A rather not-livable living room, Penthouse, Sky Pencil, Panthersville, DeKalb County, Georgia. Thursday, October 31th, 2019. 09:30
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"I'm gonna get you one day, Abby," Sara vowed for the umpteenth time.
She spent hours in what basically amounted to birth labor but without the baby prize at the end. She felt the energy inside her behave strangely. Opening that chakra caused profound changes in her Mana circulation and also added some odd properties to her mana. It felt more fluid and also made her keenly aware of...
Water?
Sara could feel her blood flowing in her veins as if it was running water from a faucet trickling down her hands. Suffice it to say that this odd sense of touch inside her blood vessels was unnerving and very, very distracting. What's more, she could feel each time her heart squeezed blood down her arteries.
She could also faintly feel what little water was mixed with the impurities she expelled from the energy node located between her ovaries. She did bleed quite a lot, after all.
To Sara, what she heard was, 'I did some spring cleaning in my house and also cleaned the kitchen's grease trap'. The 'house' being herself. Seething inside, she didn't deign to reply to that.
With every abdominal muscle in pain, she tried to stand up. Squelching sounds rang in the empty living room as she lifted her butt from the pool of impurities soaking the armchair seat and landed her bare feet on the puddle that formed around her.
Turning around, she saw a stack of pure white towels with the hotel logo and a piece of printer paper folded into an upright triangle with the words, "Get Well Soon" written on it. She recognized Kelly's handwriting. As she approached, she also found a neatly folded bathrobe on a chair a yard away from the towels. Over the bathrobe was a bar of soap and those tiny shampoo and hair conditioner bottles ubiquitous to hotels. The message was clear. Wipe the filth, then go take a bath.
She did exactly that.
*
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Rooftop patio, Penthouse, Sky Pencil, Panthersville, DeKalb County, Georgia. Thursday, October 31th, 2019. 10:00
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Sara still didn't feel clean. The day hadn't even properly begun and she was already in her second set of clothes. She swore to herself she would find clothes that didn't get ruined at the first mystical mishap they encountered. Worse yet, she was really having her period more than a week earlier than she should have. Heavier too. She had to pack extra lady products, thankful she'd looted any and all she found. As she walked out into the patio, she heard the sound of meat sizzling and smelled barbecue.
The Major was wearing an apron a size too small for him and flipping industrialized clown-branded burgers on an electric grill. No need for gas masks anymore; she washed thoroughly.
"Hey, she's here! Welcome back, Sara!" Hainsworth clamored. "We helped ourselves to some of the burgers in your fridge, I hope you don't mind."
"No, not at all," she quickly replied. "I'm quite famished, actually."
Bella and Brutus came at the sound of her voice to check on her. She petted them and made sure they knew how much she appreciated their loyalty.
"You seem better. How're you feeling?"
"Better. One of my powers helps with mental stability," she openly shared. "Otherwise I would've gone crazy weeks ago. I maybe have. I mean I'm pretty sure I bit ghouls yesterday. So... Maybe I should shut up."
"When S.H.T.F., nobody remains the same. Look, if you want to talk about what happened, or take the day—"
"No," Sara cut him off. "No day off for Sara, not yet. We are getting everyone trapped downtown into safety. I'm fine. I'm stronger than yesterday. Literally. Wanna see me flip a car?"
Hainsworth shook his head. "No flipping cars, only burgers. I believe you. Can I ask—"
"Just do it," Sara said impatiently.
"Does that happen very often? The black stuff?"
Sara laughed, "Survive Halloween, Major. Maybe you'll get to have a firsthand impression of it. Now, make me a sandwich!" She crossed another line off her bucket list.
"Gladly," he chuckled.
"Hey," Kelly said as she came climbed down from the true rooftop, the one with the solar panels.
"Hey. Hope you are not trying to sabotage my home again," Sara accused.
Kelly pursed her lips, "No, I think you can do that on your own. Are you going to clean up the living room?"
"Yeah, eventually. That stuff is remarkably water soluble."
"It will stain the floor," Kelly warned.
The girl shrugged, "Meh, that's not the only living room up here. Where's Mary?"
"Sleeping. She's not superhuman like you."
Sara just blinked. She had no retort for that. Kelly must've sensed the confused state she was in because she...
"Man, this hotel is so big, we have enough rooms to move everyone here," ... teased around very dangerous territory.
