“Shit shit shit,” Anthony groaned, with his hands on his head. “This is bad. This is really, really bad.”

“I don’t understand,” Jason protested numbly. “They’ve never attacked cars before. Just people. Why did it change? Why now?”

Tyler shook his head. “I dunno, but I think we’re fucked.”

Sheryl clutched her rifle in a white-knuckled grip, and looked around nervously. “Dale? What do we do?”

“I… I don’t… there’s got to be something,” he stammered. He wrenched the crumpled hood of the van open, and stared at the engine. “Can we fix it? Maybe we can fix it.”

They sounded scared, and for a moment I wasn’t any better. How could we possibly survive being stranded in the woods at night? We’d never make it back to town on foot, would we?

Then Mitsi sidled up to me, and shot me a questioning look. I took a deep breath, and tried to focus. Someone had to take charge and at least act confident, or this whole group was going to fall apart.

“Shasa, Mitsi, keep watch while we figure out what to do,” I ordered. “I don’t want anything sneaking up on us while we’re distracted.”

“I’ll join them,” Jenny said. “It’s not like I know anything about cars.”

“Yeah. Earl, let’s see how bad this is.”

It was immediately obvious that the monsters had no idea how a car works, or what parts were important. Something big had repeatedly rammed Earl’s truck, smashing glass and denting body panels, but they’d spent an awful lot of effort inflicting what was mostly just cosmetic damage. Unfortunately they’d also shredded the tires after tipping it over, which was a bigger concern.

Could I do something about that? I had five universal points left. Maybe there was some kind of rubber shaping spell I could use to patch up the tires, or turn what was left of them into something the truck could roll on. Wait, was the rear axle bent? That would be a challenge to fix.

“The radiator’s toast,” Earl said. “Belts and hoses are a mess, too. Damned monsters. I got sixteen years out of this truck, but I think she’s done for.”

I came around to the front of the truck, and found myself forced to agree. Something had punched a huge hole right through the middle of the radiator, and the fluid had all leaked out. It looked like a swarm of murder squirrels had moved through the space as well, looking for anything they could break. Shredded rubber and plastic littered the engine compartment.

“Damn. We’re not fixing that tonight,” I said. Even if I could find the right set of matter shaping spells, it would take hours to patch everything up.

“Looks like we’re walking out,” he agreed. “Better get a plan together.”

“Yeah, it sounds like the kids are losing it. Back me up, here.”

“Sure thing, buddy.”

I caught Jenny’s eye, and motioned her over. Then I turned my attention to the Dragonslayers, whose remarks were getting increasingly heated.

“We’ve got to go back to the grove,” Anthony was insisting. “It’s the only safe place.”

Jason shook his head. “That’s suicide! The monsters are still getting tougher, and the birds are organizing them. They’ll just trap us there until we run out of ammo.”

“We don’t know that. Maybe they’ll get distracted, or someone else will come along to help.”

“You just want to hang out with those dryad sluts,” Sheryl scoffed.

“Hey, it beats dying! Besides, what’s your plan? Wander around in the woods until the monsters find us?”

“It might work,” Jason insisted. “The jungle has to be getting in their way too. If we’re stealthy, maybe we can get out of their territory before they find us.”

Anthony scoffed. “Stealthy? They’re animals, Jason! We’re not going to hide from every bug and owl in the forest, and there’s no telling which ones are spying for the crows.”

“Dale, what do you think?” Sheryl asked.

Dale just shook his head. “I… I don’t… they could be anywhere. Waiting to ambush us when we go back, or, or watching to see where we go, or… what should we do?”

“We move fast, and kick their teeth in when they try to stop us,” I announced, projecting as much confidence as I could. “They don’t have radios or motor vehicles, and they aren’t very good at this or we’d be fighting off an ambush right now. Girls, any sign of monsters watching us?”

“I think I saw an owl fly off,” Mitsi called back.

“Right, so they have to send messengers back and forth to communicate, and wherever their main force is it isn’t here. So we’ll take a couple of minutes to recover anything we can from the vehicles, and then take off down the road at our best speed. With a little luck we could be back to town or at least out of their territory before they catch up. Who here bought night vision?”

Every hand except Bob’s went up.

“Right, so we stick to the middle of the highway where they have to cross open ground to get at us, and we shoot them up when they try something. We’re good for a few more fights, and the faster we move the fewer monsters we’ll have to blast our way through. Is there anyone who hasn’t put points in general fitness?”

There was a moment of silence, before Hana raised her hand. “I’m at two points of fitness and one of running speed, and I’m the slowest in the group.”

“Then that’s our minimum, and anyone who can’t match it had better invest their spare points now. If you left weapons, ammo or other essential supplies in your vehicle, now’s your chance to find it and see if it’s still useable. Work fast, we move out in five minutes.”

Anthony and Tyler immediately moved to check the wrecked vehicles for whatever they might have left there. Sheryl and Jason looked to Dale, which told me who still had faith in his leadership. Hana looked to Sheryl, waiting to see what she’d do.

