hpkomic

Dani stared at the ghoul for a few moments before shifting her attention to the lot behind her, noticing the group of ghouls approaching from behind, rocking and swaying as they shuffled to her. She wondered if any governmental remnants or the CDC had any idea what the hell these things actually were – maybe if there was a solution in the works to reclaim the area. All she and the others had was a hope and Sandy’s insistence that her brother would rally a rescue mission and sweep into Emmet, guns blazing and tanks rolling down the central highway. Ooh-fucking-rah.

It’d been weeks since a substantive broadcast from The White House or whatever was there, and most radio now was either emergency broadcasts on loop, mysterious messages from some sources she could not discern, or the obscene and conspiratorial rantings of sovereign citizens. She had borrowed Bob’s ham radio one night a week back to reach out to someone, anyone, but the immediate response was so horrid she never reached out again. At least the ghouls didn’t threaten to rape her or promise to make her a brood wife.

The thought made her shudder, and she was very much aware again of the rifle slung over her shoulder. She would need to be a much better shot in this world. For now, it was just reassurance – or more of a panic button. She felt the reassuring weight of the fireplace poker and stared down the ghoul. It continued the pattern of swiping and nearly falling onto the surface of the desk. Dani took a step toward, still out of reach of the ghoul’s grasping, nubby fingertips. It appeared agitated further. The flurry of outstretched arms finally sent the ghoul tumbling over and slamming down onto the desk, flailing. Dani took the moment to slam the hooked end of her poker into the back of the ghoul’s skull. The ghoul continued to flail, but not in response to Dani’s attack. She grunted as she slid the writhing corpse across the desk, through the doorway, onto the concrete and glass, where it crumpled into a face-down heap. Her foot resting on the undead’s shoulder, Dani ripped the hook from the back of the skull, which again the ghoul did not seem to respond to. Disgusted, she jammed the tip of the poker back into the hole with force until the resistance of the concrete stopped her; for good measure, she began to stir the poker tip inside the skull, and soon the writhing stopped. She drew the poker back with a little resistance on exit and flicked all the brain matter she could from it.

Though now, taking in her current circumstances, Dani was beginning to realize, to a degree, the folly of her impromptu mission. She was opting to walk into a darkened hellmouth, and she wondered what use the walkies were for if she and everyone kept leaving them behind. Next time, she thought, there has gotta be a next time to bring the goddamn walkie.

She climbed over the desk, across the bloody streaks on the surface, and set off into the darkened building. The inside was quiet aside from the whistle of wind coming from the broken door and faint sounds within. The kid had certainly made a choice running from her back into this building, but she was not about to give up on the chance to save his life. As she saw it, he was small and had proved his tenacity so far; as frustrating as it was to try to reason with him given this shit and chaos, she had to press on. But she could not bear to see the child die, or become one of the living dead. 

Dani moved slowly down the short hallway, careful of where she stepped. She glanced back and forth, her eyes adjusting in the dark, scanning ahead between what appeared to be a more open room ahead and the tiled floor, which had been strewn with the detritus of holdouts and the leftovers of survival. Just how many people had been holed up in here, and for how long? She knew of four based on what Edgar had observed, and only one of them was now alive – presumably.

Her head spun with questions about what had happened here in the weeks since the outbreak, though Dani didn’t quite know when it actually started. Had it been New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day? The days after? It didn’t take long for things to really fall apart when they finally, inescapably fell apart. It seemed maybe six days in total, give or take a day or two. How soon did people find themselves hiding in this district office? How many, when the time came, chanced an escape and may have inadvertently gotten others killed? There were so many layers to all of this, and the most frustrating part was never really knowing. Everyone who might have had an answer was probably dead or in a bunker beneath a mountain.

Dani crept toward an open door to her left, which was slightly ajar. She clung to the wall, paused, and listened intently for motion within. Hearing nothing, she whipped her head past the frame, peering into the space that was partially obscured by the door. Inside was an office, ransacked but still filled with sweet, homey decor, reflecting optimism and assertive effort, like that of an H.R. lady. A poster depicting a climber on a rock face read “Keep on Climbing!” and Dani chuckled at it. She’d been to the college counselor once or twice before dropping out and had seen a similar poster – maybe even the same one. It was just vague enough to be considered empowering, technically, but practically useless in any specific context. Cloying bullshit made all the more darkly ironic given the circumstances.

She nudged the door open wider, carefully, wincing at the sustained, slow creak. The rest of the room was a mess; anything seemingly valuable was probably gone. No silent ghoul was lurking within, thankfully, but she wasn’t prepared for a bloody dog bed next to the desk. There were no signs of remains beyond reddish-brown staining on the teal pillow. She winced and closed the door, silently damning the creaking but relieved to shut the image away. Dani noted the placard attached to the door as she pulled it shut – Melissa Gutierrez, Human Resources – and a taped photo of a cocker spaniel, and a nametag stuck to it that read “Homer.”

God-fucking-damn it. 

Dani shook her head. She leaned back against the wall next to the room and stared nowhere in particular, just away from the door. Inevitably, she saw the door directly opposite the H.R. office and noticed the sign – Gary Watts, Requisitions and Warehousing – and several bloody streaks on the door. Dani stepped toward it and, finding a spot not covered in blood, pressed her ear to the door, listening in. Hearing nothing, she tapped at it with the tip of the poker, and after a moment, there was moaning and shuffling, unmistakably that of the living dead. She glanced back toward the way she had come as the group of ghouls from outside collided with the rudimentary barricade, unable to navigate over it. She stepped back from the requisitions door and took one last look at the H.R. door behind her.

Fuck this. Dani pushed deeper into the building, her eyes adjusting to the dim lighting; she was searching for whatever signs she could of the kid as she approached the larger room. She didn’t quite know a name for it – maybe it was an atrium?

The room appeared to be the heart of the building, where the main entrance had been reinforced with a similar pile of furniture to the rear entrance she used. She also noticed bike chains in the darkened room; though the front was mostly glass, it had become grimy and discolored, and the mid-morning sun was not quite at an angle to shine much direct light within. All she had was a yellowish ambience, which rendered everything far more sickly and aged than it technically was. One desk against the glass had piles of papers that had spilled onto the floor in front of it, and dozens of papers pasted to the windows – there had been a plan to cover sightlines, and Dani was not sure if that was a good idea or a bad one.

Dani still had no idea if the ghouls actually saw anything, or what drove them. Instead, staring at the papers, she wondered if the inability to see the ghouls was the actual point. Even back at the storage yard, the group, as exposed to the elements as they were, had reduced sightlines with the exception of gaps they could use. It made sense, in a lot of ways, to keep the terror of the outside world out of sight. The papers on the glass were beginning to make more sense.

The atrium itself wasn’t tremendous. It mostly combined what appeared to be a line to some sort of teller-style window, three hallways, and some seating, which had been shoved toward the glass in the front entrance. The space was mostly devoid of anything comforting, nor did it look like a space where anyone would have spent much time. The amount of exposure from the glass probably had a lot to do with that. 

As she approached the pile against the entrance, she glanced out to see her former apartment complex across the street. She hadn’t noticed it right away, but a ghoul swept into view, wandering on the walkup to the entrance of the district office. Dani flinched whenever it looked in her direction, though it was clear it did not seem to perceive her. The apartment complex across the street stood passively with no sign of motion. She’d considered returning, once or twice, to see what supplies could be rounded up. But there was always a hesitation that always emerged. It wasn’t about the ghouls within – Stephen and Julie’s corpses flashed for an instant in Dani’s mind. She turned from the window and stepped back toward the center of the room.

She peeked in the teller window and saw what seemed to be a former supply hub. Wrappers, cans, and boxes were strewn across the floor or on whatever desk space was available in the small office. The computer – the novelty of computers made Dani feel nostalgic for a moment – sat, covered by a layer of fine dust except for a single smiley face sticker stuck to the powerless screen of the monitor.

It came down to two choices – left or right. She hadn’t been shot at so far by the kid, which was either a good sign or a horrible one. She hoped, desperately, that he was scared and holed up in some office, quietly waiting her out. She could reason with him; she knew it. She could help him get back. He could apologize to Edgar, and they could make a go of it. She just had to figure out how to get the kid to stand down so they could escape together. At the end of the hall from which she had emerged, she saw ghoulish silhouettes framed against daylight, and though their forms were darkened and obscured. She saw they were still trapped by the desks of the makeshift barricade. How these things had managed to decimate so many already confused and frightened her, and she wondered what all this said about humans like her. She did her best to tune the ghouls out, as she listened to ambient noise in the largely quiet building. There was the sound if motion to her left. In lieu of any other evidence, she chose to head that direction.

Peering down the darkened hallway, she could make out four doors on either side, a fire escape door at the very end of the hallway, and a right turn. She tried to make sense of what she saw of this layout with what she observed of the outside of the district office, but gave up, realizing she hadn’t observed much over the years living across from it, or the less-than-an-hour so far rescuing Ed and trying to reach out to the trigger-happy child.

Of the four hallway doors she saw, two of them were open: one to the left, one to the right. She was no Daredevil, with super hearing, but she felt confident there was shuffling from one of the rooms to the left. 

Christ, I’d kill for those billy clubs and ninja training.

She crept down the hall, feeling exposed, taking in everything in front, below, and behind her, wary of any potential movement. Her eyes had adjusted to the dark to the point where she could navigate with relative confidence, but not with enough detail that she could entirely avoid caution, especially across garbage-covered tile. She’d just barely brushed a grocery bag with the tip of her foot and nearly shit herself at the crinkling. The first pair of doors, opposite one another, were now just a couple of feet away. The door to her right was closer, so she shifted gradually toward the wall to the left, tiptoing over soda cans. As she approached, she noticed that this room did not have a solid wall, but rather a large pane of glass from floor to ceiling – maybe like a conference room, but it was hard to tell at this angle. The opposite room looked to be an office, but also a bit smaller, with a similar floor-to-ceiling window. About a foot from the doorway, she paused, holding her breath, and listened.

There was a shuffling of feet on the carpet and the crushing and rattling of things on the floor. The loudest, though, was the telling moans and gargles of the undead. They had been seemingly alerted to something, and Dani wondered if it had been something she had done before realizing more than likely it was the kid running by. Whatever was happening in the room was small; she’d seen these things wander over the past couple of weeks, until something grabbed their attention, they were content – though that word didn’t seem to apply, really – to wander in small, set spaces, waiting for some sort of signal to move.

Dani glanced at the floor, holding her breath as she nudged a can away from the doorway so she could sidle a bit more toward the opening. Content that she had alerted nothing within, she scooted closer so she could crane her head around and look inside. The vision of a ghoul biting at her face and knocking her to the floor worked to caution her from peeking, but she had to press on.

After a deep breath and a silent count to three, she turned her head past the door frame and looked inside. Her view had been immediately obscured by a shambling corpse within a foot of the room, its back to her. She covered her mouth with her forearm to keep from gasping in surprise and did her best to look past the ghoul, realizing she could see at least three others a few feet further. Dani retreated around the doorway and shoved the sleeve of her hoodie even deeper into her face, muffling her panicked breathing as best she could. She listened intently for any change to the ghouls’ movement, but she’d apparently gone unnoticed. There would be no guarantee of that if she tried to cross. There was one thing to do, and if she fucked up, things would be even worse for her and the kid.

With a sharp breath, she stepped into the doorway and kicked the ghoul in the small of the back, sending it stumbling forward just as the other ghouls in the room, seven by her quick count, shrieked and shuddered upon noticing her. She looked to the door and was surprised by what seemed to be a belt tied to the handle. She grabbed the handle at the belt knot and pulled the door shut as she stumbled backward out of the room, sealing it with a click. She continued stumbling backward until she fell against the opposite door, rattling the frame and the glass window next to it. She scrambled to her feet in a panic and then stopped to take a deep breath between the two rooms. The ghouls in the newly closed room pressed themselves against the glass, clearly aware of her. She could swear she heard the strain of the glass under their weight and clumsy slaps. Taking in the whole space, now, the room was a conference room, as she thought, but the number of ghouls did not line up with her admittedly hurried count a second ago. 

She looked into the room behind her, and seeing nothing, was content to move her back to it to take in more of the chamber of horrors she had just closed off. When she had counted, she had just seen bodies and assumed they were the living dead, but now it was clear there were only four of them, with three other corpses in the room – eerily still. Why they had not been turned or consumed was a mystery, but as Dani took in the state of the room, past the writhing clamor of the ghouls against the glass, she saw the room for what it had been: a triage space. It was hard to make out explicit detail between ghouls sliding along the glass, following her motion, but she did see three bodies on the large central table, each covered slightly, with no sign of blood or tampering by the ghouls. It was almost as though the bodies served no interest to them. Nothing made sense anymore, but this seemed to irritate her in particular. Bob had mentioned he’d taken time to observe them, but if they really wanted to understand what they were up against, they’d need to study them. Jimmy agreed with him. But Dani always said that she would just rather kill them off. But it looked like Bob and Jimmy had a point. Maybe there was something up with the bodies that they seemingly hadn’t touched? As Bob had said, “know your enemy.”

As Dani scanned the room for whatever clues were left in such a state, she picked up on something she had not noticed earlier – something large beneath the conference table. She squatted slightly to get a better view of what it was, and she jumped when she saw a ghoul seemingly staring directly at her from under the table. But she could only catch glances because of the tangle of bodies in front of her. She wondered if there was a way to get a better view, and on a whim, she tapped at the door to the side. Sure enough, the four standing ghouls clustered toward the door as Dani held still. She managed to divert them. She slowly crouched down, careful of any sudden moment, eager to get a clearer view beneath the table. As she did so, she studied the ghoul beneath, which wasn’t so much a single ghoul, but a tangle of three or four. Just how many bodies did they shove into this room, she wondered.

It would be hard for her to explain what exactly she was seeing back at camp. There was a central ghoul below the table that seemed to be aware of her presence, staring at her, accusingly. She appeared to be a small woman, and due to decomposition, Dani could not guess at her age – she could have been a teenager, Dani guessed, but there was no way of ever knowing. Besides the disturbing awareness present in her gaze, however, was the fact that three ghouls below the table had her in a sort of embrace. Dani had to count the arms to be sure. The other ghouls seemed to press their bodies into the girl, wrapping her in their spindly arms, shielding her, shying her away from some harm Dani wasn’t sure they could comprehend. It reminded her of sparing someone from the cold, like in a survival movie.

The whole time Dani observed, the ghoulish girl did not take her eyes off her. Periodically, the jaw would shift, and it seemed like the ghoul would murmur in silence. It was the most uncomfortable thing Dani had ever experienced, and she found herself overwhelmed, wretching against the glass. After a few agonizing moments, she wiped the vomit from her mouth on a sleeve – the ghoul hadn’t stopped staring once.

A sudden burst of noise back from where she had entered – she thought – caught her off guard, and she turned to focus on the sound of the clatter and a series of hollow moans. Perhaps one of the ghouls had knocked something loose from the barricade, or even spilled over a desk onto the floor.

She didn’t want to look back in the conference room and the staring ghoul, but some force – a morbid curiosity, perhaps – compelled her to do so. As she shifted her eyes back to beneath the desk, she was alarmed to see the ghoul had retreated further back, and the embrace of the others tightened and obscured her form, except for her gaunt, blank face – her eyes still staring intently at Dani.

Dani scrambled to her feet, terrified, and made her way down the hall past the window, pressing her shoulder against the wall. She felt the world around her spinning violently.

“What the fuck was that?” She gasped. “Jesus. What?”

As she waited to see if the world would stop spinning, like the New Year’s quake weeks ago, she tried to pick a point in the office window across from her, first at a mobile whiteboard with frantic notes, and then began staring at something on a desk. As her senses began to return, she noticed various tools – pliers, scalpels, and other things; she thought of the contents of a doctor’s bag. And then she saw a human head in a pan, jaw moving slightly, dead eyes staring toward nothing.

Dani couldn’t help but yelp.

Her eyes darted, wary of any movement or reaction to her loss of control. There was a seeming response further to her left, down the hall – a moan, but not much beyond. To her right, where the clatter had been, there was the sound of a cluster of hollow exhalations. As she slowed her breathing as best she could, hoping to calm herself, she noticed the door to the office with the severed head. On it as well was a belt tied to the handle, and across the floor, something she’d overlooked with everything going on, were a few other belts. They had been tied from handle to handle as an added measure to keep the doors shut. It seemed that the idea was that some lucky ghoul would not be able to open the door by accident. Dani considered the girl within. She wondered if this group had observed something more alarming.

But the line had been severed. Dani wasn’t sure what it all meant, but a dark thought crossed her mind. Maybe the belt had only recently been severed by the kid, a trap for his pursuer, a trap for her. She wasn’t going to let that theory stop her. She’d club the kid upside the head and drag him back if she had to. There were the living and dead, and from what she had witnessed, precious few of the living.

More clattering from where she had been drove her to her feet. Dani stabilized herself against the drywall and, taking a moment to steel herself, pressed forward, wary of any sound from the kid. Wary of a gunshot. Ahead were two doors on either side, along with the chained-up fire exit. One door had been shut, but the other was open, which led to a breakroom and kitchenette. She didn’t bother with the shut door and kept low as she crossed the frame of the open room; on the counter near a microwave was a carcass – bone and gristle stripped of usable flesh. Dani did not want to dwell on the sight. She took a step back, out of the room, back into the hall. She’d seen enough, including the other doorway; the space would come into view as she rounded the corner of the hallway.

The sound of hushed breathing hit her ears as she approached the corner. Someone was winded and doing their best to keep their breathing muffled. But neither her nor the child had any illusions of successful stealth at this point, as she saw it. Her back to the wall, just at the corner, she held back from peeking around. The boy was near.

Dani tried to keep her voice low, calm, and sweet. “I’m not going-”

There was a small yelp, followed by a wild shot that echoed through the district office and tunneled into the drywall near the fire escape. Moans echoed within the building from dark, unexplored spaces.

“I’m not going to hurt you. Please, we have a safe place, right across the street. I can take you there. Nobody is mad about you shooting our friend. It was a mistake. What’s your name?”

She realized how hurried that had come out as she finished speaking – her attempt at being a soothing presence had given way to panic in the moment. She hoped desperately as she waited in silence, wound tight against the wall.

Dani waited patiently, despite the sound of motion around the corner and increasing sounds from near the atrium.

“They’re gone,” the kid responded, his voice cracked and parched. She wondered when he had last had water.

“I know, Edgar, the big guy, he saw them hurt each other. He tried to stop it. Maybe you saw that and thought he hurt them. He’s a good man. I swear. Please. What is your name?”