Sara growled as a flash of anger rose inside her. Then Bella and Brutus also growled at Kelly. She noticed what she was doing and commanded, "leave it." Immediately after, she moved closer and hugged Kelly. Making eye contact with the foxhounds, she repeated, "Friend. Bella, Brutus, come!"
"Good call," Hainsworth commented. "These gun dogs are trained to attack."
"These are the smarter dogs I've ever seen," Sara said as she knelt next to Kelly to scratch their necks. "Good boy, Brutus. Good girl, Bella. Kelly is a friend."
"Gun dogs?" Kelly wondered.
"A dog trained to retrieve small game and behave around people using firearms. My friend Maloney spent thousands of dollars training these two."
"Oh, did they belong to your friend?" Kelly startled. "Sorry about your loss."
"They are in the best hands they could be," Hainsworth reassured with a firm tone. "Sara, do you want sauce on your sandwich? Eat fast, you need to learn how to clean a gun before we leave. I can't believe how filthy yours was."
*
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Coastal Resources Containerized Freight, Chosewood Park, Atlanta, Fulton County, Georgia. Thursday, October 31th, 2019. 12:30
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Sara sighed in defeat. Another precious morning was sidetracked by random events. She might have willingly put Mary's mental well-being above the community's yesterday but today it was all Joe's fault.
And he paid the ultimate price for the delay.
The girl slapped her cheeks. She moped, and now she had to plow onward. She needed those Skill points. The horsemen were coming and she smelled disaster on the horizon.
The Humvee climbed the access ramp to the abandoned container yard. The M1 Abrams tanks were in the same spot as yesterday, with main guns pointed at the ruins of Atlanta. A few volunteers remained behind to monitor the drones and guard the war machines. They put up a few tents and took turns during the night, it seemed.
"Guys, thank you for your service," Hainsworth said out loud as he climbed out of the driver's seat. "We visited a drive-through on the way here, I hope you are hungry."
Sara and Kelly also climbed down, with several brown paper bags adorned with the famous golden arches. Kyle and the other volunteers quickly took a bag each.
"We have ketchup," Kelly said.
"And soda too," Sara hauled a cooler from the rear seat.
A slew of gormandizing groans broke the otherwise silent container park for the next several minutes. Sara stowed two of the paper bags in her backpack for later. She expected to have a long day of fighting ahead of her.
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After everyone ate their fill with seconds and thirds, Hainsworth shifted into business gear.
"Any movement during the night?"
"Nothing on the infrared cameras," Kyle said. "It seems our little display of force yesterday made them run for cover."
"Good," the Major crowed. "I'm going with Sara to start clearing a passage through I-20. We are moving away from the Connector and the arterial highway mesh. Our former plans were compromised."
He then explained Joe's treason and assassination attempt. A few of the men stole glances of admiration at Sara.
"You're getting popular," Kelly said as she nudged the girl with an elbow.
Sara didn't react.
"Penny for your thoughts?"
"Today is the Fourth Seal," Sara whispered.
"Death on a pale horse."
"Yeah."
"The other three didn't affect us. Why are you so worried?"
"The other three are in another continent. With an ocean between us. Doubt they'll swim 'cross the pond to bother us."
"And Death?"
"I have no idea. But I have a bad feeling. What if the warning about Halloween is exactly because Death will be set loose near us?"
Kelly shivered. "Do you have a plan?"
"I do."
"What is it?"
"Convince an asshole to speed up their schedule." She drummed above her stomach, where said asshole supposedly lurked. "But no. Stay safe, Kelly."
"You too."
The two hugged.
Hainsworth went to the back of the Humvee and took two long sturdy rectangular cases. He waved at her, "Sara, it's time. Come here, I have something for you."
Sara jogged to the vehicle, "What is it?"
Hainsworth removed a long metal shaft. Once she saw the other end, she understood what it was. "A spear?"
"The second most reliable weapon in human history, aside from bare fists," He said with respect. "Think you can channel your power through it? More reach is better."
"I see it. Can I infuse this?" she checked with Abby and got a yes. "What's the top pick? A sword?"
"No. A sturdy wooden stick," The officer said with a flat tone. "The spear was an improvement. A sharp tip."
He removed the protective leather cover of the blade and handed her the weapon. It was as tall as she was and very heavy. For a girl.
"You seem familiar with pole weapons," he remarked as she tried to get her bearings around the steel spear.
"Never used one," Sara mused.
"I don't think you'll have much trouble. The only thing you need to know is, pointy end goes into the enemy. There's a reason armies gave their men spears. It's very easy to use and doesn't take up much space. You can put men shoulder-to-shoulder and still use spears."
