Chapter 44 - Lemon Fresh Zombies

Alfred opted to bury their dead right away, rather than trying to bring them back to the others. They’d taken shelter in a UVM building, he told me, and there were monsters wandering around outside it. Burying someone there wouldn’t be simple. I had my skeletons do the job; since one of them already had a shovel as its ‘pole arm,’ it didn’t take too long to dig six graves for the bodies we found.

I found myself staring at Lords’ face as the skeletons tossed dirt on top of him. Could things have gone differently? If I’d stayed, would he have accepted my story? Alfred told me Lords had effectively banished me in absentia—he’d declared I wasn’t to be welcomed back, if I tried to return. I didn’t think he’d have changed his mind just because I was still standing there when he showed up to the ‘scene of the crime.’

But maybe he wouldn’t be dead, then. It was a sobering thought.

By the time we had their dead into the ground and covered, it was heading into late afternoon. I wanted to get moving and check out the Air Guard base. Alfred wanted to get home to the rest of his people.

“I’ve already been gone too long,” he argued. “We have a lot of defenseless folks back there. I took half our fighters with me.”

“Defenseless folks? At this point, nobody should be defenseless anymore,” I shot back. “They’re freeloading, and it’s a bad plan.”

He shot me a look that said he agreed with me but couldn’t say so. Ouch, that had to suck. Alfred had an overdeveloped sense of responsibility, and it was going to get him killed if he wasn’t careful. I sighed, but figured I’d at least go with him to his new base. My troops would be more than enough to keep his squad safe for the walk.

We set off, moving along the main roads. I had my warriors on point, except the archers, who were close to me. The other skeletons were on my flanks, and Rosie and Guildie brought up the rear. Alfred, his people, Hope, and myself were all tucked in the middle of a comfy undead sandwich.

Which is actually a gross concept, now that I’ve said it. Unfortunately that’s exactly how a lot of his people were reacting to them, too—like the undead were disgusting things they wanted to be far away from. I reminded myself that I’d had days to get used to running around with dead things. It didn’t bother me anymore. Even the zombie smell was mostly covered up with a couple of spritzes of a bathroom spray I’d found while searching houses.

Lemon fresh zombies for the win!

They hadn’t had that time, so it was only natural they’d feel a little unnerved. This felt like more than that, though. At least a couple of them really didn’t like me, which told me there were more than a few stories about me circulating in the group.

Alfred led us directly down the road toward the core of campus, then turned off as we approached Jeffords Hall. It was a science building focused on biology—mostly plant stuff. As places to set up went, I’d have aimed for agriculture instead, but it wasn’t an awful idea. There were wet labs; the building had a decent reservoir of water, and there was a water tower just outside. It would work for a while. The enormous glass windows covering the entire area around the entryway—stretching up all three stories—were mostly shattered, though. I had to wonder how secure they could possibly be in this place.

“How are you guarding that whole building?” I asked. “It seems too big, unless you have a lot more people than I remembered.”

“We do have more,” Alfred said. “A few more people joined us every day. But we’re not trying to hold the entire place. We’ve got everyone up on the top floor, and then we filled the stairwells with desks, chairs, lockers—anything we could find. No way an attacker can get up there.”

“No easy way down, either,” I pointed out. “What’s your escape plan if they, I don’t know, toss fireballs at the building and set it alight?”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Alfred pursed his lips tight, frowning and looking away. He didn’t reply. I didn’t need him to; it was obvious he didn’t have an answer for my question. When, not if, the goblins hit this place, they were trapped inside. They might be able to stop the goblins from coming upstairs, although I wasn’t even certain of that—the goblins seemed good at building stuff, and ladders were not that hard.

But all they really had to do was toss a bunch of fireballs through the gaping hole all those shattered windows made. Toss them into the first and second levels, where they’d catch the place on fire and start burning it from the bottom up. It’s what I’d do, if I were them, anyway.

If I didn’t convince these people to leave, they were all going to die.