Another pause. More noises in the distance. Sniffling and restraining tears.

“Tyler.”

“Tyler, good. I’m Danielle, but my friends call me Dani. If I come around the corner, are you going to hurt me?”

“No.”

“I’m trusting you, Tyler. I want us both to get out of her together. Do you want some food? We can get you food. We’re right across the street. We need to go soon, I think those things are getting in.”

“There’s a door out. I won’t shoot,” he added. There was a quaver in his voice, an uncertainty that Dani could not read.

“Tyler, I am going to come around the corner, now, okay? I am going to trust you, and I hope you can trust me.”

“O-okay.”

Moment of truth, Dani thought. She rounded the corner and stopped, squatting slightly, setting the poker down on the tile floor.

Tyler was young, maybe ten. He was thin – half-starved – based on the fit of the clothes that hung off him. He wore a black shirt with cartoon monsters from a Nickelodeon cartoon, and his jeans were bunched up around his Nikes. He looked worn, and his clothes looked like they had been on him for weeks, maybe since this started. His arms hung slack, and in his right hand was the pistol he’d clipped Edgar with.

On his left forearm was a bloody gash, and in that moment, Dani’s heart sank.

There was something in the bites. She learned that with Stephen and Julie, hadn’t she? Everyone back at camp had a story about bites. Whatever this plague, disease, or virus actually was had been connected to the bites. Maybe it was a sickness or an infection. Maybe fluids. But there were bites or scratches. Always.

“Sweetie, what happened to your arm, there?”

Tyler looked down, seemingly surprised at what he saw. “I think when I was trying to close the trailer outside, one of the people bit me, but I don’t feel it.”

Dani kept staring at the wound, and Tyler stood there, awkward and frightened. She was desperate enough to ignore it. They weren’t sure it was the bites – not really. But everyone else at camp…

Dani glanced at the poker on the floor. Fuck. The grief took her as she looked at the small, half-starved face of the boy named Tyler. His eyes were wide and bloodshot, and he shook – he hadn’t noticed, but Dani did. A fever would eventually take him.

She calmly, or as calmly as she could make it sound, asked a question. “Is that the exit behind you?”

Tyler glanced back and nodded. He looked back at Dani, and a faint smile crossed his lips. “One way. Mom and Dad… we didn’t need to do anything. No handle outside, and those sick people can’t get it. Most of them.”

“Ready to go?” he asked.

Dani swallowed. She crouched down to pick up the fireplace poker. It felt heavier than it had in a long time. She turned her head as she heard noises from behind her. She saw the first of the ghouls step into the large room at the end of the hall. There would be no going back.

Tyler was at the door, ready to push it outward. Dani stepped forward, silently, and Tyler’s expression soured upon seeing the poker in her hand. Dani felt herself fidgeting with it. He turned back to the door, ready to go.

“Tyler. I’m sorry.”

Dani took two huge lurching steps toward him, poker raised for an overhead swing. He turned back in time to see her approach, screamed, and threw his weight against the door, swinging it open and stumbling into the late morning sunlight. He drew the gun as he stumbled back and fired a shot, just hitting the door as it began to swing shut, missing Dani by inches, and she pushed her way through, horrified and frenzied and damned.

Tyler scrambled backward, sobbing, his gun hand shaking. “Stop! Leave me alone!”

As Dani moved to clear the distance between them, a sudden motion from her left caught her off guard, and she watched Tyler’s head cave in – a bloody implosion where his face had once been. Dani froze at the sudden violence. Her ears rang, and the world began to spin again. Her poker slipped from her grasp as she stumbled backward. She looked up at the figure who had swept in with such violence.

Alicia stood, panting, wide-eyed. She held a bloody baseball bat outward and away, shaking, staring down at Tyler’s body. Alicia glanced at Dani, and Dani said nothing, turning her gaze back to Tyler.

Tyler took in a sharp, gagging breath. Soon after, he began to gargle and choke on blood and teeth.

“He had a gun.” Alicia’s voice was distant.

The ringing in Dani’s ears continued as she grabbed the bat from Alicia and began to smash it at Tyler’s broken head.

From what she could tell, the ghouls had begun clustering around the far end of the lot opposite from her, toward a small pair of trailer offices. She couldn’t make out the kid’s position in the area. She had kept herself to a sort of hunched crouch, aiming to make herself less noticeable without sacrificing mobility. She did her best to keep completely silent so as not to alert any of the undead ahead of her. The idea, as far as she had considered any sort of plan at this point, was to get a sense of where exactly the child was. From there, she would alert the ghouls to her position and give him a window to run across the street, where she would meet him afterward. But that all depended on where the child even was, and what his condition was. It wasn’t much of a plan, she would be the first to admit, but she was running on adrenaline and chance.

Dani began to close the gap between her and the stragglers of the pack. By her count, there were twelve of them between herself and the trailers. About eight were immediately surrounding the rightmost trailer from her perspective, clawing and slapping at the siding with discolored, wet hands and broken fingertips. That left four of them that were slowly lumbering toward the rest of the group. They were being drawn, but it wasn’t clear how it all worked.

But what it told her is that the kid was likely in that trailer. That meant he could be safe, but he just as easily might have accidentally let one in, and he was now dead, or even undead. It was a box of suck she was hesitant to open, but if there was a chance she could help him, she had to. These past couple of weeks of fear and sadness, of not being able to do enough for Julie, her neighbor. She had heard the struggle next door and did not intervene. She sat in fear in her apartment as Julie and her boyfriend suffered, died, and returned as inhuman things.

And Dani sat there. Alone. Afraid. Was it possible she could have helped? She didn’t know. She never would, not really. But fuck, she could have tried. 

She could have tried.

Dani kept her even pace and approached the back of the closest ghoul. It had not noticed her, still slowly stumbling toward the trailer. She looked the ghoul over and noticed it had been hobbled. The foot had bent in completely sideways at the ankle, and each step ground down the ankle more and more.  As the ankle raised from the ground, blood and bits of flesh would sluice off in ribbons, attached and tearing off from the asphalt. The foot was less a foot now and more a foot-like hunk of flesh, flopping uselessly every time the ankle hit the asphalt.

She rolled the fireplace poker in her hand, swung her arm outward, and swung in, aiming the hooked end right above the top of the torn ear of the ghoul with the ground-down ankle. The poker connected with an audible crunch as the ghoul lifted off the ground, collapsing onto its side with a thump on the asphalt. The impact point, covered in closely cropped brown hair, began to leak brownish blood, and small chips of bone carried by the pooling of blood slipped through thin, broken skin.

The ghoul was thrashing violently. Was it in pain? Was it just some rudimentary nervous system response?

It didn’t matter, really. The ghoul began to moan, but Dani thwacked it twice more in the same spot, leaving a sizable crater in the side of the skull. After the first hit, the ghoul had stopped thrashing. But the second hit made the body shudder slightly, and she thought for a second that maybe it wasn’t quite gone as it twitched.

The closest ghoul had apparently heard nothing and continued moving forward. It piled into the crowd, reaching and grasping between the tangle of bodies, trying to find some kind of hold on the trailer.

The sound was maddening. The strange, airy moans punctuated by pounding and scratching of the siding – relentless with no pattern. An hour of hearing that from inside the trailer would drive anyone crazy. She had to get him out.

Dani crouched and tried to listen for another sound. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to hear from the kid. IF he was smart, he was quiet. Maybe she wanted to hear him scream or cry, just as a sign he was still kicking. Something that justified what she was about to do. But there was nothing but the chaotic cacophony of the risen dead against the box that held something they wanted.

Dani sighed as she rose from her crouch. She glanced behind her and took several paces back. One thing she had learned about herself in the days since she had settled in at the storage yard was that she was dogshit with guns. Bob had told her as much. But she didn’t have to be good here, just distracting.

She slipped the poker into the pseudo-holster she’d made on her belt. It was a temporary solution and wasn’t designed for anything beyond brute-force functionality. It was just meant to give her a free hand without setting the poker down. As far as she was concerned, it would be best to have a hand on it at all times. The solution was simple: a slit in the belt wide enough for the hooked end of the poker to slip through, but not open enough for the handle to slip through easily.

She unshouldered Bob’s rifle and aimed. Her hands were shaking in her agitation and hurry, and she had to pause. She inhaled and exhaled slowly, feeling more control flow into her grasp. She did her best to line up a shot, and much to her surprise, when she pulled the trigger, she had dropped one of the ghouls instantly, watching a puff of gross spray emerge from the back of the head out of a flap of flesh and bone. The ghoul collapsed so fast it took her a moment to take in the luck here. Of course, Bob didn’t see that one.

But the noise, bright and sharp against the dull moans, hoarse groans, scratches, and slaps, did what it was meant to do, and now the ghouls had begun to turn toward Dani – their attention no longer on the potential prize within the trailer.

Dani took a breath and looked down the sights. She had lined up a shot and fired just as the ghoul had tripped over the recently fallen companion. The ghoul hit the ground hard, and the bullet hit the trailer.

“Shit! Sorry!”

She paused and took a breath. She lined up another shot as the ghoul on the ground struggled to find some footing. It had tripped in her direction, and its crown was mercifully pointed right at her. She fired – another puff of gore, and then a collapse.

The remaining ghouls were well aware of her presence and seemed to pick up their pace, reaching toward her. Their gaits were still stiff and mostly lumbering, but there was a frenzy to it. It was an urgency she had only seen in apparent excitement, a burst of energy as their target was in reach. Nine rotting killers were converging on her, but that’s what she wanted, as fucked as that notion was. They were clearing away from the trailer.

“Kid, if you’re in there, I’m clearing a path! Run!”

She did her best to listen for something from inside the trailer over the gargles and moans of the approaching undead, but it was too much to filter through. She took another couple of steps back and lined up a shot on one of the two closest to her position. This ghoul had once been a young man, maybe a teenager. His left arm was broken, and she wasn’t sure if it was something he’d had before he turned or not. It was impossible not to think of what they once were. As much as she wanted to see them as monsters, she kept finding herself sucked into the speculation of it all. 

She pulled the trigger.

Whoever they once were was gone, and their shadow now, too. It was the only thing she and the others could do for them now.

As the ghoul fell forward onto the asphalt, another chorus of wheezing gasps erupted from the companions. For the slightest second, Dani wondered if they were shocked or mourning their fallen companion. She shook her head, shoving that thought as far back as she could, not willing to entertain the notion. It was just the frenzy.

As she began to aim again, the trailer door swung open and slammed into the railing of the access ramp with a clang. The kid emerged, a boy. He couldn’t have been older than twelve. She locked eyes with him – it was hard not to – they were so wide and white, contrasting with dirty and bloodied skin. The kid was a mess, and she had no idea what his condition was besides alive, and for now, that was all that mattered. She did her best to smile at him, an attempt to put him at ease, but a pair of the ghouls had already begun to turn toward his position, alerted to the sound of the door. Breathless shrieks erupted, and she watched their bodies shudder as they caught on to the kid’s presence. The kid scanned the ghouls nervously, his gaze rapidly shifting between them and the stranger with a gun.

“Run to the storage place across the street, you’ll be safe! We’re safe!”

The boy said nothing as he bolted. He swung down beneath the railing and dodged the two ghouls. He began to run from them as fast as he could despite obvious exhaustion. Dani began to follow, but his path seemed strange, as though he was running from her.

“Head right, out that entrance! Near that bus!”

“Leave me alone! Go away!”

Dani skid-stopped as she saw the kid run into the trashed entrance of the district building. She watched him climb over stacked desks and shelves, into the darkness of the building.

“Shit.” She groaned.

The kid was frightened of her. It was understandable why; companions gone, ghouls everywhere, and a pursuing stranger who had been coming directly for him. From what Edgar had said, the kid seemed to think Edgar had killed the others. How could he not think she was here to finish the job?

Dani glanced behind her, back toward the trailers. The nearest of the remaining ghouls was a good thirty feet away from her position, but that, she figured, was close enough for them to see her enter the building. They might struggle with the pile of office furniture in the doorway, but that was in no way an impenetrable barrier. The darkened entrance made her nervous. She’d be entering a dark place, with no sense of the layout, pursuing ghouls, and a scared kid with a gun. It was hard not to spiral out, thinking of all the bad things that could happen. But he was just a kid, and he needed the help.

Dani’s cuts on the top of her thigh began to throb, and she rubbed at them with the butt of Bob’s rifle. She thought back to Julie and her boyfriend in the apartment next door. Dani could have reached out earlier or been proactive. She knew that.

It was like a damn breaking. Steven. His name was Steven. Why had she forgotten? She knew. She knew the whole time. Steven and Julie. She’d known him well enough to fuck him once, when Julie was at work. She wasn’t sure who had initiated it, nor did it matter. It had happened once. Nothing about that mattered now. All she knew now was she’d pushed his name away in guilt and shame. She’d displaced the tangle of that life and cut and tied around it, like an old net with some shitty repairs just to wring out a little more life from something that didn’t need to eb around anymore. But the damage was still there. 

Steven had volunteered to check the neighboring apartments for some food for the three of them. Dani could have gone too. But it was too awkward, knowing what she had done with Steven. And poor, cute Julie, not knowing what had happened. So he went by himself, climbing down from the demolished stairs. And she and Julie pretended to be good neighbors in the apocalypse, making idle chatter as Dani kept a secret from before the world ended. And then Steven came back, a bite on his arm, and they all thought it was so strange that these sick people were biting one another. It had been nearly two weeks of lockdown. They laughed it off and split their share of the food he’d brought back. She could have helped him gather it, even if she’d fucked him once, and it would have been awkward to be around him.

Dani hadn’t mentioned the broadcast to them the next day – they’d been so limited and so low quality, most had been nothing of note. She was sure it was some doomsday jockey ranting into his private radio. But the man, whomever he was, warned about the bites. The broadcast was less than a minute, but it was so important. She listened to it and then said nothing. The pain of being around them with what she did before, it didn’t matter, but it also did, then, and Dani said nothing, staying in her apartment. She locked herself away as she heard panic and fighting through the dryway behind her couch, listening to Julie’s updates on Steven.

“He’s not looking good. His breathing is laboured. I’m scared. Dani, help.” All the markers of the infection were behind the drywall. And yet the shame was too much. Dani sat by herself, knowing deep down what she was hearing and what it meant. And in time, Steven turned. Then Julie turned. And Dani was alone.

One of her cuts had opened again, and she felt warm and sticky blood seep from the broken skin. She glanced down, seeing the small red blotches spreading on her blue jeans.

The ghouls behind her were clearing the distance. Ahead was the entrance to that district office. Inside was the scared kid who shot big Edgar. 

The rifle’s weight was reassuring, and for a moment, she entertained the thought of turning the gun around on herself. The world was hard enough before it fell apart. She considered checking out back then – what kept her going now? She waited for an answer to emerge. Some sign that there was a reason to keep at any of this. All she received was a stench on the wind, of death and smoke, and the caws of crows.

The wind also carried the coolness of the January air, and she felt a chill. Maybe it was warmer inside the district office?

She sighed, shouldered the rifle, and drew the fireplace poker from the slit in her belt. She marched to the entrance and began to climb into the dark.

Bob was still a pretty spry man, given he was mid-60s, but he felt the years catching up the moment he had begun to climb over the hood and past the open gate; he could not scramble or crawl, and instead belly-dragged himself slowly across the cadillac, losing momentum in the pause to pivot so he could throw his legs over the other side of the car, escaping the makeshift barricade. Dani, in her youthful fucking exhuberance, pressed on, leaving him behind. Goddamn kid.

By the time Bob’s sneakers hit the asphalt again, a pair of ghouls had already emerged from around the corner of the front office building and had taken notice. The closest one moaned out of a slackened jaw; the jaw hung limply, not due to death, but rather it was only tethered in position by a few strings of cheek muscle holding it aloft along the right side of the ghoul’s face. It couldn’t be helped, as Bob watched the ghoul emerge and approach, he watched the jaw dangle like a cat’s toy on a string – possibly at any second, tearing completely, leaving a limp mandible swaying. The ghoul, who was nude from the waist down, no longer appeared to have genitals that Bob could identify. He shuddered at the sight of the dark brown gash of rotting meat that had dripped dark fluid that ran down thin, bare legs.

The other ghoul, by comparison, appeared untouched beyond some superficial rot. That was until its outstretched grasp revealed a hand torn down the center, down to the wrist, between the middle and ring fingers. It was like the poor woman’s hand had been the Thanksgiving wishbone, greedily tugged at by overzealous children. Two loose fingers and a chunk of the rest of the hand hung off the palm loosely, almost unmoving beyond the bounce of motion. The other three fingers wiggled wildly at Bob’s presence.

Dani was out of sight completely by now. Bob’s lungs were itching. There wasn’t a fire in them yet.

Bob drew his rifle into position, something instinctual, a muscle memory still very much sharpened from three decades of living with wholesale slaughter. He never believed in the cause, but he did his duty. Everything expected of him. Everything. 

His reward was shitty lungs and a skull full of bad thoughts. From Viet Cong to the living dead; more faces for haunting the quiet hours.

But he tried not to dwell on them.

The first shot was perfect; the round drilled into the temple of the closest ghoul as it wobbled-walked on unsteady feet, swaying in wide arcs. The ghoul had dropped instantly, and its companion, the woman with the split hand, had not acknowledged its fall, still pushing forward. The ring and pinky fingers, along with their respective fleshy metacarpals, continued to bounce passively.

He couldn’t stand to see the things. He drew his rifle again, just as the ghoul approached the remains of its companion. Not looking, she took a wrong step and collapsed right onto the parking space in front of the body. Bob watched silently as the ghoul fell on an outstretched arm and watched it break. The arm did not reduce the impact, as the ghoul smashed face-first into oil-stained asphalt – a crunch and pooling of blood marking the violence.

And yet, the ghoul stirred. Bob didn’t know if these things could be disoriented, but it had trouble getting up. It may have been more from the broken arm not bearing weight, but he wondered if the dead could also be rattled like he could after a fall.

But, he supposed, it didn’t really matter. He began approaching the commotion, hip-firing into the ghoul’s skull, and making his way to where Dani had run off to. He scratched at the center of his chest – the itch was still there. Always there.

As he walked, Jimmy jogged up from behind him, a golf putter in hand; Jimmy only hung around for a moment to confirm where the commotion was, and sped past.

“I’m not that old,” Bob muttered. He started to jog, eyes darting around, wary of movement. 

He caught up with them. Dani and Jimmy had settled into crouches, covering Edgar, who was on the ground, belly-down, wrenched back, trying to apply some sort of pressure to the back of his leg. It looked to be near the knee.

