CHAPTER 27 - WOODEN WALLS

Carver was up with the sun and moving about on his mission. His house lacked many of the supplies he’d need, but that was fine; he had a horse, after all. Dead, but still able to take him around the city faster than anyone could travel on foot. That was a significant advantage, and one he planned to use well.

He’d gathered up everything that might be useful, packing them into bags he strapped to the horse’s saddle. He and his wife had enjoyed camping, before their daughter was born. They’d intended to do more of it, once she was a little older. He packed their two-man tent, a sleeping bag, a large plastic bladder full of water, and all the non-perishable food he had in the cabinet.

Weapons were thin on the ground, but he had an ancient compound bow from when he’d been younger. Gideon hadn’t fired it in years, but he still remembered how. He grabbed that and the quiver of arrows; only ten, and they were old, but it would do for now. That plus the biggest carving knife in the kitchen would serve as a start.

He piled anything else that looked like it could be useful into a backpack and slung it on, then marched back outside and mounted his horse again. Gideon glared down at the goblin zombie, wondering if he should bring it with him or not. He might well find something better elsewhere, but for the time being every advantage counted. He reached down and took the zombie’s hand, pulling it up behind him on the horse. If they needed to move fast, he didn’t want the zombie slowing him down.

As set as he felt he could be, Carver took one last look at his house. It was empty now. There was no reason to mourn it; everyone that had made it a home was dead.

With that he set off at a fast pace, trotting up a side street and then turning north onto North Prospect. Stopped cars were everywhere. The Event hit in the afternoon, and traffic hadn’t been light. Every car had simply stopped right where it was in the middle of the street. Still, it was easy enough for his horse to dodge around.

He saw almost no people. It was early, and the night had been full of screams from the dying. Many people were likely exhausted and trying to rest as best they could. Later today, perhaps, they would venture out. Or maybe they’d remain hidden, hoping things would somehow return to normal before their food and water ran out.

Gideon liked to think of himself as a realist. Under the circumstances—monsters, no power, no vehicles—he guessed probably half the city’s population had died on the first day. But some would have survived, either by fighting off the monsters or by hiding from them. Either way, those survivors would be forced to venture out before long. He recalled reading that most people had only a few days worth of food in their homes. Once that was tapped out, they’d have to look for more, or die.

Without trucks hauling more food into the city from elsewhere, food stocks nearby were going to dry up faster than anyone could replace them. In the long run, the city was doing to be a place of death. Most people who remained there were going to die. Fodder for him, at this point, but he didn’t want to become one of those casualties.

In the short term, though, he had time. And Burlington had resources he simply couldn’t get anywhere else. In this case, what he was hoping to find were dead things. Or more correctly, undead things.

His ride carried him north just a few blocks until he saw the white tower of St. Joseph’s Home, an old assisted living facility. It wasn’t the building itself that interested him, but what lay just beyond it: the Mount Calvary Cemetery. Funny, how people often placed cemeteries right next to assisted living or nursing homes. Appropriate, perhaps, since it was easier to move the residents on to their final abode, but a little grim. One could just look out the window and see one’s eternal reward waiting in a large, open field.

Morbid, but true.

Riding closer, he saw the place had been ransacked. Zombies were all over. Some of them look like they’d been interred and risen when the Event hit. Others wore regular clothing and the marks of a bloody struggle. It was easy enough to decipher what happened here. Carver hoped that the fact his classroom cadavers had risen meant dead bodies all over had done likewise. That would turn every cemetery into a perfect hunting ground for him. Since he already had a couple of black crystals, earning more would empower him faster than any other sort of hunting he could accomplish.

The dead had indeed risen, and then they’d gone after the nearest source of living humans—St. Joseph’s. With the raw number of undead running around the place, he doubted anyone remained alive inside.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Which was perfect, for him. He’d found his hunting ground. It was time to begin killing monsters and collecting their crystals. One zombie spotted him as he rode up and slid down from the saddle. It gurgled at him and started moving his way.

“And you will be the first of many, my friend,” Gideon said, nocking an arrow to his string and taking aim. He waited until the zombie was only a dozen paces away before firing. Better to be sure, and hit, than to take chances.

