[T: 2 Days]
The Obsidian Skeleton continues to batter aside the naked skeletons. They are no longer only brandishing makeshift weapons reconstructed from furniture. They now have makeshift shields constructed from furniture and other oddities of the home. Several hold the seats of stools, without their legs, like a buckler. Others are grouped holding up wooden doors and tables, without their legs, making a wall of doors and tables, holding them up with one arm, with weapons in the other arm ready to strike from behind the wall.. The Obsidian Skeleton shoves the bucklers away from the skeletons holding them and punching their heads off, before the skeleton can recover and place its stool buckler back into position. The Obsidian Skeleton deals with the wall of doors and table in a variety of ways. One group, the Obsidian Skeleton, slowly smashes away the wood, punching it again and again, until it all splinters away, allowing for the Obsidian Skeleton to destroy the skeletons behind the wall, the same way an otter feasts on the inside of a clam after destroying its shell. Another group, the Obsidian Skeleton simply pushes aside the individual doors and tables, squeezing and forcing itself within to take care of its enemies. All the while, which the Obsidian Skeleton is slowly forcing its way past the wall, the skeletons are hammering away at it with their table legs and stool legs. Like little children trying to hit a pinata, but never making a dent on it.
[T: 3 Days 4 Hours]
Stick-soldier and Binoculars-soldier approach the edge of the cliff again to continue reconnaissance of the Beam of Light and the creatures surrounding it. As they approach the position they greet their two fellow soldiers who spent half the day there.
Binoculars-soldiers: Tally?
Relieved soldier 1: Total. 502.
Binoculars soldier breaths and sighs once, heavily through his nose.
Relieved soldier 2: Gonna look like it’ll hit the thousand mark tomorrow or right after tomorrow, if numbers are consistent.
Binoculars soldier: We don’t know that. Yet. All we know is that around four hundred died today.
Stick-soldier: No survivors?
Relieved soldier 1: None. All civies.
Stick-soldier: Well, looks like a lot more will continue to die
Relieved soldier 2: No word from the LT. ?
Stick-soldier: None. He’s preoccupied handling the conscription of the civilians.
Relieved soldier 2: What’s the point in that? We can’t arm them.
Stick-soldier: Lieutenant thinks they will be less of a burden on us if we can get them to be able to fend for themselves.
Relieved soldier 1: I’ll bet. They might also make up for our lack of numbers if we decide to storm Point Zero.
Stick-soldier: Maybe.
Relieved soldier 1: Anyways, we’ll be off then. Have fun.
Both Relieved soldiers 1 and 2 put on their packs, and holding their gear they walked away from the cliff. Binocular-soldier gives them a short wave goodbye.
Binoculars-soldier: Honestly speaking how effective you think the civilians will be?
Stick-soldier: They have no training. They’re green. We can’t arm them. Only duty we can give them is hunting in groups against a single individual, or distracting the fuckers so that we can kill them before we lose the civies.
Binoculars-soldier: Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Horde tactics or guerrilla tactics. I don’t see why we’re wasting our time on this.
Stick-soldier: Well what are we going to waste our time on then? There’s nothing to do.
Binoculars-soldier: Mmm.
[T: 3 Days 10 Hours]
There are screams, yelling, laughing and crying. The camp they set up is just an open area that they furnish with beds of leaves. There is a fire in the middle of the camp. Around the fire are the beds of leaves. In those beds of leaves is where the source of the crying, the yelling, the screaming and laughing comes from. Women. Several women. Each woman has a man or several men riding her, toying with her, using her for their pleasure. The women in these beds range from attractively pretty to exceptionally beautiful.
The Black Gang Leader is in a bed of his own, the woman he took as his own previously the day before lying on her stomach next to him, motionless, and naked. He smirks at the scene in front of him, as he fondles the ass cheeks laid bare and conquered next to him.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Finally he gives the cheeks a slap, “I’ll be back sweet cheeks. Get ready for the next round.” The woman gives no response and does not respond to the slap to her ass. He gets up and leaves camp.
The camp is patrolled around its perimeter by guards. The Black Gang Leader passes by several of them and even in his nudity they shrink away from him and try to avoid him. He ignores them.
As he takes a piss into a bush he notices the black teenager leaning against a tree. “What you doin’ over there son?” The black teenager jumps up.
Black teenager: Nothin’. Just sittin’
Black Gang Leader: Nothin’. Just sittin’, huh?