“Bob, watch out! Someone has a gun!” Dani shouted.

Bob ducked down just off to the side of a thinning brown hedge that ran along the metal-barred gate that encircled whatever this school district building was. Any ghouls on the street outside were a good distance away, and none had managed to wander over toward the storage yard’s gate. Even then, the parked car would provide an obstacle, but Bob wondered if maybe he should have stayed there and held down the entrance for the return of the youngsters.

“IT WAS A FUCKING KID. A GODDAMN KID SHOT ME.”

Bob whirled around. He hadn’t heard that high of a tone out of Edgar and was caught off guard, more so by the delivery than the words themselves.

“What do you mean you were shot by a kid?” Jimmy asked.

A shot rang out and hit the bus. Everyone flinched. It was a wild shot, but in their direction. The kid must have had some training – most panic fire came off in bursts. This was a single shot, and while the shot was off the mark, it was not quite off the mark. The bus was covering Bob and the others.

“That little fuck shot me as I was trying to get away from all those dead shits. There was some kind of fight that broke ou-OWWW!”

Edgar stared at Dani, who was checking his leg by unflexing it to get a better sense of the wound. 

“Sorry,” she said. She pulled his leg back further and gingerly felt around the injury. “Bob?”

“Looks like a .22,” he added. Could have been much worse, he thought.

Dani continued. “They missed your knee, thank god, this is just at the top of the calf. Looks like it hurts.”

“IT FUCKING HURTS,” Edgar shouted. “I got clipped by a fucking fifth grader.”

Bob chimed in. “You said you were running from the dead – where is the kid?”

“Still back there, I didn’t get a good look at him,” Edgar grunted. “I saw three people spill out of a building trying to kill one another, and they got overrun. He must have been with that group. Maybe he thought I killed them or something?”

He paused.

“I… put them down after they’d been attacked. They weren’t gonna make it. She… one of them, her face had been bashed in, and she was drowning in her own blood. I couldn’t…” Edgar stopped as Jimmy gripped his shoulder.

Bob nodded at Edgar, and he kept his expression flat. “Makes sense. Though maybe the kid didn’t understand it. You did what you could to help.”

Dani, still crouched, duck-walked toward the front of the bus. Bob watched her take a couple of quick breaths and glance past the front before he could tell her no.

After a couple of seconds, she pulled back, and then the sound of another shot followed. Another hit to the bus.

“Goddamn it, Danielle.”

Again, the kid appeared to be a good shot. Whomever he had been with had taught him some trigger discipline.

“I don’t see him, but there are a lot of dead things moving toward a spot. I think he might get overrun if we don’t help him.”

Bob said nothing, still thinking about the kid’s aim. Jimmy and Edgar were trying to get Edgar to his feet. Jimmy was having a tough go of it due to Edgar’s heft.

“Guys, that kid is going to get overrun. We need to-”

Jimmy cut Dani off. “We need to get Edgar back to safety first and figure out a plan. We need to remove the bullet.”

“I can get back myself,” Edgar added. He was sweating, doing as much as he could to not put so much weight on Jimmy, but it wouldn’t last. Bob could see the man was tapped out. He was big and strong, but now he came off as helpless.

“Danielle, Dani. We need to get Edgar looked at. We can regroup there and figure something out,” Bob added.

Dani looked up at Bob, who had already risen to his feet, hunched just behind the hedge. He looked back at her, trying to convey that he understood her thinking. And he did, but the kid was too accurate a shot to do this safely with an injured man.

“It’s just a kid,” she pleaded.

“With a goddamn gun,” Edgar added.  Bob sensed the bitter tone. “He’s in a panic, and you’re gonna get shot if you approach him.”

Bob took a couple of steps toward her. “I don’t like it either, Dani, but we need to get out of here. The kid has a gun and a chance. We need to get Edgar to safety and not risk this injury getting worse. We’re not trading a man for the chance of a kid. We care for our own.”

The itching in his chest had grown more intense. He felt the start of a cough but stifled it by clearing his throat.

“I can go by myself,” she pleaded.

“Goddamn it. Dani, it’s gonna take all of us to get Edgar out of here. He’s too big for just Jimmy to support him, and we need someone on point for the way back.”

Edgar chuckled, out of breath. “Fuck you, Bob.”

Bob flipped Edgar off and flashed the man a smile. Edgar nodded. He was still sweating but seemed to be less panicked.

Dani said nothing, turning from the men, staring toward the front of the bus. Bob wondered if she was planning a path and if she would bolt forward. He hoped not. She sighed. She turned back, clearly pissed.

“Shit. Alright, let’s get this done.” She swept over to Edgar’s left and positioned herself under his armpit, bearing as much of his weight as she could, and Jimmy focused on the side with the wounded leg.

“Bob, keep the path clear,” Jimmy said.

Bob, still hunched, moved into the street and straightened his back, rifle drawn. His chest began to burn; the stifled cough was seeking its vengeance. 

As he could make out, there were three ghouls on North Lyon, two coming up from South Lyon. He took up a position in the middle of the street and aimed at the closest of the northern group. He glanced back at the storage yard, wary of motion outside of the rest of his unit.

A sudden coughing fit sent his shot veering off into the top of the ghoul’s chest, sending it stumbling back a step or two, but otherwise did not cut the momentum.

“Shit,” Bob continued coughing. “Move!”

He did his best to suppress the cough as Dani and Jimmy, supporting Edgar, came up behind him. With them behind, he was free to shoot again. This time, his mark was felled, and he watched the ghoul collapse onto the street. The two companions noticed nothing about their third, only moaning as they became aware of Bob’s position. They were still a distance off, far enough that there would be time to get to the gate. It was better to be reactive than aggressive, here.

He also hoped that maybe his shot had alerted the ghouls across the street. He hadn’t heard anything there. Maybe the kid had managed to run in the moment.

He turned to see Dani and Jimmy struggle under the weight of Edgar’s body on their own from his one-legged hops, like they were stakes to be driven into the asphalt. Both of them were puffing nearly as much as Edgar was.

He whirled south and observed that the other two ghouls had cleared the distance surprisingly fast. He took a few steps back, following his companions, observing them. They didn’t seem that fast – he wasn’t sure how they’d gotten so close.

His chest still burned, but the cough had seemed to clear out most of the tension. He wanted desperately to rub his chest, to soothe it as best he could, but he didn’t loosen his grip on the rifle.

As Bob and the others made their way into the small outer lot of the Storage Yard, he took point again, waiting for Edgar to crawl over the hood of the car.

Sure enough, the pair from the south rounded past the fence. They looked “fresher” for lack of a better term, and he wondered how recently they had been living people. Their bodies were still fleshy, and there was no sign of bones just beneath the skin being drawn too tight.

One ghoul’s neck had jagged tears, and the blood was not merely a brown stain, but looked tacky. Maybe a couple of hours old. The other ghoul had a similar, tacky stain around its mouth. Where had this drama played out?

But that was a question for another time.

Bob held his breath, lungs burning. He fired off a shot, hitting the ghoul with the neck injury in the throat. He swore under his breath, took aim, and fired again, this time sending the ghoul reeling back, red blood arcing as it fell back.

Edgar had managed to slide off the hood of the Cadillac and collapsed within the safety of the storage yard. Bob glanced over his shoulder as he watched Sandy march up to the man, simply staring from a yard away from him. He turned back to the ghouls as Jimmy began scrambling over the hood.

“Fuck, Sandy, go grab our aid kit,” Jimmy shouted.

Bob steeled himself as Dani approached and stood next to him. He took aim and fired, dropping the second of the South Lyon ghouls. He began to cough again.

Dani placed her hand on the rifle.

“Got two more coming from the north,” he said.

“Bob, you need to get over the car. It’ll take you longer. I can handle this.”

“Take me longer?”

Dani said nothing, glancing away from Bob, awkwardly. She didn’t want to say it. 

“How old do you think I am?” he pressed.

“Eighty?”

Bob began coughing again, and he tugged back the rifle. “I’m 64, kid. I’m not that fucking old.”

“Just get inside.” She snatched the rifle from him. “You’ve been coughing. Go. I’ve got them.”

Bob sputtered between coughs, “Alright, but you follow right after, got it?”

Dani nodded and took a firing stance.

“‘Eighty’ my ass,” Bob muttered as he approached the gate. He glanced back to see the first of the two North Lyon ghouls round the corner of the storage office.

Bob began to climb the hood of the car and belly crawl back into the yard. As he slid over, he watched Alicia approach, carrying a duffel bag. In the distance, he saw Sandy wheeling around in a golf cart, heading toward the RV where Mary and Alicia had been staying.

“I’ve got the bag, Jimmy, here!” Alicia tossed the bag toward the front of the car. Jimmy caught it and unzipped it, dipping into the supplies with what appeared to be a practiced hand. Alicia continued speaking as she jogged toward them. “Ms. Gunderson is picking up my mom. She used to work at a clinic. She can help!”

Alicia came to a stop in front of Bob and stared down at Edgar, who was on his side, breathing heavily. His brow was furrowed; he was concentrating on anything but his injury.

“Face down, bitch,” Jimmy told him. Edgar glanced back at him and grunted, doing what he was told. He lay on his stomach.

“Alicia, help me down.” Bob outstretched his arm, and she took it, helping guide him off the Cadillac. His feet had clipped Edgar in the head during the dismount.

“Cuídate, estúpido,” Edgar muttered.

“Cállate,” Bob added, winded. His chest was still hurting. He was breathing fire.

Alicia stared out the gate, toward where Bob had left Dani. “Holy shit.”

Bob glanced up over the hood of the car and saw Dani, standing over two crumbled ghouls. She hadn’t fired a shot. She had just finished dislodging her fireplace poker from the skull of one of them, with the rifle strapped over her shoulder. The poker’s hooked end was caked in gore, and the ghouls at her feet looked as though their heads had been bashed in, and the asphalt was covered in a browning slurry with spacklings of white and grey.

“Jesus, kid.”

A distant shot rang out. It had to be the kid again. He was on his own for sure, now. Still measured, still dangerous.

Dani looked toward the direction of the sound – across the street. She looked back at Bob, her eyes wide. Her mouth had been drawn tight. 

Bob remembered that look from Quý on a joint patrol along the Song Gu Via in ‘71. He’d heard a distress call and walked into a trap, quite literally. Bob had never seen a man skewered so thoroughly.

“Don’t you fucking dare, Dani!” Bob shouted.

Dani said nothing. She whirled away from the gate and ran off, toward the sound of the gunshot.

The camp’s bathroom setup was simple enough: the survivors had cleared out one of the units, and some shelving and boxes enclosed the entrance, with some shower curtains strung across for some privacy. From there, everyone would do their business in an individual bucket that they’d have to empty later through a gap in the fencing at the western end of the lot.

It was the return of the chamberpot. Things really had regressed.

The closed curtain with a hanging air freshener on display indicated occupied space. For good measure, Bob had found a “Pawdon My Mess” sign out of some grandmother’s unit and hung it inside the unit. Dani had begun to despise the cloyingly sweet puppy on the placard. Everyone gave one another a wide berth when it came to ‘shit-central’ as Bob had taken to calling it.

Water was rare. Thankfully, sanitizer and toilet paper were comparatively less rare than water. The group had managed well enough, but soon they would need water beyond what they’d scavenged. Nobody had bathed in weeks; it had been at least a month since any rain had crossed the sky, and there was no luck with water catches beyond the promise they would eventually work when the weather would finally be on their side.

Dani stepped out from shit-central, holding the bucket away from her, glancing around. She hated this. Even worse, however, was the makeshift latrine on the other side of the fence, right next to Bob’s trailer. He’d been kind enough to avert his eyes as she approached with the bucket; she disappeared behind a pair of shelves he had set up as a privacy marker.

She drained the bucket down the pipe that drained into the caustic pit. As the shame sluiced through the pipe, landing with an audible plop, she gazed across the street. Thankfully, the lone ghoul she had spied hadn’t seemed to notice her. She watched it stumble aimlessly across the road. The last thing she wanted was a walking dead man falling into a pit of shit. It would be too much to bear.

“The pool chemicals have helped out quite a bit, keeping the rankness down,” Bob said as she stepped out, bucket lighter but no less traumatizing. “I wish we could have dug a bigger latrine, though,” he added.

Dani placed her bucket on the ground behind the shelf and glanced at the old man. “Please never talk to me if you see me using this spot. Please.”

He saluted her and turned his attention back to his book.

“Doesn’t the smell get to you?” She asked.

“It beats the dead.”

He had a point. Maybe.

“Tell you what, though, there is a reason I don’t open the back window of the trailer.”

Bob’s trailer, the one he lived in as the “security” of the storage business, illegally before the end of the world, had been parked against the metal-barred fence to shore up a portion of it. He hadn’t objected to the decision to dig the latrine next to him.

Hell, he helped dig the thing over the course of a day, dodging ghouls and taking shifts with Dani, Jimmy, and Edgar.

“Danielle. You got nothin’ to worry about. I don’t mind being here at this spot. It’s where all my books are.” 

Dani glanced at the bookshelves he had erected for a privacy wall, and sure enough, he seemed to have added to his library, somehow. The shelves rested comfortably beneath the pop-up he designated as a library. 

“Truth be told,” he rose from a salvaged recliner, “I have an idea and could use some help with this situation…” 

Dani reflexively nudged the bucket further back with her foot as he approached.

Bob put his hands on his hips and stared at his feet, a frequent gesture he made when working toward something. Generally, his instincts were good, and she was already intrigued.

“I didn’t find a shed or nothin’ in any of these units. I know it was a long shot, but I had hoped maybe some taxman or someone had bought one and never assembled it. If I had a shed, I could rig us up an actual head.”

“Head?”

Bob laughed.

“Sorry, old habits. Bathroom. I could rig us up a bathroom that can work with that latrine, especially if we dig it further and get some more of those pool chemicals.”

“No more shit-central?”

“Baby girl, we’re talkin’ shit-palace.”

Dani and Bob laughed a bit at this.

“If you can get me something from the Hardware Depot down the road… one of those sheds, I can repurpose that toilet we found last week, the one that was still boxed up.”

Bob paused and coughed a bit. It was deep and rattling, less of a sign of imminent danger or illness and more of his general age.

“Excuse me. I’d also need some pipes and all the plastic bins we can get our hands on, but… well… I think everyone would feel a hell of a lot better, and once the rains kick in, I think we could be doing pretty well for ourselves.”

Dani nodded. “That sounds doable. We’ll see when Edgar gets back about arranging a trip down the road.”

“Edgar is still out?”

“Yeah, scouting that place across the street.”

“He seems like a good guy. I hope he’s being careful.”

“Me, too. Though…”

“If you’re gonna say something about him having that gun on him, I get it, kid. I do. But you gotta also think about it from his perspective. Most of us here know nothing about one another.”

“I know, and you’re right. That’s why I am not making a big deal of it.” Dani reached into her left pocket and pulled out the copy of Dracula. “By the way, the kid is done with Dracula and wants to borrow something else.”

“Oh god, yeah, absolutely. Has she read The Hobbit?”

“How the hell would I know?”

“Well, take it to her.” Bob walked over to the shelving and scanned the rows until he found a small, silver-colored paperback featuring a mist-shrouded mountain on the cover. He handed it to Dani.

“Thanks, I am sure she’ll love it.”

“You know, you can take a book, too. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you only either working or hiding in that Airstream for the past week.”

Dani took that in for a moment, not registering it entirely until she replayed what he had said. She suddenly found herself on the back foot. It was a sudden, uncomfortable shift to be chastised for not reading given the circumstances, but self-consciousness won out, and she wheeled for an excuse. 

“I’ve never been much of a reader.”

“I can’t think of a better time to start. No more Simpsons.”

Dani sighed. “Yeah, okay. What do you recommend?” She paused, then continued, “And if you say anything Amy Tan, I’ll feed you to one of those dead things on the streets.”

“Not a fan?”

“No, just… had a teacher at community college in an English class who kept saying that I was going to love the book, and it was very relatable. Didn’t even understand I was fucking Korean. It was embarrassing.” “Gotcha.” Bob scanned the shelves and, after a few moments, added, “Okay, well, how about this?”

Dani took the book from Bob. The cover was faded, torn in a corner, and the spine was so cracked that any of the text was now illegible. 

She scanned the cover. “Shane? Is this a western?”

“Yeah, not a fan?”

“Didn’t say that… I used to watch True Grit with my dad. A lot of John Wayne movies, actually. He was obsessed with the guy.”

“Yeah, we talked about The Green Berets a few times. Your dad was – is – a good man.”

“Yeah, pretty sure he is dead, honestly,” she replied, almost reflexively.

They were both silent after that. All that broke that stillness was an occasional caw of a carrion bird. They’d been so active the past few weeks, and it wasn’t pleasant to consider why. 

“Dani, it’s only been a month.”

“And look how bad things are, everyone is dead, in hiding, or is fucking with everyone else. I know my mom and dad. They wouldn’t make it. He was too trusting of everyone.”

“He was a good man.”

“So are you, but you can be a son of a bitch when you need to, Bob. He never could. Mom walked over him. I got away with all sorts of bad shit. I loved him, loved them, but I’m not holding out hope.”

“I’m sorry, kid; you’re probably right, but damn, I don’t like you going there so easily. The minute you’re broken, I think we’re all screwed.”

She took in a sharp, quick breath. How could she tell Bob that she had been broken before the end of the world? She was relieved to have that AirStream with that locking door so that she could just get away from everyone.

Everyone listened to her, spoke to her, but she refused to speak about what was going on in her head. She didn’t like that so many decisions about the camp had fallen to her when she wasn’t even sure she’d have a reason for living in a state of perpetual fear for much longer.

“I’m fine, really,” she replied.

The scars on her thighs throbbed – a brief instant of dull pain that ebbed into a dopamine flow of some sense of control, albeit briefly. She’d started cutting again; it had started up the day when she had to club her undead neighbors to pulp.

“Well, just give the book a try, okay?”

“Sure.” She wasn’t sure if she would.

A sharp burst of static made her jump, and she looked to the walkie-talkie that Bob had set on a box near his chair. Alicia’s voice rang out, “Dani, are you there? My mom’s leg is really hurting again, and I am not sure what to do.”

Dani walked over and picked up the walkie. “Sure thing. I’ll be there in a moment, okay?”

Another crackle, and Sandy’s voice came through: “I thought these were for emergencies?”

Dani couldn’t help herself. “Yes, we’re dealing with an injury, you’re just being annoying. Over and out.”

Bob snorted.

They’d managed to find four of the devices, and they had been very careful about using them. Come to think of it, Dani remembered, the fourth handset was in her trailer.

