CHAPTER 36 - TICKING SOUND

Our lines crashed into each other for what I hoped would be the final fight.

The enemy undead had the numbers still; we’d worn them down, but it was close, now. Twenty of them, six on my side. That wouldn’t be fair, except each of my team was worth two or more of theirs. Those shields held back their rush like a proper wall, although my line had to give up a couple of steps, pushed back by the sheer violence of the enemy rush.

It was the wings I worried about. Outnumbered as we were, they were bound to try to wrap around our flanks, envelope the line, and that would be the end of us. To fight that, I had Hope on the right flank, harrying anyone who tried to go after Rosie there, and I was on the left doing the same.

Three skeletons rushed me, trying to curve around Guildenstern’s shield so they could get behind our line. I met the first with a solid axe blow that sent it staggering back. The other two managed to get close, though, one of them grabbing my axe with both hands. I zapped it with a Drain Life that sent the skeleton to its knees. Axe free again, I shattered the kneecap of the third, dropping him into the grass.

Wounded that badly was about as good as a win. We could clean up the damaged enemies later, and there were at least three enemies missing a leg now.

“Two steps back!” I called out to the line, and my undead obeyed. That got us clear of the wounded, so they wouldn’t drag themselves closer and attack our legs.

But that charge was the worst of it. Once we held against the rush, with every remaining enemy undead piled into a mass, I knew we had this. I could feel it in my gut. Half their numbers were dead or damaged and left behind already. All we had to do was not screw up at this point, and we had this battle in the bag.

I cast Drain as quickly as was safe; probably a little sooner than was wise, because the strain was beginning to show. I wasn’t as quick to block, and a skeleton claw left long scratches in my face. I blocked its follow up shot, then took its head off with a blow from my axe. The cuts hurt, but I’d had worse now, thanks to that stab wound. I knew I could handle the pain, and the next Drain Life I cast would heal me, anyway. It wasn’t like that spell gave me invulnerability. I could still die. But anything that didn’t kill me right away probably wasn’t going to, since I could just heal myself right after.

Getting hurt was still painful as hell, but pain wasn’t going to kill me.

Time for another Drain. I cast, and the healing magic flowed back into me, closing my wounds and healing worn muscles. I dropped back a step, panting. The spell wounded an enemy and Hope finished him off a second later. We were actually running out of active enemies, which was good, because I was pretty worn out.

And then the last standing enemy went down. It was just cleanup, after that. We rolled forward, landing finishing blows on the damaged skeletons left behind during our slow backward march. I had Hope do a quick sweep of the graveyard, too—just to be certain we hadn’t missed any. It turned out we had; she came over with a leg bone in her mouth, but when I went to investigate she’d already finished off the last foe.

It was over.

The sun was beginning to set before I finished collecting all of the crystals. There were just so many, and they were scattered across a wide area of the graveyard! I had a hard time believing how many of the things I’d gathered. Dozens of crystals. Most of them were black, with a scattering of clear ones as well. It was perfect, everything I’d hoped for, really.

I didn’t know if there were enough there to rank up any of my key spells, but I had to hope there were. There’d be time to sort that out later, though. For the time being, night was falling, and I needed to find someplace to set up camp. I wanted more than a car, this time, and those houses across the street looked very appealing. Sleeping in an actual bed would be amazing, for starters, but I could also secure the place that much better, with my additional troops.

There was the house I’d already searched. Since I knew that was cleared out, and the folks who departed seemed unlikely to return, it was the ideal place to stay. But I’d already cleared out most of the things I thought I could use from that house, and it made more sense to investigate one of the neighboring spots.

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I walked down the street a bit, eyeing each home. Strangely, none of them seemed to have people inside. I mean, it wasn’t that easy to tell. There was no power, so it wasn’t like the electric lights were going to show if someone was present. But I figured most people would be trying to light candles or something as the dark came on. That’s what Lords’ team did, back at the police station.

None of these homes had even a single light. Not one. Had they all left? I imagined a group of families, all heading over to the Air Guard base together, looking for shelter. Maybe that’s what happened. I hoped so, anyway. It would be nice if there was a gathering point for sane, decent people.