Dale nervously licked his lips, glanced around at the dark jungle. Then he gathered himself, and nodded decisively. “Yeah, sounds like a plan. Sheryl, get your backup ammo. Hana, the big first aid kit might have survived. I’ll check on the water and trail mix.”

I suppressed the urge to give a visible sigh of relief. His group had been dangerously close to panicking, and he obviously had no idea what to do. But he’d grabbed the lifeline I offered, and now everyone was working together again. We just needed to keep it that way a little longer.

How long would it take to get back to town? It was something like seven miles, which would take most of the night for a party of normal people stumbling around exhausted in the dark. But there was a road to follow, and none of us were normal people. Two hours? Three? Probably something like that.

Should we try running the distance? I wasn’t sure if that was feasible, even with our buffs. It would be nice to clear the area faster, but we’d be awfully vulnerable if we got attacked when everyone was out of breath. No, better to stick with a quick march.

“So, was that a new wrinkle?” Earl quietly asked.

“I imported my leadership skill,” I explained. “I’ve got tactics too, for what it’s worth.”

He gave me a measuring look. “Good to know. Someone needs to be in charge.”

He turned back to his truck, and started rummaging through a set of storage bins that were mounted in the back. Apparently he had the equivalent of a bugout bag stored there, which probably shouldn’t surprise me.

Jenny leaned into me, to whisper in my ear. “Was that some kind of bro code tribal leadership thing?”

I shrugged. “Maybe. Guess he’s satisfied to let me take point, as long as I don’t screw up.”

“You won’t. Heh. I get to be the big chief’s girl. That’s pretty sweet. You plan on recruiting the kids?”

“We do need more manpower,” I pointed out. “But let’s focus on getting back to the hotel for now.”

“Okay. This seems like a good time to spend all these extra points I’ve been building up. Let’s see, more fitness to help with the long march, and more aura is always good. Oh, I should buy more agility too. I’m not dodging as many attacks as I’d like.”

That was a good idea, come to think of it. I pulled up my own status screen, and considered it. I had five universal points in reserve, and a whopping ten physical points I’d never gotten around to spending. What would maximize my odds of getting out of this fix in one piece?

Two points expanding my mana pool, and two more increasing my mana regeneration. The new capacity came pre-filled with mana, and my recovery was getting fast enough to make a real difference. Eyeballing it, I could probably refill my whole mana pool in a little more than an hour, which would be extremely handy if we got into a series of skirmishes.

What about the physical points? I didn’t fight with my fists, but I could easily find myself needing to move fast while carrying someone. Alright, let’s say two points each of strength and general fitness, plus four points of aura to try to avoid getting hurt. That left me with two physical points and one universal point in reserve, in case I had an urgent need to buy something specific.

By the time I’d finished with that the five minutes were up. Everyone was hurriedly stowing magazines, water bottles and other odds and ends, and I had to go around reminding everyone to get moving. Then Hana needed to stop to pee, which set off a chain reaction. Then Tyler forgot where he’d put his rifle down, and had to do a quick search to find it. Meanwhile Andrew and Bob polished off their share of the bottled water and trail rations, and wanted to go back to ‘resupply’.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

I swear, it was like herding cats. When we finally got moving for real we’d lost at least fifteen minutes, and I was seriously considering just leaving the next person who caused a delay. But I probably shouldn’t have been surprised. There’s a reason why small military units move faster than big ones, and I was just seeing the same effect in action. I’d just have to make sure we didn’t stop again unless it was completely unavoidable.

Wait, no, that probably wouldn’t work. Everything I’d read about long-distance marching said you have to stop regularly to give the troops a break. Otherwise they quickly get too tired to fight if you run into trouble, which was inevitable tonight. Would the same apply to us? Two points of fitness was enough to turn a typical modern couch potato into a professional athlete, but it wasn’t superhuman. So yeah, best assume it did, especially after the day we’d had.

Well, before I could worry about that I had to figure out our marching order. As we left the wrecks behind I sent Mitsi ahead to scout, with Sheryl positioned to cover her from a distance in case she ran into more flying monsters.

“How far away can you reliably hit something like a giant wasp or mosquito?” I asked.

The teenager ran a hand through her hair, and gazed out into the darkness for a moment. There wasn’t a street light for miles, and with the overcast sky it was going to be a dark night. I suspected I’d be completely blind without the point I’d invested in night vision, and even with it I couldn’t see very far. So I wouldn’t be surprised if she said it wasn’t feasible, or suggested a depressingly short distance.

Instead she settled her helmet back into place, snapped on the chin strap, and flipped down a device that hadn’t been there before. Wait, was that a night vision monocle?

“Walking down the road like this? Maybe a hundred yards. Give me a sec to take a knee, and you can make it two fifty.”

Mitsi grinned at us. “I see where this plan is going. I go way out ahead where I can hear anything that’s hiding, and if something sees me she shoots it?”

“Exactly,” I confirmed. “Most of us won’t even be able to see you from a hundred yards away, so if you do spot something you’ll need to come back closer to signal a halt. But that way our noisy human talking won’t keep you from spotting danger, and if we get attacked from a different direction you can circle around to ambush the enemy leaders. Do you know how far a hundred yards is?”