“I wasn’t aware Alicia had one. Did Edgar ask for one earlier?”

Bob had slumped down into his chair. 

“He didn’t, he said the sound might draw too much attention as he was scouting the place.”

Dani didn’t like that. She had already felt foolish for not using the walkies effectively days ago when Edgar had to make the pied piper run around the block to divert the ghouls. Nobody had remembered that they had them as they waited out the moment, and it was a complete shitshow. Since then, they’d been strategic about who had them… mostly. Sandy protested not having one, so she was ostensibly a “scout” in the second-story apartment above the office.

“He should have taken one. He could have taken mine.”

“Hey, I told him to grab one, and he said he wouldn’t want to risk it.”

“Fuck.”

“Yep.”

Dani shook her head and began to walk toward the back of the yard. Still a shitshow. A shitshow she had been seemingly pushed into managing. She felt lacking.

As though it were a reminder, the couple of spots on her thigh throbbed again. She embraced the pain, briefly, until the sound of three sudden pops in the air caught her attention. Gunfire.

She had turned and seen Bob scramble to his feet, craning his neck to look through holes in the fencing to get an idea of what had happened. Dani jogged up.

“Across the street,” he said. “Sounded like gunshots, right?”

The sounds had erupted across the street where Edgar had been scouting.

“Sounds like he might have found somethin’, Danielle.”

Despite his size, he had managed to stay low on foot, crouching and crawling between vantage points around the block and always warily shifting his gaze around. When these creatures were not alert and moaning, they ran eerily silent. He had nearly had a close call as he crawled past the front office of the storage yard and did not see a ghoul walk out from between a pair of abandoned sedans in the road. That had been the first day of scouting, and it had rattled him so much that he shouted and alerted a few more in the area. He had fled back to the storage lot for safety, and he and Bob had picked up the trio of stragglers that had followed from behind the safety of the metal gate.

Edgar would not make such a mistake again.

Based on Edgar’s observation, the only point in and out that was walkable was the busted rolling gate, but that area also had a pair of nearby wandering ghouls in addition to the ghoul within the bus.

It was manageable, but what concerned him most were the sounds he had heard from inside the district office, echoing out between the buildings of the district campus. Periodically, there was shouting and the clanging of pipes and slamming doors, punctuated by a series of moans from the ghouls. He hadn’t heard these things until he had begun poking at the perimeter, and even then, it all sounded so faint.

Edgar was unsure of the disposition of the survivors, if he was hearing what he thought he was, but the clamor was great. He was sure it was more unknown people than he was willing to deal with on his own, especially given the incident with the police car. He’d been lucky with Bob and Dani, and lucky again with the new ones, Mary and Alicia. Sooner or later, luck would run out.

The good news was that the patterns the ghouls seemed to follow were aimless but also felt almost regular, as though they would reach some boundary, invisible or not, and reverse course. Today would be the day he would test that and work his way into the district grounds to see what he could find.

There was no rush. He wouldn’t push it. He wasn’t in a hurry to die. He woke up with a start more than once these past few days, remembering the swarm of ghouls clinging to his car a week ago – remembering the back seat of the car and the condition of the woman he was sure he’d known.

Edgar came in low, practically on his hands and knees, following along the side of the bus, out of sight of the closest ghoul ahead. When he was close enough, he squeezed himself under the bus. If it hadn’t been due to consistent starvation, he would have been unable to do that. The most fucked of blessings. He was still the biggest person in the camp, but he felt smaller than he had been before everything changed. 

He shuffled quietly on his belly under the bus and toward the front. Pausing, he watched desiccated feet shuffle back and forth; the sticklike legs were in tattered slacks, and one foot was socked but without a shoe.

He watched the ghoul’s motion until it came close enough. He pulled a small camping hatchet from the back of his pants and grabbed at one of the legs, tugging hard. Instead of dragging it under, the leg snapped off, and the ghoul fell to the ground. Black blood splattered, and Edgar quickly tossed the broken leg away.

“Fuck,” he whispered. He scrambled out from under the bus and grappled the waist and back of the ghoul as it thrashed. With an overhead swing, he brought the blade to the back of the skull with a sickening thwack, cracking the rotting skull open before the ghoul even made a sound. Pausing for a second to see if it was done thrashing, he scrambled to his feet to the other side of the bus, peeking out from the front, wary of any movement.

That hadn’t gone as planned. Edgar glanced down at a bus tire, noticing it was so shredded that it could not be an easy fix. He wondered about possibly replacing it, but realized where he was in relation to the bus. Sure enough, Edgar stood in front of the open door. He crouched and held silent for a moment. The ghoul inside must have been in the back because there was no sign of it.

He took his hatchet and flicked away some blood. He tapped the handle at the first step, crouching against the side of the bus. The wait was agonizingly long for the ghoul to spill forth, enticed by the sound. When the creature arrived, it tripped down the stairs, crumbling into a dusty, rotten heap. Edgar pinned it down on the ground with his knee on its back and gave it a couple of violent thwacks with the blade. All that was left of his handiwork was a oozy dark puddle and rubbery nuggets of brain matter, looking like the world’s worst plate of scrambled eggs.

He glanced around, and the other ghouls who “patrolled” this space had wandered off. There was a gap if he wanted to push.

The facility would take a long time to clear at this rate. With no ghouls in sight, and his exit seemingly opened behind him, he pushed forward, taking a low run toward the first building, which appeared to be the school bus depot.

The building was a small outbuilding combined with what appeared to be a large carport meant for bus maintenance. There was no sign of wanderers, so he ducked into the small office that seemed to operate as a dispatching area. The place was a wreck, but there were no signs of life except for some smears of blood on a table. Peering out of the office, he saw the school buses that occupied the large parking lot. There were three parked in the large lot, and a lone bus in the bay that appeared to be mid-repair. Other buses had been out on the job when the place had gone into lockdown, Edgar figured. But the remaining three were just what he was hoping to find – if they were still operational.

He turned his attention back to the small room. There were a couple of computers on desks, a couple of phones, a small table, and some chairs. Little else, beyond, but he checked behind the desks anyway. He was surprised to catch sight of a minifridge, but then realized what was in there had probably become little more than sludge.

Curiosity won out, however, and he crouched down, opening the door. The scent of rot punched him in the face, nearly knocking him onto his ass, but the sight of a sealed can of cola won out. He snatched the can up and slammed the refrigerator shut, gagging all the while.

After a few moments where he could collect himself, he studied his can of cola. It had picked up a little odor from the fridge’s contents, and he ineffectually attempted to wipe away any grime on his pant leg.

He turned the can over and saw it was a diet soda. He grimaced at the idea of a diet soda, but also realized there wasn’t much of the stuff left in the world in the long run. Sugar was sugar.

He checked the date on the label, and sure enough, it was good. Worried about what the can may have picked up from the condition of the minifridge, Edgar spat on the rim and then whipped the can as cleanly as he could with a corner of his shirt. He cracked the tab and took a sip of the sickeningly sweet cola. Content, he took it down in a couple of huge gulps.

He finished the last sips and set the can beside him. All this time, there had been no sound coming from anywhere outside of the office. He rose to his feet, glanced out the door, and turned his attention to the bus in the bay.

From what he could tell, the tires appeared fine. He saw the engine hatch was open and couldn’t eyeball much regarding the engine’s status right now. He made his way to the side of the bus with the door and nearly shit himself when he saw a body hanging down over the stairs.

If it had been a ghoul, it would have moved – but it was just a body. Was it the driver? Or was he a mechanic? Leaning in, Edgar saw that the man appeared to be neither. He wore what used to be a pale green dress shirt and a tie with brown slacks. The man didn’t strike Edgar as someone who actually had much to do with the maintenance or operation of buses. Based on the computers in the room, Edgar figured that the man had a dispatcher.

What was the story here? Edgar had been thinking a lot about the ghouls and bodies he’d seen, wondering about past lives and final moments. He knew why. That car had rattled him in a way he couldn’t quite explain. Since then, he couldn’t help but consider stories.

The body did not appear to have any major wounds from behind. Curiosity gave way, and Edgar grabbed the shirt at the collar and pulled the corpse from the doorway. He turned the body as best he could, and caught a leathery face frozen in shock and fear. He also saw a screwdriver jammed into the chest.

Edgar’s head spun with theories, but he settled on the story that maybe the dispatcher and the mechanic were fighting about something in the chaos. Maybe the mechanic ended it.

Edgar just wanted things to have some kind of reason.

Edgar plucked the screwdriver free and flicked the gunk from it. It was a longer piece of kit, and he figured it would be worth holding onto. Inside the bus, it was relatively clean, beyond the exposure to open doors and windows.

Yet, there were still no signs of what was wrong with the bus, if anything. The keys were in the ignition, but there was no clear way out without moving the bus from the gate or opening another gate. For now, he’d let this one sit in silence, but took the keys with him. It was lucky that the driver hadn’t taken the keys with him.

Edgar made his way to the closest building, which seemed to be some sort of administrative spot. The lot was dotted with other cars, which might be useful – he clocked each one and added it to the mental inventory he had been taking. He kept his creeping, crouched movements, ducking past wandering dead, and made his way to a glass doorway. 

The doorway itself was in good condition, but he noticed that things had been piled up against it on the other side, serving as a makeshift barricade. He saw some desks, chairs, and boxes. The handles of the doors had been lashed by what looked like a belt and jacket.

The barrier was just about waist-high, and fabric had been strung across to hide anything within, outside of the small slivers of space between the barricade and the fabric. Edgar wasn’t sure if the ghouls could see anything, but he understood the impulse. He’d considered lining the fencing with cardboard back in the storage yard.

Realizing he’d come this far already, Edgar kept out of sight and approached the door, placing his ear to it.

Sure enough, there were voices. 

Raised voices. 

Shouting.

Gunshots.

“Fuck, fuck.” Edgar scrambled away from the door, falling over a couple of times, dashing his way back toward the garage area, keeping as low a profile as possible. It was amazing he hadn’t drawn any ghoulish attention in the scramble so far. 

Sure enough, dreadful moans seemed to echo all around, and the sound of muffled gunfire from inside continued to pick up. He ducked around the corner into one of the bays and watched as shattering glass scattered over the walkway where he had just been, and office furniture and boxes tumbled out with a pair of people.

Edgar watched the two run for their lives, a man and a woman. Both were thin. The man, already bloodied and clutching an arm, seemed to shield the woman’s body. The woman’s shirt was torn, a breast exposed.

A third man spilled out of the same doorway and fruitlessly pulled a revolver trigger over and over. His face was covered in blood, and his steps were lurching. Out of ammo, he picked up his pace like a crazed beast, striking the first man on the head. He overtook the woman, grabbing her by the hair and throwing her to the ground.

Edgar saw him climb on top of her and club her with the revolver; the other man, who had been brained, quickly tackled the man with the revolver, clubbing at him.

Edgar threw himself out from behind the wall of the garage and ran toward the scene as the two men struggled over the woman, but four ghouls had begun approaching them from behind some parked cars.

“Watch out!”

Edgar waved and cried at them, but the two men played out their drama, ignorant of him. It was too late; the ghouls converged and fell upon the struggling men, tearing them apart.

Edgar watched in horror as greasy fingertips slashed at the gunman’s neck, and hot blood burst forth. In a second, another pair of hands grabbed at his scalp and began pulling out clumps of bloody hair. The gunman hadn’t been as fortunate with two ghouls falling upon him and sinking rotten, yellow teeth deep into the neck and shoulder. Edgar was shocked at how strong and quick the monsters moved at the prospect of fresh flesh.

Each man was stripped of skin and tissue by teeth and fingertips. He’d watch a ghoul take a bite and tear strips and ribbons of flesh free, only to see flesh roll out of open mouths, where the ghouls would then go back, sinking in their teeth even deeper. Edgar had never seen the things feed so directly. He felt like he was about to vomit, but Edgar swallowed down the acidic bile that rose in his throat and cautiously approached the group to see if he could at least help the woman.

The ghouls were distracted by their eating frenzy, and the sounds of the men’s screams masked Edgar’s heavy steps. As he was within a few feet of the gruesome scene, he noticed the woman moving. Her face, however, told a different story and amounted to little more than a bloody bowl – he swore he could see white teeth in a puddle of flesh where a face used to exist. The gunman’s revolver had smashed her nose and teeth, and she was drowning in her blood. Her gargles terrified Edgar.

He closed the gap between them and, tears in his eyes, brought the ax’s blade down on her face, smashing what was left of her head into three wet chunks. He cried as he put her out of her misery and, when finished, whirled around and smashed at the skull of the closest ghoul. His swing was wild and glanced off bone. He doubled down and struck again, sinking the blade deep into the ghoul’s temple.

Edgar flew into a rage, striking any head he saw in a pile, and after a few moments and a couple of near bites, had brained every single one of the ghouls and the men for good measure. He instinctively grabbed the revolver and absentmindedly pulled the trigger a half dozen times, hoping at least a single shot was left.

There was nothing there. He knew that.

But the compulsion was too great. 

He tucked the gun into his pants and noticed the commotion had begun to pull in a few stragglers. How had there been even more of these fuckers hidden away? He grabbed the long screwdriver from his belt loop and clumsily rose to his feet, winded.

This scouting trip had become a catastrophe. He wouldn’t chance the district office. It was time to leave.

Since the police car, the group had kept a tight watch from the roof directly on the corner of Lyon and Acacia, careful of ghoul movements. Beyond small clusters, the streets had been relatively silent. Dani, Jimmy, and Edgar had managed to stack some boxes and some sideways shelves up top to keep anyone on scout duty out of direct view. 

It had been a pain in the ass to get that stuff out there, but it would work well enough for the ghouls. The problem was that any people who might see the strange stacks on the roof would probably get a sense of what was up. Bob and Jimmy had planned to create a small wall running along the perimeter in the future. Nothing much but something that would allow for crouched movement, and more to the point, a little protection from any trigger-happy passerby. But that was one of several projects that emerged as everyone decided it was time to settle in for safety.

Not just safety from the dead, either. The cruiser was a grim reminder that they were not alone.

The drug store raid had been a success, and the supplies had helped ease their minds and filled their bellies – at least relatively. Another run, this time to the dollar mart a couple of days prior, had borne a decent supply of canned goods. Best of all, the trip went on without a hitch. So much so that Dani and Edgar had even managed to fill some bags with supplies they couldn’t carry back then and hid them out of sight for a supply run that they had planned for tomorrow.

As for Dani, now, she sat in her trailer, enjoying the reprieve of privacy. In the time she’d been here with the others, there were several swaps and trades regarding the on-site RVs. With the arrival of Mary and her daughter, Alica, Dani had given them the larger one she had been staying in, opting for an old Airstream. Dani wasn’t much for comforts these days. A door and a mattress were about as much as she needed. And a door lock.

Her trailer was tucked just in front of one of the indoor storage areas, which was little more than a concrete structure with several small, closet-sized units. This was where the residents had kept the supplies, and Dani held the key and the watch. The decision to lock them away was not popular, but everyone accepted it.

Accepted by most, anyway. Sandy Gunderson had voiced her concerns over the lock for the past two days. Everyone knew Sandy had snuck a bag of goods while unloading the last supply run, but everyone kept silent. The less she had to complain about and the more time she spent in the apartment above the rental office, the better. Her contributions to the camp were frequent anxiety at best, sprinkled with offers to pray with anyone who would wold accept it. If Dani was feeling generous, she could maybe see Sandy as a camp cook, but Dani suspected that it was more out of Sandy’s perceived necessity for “non-ethnic” food.

It was not lost on Dani, and clearly not on Sandy, that except for Jimmy, their group was not very white. Dani remembered when she was a kid that Sandy had called her a “slant-eyed monster” when she’d accidentally knocked over some paperwork in the office. Mom and Dad had not been there to hear it, and it was something that Dani carried with her going forward.

Dani thought about this little wound and picked at it enough to let out some tension. “Man, fuck that bitch.” 

She shook her head and rose to her feet.

Dani stepped outside of her trailer. The Airstream was planted firmly against the concrete wall along the eastern half of the lot. She had mounted a pop-up canopy over the entrance and braced it with a chest of drawers, a cabinet, and a bucket of nails. Some lawn furniture and a ratty roll of astroturf turned it into a rudimentary outdoor room. It wasn’t much to look at, but the shade was nice. It could be a little too comfortable at times. She’d accidentally taken a nap in the lawnchair and hadn’t allowed herself that since. There always needed to be a lock between her and the monsters – she needed to be sure of that.

From her “covered porch,” she could see Mary and Alicia’s trailer, a couple of dozen feet ahead, parked much like her trailer against the wall. Alicia Macias was sitting on the RV’s roof, reading a book. She saw Dani and waved to her, and Dani responded in kind. 

She liked the kid. Mary, though, was out of sight, likely inside. The broken leg from the drug store was a mess. They had done as much for her as possible. Dani would check in later.

She wasn’t quite sure how to deal with Mary; her recovery was a source of frustration, and more than once, Dani had seen her looking, for lack of a better term, shellshocked and unwilling to state much about life before the day everything fell apart. As open as Alicia was, there wasn’t much there. What was clear was a missing father, and that could be for so many reasons.

But as Dani took in what she could, the reason was appearing more and more obvious, day by day.

Directly across from the Macias’ “residence” was one of the clusters of units where the shitty brown Cadillac of Jimmy DeWitt and Edgar Rosas usually sat. They had opted to claim six units for their own needs in that row. They had also found an additional awning and erected it in front of where the car was normally parked to provide a little outdoor cover.

Dani made her way toward Jimmy’s cluster but was caught off guard by how quickly Alicia had climbed down from the RV. The kid was agile.

“Ms. Kim, I saw a big crowd of those things in the neighborhood behind us.”

“How big of a crowd?”

“It was tough to count them all, but I saw at least ten on the street, between the houses. Not counting the ones in the windows. It’s so weird seeing them up in those rooms like that.”

“Good eye. I am glad you’re keeping an eye on this side of the place. I know Bob appreciates the help.”

“Oh, speaking of Mr. Clark, could you take this book back to him? I’m done with it, and I don’t want to get too far away from my mom right now.”

Dani took the book from Alicia. She flipped it over in her hands and noticed it was a torn and stained copy of Dracula. Well loved.

Alicia was staring at the book. “I liked it, but the vampire felt a bit too… well, real. You know?” She looked up at Dani.

Dani nodded. “Will you be borrowing a new one from him later?”

“Could you pick for me?”

Dani smiled. “Sure, I’ll pick up a repair manual.”

“Hah.”

