and hitting the zombie… sorry, infected villager, in the head. It stumbled backwards and fell over the wall, plummeting to the floor twenty feet downwards.
“Nice shot!” The merchant crowed. “Did you see that?” He asked Sara.
Frank breathed deeply and carried on walking. When they had first come across the merchant, Frank had perked up noticeably, and for good reason too. They had more guns, more ammo, an extra shot AND a map.

His first impression had been entirely wrong. The merchant was as good at shooting as Ashley, the screaming teenage girl they were desperately trying to save, and he was considerably more annoying, something Frank had never thought possible when playing this game.
The merchant had five different guns and plenty more ammo, but refused to use them until it was really necessary.
A zombie had eaten the map.
-
Nobody spoke for a while. It had been a tense and stupidly insane two days for everyone involved, except Lloyd, Edgar and the large unnamed man, who had spent a good portion of it naked, drinking lattes in a service station.
Jacob pulled a small radio from his pocket and switched it on.
“Just to see what’s happening.” He said to the rest of them.
“Britain is reeling from the ’08 Christmas Day Insanity, but it still is not over. London has been almost completely evacuated, but still the unidentified lizard remains. Scotland is currently drifting away from the rest of the United Kingdom and the physics defying wall of lava still remains on the Wales/England border. Many other towns and cities are still suffering from their own impossible circumstances. Tsunamis, tornadoes and the occasional explosion. The Christmas Eve horror of the kidnapped children has long been forgotten. Thousands are dead. This could be it for Great Britain.”
The group stood in stunned silence.
“Bit dramatic.” Said Edgar.