"Primitive but cool weapon," Sara said. "What's in the cases?"
"Modern but cool weapons," He grinned. "All mine."
Sara extended her arms and said out loud. "Ladies, we got it. We finally won the game!" Kelly did a little victory dance. "Today, men shall send the women ahead with a glorified sharpened stick while they stay a quarter mile back, shooting."
None of the gents knew how to react to that loaded declaration. Sara's awkward laughter rang alone.
"Meh, fuck it." Sara leaned her spear on her shoulder and nudged with her head. "C'mon, Major. We're burning sunlight."
*
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Boulevard Avenue near Ralph David Abernathy Freeway (I-20), exit 59A, Atlanta, Fulton County, Georgia. Thursday, October 31th, 2019. 13:30
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Crossing a completely wrecked cityscape was hard work. Especially in the mile directly out of Verachiel's exclusion zone, where all the falling debris that should've fallen on Forest Park and surrounding areas were shoved to the side. They doubled, maybe tripled the amount of destruction at the outskirts of the protected area, creating a treacherous ring of churned earth, broken buildings, twisted metal, and black shards of asphalt.
"Think the tanks can cross this shit?" Sara wondered.
"Don't cast doubt on the best military engineers in the world," Hainsworth replied. "It won't be easy, but they can. Is that a marble column?"
The fallen pieces of Heaven and Hell that crashed on that band of destruction ejected debris for a few miles out.
"Seems so," Sara stared at the twenty feet wide by thirty-tall section of broken piece of architecture. She chuckled, "That's a little piece of heaven, literally."
And it didn't shatter upon impact on the ground. Sara stabbed it with her spear, leaving only a metallic line drawn on the marble. She used an infused strike, which carved but a thin groove.
"Fuck this otherworldly shit. It's harder than a diamond. They fought up there, and used our world as their trash dumpster."
"It rolled over and crushed houses and everything else for more than a mile," Hainsworth pointed at a line of flattened debris.
Sara could tell what was destroyed by things coming from the sky from what was destroyed by this secondary effect by the direction of the damage.
Followed by Kyle's drones, the two went onward.
Atlanta's zoo was one such victim. instead of trying to navigate the destroyed cityscape, they decided to cross through Grant Park because there they had to contend only with churned earth and meteorite furrows but not broken walls, smashed architecture, or upturned vehicles. Of the zoo animals, she regrettably found only the carcasses. Whatever got to them, left only chewed bones behind.
They reached the next major motorway crossing. It wasn't looking so good.
"Damn, the overpass bridge is down," Hainsworth cursed.
They were between a blown-up gas station stained black by the burnt fuel and a ruined fire station in the middle of Boulevard avenue, facing the freeway. This was one of the two passages Hainsworth wanted to clear for the survivors. But the lack of a bridge put a damper on those plans.
"I'll go there to check. Perhaps people can still cross it on foot by climbing down to the freeway level, then climbing up. Do they have someone with impaired mobility with them?"
"No. Everyone there is able."
"Good," Sara readied her spear. I'm going there to check. If I see any lonesome undead, I'll dispose of them. If I see a horde, I'll come back running."
"Go ahead, I'm going to assemble the Barret to give you support should you need it."
With the Major's blessing, Sara moved forward. "Abby, outline the ghouls as you did with Joe."
She could get used to magical x-ray vision. Several human-like outlines appeared in her sight.
A display appeared at the corner of her sight.
> > MP 850 / 1626
Sara whistled, "my MP pool jumped to sixteen hundred?"
"Too bad it's not full."
"Smartass."
Sara approached the first ghoul, shambling on the access ramp, and stabbed it with an infused spear. Then the next.
"Sah-rhah!" The third desiccated ghoul was still capable of speech.
"If they can talk," Sara conjectured as she put the undead out of his misery, "are they able to think?"
"But they can speak!" She protested, then stabbed the fourth and then fifth ghouls. A group of three was approaching.
"Okay, I got it."
She moved to the side, then back and forth, Sara stabbed the first without infusing or hitting a vital spot, then heaved on the shaft to line up with the next, skewered both ghouls, then stabbed the third. Then she infused the ghoul kabob and got a triple kill.
> > MP: 790 / 1626
"No, I'm good. Keep the visual clutter to a minimum." She tried to pull the spear out of the corpses and realized the second flaw in her strategy. The first was that it took too much room and time to perform. The second was that her spear was stuck in the corpses. Sara twisted and pulled a few times before it came free.