I stopped at one of the houses, picking it for no obvious reason—it was smaller than most, and not especially expensive, but there was a garage. Garages often had cool stuff that would be useful for me, so that was a plus. I went up to knock on the door, and as I’d expected, there was no response from within.

But when I looked through the big front window, there definitely wassomeone inside! A man sat on an easy chair in the living room, his eyes closed. I hesitated; he hadn’t heard my knock, so maybe he was asleep, or maybe he was hurt. I’d wanted to be a doctor for too long to ignore the possibility that a man was sick or injured without helping.

Breaking in wasn’t difficult. The man left a key under his front mat. This was Vermont. Home intrusions hadn’t been common, at least until after everything went to hell. Once I had the door open I left my undead outside on guard, except for Hope. I wanted at least one ally in there, in case the man wasn’t alone.

“Hello?” I called out, extra loud to allow my voice to carry through the house. “Sir, do you need help? I’m a medical student.”

No response. He didn’t shift, didn’t move. I winced. The odds of him having survived seemed less by the minute, but I had to know for sure. I went to the easy chair and placed my fingers on his neck, but I could tell just from the man’s face that it was already too late. He was dead. It had happened sometime earlier that day, I was pretty sure.

As I withdrew my hand from his carotid, they felt something hard on his upper left chest. I had a hunch what that was, and pulled back the shirt to see the outline of a small implanted box—a pacemaker. The man had a cardiac condition, and when the electronics all went out, the pacemaker did, too. He’d survived a little while, but the Event had been a death sentence for him.

I wondered how many others like him were out there. Every person who relied on electronics to survive was probably already dead. Pacemakers were the obvious one, but what about oxygen tanks and insulin pumps? COPD patients couldn’t breathe well enough without supplemental oxygen that didn’t exist anymore. Diabetic people needed insulin to survive, which required refrigeration. Maybe a heal spell would help them, but maybe not.

The world had changed, and it was taking a lot of people down in the process. I’d been fighting so hard to survive, I hadn’t thought about what it would mean for others.

A ticking sound caught my ear, and I glanced around the room, wondering what it was. It sounded mechanical, which stunned me. I was so sure that everything was destroyed by the Event. If some sort of electrical device had survived, maybe there was hope for restoring power, eventually?

I looked, but at first couldn’t find the source of the ticking. It was a very soft sound, only audible at all when I was as quiet as I could be. It wasn’t until I glanced down at the dead man’s wrist that I realized that was the origin of the sound.

His watch still worked.

I slipped it off his wrist and examined the thing, praying I’d found even oneelectrical device still working—but I knew in my heart what I was going to find, so I wasn’t shocked when I found it was a wound-spring design. A very old watch, maybe something this man had worn for decades. I’d never worn a wind-up watch. Even as a kid, it had always been digital faces. But I knew how they worked, I’d seen plenty of them.

It was overly large on my wrist. I would need to remove a couple of the gold links from the band, to make it fit, and that was probably something to handle once I knew I was secure in this place. I called in my small army, and together we swept the place, making absolutely certain there were no surprises. I even thought to check the basement this time, so see? I can learn!

Once I knew the house was empty of monsters and people, I moved a couple of large pieces of furniture against the back door, basically sealing it off. Then I left one of my skeletons there as a guard, just in case. There was no sense taking chances.

A sweep of the house told me the man clearly lived alone. There was some food still good in the kitchen, though, and water remaining in the pipes. In fact, the man had filled several gallon jugs—they were next to the kitchen sink, so he’d probably filled them there. He’d been trying his best to survive, too. His body betrayed him.

If I’d gotten to him in time to give him a Stamina stone, would that have been enough to save him? I wondered. The clear crystals improved our bodies and minds. Maybe one would have healed his heart. Maybe it would have taken two. But I had a hunch these crystals, this change, was both the source of many problems and also the solution.

Speaking of stones, it was time to examine everything my long day of battle had earned me. I found candles in the kitchen, and matches, but I wanted to be cautious about lighting them. A light would show up from a good distance away. I brought the candle and my pack to the garage instead. There were only two tiny windows on the side of the garage. Not much light would escape there, so I lit the candles, plunked myself down on one of my blankets, and poured out the loot.