The two stood in silence. The sounds of birds and insects brought a sense of calm with chirps and clicks on the light breeze. The January mornings were cold, but Emmet was very much a town in a desert in many respects, no matter how many orange groves had been there 80 years ago. It was a California cold, which was largely pleasant.

“Alicia. How is your mom?”

“Her leg is still pretty fucked up.”

Dani’s eyes widened.

Alicia shrugged. “I’m 14.”

Dani laughed. “I know. I know. Sorry. I was just thinking about how my parents would have flipped had I dropped the ‘f-word’ on them.”

“You can’t even say it now, Ms. Kim.”

“Fuck off, smartass.”

They both burst into laughter. After a few moments, Dani sent Alicia off. “Go ahead and check in on your mom, Alicia. Let her know I am gonna come by in a bit to see how she is doing.”

Alicia nodded and, after a brief moment, gave Dani a small hug. Dani initially felt surprised but returned the gesture by squeezing the girl’s elbow. She was a good kid.

Alicia wandered off, gesturing with a wave as she approached her and her mother’s trailer. Dani turned her attention back to the units claimed by Jimmy and Edgar. 

Jimmy and Edgar had opened four this morning. She saw that they had removed various boxes, which had been torn open. The contents had been strewn about in multiple piles, the two still obviously sorting through them. 

The presence of an overly furry lady’s coat on a coat rack caught her eye for a moment. She had no idea what animal it once was, but the fact that Jimmy or Edgar had perceived enough value to hang the coat up was pretty funny. From what she had learned about them, she expected that it was a Jimmy gesture, the more reflective of the two.

She made her way down the row, the main row that ran toward the front gate. Sure enough, she saw Jimmy, the slighter of the pair, standing at the front entrance. His hair had grown a bit longer, and he had a tangle of red curls starting to form. He was in sweatpants and a t-shirt salvaged from one of the boxes. As she approached, she noticed the neon-colored graphic of a boat with “Catalina Open ‘92” in stylized letters on the back.

She presumed nobody in their sanctuary had ever been to Catalina before.

“Where is Edgar?” she asked as she approached.

Jimmy looked back; his hands were on his hips, intently studying the buildings across the street. He pointed to them.

“Edgar is scouting that building, so we’re keeping the gate open when he gets back. I’ve got the car parked there so he can climb over. The dead aren’t great at hauling themselves over things, and Bob and I have our eyes on it.”

“Edgar is there by himself?”

“Believe it or not, that giant is very quiet.”

Giant didn’t even begin to describe Edgar. While only about 5’9”, by most estimations, he was thick, a seeming combination of muscle and fat. Edgar was like a wall. Dani was glad to have him around.

Jimmy was different. He was skinny, and his muscles were ropey. He looked underfed, and his unruly red hair had not only grown longer at the top of his head, but he was beginning to develop a rat nest for a beard. Dani would need to get him something to trim it next time they were on a supply run.

He was pretty wiry-looking when he first came to the storage yard, but since then, he seemed to have mellowed out. He had been enthused about the company and things to do. He was one of the hardest-working people she had met, always up to something to make the location more livable, and the first to assist in projects.

He didn’t even bother hiding his track marks lately. Dani had been puzzling out how long ago he’d kicked his habit and if the work helped him manage. Dani had also been sweating whether this would be a problem down the line. By Sandy’s pointed comments, it already was – for her – but Jimmy had been graceful in feigning ignorance.

“Any idea what he’s looking for over there?”

Jimmy scratched his chin vigorously, and Dani could hear the rustling of hair. “We saw that it’s a school district facility or something. I think they make food there, school lunches and shit… and there could be buses.”

Dani used to live around the corner, right across from the district buildings. She hadn’t paid attention to it at the time. But thinking back, she did recall a colorful mural on one of the walls – some design based on the work of a kid. She always just thought it was ugly and weird. 

She supposed she saw some buses there from time to time as well. It was shocking how disconnected she felt from the location across from her apartment of two years.

“Why are we interested in buses, Jimmy?”

He smiled. “Well, if we can hotwire them, we can take a couple of them and build a wall around the parking lot in front of us.”

Dani looked at the lot; they hadn’t been able to use it due to the necessity of fixing the broken gate.

“We could find a way to make another gate and have two layers of protection here,” she added.

“Yep. Maybe even park a couple of cars or a truck for supply runs.”

“It could also give us a chance to fix the gate. Really fix it.”

“Yeah. I feel really shitty about breaking it. I swear I’ll fix it.”

Dani took a few steps forward toward the rolling gate and shrugged. “You didn’t know anyone was here, and you’re doing what you can to help. Nobody is mad.”

Jimmy pulled a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his sweats’ pocket and a book of matches from the other. He lit up and began to puff away. Dani watched him for a moment, and soon enough, he nodded at her, plucking the cigarette from his lips and offering her a puff. She enjoyed it. She handed it back.

“Is he going to be okay by himself?”

“If it were me, you’d be right to be worried. Edgar, though, fucker is built different. He won’t be long. Besides, I really, really want to get to the parking lot.”

“We have plenty of parking here for now; it’s a good idea, but we basically have all the time in the world now.”

“It’s the grass in between the parking and the sidewalk. The soil. I think I can get a garden going.”

Dani’s eyes narrowed. “No shit?”

“No shit. I was in 4-H in high school, and my parents shipped me off to a boy’s ranch as a kid. I picked up the knack for growing.”

Dani thought back to the day Jimmy and Edgar had crashed the gate of the storage yard. Dani and Bob had found marijuana packed up in one of the units belonging to Jimmy.

“So that weed was homegrown, I assume?”

“I can grow potatoes too.”

“I’m sure you can.”

Jimmy took a couple more puffs and handed the cigarette back to Dani.

“I have some ideas, though, I see it, but I need the supplies.”

“Do tell,” Dani urged.

“Well, I can build some garden boxes. We can plant anywhere with those in a pinch. But I need wood, wire, liners… soil bags… seeds; it’s a lot.”

Dani handed the cigarette back to Jimmy. “Hence, starting with that patch of grass to get something going,” he added.

“Makes sense,” she added, “thinking of loading up one of the buses?”

Jimmy looked over at the truck still parked against the front office’s windows.

“That moving truck would have been perfect. I hope we can salvage that if we close the lot.” He began to hand the cigarette over to Dani, but paused and took another puff with a faraway look. “I am thinking about a lot of supplies because I have a much bigger idea.”

He paused for a moment, perhaps worried he was going to sound crazy or something. He looked at her, his eyes a little wide and his eyebrows sloping outward, concerned.

“Dani, do you know what is next to us?” He gestured behind them as he spoke, back toward the southern part of the storage yard, “That area between us at the houses?”

“Not really. Just some dirt, right?”

“A drainage ditch for one, and a dirt alley with the railroad tracks.”

Dani remembered that a railway, long since abandoned, had run through part of Emmett for nearly 60 years. The railway was mostly something used back in the early 1930s, as much as she knew. Maybe it went back to the town’s founding. The tracks were an artifact of the day when the town was known for its orange groves. She saw where he was going with this.

“You want to seal the place up and grow back there?” she asked.

“It’d give us a lot more room than some boxes and a strip of grass in front of the office. We could line the road with a wall that could give us a direct path rather than needing to climb up and over a unit to get there. There may be enough buses to do that with one or two for us to use as transport.”

It was a good idea, but the project seemed like a massive pain in the ass, especially given the need to secure the area and move the goods. She understood why Jimmy and Edgar were interested in the buses. This was workable, but would take some doing.

“The problem is,” Jimmy continued, “that we can’t risk losing that truck in front of the office yet because we can’t reinforce the window frame. We don’t have anything else that can work to haul around the supplies I need.”

Dani thought about it for a moment. Jimmy offered her the last few puffs of the cigarette, but she politely waved it off, deep in thought. She thought back to the area around them and where they had been the past few weeks.

She remembered something about her flight from the apartments where she had lived before the bullshit went down. The place was around the corner and seemed so much further away when she first escaped. Now it offered a tantalizingly close solution.

“I know where we can find a moving truck.”

Jimmy’s eyebrow raised, intrigued. He dropped the cigarette butt and mashed it with the toe of his sneaker.

“Hell yes.” He beamed. “Fuck yes.”

The road itself was overgrown, with deep ruts of ancient wagon tread filled in with small blades of grass peppered with the occasional hardy weed. There was a more defined path, that of previous patrols. Corea hadn’t expected to see a sign of her brother, yet, but she felt a great pain as she marched. A pain that she would never attribute to Egg’s punch.

Eryll cleared his throat again, and she turned; he flicked his hand forward, and she picked up her pace again. This would get old, fast.

The sun had crossed the middlemost part of the sky by the time something happened. Fang, yards ahead, had stopped suddenly, and yelped a dog’s whine, like when someone stepped on a hound’s tail. Corea herself had stopped and began to approach, but Erryl cleared the distance and held his hand back toward her, blocking her progress, his rapier extended.

Errly then whistled. It sounded like a bird’s call, but she didn’t recognize the bird. Corea and Erryl stood as Fang took several steps back and turned his back to the road, toward their destination. He looked miserable and hunched, walking back toward them. Erryl lowered his blade and strode toward the Wolf. Corea followed.

“What?” was all Erryl asked.

Fang looked sick, his ears drooping. Corea thought that he would have looked pathetic if he hadn’t looked like he could kill her with a glance, otherwise.

Fang whimpered and buried the tip of his nose into the back of his hand.

“Slime.”

Erryl sighed. “You are the most vicious fighter I have ever had the pleasure to work with, but I marvel at what actually fazes you sometimes.”

“A slime?” Corea asked, stepping toward Fang. He ignored her, breathing through the fur on the back of his hand.

“A slime, young Corea, is one of many monsters that are found in the world. Putrescent little living puddles. They are not uncommon; I am surprised you have never heard of them.”

“I’ve heard, but I don’t see it? Also, my brother killed one once.” She glanced at Fang. “Why is he scared?”

At that, Fang looked at her, his eyes sharp, annoyed. He grunted.

“Not fear.”

Erryl shook his head. “Our friend has a tremendous sense of smell. That comes at the risk of sensitivity. It’s why I carry wolfsbane on me.”

Fang grunted and peered behind him, his ears moving, trying to pick up movement.

“How would you describe what you smell, my friend?”

Fang stepped further back down the road whence they had come. He now had his nose buried into his forearm, draped by the cloak. It was as though the scent had pushed him away.

“Imagine every dead thing a vinegar jelly picks up and let’s rot inside it.” 

Corea swore she heard him gag. She gagged, too.

Erryl turned to her. “What do you know of them, Corea?”

“I know their acid can melt just about everything over time, but you can use it for a lot of things if you treat it right.”

Erryl smiled, and Fang grunted. Erryl continued, “spoken like a farmer, but a good observation regardless. Let me ask again, what do you know of the creature itself?”

Corea wasn’t sure what he was asking, but she answered as best she could. “Well, they are these jelly things that wander, eating whatever they can pick up as they move. They don’t really have a shape, and they don’t think. They don’t have brains or anything. They can slip into any gap they find. If they roll into a critter’s warren, they can fill the whole thing up with their… I guess you’d call it body?”

“Not bad, but if you are going to travel with us, you need to learn to hunt. And you are wrong on one key thing. No, they do not have brains, not as we understand them, but they do think, and they think quite hard about how to eat everything and anything.”

Erryl glanced down the road.

“And I want you to kill it,” he added matter-of-factly.

She stared at him for a moment. His smile was not quite friendly or reassuring, but something severe and forced. It was inscrutable.

She glanced back at Fang for guidance, but he had already retreated several more feet back down the road, staring past her and Erryl. His ears drooped, and he still had his cloak in front of his snout. He would periodically shift, looking for the source of the smell.

Corea looked down toward her waist and drew her knife, holding it up. She felt stupid holding it in place and standing in silence. She felt like a child playing pretend in the moment.

Fang’s sudden yelp caught her attention, and she glanced at him as he took several steps back, eyes locked on something ahead of the party. She turned to look up the road, and that is when she saw the slime ooze out from the brush. The green, jelly substance rolled up on itself, settling into place like a broad bubble, like on the surface of a stew.

Erryl glanced back and shook his head at Fang. “It’s a small one, you ferocious beast, you.”

Fang said nothing, simply shaking his head. After a moment, he hunched over, wretching and stumbling.

“Well, he is going to be as useless to us now as tits on a goose. Alright, child, listen closely.” Erryl crouched and pulled his bag from his shoulder, setting it on the ground. The sturdy leather held the bag’s shape as he ran his fingertips through various pockets, pouches, and what appeared to be a wooden case within.

As Erryl continued searching for something unknown, Corea glanced back toward the slime. It continued its slow approach, seemingly indifferent to the presence of herself and the two men.

It was an ugly, but fascinating thing. She watched as what was essentially a pale green bubble undulated slowly across the road. She couldn’t make out anything specific from this distance, but the surface shimmered as the slime seemed to wiggle forward, and less than an inch at a time. Within the pale green translucence, she swore she saw the remains of a rabbit suspended in the gooey body.

Or at least what was left of a rabbit.

“Ah, here we go.”

Corea turned her gaze back to Erryl, who now had his rapier unsheathed. She noticed he was rubbing something across the surface of the blade – not the entire blade – but a measured, practiced distance. She realized it was chalk.

“These foul little slimes are acidic, as you so astutely mentioned earlier. On most contacts, the acid is very weak, but where there is one slime, there can be several, and enough acid will eat into your steel.”

He stopped chalking the rapier and held the chalk to her in his open palm. She grabbed it. It was a simple stick, like what Mr. Gorten used at the inn.

“We neutralize the acid with chalk. There are a few other things that’ll do it, but it’s always wise to carry chalk. Not just for killing slimes, but you always want to find as many uses for what you carry as possible. Understand?”

Erryl glanced past Corea, where the slime had emerged; there was rustling in the nearby brush. A moment later, another slime, around the same size, sloshed through branches and leaves and bubbled up onto the road.

Fang barked. “Would you get on with it already? There are two of them now! They stink so much!”

“Ignore him.” Erryl rose to his feet and smirked at Corea. “Another thing to know is how to kill these things.”

Corea stood up next to Erryl, applying chalk to her knife tip and along the blade.

“Since we have a new guest, I’ll show you what to do with the first one. Walk with me. Keep my pace.”

Corea nodded. Erryl crept forward, not exactly at a tiptoe, but each step was deliberate and placed at an even pace. As they approached the slimes, the stench grew worse. For a time, Corea had considered that Fang had been overreacting, but at this distance, feet away, the smell turned her stomach. She’d smelled rotten meat that was more pleasant than this – and Fang had been right about the vinegar element of it, too. She stumbled a bit and noticed even Erryl had masked the scent with his left wrist beneath his nose.

He glanced toward her, his eyes watering. She felt her eyes water too.

“Look into the slime’s body,” he whispered. He nodded toward the slime that was only four feet from them. “Creep closer, but no sudden movements. They will lash out.”

She moved forward a couple of steps to where she could clearly see several things within the bubbled surface, including the remains of the rabbit – it almost appeared wrung dry.

“There is a bubble inside the creature. Think of it like a heart or brain. It’s not very big, but it is distinct. You need to pierce it. Have you ever played marbles?”

Corea glanced back, and she took a few steps back toward his side. “Yes. I have some in my pack…”

He shook his head and seemed to smirk. She’d missed something.

“It’s like poking a marble with a stick. Get through the jelly and tap the marble. The thing will practically melt.” 

He readied a stance with the rapier angled downward. She took a couple of steps to the side and watched him shuffle forward, almost like a crab; his upper body was locked into place, but his legs slid across the road in an odd, weaving shuffle.

She had barely caught the actual strike; it had been so fast, all she had seen was his arm expand outward and retract back into his stance. But the effect was immediate, and the slime began to bubble along the service and seemingly melt, as though the jelly had been exposed to the heat of a forge. There was a small hiss of acid and a puff of foul scent, but the thing was apparently dead.

That, however, caught the attention of its companion, and the other rancid bubble began to inch toward the remains.

“Now you.”

Erryl stared at her and nodded toward the slime.

“GO.”

Corea did not hesitate and approached the bubble, slowly. She noticed now that the slime had seemingly picked up speed, excited by something, and she wondered how that had worked. Within a couple of feet, she glanced over the dome-shaped body, seeking the marble shape beneath the slick surface. She found it floating in the ichor near the corpse of a bird hatchling. She held her breath and stabbed into the ooze, aiming for the internal bubble.

She retracted her blade but noticed nothing had happened. She stood, puzzled, for a half second, and then yelped as a slime-tendril lashed out from the seemingly placid surface. She felt the jelly whip her across the hand as she retracted her knife to her body and felt the hand tingle.

She took several steps back.

“The surface of the bastard is going to throw you off, so you’ll need to adjust. I find it tends to be a little deeper than you’d think. Try again.”

Corea shook her hand, adjusted the blade, and moved closer to the again-placid bubbled surface. She thrust the knife in deeper this time, to the point where her fist plunged into the surface. She felt an immediate tingle and nearly let go of her knife, but as the slime began to dissolve around her hand, she regained her grip.

“Good, now, hurry!” Erryl had swept in beside her and thrust a small vial toward her. Collect the ichor, collect the marble. Hurry, before the acid is useless.”

Corea’s hand still tingled, and it was very uncomfortable. It was like she had fallen asleep on it. She dropped her knife and fumbled at the vial, popping the latched cork and glancing at the rapidly liquifying remains of the slime.

Her first real kill, she thought. Then she shook her head. No time.

She found the “marble” in a mass of jelly that hadn’t quite liquified just yet and scooped up the little ball with as much of the material as she could on a couple of swipes with the vial. As she had scooped the small, round object in, she noticed it was soft, not quite as gelatinous as the rest of the body, but certainly not hard, like glass.

She held the glass vial to her face to get a sense of what this was. She hadn’t even noticed that Erryl, crouched, was already applying something to her hand. She didn’t know what it was, and nor did she care at that moment. She was too intrigued by what had been her first battle. 

It wasn’t much.

But I‘m not much, either, she reckoned.

“What you have there, child, is something very valuable, as you are already aware. Slime ichor is very potent, with a thousand uses. The trick is to keep the organ with the slime. The innards neutralize quickly when exposed to air, but keeping the organ, even pierced, with the slime will slow the reaction down and preserve it for a little longer.”

Erryl rubbed some form of ointment on her tingling hand, and she immediately felt a cooling sensation. She glanced down, noticing how red her skin looked across the back of her hand. Whatever poultice he applied had started to soothe the irritation.

“What you are feeling is the mint.”

She nodded and reached for her knife, but didn’t see where it was. 

The roadman held the knife toward her, handle-side first.