"Alright, I got this."
Sara believed that so long she had room to retreat, she wouldn't be in trouble against mere ghouls. She wouldn't even notice that those were stronger if Abby hadn't pointed them out. The boost in her physical Skills from yesterday's fight and the new open chakra more than made up for the difference.
She killed another twenty ghouls with only fifteen imbued strikes. With the last three outlines too far away into the interstate, she made it back to Hainsworth.
The Major had a Barret M82 and a M4A1 rifles prepared. The M4A1 was slung across his shoulder while he cradled the Barret in his arms.
"Damn if you aren't looking cool, Major. Make a pose, I'm taking a photo," Sara suggested.
"I don't—"
"Present arms, soldier!" Sara barked. "Here we are, the both of us alone. People won't appreciate what we're doing for them unless they see pics!"
Hainsworth raised an eyebrow, "I thought you didn't care about that."
"I don't give a fuck to what people think. But you are an entirely different story. I know you will run for something in these elections. So..."
"I'll oblige," he said and snapped into position, with the sniper rifle against his shoulder. Sara snapped a dozen pictures with her cellphone.
"You know, Kyle's recording video," he pointed at the drone hovering fifty feet above them.
"Nah, that's no good. Too detached. Wait, did you hear that?"
That's when they heard the rumbling growls. Sara stowed her phone in her pouch and crouched to get her spear.
"Oh, shit," she cussed. "Sparky survived."
*
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Boulevard Avenue near Ralph David Abernathy Freeway (I-20), Atlanta, Fulton County, Georgia. Thursday, October 31th, 13:50
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"Sparky?" Hainsworth said as he swapped weapons. He didn't look behind him.
"Move forward slowly, and get behind me," Sara replied in a low voice. "Sparky is a Sumatran tiger, the star of the zoo. I visited him a few times."
Seeing that its prey had noticed him, Sparky the tiger moved into the asphalt from behind the ruined fire station. Sara gripped her spear tightly. "Abby, what can you tell me?" she whispered.
"Really?" Sara felt a pang of guilt. She didn't want to fight if sparky wasn't corrupt.
"Sara, back away but don't run or stop facing the tiger. Don't look it in the eyes and stand tall," Hainsworth said. "Let's move to the broken bridge."
"Good boy, Sparky. We don't want trouble," Sara crooned as she moved backward. Then she had an idea, "Abby, boost Presence."
Sara immediately understood how small corrections in her posture and gait could affect the tiger and Hainsworth's reactions. She straightened her neck and didn't brandish her spear. She walked backward slowly and with confidence.
"Sara, I'm sorry but we need to kill Sparky," Hainsworth said.
"No. Isn't there a way?"
"We can't contain him, and dozens of people will come this way soon. Avoiding or scaring him away won't solve the issue."
Sparky walked slowly, watching their every move.
"Does he have magic, Abby?"
"Can I have a taming skill?" Sara imagined herself riding Sparky for a moment.
"Seriously?"
"Who's Abby?" Hainsworth asked.
"My celestial fairy," Sara replied, oozing sarcasm. "Also, NDA. Abby, any idea to avoid killing Sparky?"
"I only have two burgers and some fries!" Sara protested. "He weighs what? Four hundred pounds?"
"Not helping."
No time to fret. If she froze in thought, they would be caught in a pincer attack. No outrunning a tiger for the unaugmented Major, either. Sara made her mind though she wasn't happy about her choice.
"Great. Time to wrestle a tiger. Hainsworth, I'll keep Sparky occupied. Go for a clean kill. He doesn't deserve to suffer. And don't worry about friendly fire. I'm bulletproof. Boost Brawn."
Sara dropped the spear and ran toward Sparky. The tiger became confused for a moment. His prey was running toward him, after all. But it was such a tiny prey, much smaller than the human tenders at the zoo. And Sparky was hungry. He didn't like carrion.
The girl screamed and pounced on the tiger. Sparky reared and clawed her. In the air, on the receiving end of a powerful paw, she was yeeted to the side and fell on the asphalt, rolling to lose momentum.
Sparky roared his challenge. He turned to face Sara and prepared to finish the tiny prey.
** BANG **
Sparky took a shot from the anti-materiel rifle right behind its front leg. It struck its heart and blew a hole the size of Sara's torso on the other side.
Kneeling on the asphalt, Sara mumbled a prayer, "Sorry, Sparky."