“Matthew, here are those hikers I picked up.” Teddy ducked into the tent, and they followed after. A few people stood inside, leaning over the paperwork and murmuring about very serious matters. Maps hung on one of the walls, with bright red lines drawing perimeters and marking important spots around the park. A man sitting in a folding chair at one of the tables looked over his shoulder. He furrowed his brow.
“What are they doing here?”
“I told you that I was bringing them to the command center," Teddy sputtered. “I didn’t know if you might want to…whatever, I’ve got to go back to patrolling the road.”
Then she spun on her heel and marched out of the tent. Matthew looked them over with a sigh. He did not look like a park ranger, instead dressed down in a pair of blue jeans and a plain t-shirt. A couple of days’ worth of stubble shadowed his cheeks. Like everyone else, he looked tired.
“I apologize.” He rubbed his thumb across the cut of his jaw, “It’s been a long few days. If you are hoping for a refund on the cabin - unfortunately we cannot accommodate you. These circumstances are beyond our control. As stated in our regulations, unpredictable weather events are not reason enough for the parks to give a refund on the cabins.”
He sounded like he'd had to spout off that exact speech more than once in the past week. Jeremy was busy looking around the tent as he spoke, particularly at the map hanging from the wall. Little stars were drawn over important places. Labeled were scribbled beside them, denoting each as things like “command center,” “landing 1," and “portal." He raised his eyebrows.
Matthew cleared his throat, “I don’t need anything from you, so you are free to go. Again, I apologize for the inconvenience.”
“It’s alright," Zanie took pity on him and smiled. “We aren’t hikers anyway. We were passing through and wanted to practice some defensive and combat magic on the monsters in the park.”
Caleb smacked a hand over his face and groaned. “Zanie! He’s one of the rangers. You can’t tell him we were squatting in the cabin and going around practicing combat magic. Don’t you know that all these authority figures are trying to stop people from learning magic?”
Jeremy made a face of disbelief at Caleb, because that little spiel admitted more than what she had said. He grabbed them both by the arms and started dragging them toward the exit of the tent, shooting an apologetic smile at Matthew.
“Thanks for the ride out of the park. We’ll get out of your hair.”
“Wait!” A man blocked their exit, and Jeremy’s heart skipped a few beats. He started to feel hot all over as adrenaline seeped into his veins. It was never a good sign when someone blocked the exit. And from what he had seen in the city, the National Guard was not exactly the most people-friendly right now. They should have booked it as soon as they got here rather than following Teddy into the camp.
“Sorry.” The man held his hands out like he could see the panic on Jeremy’s face and wanted to appear non-threatening. “I just wanted to ask you a question. You were in the park, fighting the creatures, the imps?”
“Yes.” Jeremy nodded, short and terse, figuring that the man must be referring to the mini goblins. He did not like being trapped in like this. They had more experience casting spells under their belts than when the council members trapped them, but they had only been practicing against each other and little low-level mini goblins the size of his cat. These were actual people.
“Can you tell me what that experience was like?” The man asked. “Fighting them?”
“Uh…” Jeremy glanced around. Matthew sat twisted in his chair, watching with interest. A few other people had stopped mid-conversation to listen in. Nobody looked very threatening. He very nearly rolled his eyes. Once again, he’d thought he might be able to get information from the people in charge, but they were proving to know less than he did. Maybe.
“There seem to be two types of them?” He said. “One turns into a goop when you kill it. Other than that, they are pretty easy to kill."
He did not say anything about how they seemed programmed to attack rather than run away. Unlike Caleb, he liked to keep a few cards up his sleeve.
The man pressed his lips together and let his arms fall to his sides. He looked over Jeremy’s shoulder and addressed the people standing behind him. “See. They are spreading. Now they are over on the Western side of the park.”
“What?” Jeremy asked.
“Thank you for the information.” The man stepped out of the way to let them through the exit, “It’s best if you stay out of the park. The trails are dangerous right now.”
“What?” Caleb put his hands on his hips, “Are you kidding me? You ask for information, then cryptically say, ‘Oh, they are spreading,’ and then dismiss us?”
He waved his hands around and widened his eyes so that he sounded big-time sarcastic as he said this, then pointed the finger at the man. “Uh-uh. We want to know what is going on, buddy.”
The man frowned. Caleb shot Jeremy a smile, then met the man’s frown with a glare of his own.
“Stand down, Anderson," A woman said from behind them, “My god, you are testy.
Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.
All three of them turned around to face her. While many of the people in the tent were dressed in fatigues or other versions of tactical gear, she had on a more formal uniform. Her dark blue jacket had large brass buttons and gold encircling the cuffs. She wore her hair pinned back in a tidy bun, and her shoes shined in the light from the lamps hanging about the tend. She gave them a tight smile.
“Thank you for your information,“ she said graciously. “There is a sickness associated with the creatures, which seems to be most prevalent when they - as you put it - turn into goop. So it is good for us to know the extent of how far these disease-spreading variants have spread through the park.”
“A sickness?” Zanie looked down at her hands in horror.
“Yes.” The woman picked up on her distress, “Don’t worry. It hits fairly immediately, from what we can tell. If you are feeling fine now, then you should be okay.”
Zanie did not look comforted.