“Your blade. Thank you for not stabbing our mutual friend with it this time around.”

Corea flushed, embarrassed still. She took the handle and drew the knife closer to her body. Erryl rose to his feet. He continued speaking.

“You should know these things can get quite big. I’ve heard of one as big as three houses roaming the plains of Sanara that nobody has managed to kill. Some say larger ones still haunt some dungeons and caves all over Aurin.”

Corea nodded absent-mindedly. She hoped she’d never see a slime as large as that the Barber mentioned.

The smell had begun to diminish and was not as overwhelming. As far as Corea had figured, whatever caused the slimes to melt seemed to also cut their stink, and she was thankful. She still smelled decay, as now the remains of whatever the slimes had been digesting were exposed to open air, but it felt less intense.

She knew it was less intense as Fang’s thudding footsteps approached from behind her and Erryl.

“It still reeks here. We need to move before-”

A rustling from the undergrowth along the road further ahead made Fang pause. Within a moment, three more slimes shlorped their way onto the road, in the direction of the party.

Fang took several steps back.

“Fuck.”

“We seem to have a migration, my friends.” Erryl sniffed. “Interesting.”

“Migration?”

Erryl turned back to Fang, seemingly ignoring Corea’s question. She looked back as well, and Fang, covering his snout as best he could with two massive cupped paws, nodded solemnly.

“Damn,” Erryl added.

Corea asked again about the migration. But Erryl was still quiet; he seemed unsure of what to say. It was Fang who broke the silence through the muffling of his hands.

“They’re drawn to death.”

Corea wasn’t sure why Erryl couldn’t rattle that out. He was quite talkative. Why did it take the Wolf?

“Well, we just killed these two slimes, right?” she asked.

Fang was silent. He stared at Corea, his eyes appearing almost concerned… about her? She wasn’t sure what he was getting at. It was something that frustrated her immediately – some knowledge she was too simple to be let in on. She hated that.

“A slime migration moves toward battles. Nobody knows what draws them there, but if there is mass slaughter, they seem to find their way to it. Like carrion birds. No… more like a tide.”

“This was a battle, though, right?”

Erryl shook his head.

“This is nothing. Migrations are always aimed toward a significant number of deaths – that is why they come to battlefields and consume the dead of armies if left undefended. There was a fight in this area, somewhere on the way toward the old town, and it appears several people died.”

Corea suddenly understood and stared at the emergent slimes, inching their way toward her. They would consume what they could here and continue toward the old town.

She prayed silently that Garen would not be among the remains that drew the local slimes.

Jimmy had already begun to dash across the street. His gaze was planted to his left, down the street, toward the other group of ghouls converging on their location. Dani pushed her cart forward toward the side gate of the Family Storage – home. She just pulled up after Jimmy had already begun pounding on the gate.

“Bob! Bob, hurry up!”

Bob was rattling the chains that held the gate shut. “Hey Jim, what the hell was that? Was that a fuckin’ cop car?”

Jimmy stood at the cart, his knuckles white from his grip on the bar. Bob was still fumbling with the lock and chain. Jimmy rocked the cart back and forth, ready to charge the instant there was clearance.

“Yeah, guy buzzed us twice, and we’re pulling deadies. We gotta get Edgar in quickly with the car.”

“It’s really close, Bob,” Dani added.

The chain came loose, and the gate began to open slowly. Jimmy stepped away from the cart and pulled hard to assist Bob. Dani had already rolled her cart inside and to the right, just past Sandy.

“Where’s the car? Did you lose the car?” she asked.

Dani rolled the cart forward and ran back to the gate, pushing Jimmy’s cart in as he finished moving the gate back. Sandy had approached and glanced out toward the street, looking worried.

“Where’s the car?”

Jimmy snapped, “It’s coming along with a dozen of those dead fucks.”

Sandy glared at him for a second and then took several steps back, creating distance between herself and the gate.

Dani stepped back out onto the sidewalk and waved down Edgar. He accelerated slightly, shaking loose a group of the ghouls, who tumbled onto the ground like sacks of meat from a refrigerator shelf. Edgar turned the Cadillac to drive into the storage facility, but Dani stepped right in front of him, slapping the car’s hood. She felt uncomfortably close to the ghouls that were limping toward them.

She glanced at the two groups rounding the corner.

“Ed… you gotta lead them away.” 

Edgar threw his heavy frame through the driver’s side window and glared at her. “What? You’re kidding…”

Dani shook her head and slapped the hood again, pointing at the growing crowd. “That cruiser screwed us. There are too many for this gate.”

Edgar grunted and then slapped the roof of the car. “Shit. Fine. Stay low.”

He reversed the car and began the slow drive down the road. Dani dashed back past the gate and helped Jimmy slam it shut. She threw on the chain and closed the padlock.

Dani and Jimmy stood away from the gate. Jimmy turned to Sandy and Bob and gestured at them to stay quiet.

The ghouls began to pass in front of the gate as they followed the car. The gate, thankfully, had a green screen of woven plastic fiber to keep the group out of sight.

A couple of the ghouls, the closest ones, had slapped and rattled the gate, but the distant sound of Edgar’s horn pulled them away.

…

The wait was tense. The last of the ghouls, the ones from the second group, had finally wandered by after what seemed like forty minutes.

Sandy was the first to say anything. “They’re gone, now, right?”

Dani shrugged. “Seems like it.”

Bob was sitting in a lawn chair a few units down, reading a book. Jimmy paced back and forth between periodically unloading goods from the shopping carts. All the while, Dani had been at the fence, breathlessly observing the undead stragglers in silence. Their movements were clear, even seen obscured by the green fabric – jerky, uncoordinated, unnatural.

What were they?

…

Dani had lost track of time. The ghouls were long gone except for a few stragglers along the street. They’d managed to slide the gate open enough for her to squeeze out and peek up and down the street. She also had taken advantage of one of the nearby ladders after they’d closed the gate again. There was no sign of Edgar, Mary, and Alicia last time she had climbed up to the roof of a row of units. She was worried.

She had found another lawn chair and set it up near the gate. Jimmy was still messing with supplies, arranging them into different piles and groups. Bob continued to read. Sandy had wandered off to another unit and was going through boxes of clothing.

The sound of an approaching car echoed in the concrete canyon of the storage units. Dani rose to her feet and peeked out through a small gap between the fence and gate, and saw the Cadillac.

“Hey, let us in,” Edgar yelled, “I couldn’t shake them all.”

Jimmy had already dashed away from his piles of supplies and was unwrapping the chain from the gate. Dani helped him slide the gate open.

The car rolled in, stained with grimy, bloody marks from ghoulish hands, but all the passengers intact. Dani felt a sense of relief, but lost it the moment she spied a group of the approaching undead. It seemed to be about ten or so stragglers who fell out of sync with the roving horde earlier. 

Dani pushed the rolling gate with all her strength as Jimmy pulled at it. Within moments, the gate rattled shut against the pole, and Jimmy looped the chain around it as quickly as possible, slamming the padlock shut.

Dani and Jimmy both stumbled back as the first crash of the ghouls smashed against the fence, rattling it. Torn fingers wrapped around the exposed metal rods, and through the green woven plastic, dark red blotches spread unevenly across the surface.

In moments, the gore had washed over the green cover with a sickly brown color.

Bob was already helping Mary out of the car into his golf cart. Each of her steps was labored. Sandy stood by awkwardly, not helping, as was her typical state. 

Alicia came stumbling out of the back seat and moved close to her mother. Dani noticed a slight sneer on Sandy’s face, no doubt annoyed and having strangers in her midst again. And a child no less, Dani thought in mock horror.

Dani felt Jimmy grab her hand and pull her to the side, away from the gate and into one of the open units. She glanced at him, and he nodded toward the Cadillac, which Edgar began wheeling into position in front of the gate, backing into the open unit. Jimmy pulled away his hand quickly.

“Sorry.”

Dani shrugged.

After the car was parked in front of the gate, Edgar stepped out, his gun wedged into the band of his pants. Dani walked out of the unit and gave him a knowing look. Jimmy followed along. Edgar shrugged and handed the gun over.

“Sorry… must have slipped my mind that I had it on me.”

Dani smirked. Edgar smiled back. She turned to Jimmy, who looked nervous, still.

She tucked the gun into the back of her pants and walked toward Bob and Mary in the cart. The moans of the ghouls were heavy in the air.

“Hey, Bob. Sandy. Meet Mary and Alicia.”

Derobed, the thin, desiccated body was no longer identifiable as who they once were, because, like their constructs, the Necromancer had long since had foreign flesh and bone stitched onto what was their original form.

Nude in the flickering torchlight, the Necromancer struggled to recall who they were before the work had consumed them. Things slipped in time, especially given the sacrifice of the work. How was I remembered? That was the nature of the work. The power to raise the dead was among the most potent of magics, but every construct slivered the soul.

The gods could be lenient. This world was a harsh one where everyone gave up a little bit of their soul to survive – the Necromancer remembered that much of the other faith they had once followed. Damnation was reserved, truly, for the most wicked, they had been told once. Who had said that? But the sheer volume of the work carved away at what the Necromancer once was. I was human once.

The sound of clattering bones on the marbled slab interrupted the drifting thoughts. By now, the construct created to tend to the Necromancer had removed their shattered hand. The Necromancer was impatient to get back to work, but there was a need for new fingers – fingers that were delicate, ready to work. Fingers that were special, strong, and nimble.

The construct was one that the Necromancer had seemingly known as it awakened. How did I know this thing? Its form was specialized, suited for the work of keeping the Necromancer in the condition to keep up the great work. Long, delicate fingers, constructed of five finger bones each, rested upon four hands, placed upon four arms. Each slender finger curled and flexed in four places, bone and sinew exposed, twisting in ways fingers did not twist and bend in life.

The Necromancer watched the construct split the skin at the fingers of the severed hand, like splitting open a bag,  plucking cracked shards of bone. Beautiful, delicate, new finger bones were attached, and the fingers were stitched anew. Shredded skin was replaced with patches of the best quality skin gathered from a recent band of scouts out of the town down the road. It had been three so far. The fool feeds the work.

The parts had been a boon. Mostly fresh parts came from wandering bandits who could put up a fight. Constructs inevitably would fall, be dashed to pieces. But as each of the ghouls fell in battle, those pieces would be collected and brought back. Reassembled, they would rise again to complete their tasks for the great work.

Because all that there was was the work. The Great Work.

The construct finished reattaching the wrist to the Necromancer’s arm, and the Necromancer’s thin form hopped off the slab with a click as bony feet hit stone. The construct bowed and skittered back into one of the spots in the wall where long exhumed corpses had been stored. Did I know them once? The construct would wait until needed again.

The Necromancer plucked their robe from the table and held it out, looking at it. It was large and formless; there had once been a belt or sash, but that had long since vanished. The robe was more practical than stylish, and the Necromancer wondered why it had these thoughts. Am I vain?

Why did the robe matter so much? It was dirty. It was torn. It was… purple? A hint of an elaborate pattern to the fabric remained. 

Flowers, weren’t they? No time for flowers.

The Necromancer stood, thin and bare, contemplating the nature of a robe. Finding no further need for one, they cast it aside and sat down at the stool before the slab, setting back to work.

“Master?” A wispy voice emerged from the darkness of one of the radiating tunnels. A construct, mostly fleshy, stepped into the chamber. Its voice was weak, thin. Three new sets of vocal cords would fix that. The Necromancer stared toward the Herald.

“From the south. Another scout. Dead. On the way.”

Speech was very taxing on the dead. It was best used sparingly, but the Herald was a necessary construct – even for simple updates such as this. A voice is a voice.

The Necromancer thought about speech. Even the slivered soul felt something. Was it loneliness? Am I lonely?

The Herald approached from the tunnel. It had once been a young woman, mostly. Parts were parts, and the broad chest that had belonged to a man worked well with the bellows that collected the air to force the words out. The Herald pushed the bellows into the chest, collapsing the pumps, filling the bladders that replaced lungs in life.

“Saw Wolf. Triseria. Swordsman. Enter town.”

The Necromancer had only recently felt a new sensation for the first time in decades. Curiosity. Leylines radiated across the land, down to thin veins of coursing magic, and there had been something. A spark. A sense of something at least – something not of the land.

It had been distant and small, but it was new. Is this doubt? Is this fear? ‘New’ merited study, and the Necromancer had pulled constructs from the Great Work to investigate. That had explained the expanded patrol from the town, but the patrol had not been the source.

Triseria. The word was familiar, but the context was not there. It was something of a story from a life formerly lived, but there was one clear association. A wolf. A prize.

Several constructs were reported to have been smashed to pieces, teeth removed. Why teeth? It was curious. It was a sensation. The work consumed, but now too did the question.

What draws the wolf to these lands?

The Necromancer had stopped their work for long enough, but then felt compelled to look at the delicate replacement fingers, flexing them and feeling something else. You are so vain. They turned their attention toward the herald.

“Anything else to report?” Each word required tremendous effort.

The Herald pumped the bellows twice. “Crow fly south. See wolf. Swordsman. Girl. March north. March here.”

Had this been the Mayor? Is it him?

The Necromancer paused. They could not remember a name, and suddenly, a new sensation arrived. An auspicious day, to be sure, but the sensation was painful. Not like the pain of the work – not like the compulsion. This pain was sadness.

The Necromancer rose from the stool and walked toward a door behind their station. A door that led into a deeper crypt. The heavy stone door required effort to move, and the Herald approached to help. The flexing of the chest inadvertently pumped the bellows and let out strange, soft wheezes as Master and Herald pried open the heavy door.

Within the chamber was a long hall of holes where coffins once rested. Centuries of some bloodline tied to these lands; tied to the town above. Which bloodline the Necromancer could not quite remember, but it seemed connected. Within moments, constructs clattered out of the dark spaces. Hundreds. The work begins.

The Necromancer stood to the side of the door, pointing toward the tunnels at the other end of the chamber where the work was done. Chattering skeletons and lumbering ghouls pushed out of the chamber, flowing around the marble slab that served as the Necromancer’s station. Atop which sat a bell jar, tangles of filament rising to the ceiling of the chamber and down the tunnels. Within the jar, a green miasmic haze pulsed regularly.

The Necromancer watched them wander into the tunnels.

A truce was broken. But why did the Necromancer feel sad?

Goddamn it, she thought.

Dani grimaced and pushed her cart forward. She pushed herself to catch up to Jimmy. He began to pick up the pace, not quite a jog, but close enough. Dani picked up her pace, too. Edgar pulled the car out of park, and it began to roll forward, slowly, giving them a little distance, but still at a steady pace.

It was one block, but to their right was a trailer park, to their left was a back alley to a business park, and who knew if any ghouls had made their way to the crossing of Lyon and Acacia. Would they arrive at the cross street only to have that cruiser scream by their base?

Dani glanced behind her, just past the Cadillac, towards Orange Ave. Sure enough, dozens of ghouls had begun to converge on their position, hellish moans carrying on rotting, stinking wind. She gagged at the smell, pausing slightly to fight off nausea.

The pace felt glacial. Dani knew, logically, that she and Jimmy were pushing their carts as fast as they possibly could. But between weaving through debris, abandoned cars, and the consistent creep of Edgar’s Cadillac, things felt as though they dragged on. Their lives were dependent on Bob being able to get the gate open so everyone could get behind the safety of the storage yard’s walls, just before the crush of undead bodies arrived.

…

They had cleared about half of the block when the ghouls caught up to the Cadillac. The car bought Edgar, Mary, and Alicia protection, but greasy, shredded fingertips would slap and break on contact with the car’s body and windows. Even as the ghouls fell to pieces from violently ripping at the car, they were relentless, and in time enough of them could find some kind of handhold, or pile onto the car itself. Even if they could not get in, they could trap those inside. And who knew if the windows could stand up to a dozen flailing limbs indefinitely.

Edgar watched. Dani and Jimmy were pushing their carts as quickly as they could, but the ghouls were surprisingly fast now, as though the stimulation whipped them into a frenzy. He was worried their pace wouldn’t be enough. He did not want to be stuck in a car, covered in corpses.

Edgar glanced into the rearview mirror, past the exhausted Mary and her daughter, out to the street behind him. The bulk of the ghouls were far enough behind that it wouldn’t be a problem. The ghouls that had cut across the parking lot, however, had managed to stumble onto a shortcut. By Edgar’s count, he had about four ghouls right on top of his car. They couldn’t get in, and the windows were rolled up. He and the others were fine inside, but until he could lose the dead, he didn’t want to risk them coming close to the shopping carts.

Edgar dug around with a free hand at the back of his pants and drew the Glock he had hidden on him. He hadn’t separated from it since he and Jimmy had joined the group at the storage yard. He wouldn’t give up his gun for anything. He was thankful for that now.

He placed the Glock on the passenger seat and glanced back. The girl – Alicia, was it? – hadn’t noticed, warily eying the rear passenger window. She flinched when an oozing palm slapped at the glass. Edgar flinched, too.

He would need to pick the ghouls off, somehow, but he couldn’t drive and shoot. He looked through the rearview mirror and watched two of the ghouls fall to the ground. Now there were three immediately surrounding the rolling car.

Edgar couldn’t help but laugh a bit at the sight of the falling ghouls. He quickly turned his attention back to Dani and Jimmy ahead of him. Out of impulse, he scanned the area, a habit from driving back when the world had traffic.

Dani and Jimmy had passed an access road – a narrow lane between a building and a mobile home park with cracked asphalt full of potholes. Edgar glanced down the lane and saw a pair of ghouls stumble out – Dani and Jimmy hadn’t seen them. The ghouls stumbled toward the Cadillac.

“God damn it,” Edgar muttered.

Edgar cranked down the window, not all the way, but enough that he could fit his Glock and heavy hand outside. The two ghouls that had crept out from behind the building moved toward Dani and Jimmy. Edgar tapped the horn lightly, warning the pair. Jimmy glanced backward, puzzled. Dani pointed toward her left, and Jimmy turned to see the two undead wobbling down the sidewalk and nearly collapsing off the curb.

The ghouls seemed to regain their footing and continued their march. Edgar honked again, and the rotting chasers turned their attention to the Cadillac. They stumbled toward the driver’s side door with lurching, clumsy steps.

…

Jimmy wasn’t sure what the best course of action was. Their group was more than halfway home by now, but they were trailing walking corpses, and one pair arrived a little too close for comfort. Edgar has been riding slowly enough to keep the horde as a whole in check, but the other two made him wary. Where else might they emerge?

