Just as Alaina had said, we didn’t travel very far at all until we found the dead. Basically, we went up a small rise, around a small grove of overgrown greenery, and then down the other side of the rise. Beyond that was a large clearing, with several outcroppings of stone mounds and rubble, which I assume was at one point in time, crypts. Across the clearing, surrounding the only crypt that was still standing, was a large herd of brittle looking zombies which just barely milled around and stared inwards towards the center of the structure.

“That’s got to be the spot the Lady of Life described to us,” Alaina informed me, pointing ahead. Apparently fearless, she didn’t bother to try and lower her voice at all. “It’s all up to you now,” she told me, giving a thumbs up and a bright smile in encouragement.

“Sha… Sahdow, stah!” Stuttering, I had to force myself to try and tell Shadow to stay back. In stories, the hero bravely marches out, laughing at his inferior opponents, without a moment’s hesitation. However, I, apparently, am not a hero. At the moment, I happen to be a naked young lady, wearing high heels in the middle of a swamp. At night! With limited visibility! And with the dead not far away, with the knowledge that they’ll find me tastier than anything else they could ever possibly encounter!

To say I’m just a little bit nervous wouldn’t be any stretch of the imagination…

“Ahhh…. Screeewwww itttt!!” Yelling out the first battle cry that came to my mind, I charged forward as quickly as possible, before what little nerve I had left disappeared completely. “Hey bone heads! Don’t you want a piece of this?!!”

Taunting the dead with words really doesn’t seem to affect them at all, but it gave me the courage to close the distance between us and them. When I was no more than halfway across the clearing from where Alaina and Shadow waited, at the midpoint of where the dead milled around the vine covered crypt, the closest skeletons suddenly turned and focused their attention on me.

How damn tasty am I to them?? Even at a distance of about thirty or forty yards, they turn their attention from the crypt with Life’s Amulet in it, to me. I’m damn chocolate cake for the dead!

“Fuck! Fuckity Fuck Fuuuck!” Wailing like a frightened little child, I forced myself to resist the urge to turn and flee from the dead, and instead continued on directly towards them. With each step forward, more of the dread dead turned their mindless attention from the fallen crypt to me.

At thirty yards away, I had garnered the attention of about a dozen skeletons. By the time I was twenty-five yards away, there had to be at least a whole score of the dead turning in my direction. By the time I was twenty yards away, there was more dead than I could count turned in my direction and lumbering towards me with lifeless eyes – and it was at this point that I realized there was going to be a serious issue.

Laulaia had limited magic to blast these things with, so I needed to try and pull them all to her in one foul swoop, if at all possible. The problem was, my area of attraction was about a thirty to forty-yard, area-of-effect, and the crypt was larger than that. With the dead turning towards me and closing the distance between us as I approached, there wasn’t any way a single approach could pull them all. The best I could do is grab the attention of most of one side, with a single pull!

“Damn iiittttt!” Screeching like a wild banshee, my nerves wouldn’t let me continue a suicidal head on rush into the midst of the dead, no matter how much I tried to tell myself that my shackles would offer protection. Survival instincts took over, and I found myself turning and running back towards Shadow and Alaina, with my heart about the leap out of my chest; it was pounding so hard.

“Move it! Move it! Move it!” Why I was screaming the same thing, repeatedly, I don’t know! It’s stupid, but with the amount of adrenalin that was surging through my veins, it’d be impossible to predict what I was likely to do, or yell, at the moment.

I was more wound, more alert, and more alive than I’ve ever been in my entire life! Steam rose from my skin as I freely sweated in the cool morning air, as I clenched my jaws hard enough to taste blood on my teeth. As Shadow and Alaina slowly drew back and headed towards the direction leading back to Laulaia, I fought desperately against my own preservation instincts and forced myself to veer off to a tangent to the right.