“If you would like to speak with our medical staff, you are welcome to." The woman said. “This encampment is committed to assisting and working with civilians during this crisis.”
This last part was clearly directed to Anderson, who seemed unable to deal with whatever little rebuke was conveyed through them. He got all red in the face like a cartoon character about to blow steam out of their ears and lifted his arms up again to wave them around as he spoke.
“Oh, because you are so concerned about civilians that you are going to let this wildfire burn over, and you are going to give them –"
“Enough.” The woman, who was obviously the authority figure here, rubbed her forehead. The interaction now had the full attention of everyone else in the tent. They watched with big eyes and parted lips. Matthew rubbed his jaw some more, his expression leaning toward resignation. Once again, Anderson could not hold his tongue.
“We don’t know if it is a virus or what,” Anderson hissed. “For all we know, it could be an oil that we are volatilizing into the air and spreading to the whole town. We know literally nothing about this. It’s not human. It’s not from this world. We cannot just expect to burn it and be done with it.”
“Those are valid concerns, but the decision is already made.”
“Why haven’t you evacuated?” Zanie asked in a small voice.
“There comes a point where we can only evacuate so much of the country before there are more places needing evacuation than there is space left to evacuate people to.” The woman explained, once again sounding like she was speaking more to the others in the tent than to Zanie, who had actually asked the question. “And there are only so many resources we have for setting up refugee camps and assisting with evacuations. Right now, the higher-ups want to focus on the disaster zones around the gates because the level of creatures that came through Gates 0 and 1 vastly outnumbered the ones coming out of these little portals. Those were armies. These are just individual little monsters. They don’t show any cohesion and are easier to deal with.”
“So you don’t have enough people to actually deal with the issue here, and you started a burn to try to deal with it?” Caleb asked. A few papers shuffled, and people shifted on their feet as they listened to the question. It seemed like this was a suspicion of many that had yet to be eased. Matthew, in particular, perked up to hear the woman's response.
She laughed, full-bellied and amused, which was a little jarring with all the worry lines and concerned expressions everywhere else in the tent. “No, no. Doing a burn takes almost as much logistical finagling and manpower as an evacuation, if not more. No. The fire started on its own. We are just letting it go. The park has pre-set burn units to keep it contained. Hopefully, we can move it through them and start moping it up by the end of tomorrow.”
“Then what?” Anderson crossed the tent to the map and jammed his finger against the hand-drawn star labeled ‘portal.’ "More will come through the portal. The fire isn’t going to actually stop the problem. It’s just a bandaid.”
“True, but why put effort into stopping the fire when it can burn over the monsters already there, at least? Then we can concentrate our manpower on trying to go in and see how to shut that portal down.”
“Go in?” Jeremy asked. “Are you going to go through the portal?”
“Yes.”
Anderson threw his hands up in the air. He turned away and muttered to the other end of the tent, apparently done with the conversation. The other people around also pressed their lips together like they were not very happy with this decision.
“What exactly is it?” Jeremy asked, hoping she would keep being forthcoming. When she started to explain a beat later, the people in the tent turned their eyes away like they did not approve of her telling a bunch of kids this stuff. Maybe she should not. Her openness surprised Jeremy, who was grateful but a little suspicious of it. Either way, he listened closely as she spoke.
“All the ones that have been found are not actual structures like the gates. They are just energy disturbances of some kind as far as we can tell, hanging in mid-air. But there are creatures coming through them.”
“I’m surprised that they are letting you take people through,” Caleb eyed the negative reactions. “With the way they are keeping people away from the gates and all. And it seems like a liability nightmare.”
“They are not letting me. I haven’t asked permission from my commanding officer.” The woman turned her sharp eyes on every person in the tent. “Since these are unprecedented events and this is clearly an emergency, as the incident commander, I have taken the initiative to authorize these actions myself. We need to understand what we are dealing with since this incident spreads illness."
She turned back to Caleb, “And it is a liability, so I am only sending volunteers.”
One of the other women in the tent finally could not hold her peace and stormed forward a few steps. “You can’t just take matters into your own hands! The chain of command is already in shambles because of how thin the guard is spread. If you break away from it like this, then you are making the situation worse.”
“I will not stand by and do nothing.” The woman slammed her palm down on the table. “Not when I have been given authority over handling this incident.”
“But handing out weapons to civilians -”
“The decision is already made," She barked. “It’s late. Everyone, go get some rest. We need to be on our toes to do it all again tomorrow. I expect everyone back again in the morning at…” She checked her watch. “18:00 on the dot.”
People started settling their paperwork and shuffling out of the tent. The woman leaned one hand on the table and pinched the bridge of her nose with the other. She sighed.
Jeremy’s mind reeled with all this new information. So, there were not only gates but also smaller, less-corporeal portals letting creatures into their world. He wondered if this was where all the monsters came from, then thought about the dryad and dismissed the idea. He looked around the tent at the map and all the paperwork. It really would have been too easy to come to the park and gallivant around killing low-level enemies to level up. Of course, the National Guard was already here. Of course, these little low-level creatures spread some kind of disease. Of course, the forest was on fire. He mirrored the incident commander's sigh.
“Handing out weapons to civilians?” Caleb ventured, always one to look on the bright side, “Does that mean we could get some guns from you?”