For a moment, he thought of shredded, oozing arms reaching out from a storm drain. Gnashing teeth from skull-like faces lolling out from hedges. He thought of broken fingertips digging into his arm from an abandoned car he hadn’t cleared. He thought of Dani being dragged around a corner by a tidal swell of rotting bodies. He thought of Edgar opening a door and some floor-bound monstrosity grabbing an ankle and sinking their broken teeth into Edgar’s leg.

He shuddered. They’d been unprepared for this supply run. Arrogant, even. The plan made sense, but the preparation was not adequate. He shook his head to clear it. No time now. He could evaluate everything that needed to be done once they were safe.

If safety was in the cards. He wasn’t sure yet.

Dani picked up her pace, and Jimmy followed suit. The sound of a gunshot ripped through the air.

Jimmy whirled around to see that Edgar had fired at one of the ghouls. A chorus of wild groaning followed from the trail behind the car.

Dani had turned back just as Edgar had taken aim and fired at the other attacker at the passenger side.

“What the fuck, where did he get the gun?” she asked.

Jimmy said nothing.

What could he say? Edgar had kept his gun hidden on him since they’d arrived at the Family Storage. Jimmy had said nothing. Safety first.

He snapped at Danielle, grabbing her attention. “Doesn’t matter right now, we’re almost there.”

Dani glanced between Jimmy and the Cadillac. She furrowed her brow. “A fucking secret gun? The whole time?”

Jimmy grunted and turned his attention back to his cart. This would complicate their stay. He had to think of something.

“Hey, we’ll have Ed lead them away for a bit and come back around, alright, when we get to the gate?” he asked.

Jimmy had hoped he wasn’t too obvious in giving himself time to smooth things over.

Dani cast a harsh glance and shrugged as she focused on the shopping cart. “Sounds like a plan.”

Jimmy slowed down slightly, just getting in range ahead of the front bumper of the car. “Ed, when we get to the gate, we’ll get Mary out – can you lead them away in the car and come back around?”

Edgar honked with the briefest of taps.

Jimmy jogged back toward Dani’s position, pushing the cart along. Dani seemed exhausted. He was fine with the weight; He’d worked on a ranch. As for the plan, it would need to work for now. He’d need to smooth everything over.

They were almost on Acacia, where they would need to make a turn. Dani and Jimmy began shifting their carts to the left, and Edgar slowed the Cadillac down a bit to give them room. Hungry corpses continued to moan and stumble after them all.

The whirr of the siren ripped through the air again, and Jimmy and Dani stared down the cross street on the right. The car was fast enough that trying to cross the street now would be dangerous. All they could do was helplessly watch the police cruiser approach their position with a trail of shambling, human shapes in its wake.

If the Egg was not a roadman, he was a bandit who had found his way into the graces of the town, leaving the roads and woods to his kind who were not as clever as he was – and Fang could tell, the Egg was a clever one. The heavy sag to his pockets said as much, and the man slipping on a pair of iron knuckles from them put a point on it.

The man’s scent may have been the most unusual thing about him, from Fang’s perspective. There was an acrid taste of fear emanating from the man, but nowhere near as great as it should have been – given the nature of his opponent – given the nature of the blows that had exchanged so far. Instead, there was a spicy scent, a peppery note of adrenaline. The pale man was looking forward to this fight as much as Fang was.

As soon as Eghart began his dash toward Fang, the Wolf eased onto his back foot, expecting the iron knuckles on the first strike. Instead came a kick to the hip with such impact that Fang twisted against his will, falling off balance, allowing for the knuckles to come down to the top of his shoulder with a heavy thud. The explosion of force sent Fang sliding into the mud and grass. Eghart followed that opening with several stomps to the same shoulder.

The pain was exquisite. The Wolf began to growl, and Eghart’s foot obliged the Wolf again, right in the shoulder.

Now, though, Fang seized the opening of the repeated strikes and threw his other arm across his chest, raking his claws on Eghart’s foot as it slammed into his shoulder, placing as much pressure as possible to catch the large man on his other foot, unbalanced.

Fang’s claws were sharp. Fearsome. He’d made short work of many with them, and he’d always understood them to be agonizing, dagger-like points. But there was no cry from Eghart, and any resistance to them felt delayed, like the man learned his foot had been pierced seconds after the fact. There was no flex to the muscles.

Fang glanced back at the dumbfounded Eghart, who was staring at the claws in his foot, registering what had happened, but not feeling it.

The man felt no pain.

Fang raked regardless, shredding his claws through the man’s foot and rolling away. Eghart’s balance faltered, and he landed forward on the shredded foot and tumbled forward into the mud. Fang, having rolled into his back, seized the opportunity to bring a heavy fist square to the back of Eghart’s bald and scarred head, shoving his face further into the mud with the strike.

Fang was already trying to get back up to his feet as Eghart pulled his face up from the mud, who was now sputtering grass and gunk, hoping to catch his breath. He wiped away what we could with a heavy forearm and saw the Wolf begin to rise to his digitigrade feet. Fang glanced down and just caught the impact of the iron knuckles on his ankle, dropping him to his knees with a muddy splash.

Fang yelped as the heavy knuckles buried into his hip bone and again in his ribs. He felt his lungs deflate at the sound of a crack. Without thinking, Fang lashed out, raking again and finding purchase on some muscle he couldn’t quite see. But again, there was no sound or reaction from Eghart. Fang raked again, drawing claws through meat, and then gripping, using Eghart’s flesh as leverage to push himself away. The Wolf scrambled forward, pulling himself along the mud, grass, and blood until he was able to look back, seeing he had made a mess of Eghart’s calf.

But now, Eghart had already been turning to right himself, and Fang had done the same, rising onto unsteady feet as his ankle throbbed. The two took a moment to size one another up.

Fang had just barely caught a sign of movement behind Eghart when he heard a familiar squelch.

Eghart took a step forward and had already taken a second step before he noticed something had happened to his thigh, as he dragged Corea along, who had her knife buried deep into his flesh. The weight shift was what he had noticed, not the point of the blade.

He looked down at her, confused, unsure of what he was seeing.

…

Corea stared back at Egg, his eyes were wide, and his brow raised. He didn’t look like he was in pain at all, and Corea doubled down, putting all the weight she could against the knife, plunging it deeper. She felt hot blood bubble up and burst across her hands. She pressed her full weight into it.

Her eyes shut tight, she never saw his hand reach for her hair. One second, she clung to the blade; the next, she felt a fire across her scalp. She kicked her legs, not feeling the ground, and as she opened her eyes, she saw the ugly face of Eghart, staring, furious. Before she could spit in his face, she felt a heavy strike right into her stomach. She felt herself curl up into a ball and hit the ground. Her vision doubled on her as she lay curled tight in the mud, her belly throbbing.

She glanced toward Eghart. He smiled wickedly and shifted his attention to her, so many feet away – how far had he thrown her?

She caught sight of Erryl, the scarecrow man, leaping over her, his thin, reedy sword drawn, making his way toward the giant man.

But Erryl never made it.

She saw Fang leap from the blurriest end of her vision, land on Eghart, and watched them slide out of her sight. Fang’s roar split the air like a thunderclap. She shut her eyes to stop the world from spinning.

…

Erryl came to a sudden stop as his companion’s gigantic form collided with Eghart with such ferocity that it nearly sent Erryl himself reeling back. He felt his grip falter on his sword, Lancet, as both massive combatants vanished from his view, only to right his grip as he scanned to his right, seeing Fang perched down over the Eghart. The man’s bulbous head rested in the Wolf’s slathering jaws, and the jaws were now tightening.

This had gone too far. Fang’s eyes, yellow, shone with a feral aura that Erryl knew all too well. The jaws clenched, and the sound of bone splintering was clear. Fang wanted to kill the man as painfully as possible.

And yet Eghart did not scream. He wrestled his thick fingers against Fang’s muzzle and tore at the jaws, but it was the struggle of a man trying to break free to continue the fight, not of a man on the verge of having his skull crushed. There was no fear, just simple anger.

Erryl whispered a minor prayer to Armastrid, Raven of Roads, as he thwapped the flat of the rapier against Fang’s face, right at the bridge of the snout, just above the nose. He’d had an aggressive dog once, and the snout had been useful then.

“Don’t you fucking dare kill him! Spit the bastard out.”

Eghart’s head was still clenched between Fang’s jaws, and the yellow eyes focused on Erryl. There was a flash of predatory menace and the hottest rage one could imagine – as though Fang wished death upon him – but Erryl stood his ground, raising his rapier aloft, and staring right back at his partner.

Without a warning, Erryl struck again, the same strike in the same place. Eghart continued to grab at Fang’s maw, and Fang squeezed his jaws together tighter. The pale man’s face was covered in blood.

“Fang. Stop,” Erryl pleaded.

The werewolf paused for a moment and loosened his grip on Eghart’s skull. Fang whimpered slightly, his eyes wide in alarm and confusion. He opened his jaws fully, and Eghart’s body dropped to the mud. The man laughed.

“Good dog,” Eghart muttered, spitting fresh blood from his mouth.

Fang rose to his feet, and Erryl observed a slight limp. He would need to inspect that ankle once they’d made some distance.

 Fang wandered off, pausing for a moment to observe Eghart and then Corea. Erryl saw him pause, hang his head, and limp over to his belongings discarded for the fight. He’d never seen someone put up this much of a fight against the Wolf. That terrified him.

Erryl turned his gaze back to Eghart, who was grinning and breathing heavily on his back. Erryl took in his features, committing them to memory.

Erryl pointed the tip of the rapier at Eghart’s face. The man did not flinch. Erryl began to speak.

“Next time, I will not be there to save you; I do you this kindness as a medicine man. If you approach us again, you will die. I’ll do it myself to spare you my friend’s full fury. Do you understand?”

Eghart, still on his back, collapsed under his massive bulk, wiped blood from his face, flicking it at the feet of Erryl, dashing red streaks across his boots. Erryl did not react. Then the giant spoke.

“People have tried to kill me for years, barber. Best you kill me now. I’ll come for you, the mutt, and your little bitch, all.”

Erryl stared at the man, his toothy grin reduced to small yellowish islands in a pool of blood. His eyes were wide with the fervor of a predator, not unlike Fang.

Erryl shook his head and stepped away, seriously considering putting the rapier through both of the man’s eyes and down his throat for good measure.

…

Corea was still curled up and winded as Erryl approached. He tapped at her rear with the tip of his boot.

“Can you stand?”

“I can’t breathe,” she choked out.

“We are leaving now. Before any more violence breaks out. Get up.” His voice was emotionless. Couldn’t he see she was in pain?

“Get up, or we leave you here.”

Corea did her best to uncurl her body. She tried to take in some breaths and felt her midsection burn. She coughed up some blood onto the grass and curled up again.

“Get. Up.”

She uncurled and rose slightly, looking at Erryl’s severe face. She saw no concern, and it angered her.

He looked at her for a couple of moments, shook his head disapprovingly, and walked off. At that, Corea scrambled to her feet, though it left her breathless and throbbing, falling to her knees. She glanced around. Eghart was still breathing heavily in the grass. Her knife was left where they had been standing before Fang…

She glanced around. Fang was already several yards away, and Erryl was gaining ground on him. The Wolf had just walked with his arms full, not even pausing to set his chains or shoulder his cloak.

Corea rose onto unsteady feet and trudged swervingly to the knife. She picked it up, slick with blood, mud, and failure. She glanced back over to Eghart, who had turned his head to look at her. He smiled at her as blood poured from his mouth. Several large punctures ringed his head across the crown. After a moment, he turned his gaze back up to the morning sky, and Corea did her best to jog after the Wolf and the Barber.

…

“The good news is, the ankle is not broken or sprained. Now my specialty is not werewolves, but it’s stiff because you took a big chunk of iron right fucking to it.”

Erryl tightened the lacing leather cuffs Fang wore around his ankles. The Wolf growled at the sudden tightness, but Erryl simply continued his work.

A low, rumbling “Thank you” came after a time.

 Erryl smirked. “For the ankle, my company, or stopping you from killing that man in a shower of gore?”

Fang was silent.

“You keep your temper remarkably well, given your affliction. What set you off?”

Fang continued to sit in silence, almost sulking. Erryl slapped Fang’s ankle, making him yelp.

“Fucker!” he barked.

“You don’t get to do that – be silent and brooding when you are a goddsdamned powder keg. I travel with you because you have a handle on it, but you terrify me, you great big bastard.”

Fang glanced directly into Erryl’s eyes. Erryl continued.

“Between us, me and the child, even as fearsome as she is, we know you are the things parents warn their children about in the dark. I know that’s not all you are, but you fucking terrify me. What happened?”

Fang shook his head and hung his gaze low, not wanting to meet Erryl’s eyes suddenly.

“The girl… the man hit her. It was a stupid thing she did, but she reminded me of my son.” Fang glanced back up at Erryl. “I miss my boy.”

Erryl fell back from his crouch to sit on the grass. Taking a moment to think.

“Didn’t know you had a son. How old?”

“Little older than Corea.”

“Shit. That would do it, I suppose.”

The Wolf said nothing further. He nodded to the girl as she limped up the road toward the northern gate – toward the two of them. Erryl gestured for her to sit, just as Fang rose and wandered past the gate, onto the larger road. He would take watch in case trouble came to find them before they left.

“I see you decided to join us,” Erryl said tonelessly as he rose to his feet.

“I’m really hurting.”

“Serves you right for your second stupid assault with a knife today.”

“He was attacking…”

Erryl slapped her.

Corea rubbed her face, her eyes wide in shock. She looked stupid and betrayed. She looked like a child.

Erryl hadn’t wanted to do that – to strike her. Especially given what Fang had said, but the Wolf did not react to it. This was a lesson she had to learn.

“At this point, Corea, you are a liability. You are the weakest link in our chain, and that will change. Either that changes, or we set you loose and you die on the way. Understood?”

He stared into her eyes and saw that they were watery and red. The change occurred almost instantly, with a blink and a hard gulp. One moment, her brows were drooping like those of a spoiled girl; the next, they were furrowed and angry. Good. He could use that.

“Understood,” she said.

He knelt to look her in the eyes. “Good. May I check your stomach? You took a strong blow from that monster.”

“Fang didn’t hit me.”

Erryl glanced toward Fang, noticing an ear twitch. Good. He needed to hear that.

“I meant the albino,” he added.

“Oh, right…” She looked at Erryl, then past him, toward Fang. “Did he hear me say that?”

“Absolutely,” he added. ‘I need to feel under your clothes, it is just the stomach and the lower ribs, understood?”

She nodded and untucked the shirt from her breeches and lifted the tunic. A dense, rectangular bruise emblazoned the pale skin of her stomach, just below the ribcage. There was a chance that had the strike been higher, her ribs would have shattered.

Erryl shook his head and lowered her hands that held up the clothing.

“A nasty bruise that took the wind out of you, but you’ll be fine. I’ll give you something for the pain.”

He handed her a ginger root that had been dusted in crystallized bloodshroom sap. “Chew as we walk. We leave now.”

He stood up as he slung his bag over his shoulder and reached his hand down to her. She took it and rose to her feet, tucking the shirt into her pants. Erryl had already begun walking, and she came up behind him.

Fang stood outside the gate, a few yards away. He’d finished wrapping his chains around his massive body and throwing his cloak over his shoulders, latching the pin. He turned to face them as Erryl stepped past the gate that made up the northern entry to the town.

Corea hesitated. Erryl continued moving, perhaps not really noticing in the moment, or perhaps knowing this was a moment she needed to do on her own, when he thought back on it years later.

…

Corea had never ventured along the north road, having been told by Mr. Gorten that he would tan her hide for even approaching it. He was a mean man in many ways, but it was the meanness of someone caring.

She felt bad that she had left so quickly after letting him know his mother had died. She wanted to help him tend to the body, but there was no time if she was to find Garen. He’d take care of her. He’d put Grandma to rest.

She felt bad about it, but in at least a couple of ways, she was relieved Grandma Nettie had passed this morning. Corea was free now to do the work that so few others would do. And uncle Nathan – Mr. Gorten –  would be too distracted to tan her hide for what she was about to do.

She took a deep, painful breath and stepped past the gate. She hung there for a moment, in silence and doubt. She touched her tummy and winced. Was she ready for this, really? The Wolf and Egg had made short work of her twice this morning, and she would be traveling with the Wolf. He was scarier than she had thought he was last night – this morning it had been claws, teeth, and blood.

She tried to breathe again, and just as she let the pain settle, she saw down the road that the Wolf and the Barber were waiting for her.

She started walking.

The two roadmen of Fools’ Errand paused in their tracks. They turned to look back at the girl, shocked.

“Mr. Nathan’s words, I just agree with them,” she added.

“No love lost amongst the family, I see? Just how related are all of you here in New Gordhurst?”

Corea thought about it, her face scrunched as she combed through all the names of surviving lines in town. Erryl watched her think as Fang glanced around and along at the edge of the muddy thoroughfare that made up the route through the village. It was still sunrise, so there were few people out, though two guards at either end of the road, on some sort of patrol, glanced at him. How could they not?

“Well, there were about eight families sprung off the Gordhurst name. That family isn’t around anymore. I think they were ancient. Right now, there are Gorses, Gortens, Gorvals, Gordursts, and Gordanes. I think the Gaerigs are an offshoot. Mr. Donnel is the last of them. There were also Gourlings and Gaenneths. I sometimes play with Ms. Eslpeth’s kids. They are Gaenneths. We also have some outside folk who moved in, and there are a few of them left here from the old town. But you were just asking about the big families, right?”

“Yes, exactly right, thank you, Corea. Would you say the big families are always in charge?”

“As far back as I can tell?”

“Yes, has it ever been different?”

“Well, I guess Mayor Gorval’s dad ran things before him.”  She thought a little more, then continued. “I know that Mr. Nathan – he’s a Gorten – is a cousin to the Gorvals. He’s my uncle… my grandma’s first son. My father was a Gorten until he married my mom and they combined their names. Gorten and Lorse. Gorse. That was kind of a scandal, the way my grandma told it. Apparently. Oh, and Gorten was a mix of Gorval and Mauten. Gorten. That was a scandal, too. Garen told me he heard father and uncle talking about getting as far from the Gorval name as they could. Nobody likes the Mayor.”

“So that would be a no, then.”

Corea realized she’d nearly ignored the question.

“Oh, yeah, that would be a ‘no,’ I think the Mayor’s family has run things forever. Though I guess he’s my family, too. I don’t like that.”

Erryl nodded and glanced over to Fang, who stared at him impatiently. Fang sniffed at the local air and grimaced at something foul in the distance. “Done with the local gossip?”

Erryl smiled. “Our little fighter is a wealth of information.”

“Don’t see the need to pedigree the local farmers.”