Tears were freely leaking down the corner of my face, as I slowly turned and forced myself into making a large semi-circle back to the far side of the fallen crypt. “Casper, you bitch, remove my fatigue!” Screaming at the goddess helped vent some of the explosive emotion I was feeling, but unfortunately, no warm glow formed at my fingertips to fill me with renewed vigor. The gods are stuck up assholes which won’t listen to a slave, without their owner’s command!

“God damn worthless asshole goddess of cunt sucking ass licking….” Honestly, I don’t know what exactly I was yelling at that point, by if Casper still bothered to listen to me, I can assure you, she was probably laughing her ass off at the blatant disrespect I was hurling her way currently! One thing is for certain – if the dead would’ve had skin and ears, they’d be blushing from all the insults and curses I was tossing at the moment, as I circled inwards towards the back side of the crypt.

“Damn it Casper!! I’m going to bleach your damn gene pool, you cunt! Anyone who ever loved you, or followed you, is wrong! You coffin dodging oxygen thief! What doesn’t kill you, disappoints me!! When you were born, you didn’t emerge from your mother’s vagina – you couldn’t have, not being the complete asshole baby that you are!!”

Hurling one insult after another, and tossing blasphemies out as quickly as I possibly could, I forced myself to rush in a straight line along the same direction as the backside of the crypt. Making certain I never got any closer than about twenty yards away, I started at the right side of the crypt and ran parallel along the back, all the way to the left side.

The number of dead that had now smelt my scent, heard my screams, and been drawn by my pulsing lifeforce was completely beyond anything my overworked brain could count. It may have been fifty dead lumbering non-stop after my ass, and it may have been fifty thousand! Who the hell thinks I took time to count, at this point!

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

As I reached the far side of the back of the crypt, I turned and veered off to the right once again. I didn’t dare chance turning the corner and trying to make the dead on the adjacent side follow me. What if I ran head first into one of the damn things and tripped over it, or some shit? A twisted ankle at the moment wouldn’t be an inconvenience. It’d be game over!

Unable to catch my breath enough to keep cussing, all I could do is keep my head down and force myself to backtrack and circle back around in the direction I’d already came. I needed to pull both groups of dead into one large mass, rather than having them scatter and wander off randomly, so I forced myself to loop back around and retrace my steps towards the front.

Even though I’d imagined making a circuit like the loop of a lasso, and drawing both sets of dead together, I’d never did this before, and I miscalculated. As the dead had been chasing after me, I’d out distanced some of the stragglers, and they had wandered off, aimlessly lost. When I was about half-way around the circuit, and turning back towards the front of the crypt, I suddenly found a burning ache in my left side. One of the bastards had come up out of nowhere, and raked its cold, dead fingers against my hip. It hadn’t actually scratched, or harmed me, but the blessing of life in me reacted violently, propelling me to instinctively turn away from the dead…

…and right towards the rest of the damn swarm that I was trying to pull together!

“Yiiiiiiiiiiiiaaaahhhh!!!” Screeching piteously – forever ruining whatever mental image I had of myself as a brave manly man – I found myself skipping, dodging, and weaving between several stragglers of the herd, as I rounded the corner and back to the safety that was now the cleared front of the temple. Forcing myself to lift my head, I glanced towards where Alaina and Shadow had been, and was relieved to see they were both bouncing excitedly back and forth, with Laulaia now standing beside them. Our plan might’ve been for me to draw all the dead back to her, but apparently, she couldn’t wait out the suspense, hearing me screech and cuss so unreservedly.

Once again, my first instinct was for self-preservation, and to head towards the group, and once again, I forced myself to ignore it. With the front and back clear like it was now, most of the danger was already gone. Well, not exactly gone, but at least most of the danger was now behind me. Or at least, after my behind!

Rushing across the edge of the front of the crypt, I forced myself to turn and run along the left side, exactly as I had around the back just a little while ago…

…and you know, some idiots out there will tell you that a woman can’t run in high heels. Thank you, idiots! Somehow, with all the adrenalin pumping through my body, and with the situation overwhelming my senses, I somehow just had a sudden thought about you. There’s something I want to tell you guys – FUCK YOU!! When you have a swarm of dead after your ass, you’re not running with your feet firmly hitting the ground. The moment the balls of my feet touched the grass, my little legs were pumping and propelling me back off from it, and hurtling me forward. My damn heels never once touched the ground!

