It was cold wet and ugly. The sky was not threatening to rain, but raining as hard as it could.  The wind was cold with a dampness that sunk into your bones and stayed with you.  This was the kind of weather the old man would have called bringing sickness.  I stayed down in the grass looking through my range finder scope.  Two undead, but I felt that shiver, the little edge that told me there was more.  Might even be a Liche.  The undead never roamed to far from their masters. The masters never left the undead's company.  Brains and brawn, a symbiotic relationship.

It all began when magic happened. One day things just stopped working, technology just quit, on earth anyways.  The moon base still showed signs of life, at least in the early days.  Reflections and flares, whatever they could do to let us know that they were up there alive.  Soon we were too busy down here to pay attention to them.

Most of the people just woke up sick, we had all thought it was another virus; we had been so conditioned by the zika virus, severe acute respiratory syndrome, middle east respiratory syndrome, the bird flu, nipah virus, hendra virus and all the others that seemed to come along every third year. Soon all the doctors were overwhelmed and hospitals overcrowded with the dying.  Most of the people just stayed home and then they died.  Then the ones in the hospitals all died and this made room for more patients. Modern medicine, it even kept the dying undead alive a little longer.  This continued on for about a month.  All over the world society was falling apart during this time.  

The things that made the world a better place to live, electricity, natural gas, the internet.  Store bought food all disappeared.  The good things that society had developed all ended as people died.  Some survivalists did pretty good, already living in the middle of nowhere.  They were used to living rough and ready and they thrived in this crazy world. Then the dead came back.

It was not like the movies with fast Zombies chasing you around, one bite and you changed.

That was all bullshit, and did not happen.  Turns out the undead do not see that well and it gets worse in any kind of light.  Their primary sense is audio.  They are not slow, but not really fast, a person can usually run far enough to escape their agro range.

We killed so many of them at first, it was almost sad it was so easy.  Headshot, or remove the head. It is over for them at that point.  Then the damn Liches showed up, undead with a brain.  They also used magic, which really fucked us up at first.  No one knows what the Liches want, or why they have congregated into several of the large cities.  At first we tried to find out why but they made it became clear the living were not welcome. 

Us humans began to go rural, building compounds and what amounted to castles and keeps.  There was safety there, if you accepted the new feudal society.  The land of the free became a place of peasants and serfs.  I have heard that down south the Mexicans call the commoners peons again.  In this new climate the new royalty demanded all the perks.  You were better off being a man, than to spend your life as an attractive bed warmer for those in charge.  In most keeps anyway, there were rumors of a few keeps where the pretty boys became the boy toys.

Sitting isolated were a few neutral towns, villages really.  Nasty shitholes full of nasty people, but at least they were still free.  A few of us independents still roamed the land, trading, healing, and doing whatever we could.  Being a blacksmith was a real money maker now, same with having the bowyer skill. Everyone picked up some skills and abilities.  You learnt how to do things or you died. Then you came back.  Undead.

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Somehow, we also all received some magic.  It was the kids who demonstrated it first, nothing to o.p.  The ability to light a fire, the ability to put one out.  That sort of thing.  The people with any healing abilities were always welcome.  Anywhere.  The funny thing was people stopped getting sick, cancer, heart problems, gout.  It all seemed to disappear, lots of b.s. theorycraft spent on the why of it, but no one really knows.

Broken bones, food poisoning, cuts, contusions and pregnancies were the most common medical concerns in the new world.  Thankfully there were not to many gunshots.  All the millions of rounds maybe billions that had been stockpiled up had been shot off.  There were probably caches of guns and rounds still out there, but they were hidden or lost. 

Carefully moving backwards I crept to the bottom of the hill and then off through a copse of trees.  Slowly I circled the hill and then stopped, there the bastard was.  I hate Liches; they are smart, cruel and seem to hate the living. As I stared at him he began to slowly turn his head around.

Some people believe that they had an extra sense, I was undecided.  

I focused my eyes on his head and then reached into his head with my mind and went boom.

This was my talent, my magical ability. To make a small pop, a little explosion, like a firecracker.  It had taken me a while to figure it all out.  Dad had worked in a hospital and had trained to be a nurse.  He had charts and posters of skeletons, of the nervous system, the digestive system, you name it he had it. 

One day I had wondered how delicate a brain is.  Mainly fat I was told and very delicate.  That is why it is surrounded by your skull.  Natural armor.  The next time I was out hunting I had a chance to see if my theory would work.  It did and that gave me a small edge over the undead.

I practiced and practiced until I could use my little magic as easily as snapping a finger.

One down and two left, I slowly made my way to the Liche, I had good cover and I could hear the two undead as they thrashed their way back to the Liche.  They always returned once a lich was dead, and then would just aimlessly wander around.  Looking up at them I made two small gestures and pop pop two more undead in their final rest.  I waited for an hour, patience is a virtue, and it has kept me alive.  

After scouting around the trees and hills I went back to the undead.  Nothing would touch them, not even crows.  It was the magic, it was an unnatural thing and animals seemed to sense that.

I arrived and looked down at the three beings that had once walked, talked and loved.  They had all been someone's baby at one time.  Living human beings.  Not any more. The Liche had a small bag on a strap around his neck.

Opening the bag showed two small blue gems, and a large red one all glowing.  It smelled of magic, I put them back in the bag and put the bag in my pouch.  Time to head home, I had a cabin up a gully about five miles from here.  I had managed to build a wall of trees across the twelve foot entrance.  It opened up to a hidden valley, complete with a small lake and a deep stream.  It even had deer running free in there.  It was as safe as I could make it in this new world that I lived in.

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