The arrow pierced the zombie’s skull and it collapsed in a heap. A quick tap got him another black stone. Gideon gave his horse and goblin zombie mental commands to guard him—no sense taking chances! Then he pressed ahead, looking for his next target. There were so many, perhaps even hundreds of undead in this place. By the time he was done here, he would have the beginnings of the power he knew could be his.

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I ran headlong into the trees, legs carrying me as fast as they could. Hope was out ahead, scouting the path down to the brook I could hear burbling somewhere in front of me. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern had fallen behind me, but that was okay. Having them as a rearguard was a sensible precaution. I had no way of knowing if I would be followed, and how soon that pursuit might begin. If people came after me, they’d run into the zombies first. Rosie and Guildie would buy me time.

Images of the three men I'd just killed kept flashing before my eyes. Each time, I shoved those thoughts away. I had a feeling I was going to be pretty messed up about it, once I had time to sit and think. But that time wasn't now. Not if I wanted to live—and I did.

We hit the brook. It wasn't huge, but I would still get soaking wet crossing the thing. There wasn't enough daylight left to dry out my clothes, so I turned south, looking for a quick way across.

Only ten meters upstream I saw what I needed: a space where there were enough boulders close enough together that I felt confident I could hop across. I sent my undead over first. They just waded through the river, as they didn't need to worry about getting cold. I followed after, once Hope scouted the trees on the other side. I knew this forest was goblin territory, so I needed to be careful and watch for ambushes.

Once I was across, I considered which way to go from hereThe northern end of the forest was bigger by far, and I didn't want to end up lost. I veered south, instead. That was also a risk, as it took me closer to the police station. By now, Lords and his people might have sent word back to watch for me. They might even have returned themselves. I wanted to be careful to stay far enough away from the station to avoid detection.

At the same time, I wanted to skirt the forest, not delve deeply into it. I didn’t have a compass or map, and I only had so much food and water with me. Getting lost would get me dead.

The goblins were just as large an issue. They were still around, I felt sure of it. Based on the numbers we’d already seen, there were a lot of them, too. It made me wonder where they’d come from. Like, the zombies had been dead bodies before the Event. It sort of made sense, if you accepted magic, that they came back to life. The giant snake had been a snake. The demon bear? Probably just a bear. Those skeleton dogs had been someone’s buried pet, most likely.

But what were the goblins? Had they been created out of nothing? Or had they been something else before, too? I realized with a start that I hadn’t seen a single squirrel since entering the trees.

“No way. Definitely couldn’t be that,” I whispered, glancing from tree to tree. Still none of the small furry things.

Holy shit, that had better not be what happened. That would make for so many goblins!

All at once I stumbled across something surprising: a paved path! Parts of these woods were a sort of park, if I recalled right. I’d never been out there, but classmates had. There was a parking lot where people could leave their cars, and trails through some of the forest. Maybe, with a little luck, I could find that parking lot and locate some supplies from abandoned cars?

I looked ahead down the trail. There was no sign of danger, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. I’d already seen that the goblins were very good at hiding, when they wanted to.

"What do you think, girl?" I asked Hope.

She gave a soft chuffing sound, then marched ten feet down the path, eyes scanning the trees on either side. After that, she turned back toward me, gave another chuff, and set off again.

"I guess that answers that question," I said. "Let's go, guys."

Zombies close behind me, I followed Hope down the trail. But she stopped after only about a hundred feet. She glanced off the trail to the right, then back at me, then back into the woods. Without any sound, Hope left the trail, veering north again, deeper into the woods.

I peered where she’d been looking, and for a long moment couldn’t see anything amiss. Then I did, and couldn’t believe I’d missed it.

Walls.

Someone—something, more likely—had built a wood palisade in the forest. The trees they’d cut had been left with enough branches that the end result blended into the woods very well. I was close, and hadn’t even noticed until Hope told me where to look.

It had to be the goblins, right? It was probably them, although I couldn’t rule out some other group of monsters or people setting it up. It was near the brook for water, in the forest to hunt game… As fortress locations went, this wasn’t a bad one.

I issued a mental command for the zombies to follow Hope, and then did likewise. We never ran into whoever owned that fort, not even a single scout. But I kept watching over my shoulder for a long time even after I could no longer see those wooden walls.