And why the hell my brain jerked left to think about such a dumbass thing, I don’t know! I’ve never been chased by the dead before, nor had to deal with such an intense life or death situation, in my life! One moment I was scared out of my wits; the next moment, I was laughing at myself and wondering exactly what the fuck was wrong with me, as I rushed past the far side of the left wall of the crypt and back into the safety of the already cleared backside.

“Ha! Haha aha haaha haaahaaa!!” Cackling like an idiot, I once more forced myself to circle back around on the dead – though I’d already learned my lesson from the pass last time! This time, I circled wider, kept my head up higher, and made certain to leave more space between me and then endless train that was chasing after me.

Best my mind could determine, there was only about half of hell lumbering mindlessly, relentlessly, determined to eat me! It was a whole damn wall of dead – or at least, it seemed like it was a whole damn wall of dead – that I was circling back against, as I dragged them all into a massive group together. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I noticed that the dead were so stupid that some of them were crashing together and already starting to break apart, but I didn’t have time to congratulate myself on lowering their numbers any.

As soon as I was back in front of the crypt, I once again forced my attention back to where the others waited – I needed the reassurance that they were still there, for my own mental stability – and I felt my heart leap up in my chest at the sight of them. Oh, thank God! Praise be Casper! You’re such a perfect, lovely, immaculate goddess! I’ll damn follow you forever!!

And once again, my brain went haywire. From cussing Casper to praising her! How come none of the damn stories you ever read, watch, or are exposed to, ever tell you about how damn stupid you get when you’re just utterly overwhelmed? On some inner level, I knew what was happening – my mind was trying to distract itself with anything, to keep from focusing on the sheer horror which it was feeling, at this moment. Which is why, once again, I found myself going into analytical mode and able to think to myself like this!

Damn it! Stay focused, idiot!

Forcing my attention back away from my own thoughts, I slowly circled and turned to head back towards the last wall, which was surprisingly almost cleared of dead to begin with! Apparently, between circling around them to head to the back, and then back around them to head back to the front, and with the gaff where I wandered closer than I wanted, I’d already pulled most of the dead from this side of the building!

Damn it!! If I’d just been aware of that, I could’ve avoided having to circle back around once more, and being forced to avoid the massive swarm that I’d already gathered up! Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!

Cussing myself now, just as much as I’d ever cussed Casper, I forced myself to turn and drag the train of dead back upon itself one more time, as I made a beeline for the girls. “Leeerooooyy Jeeenkiiiinsss!! Leeeroooooyyyy Jeeenkiiinnnnsss!!” Screeching like an idiot, I ran right past Shadow and the girls, and continued on in a straight line up the hillside.

“Ka-boooommmm!” Fire and thunder lit up the night, as Laulaia released a massive ball of fire into the midst of the dead, exploding bone chips in all directions.

“Ka-boooma booom!!” A second explosion, and fire blazed rampantly all between us and the crypt, with still more of the dead lumbering up the hillside. Completely ignoring everyone else, they kept chasing mindless after me – not giving a damn about the sandwich which was the others, when the chocolate cake that was me was so close!

“Circle them back around!” Screaming to get my attention, Alaina and Shadow was chasing after the remains of the swarm, while Laulaia simply sat down in the midst of them and began mediating to recover her energy faster.

“God damnnn it!!” Screaming, I forced myself to turn and circle back towards the dead once again. Even with all of Laulaia’s magic at her disposal, apparently my night wasn’t over yet. Now, it was time for me to kite the damn dead a while longer, until Alaina and Shadow managed to pick off the rest of the damn things!

“FUCK MY LIFE!!” I think I now have my new battle cry.