Erryl continued walking, plucking an apple from his bag and tossing it to Corea. She caught it easily. Her reflexes were good.

“And that large, pale gentleman, the walking Egg. What do you know about him?”

Fang’s ears perked up, and Erryl glanced over toward the Wolf, who had been trudging dutifully alongside him.

Corea took a bite of the apple, chewing as she spoke. She was clearly famished. “That’s Mr. Eghart, just don’t call him Egg to his face. I saw him punch out Mr. Sott’s teeth one time.”

“Eghart, is that his first name or family name?”

“Family. I think his first name is Mulluck. Mulluck Eghart sounds about right.”

“What do you think of him?”

“His name sounds like a frog. He’s a cunt, too. ”

Fang laughed.

Corea glanced up at the giant werewolf striding ahead of her, and Erryl noticed the slightest hint of a smile on her face. It might have been hard to fathom her stabbing a beastman four times her size moments ago had he not witnessed it himself.

“A lady ought not use the word,” Erryl replied. “Where did you pick that up?”

“I work at the Inn and bring people their beers. I heard you use the word twice when you were drunk last night.”

Erryl shook his head. He laughed to himself.

The trio approached the mayor’s home – the sizable, defensible home that it was. To Erryl, where he stood in the street, it was a shell, and a meaty, spineless thing sat within, cloistered away, fat, happy, and secure. Ripe for the taking, if the opportunity and proper leverage were applied.

…

“How many men have you killed, Wolf?” asked the child.

“Many.”

“Yes, but how many is that?”

“How many men have you killed?” asked Fang.

“None,” Corea scowled.

“I’ve killed more than that,” Fang replied.

Corea stomped up the broken stairs to the covered porch of the Mayor’s home. She glanced at the broken step. “I wonder what happened here?”

Fang was silent.

She leaned over the railing that surrounded the porch.

“Is your friend really going to try to get money out of the Mayor to rescue Garen?”

“He’ll try.”

Corea had absentmindedly pulled out the kitchen knife and dug the point into a section of the railing. After a moment, she glanced over to the Wolf, who stood on the grass, keeping watch. He didn’t seem to notice the knife was out.

She had felt bad for a moment and considered putting it away, but instead turned her attention to digging the point into the wooden railing.

“So what are you watching out for?”

“Danger.”

“I thought a talking werewolf would be more interesting.”

Fang shook his head and turned toward her. He caught a glimpse of the knife, scanned what she was doing, and then looked back at her. He lowered his hood to show his ears.

“Perhaps if you were quiet, you might pick up a thing or two yourself.”

Corea stopped carving. She had made a cross so far. “What are you picking up?”

“I hear sounds from inside. I am not in the room, but I am at their meeting. Erryl and your Mayor.” He gestured to the window out front. “They’re there now, just inside, peek into the window if you’d like.”

Corea raised an eyebrow, skeptical of Fang’s boast, but crept to the window. Sure enough, from the corner, she observed Erryl and the Mayor. They were shouting, maybe, but it wasn’t distinct to her. It was muffled anger through thick glass.

She walked back to the stairs that led down from the porch and looked at the Wolf. He seemed to be smiling, if one could call it that, on a wolfen face.

“Are all your senses that strong?” she asked.

Fang nodded.

“I smell the dead, girl. All around the town. Within the woods,” he paused briefly, staring her in the eyes. “On you.”

She felt her heart claw its way into her throat. He knew? Is that why he hadn’t killed her for stabbing him? The monster pitied her?  She felt herself stumble for a moment. Fang continued to look at her, his brow noticeably softened.

“Her cloak, yes?”

Corea nodded.

“Was it a long sickness?” he asked.

“Two years.”

“I see.”

“Garen is all I have.” She began to cry. She raised her hand; her fist trembled. She readied to strike herself, but a sharp whine came from the Wolf. She looked at him, and he had stepped closer to the porch where she stood.

“Corea,” her name rumbled out of a fearsome bark. “Many battles ahead. Don’t fight this one.” It didn’t feel like yelling. It didn’t feel angry.

She unclenched his fist and slowly let her hand fall to her side. This was the first time he’d said her name, from what she could remember. No “girl” or “child.” It was comforting. She watched him turn and trudge back to where he had previously stationed himself.

“Mister Wolf, what was your name again?”

Fang turned around and lifted the left flew of his snout, exposing his many teeth, tapping at a fang with a claw. He glanced at her.

“Your name is Tooth?” she asked.

Fang stood there for a moment, confused.

“I know you mean Fang. I was joking.”

Fang’s brow furrowed, and he huffed. “I chose it after everything that happened. I realized I would be stuck like this; it seemed fitting given the circumstances.”

“What were you called before?”

“Hush.” The command was a growl. Corea wasn’t sure what had happened. She stared at the werewolf, who was now crouched, alerted to something. Then she noticed his ears shifting – two triangles on his head – focusing on something.

Without warning, he snarled and tore over the railing of the porch, directly toward the window where Erryl and the Mayor were meeting.

…

“Fuck you” was all that slipped from the Mayor’s lips. It had only been five minutes since Erryl had talked his way back into the home.

Erryl shook his head, puffing at his pipe. He sat back on the exact cushion where he sat yesterday afternoon. The room was still a mess, and there was still a layer of dust all over Mayor Corrigan Gorval’s study. Some new things had appeared, notably papers. There were also a couple of trunks that had been opened, the contents being removed and set into nearby piles.

Yesterday’s visit has sparked something in the Mayor. His eyes were red and puffy.

Erryl reiterated his point, “Mr. Mayor, surely you wish to see a rescue party formed, especially when there is a nephew’s life on the line. The descendants of old Gordhurst have met untold, sprawling tragedy; surely you can trust us to prevent another? We can even take your Mister Eghart along to ensure the deal is honored. As I understand it, he is the captain of the civil defense? We’d be grateful for his accompaniment. Anyone you can spare. We haven’t a moment to lose.”

The Mayor glared at Erryl, and Erryl observed the man’s face screwed into a red pinch from a sea of doughy paleness. The man opened his mouth to say something, but stopped. The effect was that of a fish plucked from the water – flummoxed and desperate. Erryl continued to puff on his pipe.

“You’re a godsdamned fool if you go looking for the old town, or anyone who was lost on patrol. You think we haven’t tried rescues before? We try, and they die – that’s how it has been. You may be handy at dispatching a couple of ghouls, and maybe your guild is as notable as you brag, but…” 

“… but, you hadn’t had myself and my companion at your service,” Erryl interjected.

The mayor stood up and walked around behind the seat where he had been sitting, back toward his desk. He stumbled a bit, still in the haze of intoxication. He leaned over the couch, digging his fingers into dusty fabric. He shook his head. He was exhausted. Desperate.

“I am the only reason you are safe here. The only reason anyone is safe here. I keep the monsters at bay – the bastard who killed my wife and son and razed the town, he keeps us here because it hurts me. Do you understand what I am sacrificing just to keep everyone here alive? You and your wolf, and that poor girl you plan to drag along with you, my niece, no less. I’d just as soon have you all killed where you stand to protect you from something far worse. You don’t know the evil out there as I do – and when you die, I will mourn the girl you drag down with you, you fucking arrogant scarecrow prick.”

Mayor Corrigan backed away from the seat and walked over to his desk, piled high with tomes and bric-a-brac. He glanced out the window that framed the desk. There were two empty bottles of drink on the desk… two bottles that hadn’t been there yesterday.

“I regret the loss of the boy. I do. I regret the loss of the others, too. Don’t you see it? My family, my town, it’s all dying a slow death. We rarely lose anyone on a patrol, not for years – there is an unspoken truce. Of course, I am troubled by the loss of this one. Five good men! One of them was my brother’s child!”

Brother’s child? 

Corrigan whirled back toward the desk, his eyes redder now. He’d been crying at the window. He leaned toward the desk and stared deep into Erryl’s eyes. It made Erryl uncomfortable – his whole countenance was off – frenzied, not just angry. Erryl had inspired enough anger towards him in life to know the difference. This was… feral.

“It wasn’t until you and that damnable Triserian arrived, you know? The patrol went out around the time you must have been traveling into our lands. It senses you, I think. It responded to you. You’re inserting yourself into something that you think you can so easily destroy. The Necromancer sees everything. You think I hadn’t acted before? Tried to get people out?!”

The mayor leaned down and drew a heavy crossbow from behind the desk, pulling the bolt back and locking it into place as he swung his arms up, aiming it squarely at Erryl.

He pulled the trigger. 

The Wolf crashed in from the window.

Erryl hadn’t even noticed the bolt miss him, as he had been too struck by the sight of Fang barreling into the glass pane and clawing his way out of the frame. The window was large, but it wasn’t large enough for Fang to simply slide through. Erryl watched Fang’s jaw gnash with every bark as clawed hands tore at the wooden frame. Glass shards, still lodged in the frame, tore through the wolf’s hide with a sickening ripping noise. After a few seconds, with a huff and a puff, Fang’s body was through. He stumbled in and, to find balance, he put his weight upon the desk, which promptly collapsed, knocking the Mayor back as he had been fumbling with a new bolt for his crossbow.

With a sudden strike, Fang, still off balance, grabbed the mayor at the chest, gripping the man’s robe and holding him two feet aloft. Corrigan scrambled and kicked, but without letting the man drop once, Fang found his footing, raising Corrigan several more feet from the ground, the man still flailing. He had even gotten a few good kicks to Fang’s ribs as Fang drew him closer to his own face.

Without a second thought, Fang then hurled the Mayor to the other end of the room. Erryl had to duck at the trajectory, nearly being clipped as the Mayor flew overhead. The man crashed violently into a wall of books, breaking several shelves. The impact knocked nearly every book off the wall.

Erryl scrambled to his feet, climbed over the seat, and fell to his knees, checking to see if Corrigan was even alive.

“I wish you hadn’t done that,” Erryl hissed.

“He was going to kill you.”

Erryl searched for signs of life. Corrigan was dazed, barely alert. Perhaps his head had hit the wall. His bell had been thoroughly rung.

Shit.

“I almost had him, I’ll have you know. He would have paid us.”

“He wasn’t going to pay us, and you knew that, Barber. You wanted your silly little mystery.”

“It can be two things!”

A whistle from outside grabbed their attention. They both turned to look back at the window, spotting Corea looking into the room.

“Fucking Hells,” she whispered.

Erryl glanced back at Fang, who looked at him. The Wolf was breathing heavily.

“One of us is going to have to talk to her about her language,” Erryl said.

Fang grunted and picked up the crossbow from the floor where the Mayor had been standing. He held it up. As Corrigan wielded it, it appeared large and deadly. As Fang held it, it looked like a toy.

“Do you want this?” the Wolf asked.

“The poor man has had it hard enough already. I’d prefer not to steal his things.”

Fang dropped the crossbow to the ground with a bored expression, and the crossbow clattered loudly on the hardwood. 

“Fine.”

Erryl watched Fang stomp off to the door to the house, still breathing hard. It was a minor bloodlust. Erryl observed the chaos of the room, ensured the Mayor was still alive, and rose to his feet, following. He paused at the side of the seat where he had been sitting. A single crossbow bolt was buried in the wooden frame.

…

The shattering of glass threw Eghart into a panic. The clamor pulled him away from a warm bed and into the early morning air. Erupting from behind a building and onto the main thoroughfare, he saw the werewolf climbing through the window into Gorval’s office. Eghart hadn’t equipped himself for the day as he had paid Elspeth his usual visit, still lacing up his trousers as he watched the attack.

Shirtless and bootless, he ran to the scene, fists clenched and heart beating fast. As he approached, he spotted the waif from the inn step up toward the window. The fucking girl with the dead brother brought this on. He wondered if he could get away with beating her to death for the trouble, even if she were Corrigan’s niece.

He arrived in front of the house just as the werewolf had stepped to the front door on his way back out – Eghart had never wanted a spear with him in his whole life more so than the moment he locked eyes with the beastman. Without a moment’s hesitation, Eghart tore up the broken steps and threw his body at the werewolf’s midsection, bowling the beastman over.

The man and the wolf collapsed into a heap in the foyer as Eghart began pummeling. The wolf’s grip on the door had ripped it from the frame, and it fell on them both, creating a bizarre pile of man, beast, and wood. Eghart elbowed the door, sending it sliding to the floor with a clatter, and he continued to rain blows upon the beast.

…

The speed and intensity of the fists had caught Fang off guard. The weight of the pale man did not help, either. Fang had thought the man was fat, clearly heavy, but this weight was dense; it was pure muscle, and the strength the man carried was transferred from punch to punch. Each violent impact on his face and neck sent the back of Fang’s skull smashing into the wooden floor. The blows kept coming, steady now, as the man dug his fingers deep into the soft hide that covered Fang’s throat. The man was smart, choking him to the best of his ability, and stabilizing himself for maximum leverage on each punch.

This was a real fight. It had been a while. Fang was thrilled. 

As another heavy blow came down toward Fang’s face, the werewolf swung a massive arm to block it, colliding with the pale man’s arm, throwing him off balance, and resulting in him collapsing onto Fang. The sudden shift of weight was rough, but the instability allowed Fang to lift his right shoulder from the floor and turn over, pinning the large man between his body and the stairwell.

Fang rocked the opposite direction, creating space and scrambling to his feet as best he could as the pads on his fingers and toes slid around. Fang had to dig his claws into the floor outright to gain some traction, using a wall as a handhold to rise to his feet. Aloft, finally, he glanced at a dumbfounded Erryl and smiled at him. Hot blood trickled around the edges of his mouth. It tasted good.

Fang stepped over and grabbed the wrist of the pale man, and with a sudden jerk pulled him from the floor, hurling him out the front door into the mud and grass. With luck, his shoulder would be dislocated.

…

Eghart had never been airborne before. The sensation was alien, but he could barely dwell on it as he hit the ground after two seconds. The mud and grass had cushioned the blow, barely, but it still took the wind out of him.

He lay on his back, breathing out the force of the impact. It didn’t hurt. Nothing hurt Eghart. But the impact was still felt, physically,  like a laden cart hitting a wall. The ringing in his ears began to fade, and he rolled himself over to his knees, rising from the ground as the wolf hopped from the porch to the damp earth, his weight generating a pile of mud at his feet. Eghart looked up at him, spat up blood, and slowly shifted his weight, raising to meet the wolf. 

The wolf nodded, unlatching his cloak. Beneath the cloak was a sizable length of heavy iron chain, which the wolf also discarded. Lastly, the tremendous broadsword that had been lashed to the back of his leather vest collapsed on the pile of chain and fabric.

Eghart flexed his fingers and wrists, loosening up. He slid his heavy right forearm across his mouth to sop up as much blood as possible. He repeated the same with his left arm, leaving red smears across pale skin. Raising his arms, he took a defensive stance, his fists raised, poised to strike.

“Is that all you have, dog?”

The wolf flexed his own fingers and then closed his fists.

Neither of them moved for several moments, sizing one another up.

Eghart was not a small man. He was taller than most, but the wolf towered over him by at least a head. It was intimidating, especially given the monstrosity that stood before him. But Mulluck Eghart knew monsters. He’d been one most of his life.

She wanted to shoot the driver, whoever they were.

She glanced around at Jimmy, Edgar, Mary, and Alicia; they were also still, staring in the direction of the sound. The police car swerved into view, dodging abandoned cars along Orange Ave. It made no effort to slow down, and Dani assumed the driver had not seen them. She and the others probably looked like dead-eyed ghouls to the person speeding by at a reckless pace.

Dani felt her heart pound, and her stomach tighten. The ghouls in the area had turned to track the car that had sped through. She watched the dead bastards make awkward, lurching motions toward the intersection – despite the car being out of sight and the siren fading as it drove east.

But going east put Dani and the others in the path of the ghouls that were following the sound.

Jimmy glanced at Dani, his eyes wide. Edgar looked puzzled, having popped up, hand resting on the car’s hood. Alicia had partially leaned out of the car. She stared in the direction from which the cruiser had come.

Dani had already crept toward the street to get a look around the wall that divided the Walman’s shopping center from a bank next door. It was instinctual curiosity she had no control over, eager to get a glimpse of the fucking cop car. The weight of the iron poker in her hands did little to reassure her as she moved to gaze further down the road, where the car had been headed.

She stopped just short of the street and took a breath. She approached the wall and leaned against it. After a moment to steel herself, she leaned forward enough to look down the city’s main thoroughfare. Orange Rd. was actually a named portion of Highway 74 that ran to the mountains. The street was wide and wouldn’t afford much cover to anyone walking or driving down it.

She took a small step out onto the sidewalk, where the wall came to a cruel and sudden stop. An immediate stench wafted, and she was ready to move.

A ghoul swiped at her with a flailing stick-and-tissue arm from just around the other side of the wall. Dani dodged it and brought her fireplace poker down on the spindly limb, shattering it. It hung loosely, a bundle of rotting bone and meat, connected by a thin casing of leathery skin. The ghoul stumbled forward from the weight of the blow, and Dani quickly drew her arm back and down again, crushing the skull.

Her fears had been confirmed. A trail of ghouls was making its way down the street in the cruiser’s wake. This one had been pulled toward the street from the bank. Dani caught the last second as the cruiser had turned at another intersection. Dani looked back west at a mass of bodies moving in lurching, irregular steps down the road, toward the only other living people she knew. The fucker could have been dragging them for miles, now.

“Jesus.”

A pair of the undead, stumbling out of an enclosed motel courtyard, noticed her dispatching one of their own – maybe. She didn’t know if their brains worked that way, and she didn’t want to stick around to confirm it, either. All she noticed were shadowed, thin faces with open mouths and hoarse moans bellowing from between rotten teeth.

Dani turned around and started waving the rest of the group off. Her hand made wild arcs forward, pushing them on. She didn’t say anything, not wanting to attract more attention. She noticed one of the carts was already gone, and Jimmy was darting back up the embankment. She had been in the zone so much that she hadn’t heard the clattering cart.

Jimmy was already pushing the second cart down the embankment onto the street. Meanwhile, Edgar had climbed over to the driver’s side seat and was waving at Dani. His meaty hand slapped at the roof. “Vámonos!”

No sense in playing it quiet now. If she ever figured out who the asshole was in the cruiser, she’d crush his head beneath the wheel of their own car.

Dani nearly tackled the remaining cart and began wheeling it down the embankment as Edgar turned the engine. Jimmy had slammed the trunk, only managing to throw in the contents of one of the carts. They had to hurry. No time to pack

They’d need to push the remaining carts back to the storage unit.

Exposed, noisy, and pursued by dozens of greasy undead hands.

Was that even a real cop, anyway?