When we got to the front entry, I saw how they were going up and down. Alfred hollered for ropes, and they dropped a trio of heavy ropes, each one knotted multiple places to make them easier to climb.

“You okay managing the ropes?” Alfred asked me. “We have one seat-lift we can use for people who can’t climb that well.”

With my agility, I figured I could handle it at least as well as he could, so I just flashed him a nod and a smile. But I was wrong. Alfred moved to the nearest rope, grabbed on, and all but launched himself up it. He didn’t even bother using his legs, or the knots. He just went up hand over hand, each time lunging a good meter higher. It was nuts. I’d never seen such a display of raw strength.

Tier three Strength made a big difference. It was a good thing to remember. I gave orders to my undead, having them slip into the ground floor of the building to stand guard, but to fight back if attacked.

Then it was my turn, and I made my way up quickly, too. Maybe not quite as fast as Alfred had, but well enough that my high school self would’ve been pleased. I hated climbing the stupid rope in gym class. Now? It was a breeze.

When I reached the top, Samson and George were both a short distance away, huddled up with Alfred and talking. They were quiet enough that I couldn’t pick out the words, but the looks George shot me gave me the idea they were probably discussing me.

I went over to them, and they broke up their circle, all turning to face me. “Samson, good to see you healed up okay. George, good to see you, too.”

Samson nodded to me. George glared daggers. He wasn’t happy, clearly.

“Lords said she wasn’t allowed back,” George spat out. “If she came calling, we were to send her packing.”

“Lords is dead,” Alfred said. “We need to figure out how to move forward on our own now.”

“Doesn’t mean we just ignore what he told us to do!” George said.

“No, it doesn’t,” Alfred replied. “But you said you wanted me to take charge, remember? If you’re changing your mind and want to take over…”

George shook his head vehemently. “No, that’s not for me. I’m not a leader. But damn it, boy. She’s a murderer! She killed my friend, and if we let her back in here, she’ll kill more of us, mark my words.”

“You wanna tell us what happened that day, Selena?” Samson rumbled.

“I can, if you want,” I said. When they didn’t respond, I assumed that meant I should continue. “Neal told me they’d found something. Asked me to come with him. As soon as I got to the back yard, I knew something was wrong, but didn’t know what. It was an ambush.

“Tom hit me with Entangle, locking me in place. Then Brad came out of hiding and rushed me, hoping to take my head off. Fortunately for me, when they attacked me it triggered the ‘guard’ reflex for my undead. Hope rushed Tom. My zombies went after Brad, and then Neal as well when he hit me with his club.”

“You did none of that damage? We saw stab wounds, some bad ones,” Samson said.

“No, I fought too,” I replied, keeping my chin high. “I managed to get a shot in against Neal with my axe, and cast a Drain Life on Brad. If I hadn’t done those things, I’d be dead right now instead of them. Not sorry.”

George turned to Alfred. “And you believe her?”

“Yeah, I think I do,” Alfred replied. “You saw how Brad was. The guy was an asshole, he was already hostile toward her more than once, and I heard some of the shit he was talking during that first snake barbecue. You did, too, I bet. I can’t say I’m shocked he tried something like this.”

George looked like he was about to retort something, but then shook his head, turned on his heel, and walked away.

I shrugged. “Sorry, Alfred. I didn’t mean to make waves here. If you want me to just go, I can.”

He shook his head. “No, I want you to see what we’ve got going on here, anyway. With your undead down at the ground, I doubt anyone will see you as a major threat right now. They might be a bit more nervous if you had all your critters with you.”

Behind us the rest of his squad was finishing the climb into the top floor. All of them ignored me. How was I going to convince these people they were doomed if they stayed here, if they all hated my guts?

I wasn’t. That was the answer, and I could feel it coming. Part of me wanted to just leave now and save myself the trouble, but it felt wrong to not at least try. I followed Alfred deeper into his lair, wondering if there was any hope for these people at all.