The black teenager nods.
Black Gang Leader: (scoffs) Ok, just sittin’
The Black Gang Leader leaves, going back to his bed of leaves and once more forcing himself onto his Broken White Mare. The black teenager sinks back to the tree, relieved.
As he sat leaning against that tree, beyond the bushes he could hear two men, patrolling further away, talking.
Unknown man 1: Ever since we met up with that other group it’s gone from bad to worse.
Unknown man 2: Yes, I agree. Two groups of mostly normal people led by two different gangs.
Unknown man 1: Of different race. And culture.
Unknown man 2: Blacks and Hispanic. Black gang culture and Hispanic gang culture. This can not end well. It might look like they are working together but there’s an invisible tension there. The only thing keeping them agreeable is that we have actual monsters that we need to fight against, and that there are more of us normal people than them, so they need the numbers they have right now and not lose people to infighting.
Unknown man 1: Right now taking all the attractive women and fucking them is keeping them sated and friendly. (he pauses) Wonder how long that will last. They’re gangsters. They believe that they’re the Alphas. How long till they don’t want to share the women?
Unknown man 2: Probably not long under normal circumstances. Women to them are a resource. They’re livestock to them. But then again these aren’t normal circumstances like you would find in the urban area. This is more rural than rural. The wilderness is alive and it wants to eat you. I think they’ll stick it out for a lot longer than they like. The smart ones will try to keep sharing the women. The not so smart ones will pick fights. And nearly all of them are not so smart. But they also know that they can’t pick those fights either.
Unknown man 1: Those fuckers. We don’t have a choice but to patrol the area for them, work for them, do all the dirty stuff. And they’re lording over us.
Unknown man 2: Right now we don’t have a choice. We’re slaves by necessity and slaves by circumstance. We need them. For now.
The voices grow faint and disappear as the two men patrol further away from the location of the black teen. And the black teen is left sitting and leaning against the tree, alone at last again to ponder on whatever thoughts are wandering in his mind.
[T: 3 days 21 Hours]
La Fonte and Jose are still in the same place they were in.
La Fonte: So, what’s the reason you told me to “hold fire”? Was it ‘cuz our rounds wouldn’t be effective against them?
Jose: Look outside.
La Fonte gets up, goes outside the room, goes to the nearest opening and peers outside.
The image of a town comes into view, with a main street going horizontal of the customs building and another main street going vertical of the customs building. Walking aimlessly are a couple of skeletons. La Fonte looks behind him, towards Jose. Jose shrugs.
La Fonte: Yep, ok. I got it.
La Fonte goes back into the room.
La Fonte: So there’s more of them out there. And now we know more about the situation we are in.
There is a silence. Nobody speaks. Nobody knows what to say. Everyone knows that they need a course of action. They already talked about the group managing aspect. There was agreement to the course of action there. Now they had to talk about how to deal with the skeletons.
How do they deal with the skeletons?
Frank: We could lure them into the building, one by one. Do the same thing we did here. Not very effective, but we’ve already done it, and we don’t know if we want to risk a fight with more than one. It will take a while, but we’ve got plenty of time. I’d rather spend a lot of time being alive killing nothing, than to run in fast and quickly die. If you’re still alive you can still kill. You can look for the prey, or the prey will come to you.
La Fonte: Talking from experience?
Frank: You could say that. We went through a lot of shit in ‘Nam. A lot of the time we were the prey. (a pause) And sometimes we weren’t.
La Fonte: Yeah, I bet.
Another silence falls as each man, Frank, Jose, La Fonte reminisce the days of combat, filled with death and terror.
Lucas is still outside of the room; next to the doorway, now sitting, leaning his back against the wall.
[ T: 3 Days]
For an entire day the naked skeletons have sent wave after wave of the undead against the Obsidian Skeleton to prevent and slow its advance. As the Obsidian Skeleton advanced more and more, better equipped skeleton units clashed with it. From wearing no armor to being equipped with leather armor, with some even wearing chainmail. The makeshift wooden weapons also slowly shifted to becoming more aligned with actual weapons of war. Rusted maces, swords and axes slowly started becoming common among the undead. And even then the Obsidian Skeleton prevailed.
After the Obsidian Skeleton would destroy a unit, it would move onto another location. Naked and unequipped skeletons would swarm the battlefield, after the battle, to scavenge everything they had lost, carrying their lifeless comrades as well as equipment, and disappear back the way they came.