“Mitsi is a smart cat,” she reminded me. “I bought numeracy yesterday, and boy did that make my head hurt. Let’s see, a hundred of wide-stretched arms is about, um, from here to that funny split tree with the big rock next to it?”

“That looks about right,” Sheryl confirmed. Then she tapped her monocle. “This lets me see in the dark, so I can catch any signals you send. You pick up hand talk yet?”

“Just this for stop,” Mitsi said, holding up one hand in a fist. “Is there more?”

“A whole lot more. I’ll coach you later, but that’ll do for now. We got point, Tom.”

“Great. Thanks, girls. Jenny, take point with Sheryl in case she needs melee support.” I left them to it, and dropped back to the middle of the group where Dale was. “Let’s talk tactics.”

I didn’t want us giving contradictory orders when the shit hit the fan, so it was best to make sure we were on the same page. It was a good thing I’d asked, too, because where my concept of small-unit tactics was drawn from books about actual infantry combat his all came from gaming.

At least they hadn’t tried to copy the tank-and-DPS setup you always see in online games. That obviously wouldn’t work, because there was no way to ensure that every monster on the battlefield goes for the tank and ignores the rest of the party. Not to mention that no one was tough enough to survive that kind of concentrated attention.

So instead they had a front line of big guys in armor who’d stand in front to stop charging monsters, and a back line of less protected healers and damage dealers who’d back them up. That had worked well yesterday, when they could count on killing even the big monsters before they could do much damage. But when they’d encountered those giant boars in the woods their melee guys had gotten savaged, and they were the ones we’d had to leave behind in the dryad grove.

“Any of you have experience with a spear?” I asked.

He nodded. “Anthony and I did some HEMA last year. We were mostly interested in swords, but we’ve done a few spear drills. What about your guys?”

“I’ve got a point in it,” Jenny called back softly, showing off her enhanced senses.

“I don’t, and I don’t think Earl does either?”

“Nope.”

“Okay, you and Anthony take our spears, then. If the boars show up you can form up and ground the spears to stop their charge. Same goes for hellcows, or anything else that looks big and stompy. Jason, I think you and I had better stick with guns unless things get really serious.”

“Yeah, okay. After the grove I need another thirty minutes to get back to full.”

Jenny dropped back to walk next to him, and snickered. “Wait, did I hear that right? Did those wicked dryads suck out all your mana?”

It was hard to tell in the dark, but I was pretty sure Jason was blushing. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Sure, sure. It’s just, Tom didn’t have a problem with them.”

“Beri was too busy trying to sell us on her goddess to pull anything underhanded,” I pointed out. “Alright, that covers the basics. I’m going to go down the line and make sure everyone has a sector to watch. Keep the chatter to a minimum, and focus on spotting trouble before it finds us.”

We were moving two abreast, so each person only had to keep an eye on one flank as we moved. Even then I was counting more on the animal girls than the rest of the group, given the awful visibility.

The road was only one lane in each direction, with a drainage ditch along each side. In most places the trees grew right up to the ditch, and the darkness beneath their branches was impenetrable. Here and there a tree’s branches spread far enough to overhang the road, which would make it all too easy for smaller monsters to drop on us as we passed. It was only a matter of time before something tried to jump us, and odds were we’d end up in melee before we even knew we were under attack.

I took a sip from my water bottle, and hoped the weather didn’t do anyone in. The muggy heat was like a sauna, and I felt like I was baking in my armor. If I’d tried this two days ago I probably would have passed out from heat stroke. As it was, it was just a miserable slog.

A flurry of gunshots echoed over the valley, coming from somewhere far off to our left. East, and the map said there was nothing in that direction but some farms.

“Sounds like a couple of ARs, a twelve-gauge and a forty-five, about two miles off,” Sheryl announced, pitching her voice just loud enough to reach Dale and I in the middle of the column.

I wasn’t going to ask how she could tell. Maybe the System had a skill for that, or maybe she was just that hardcore of a gun nut.

“Ignore it and keep moving?” Dale suggested.

I considered it for a moment. People could mean reinforcements, or someone in trouble who needed help. But two miles would put them on the other side of the ridge line we were skirting, and getting there through the jungle would be a rough hike. By the time we arrived whatever was happening would be over, and if it was another traveling group they’d be long gone.

“Yeah, carry on,” I agreed.

We trudged on through the darkness. I tried to listen for anything out of place, since I obviously wasn’t going to see an enemy until it was uncomfortably close. But the background noise of the jungle made it hard. Branches swayed in the wind, creaking and scratching. Normal insects buzzed about, filling the night with their chirping. The occasional bird call echoed through the trees, or the dark sky above.

“At least the regular mosquitoes can’t get through my aura,” Jenny grumbled.

“Seriously?” Hana whispered. “How do you make it do that?”

“You need a mind point to buy the aura control skill.”

“Oh. Darn. Next time I get one I’ll have to remember that.”

A distant rumble rolled over the hills, from somewhere far to the west. Thunder? Or was that artillery? Huntsville was in that direction, along with the Redstone Arsenal.

“Is it weird that we haven’t seen any cars?” Hana asked.

“There’s nothing behind us but a few farms,” Dale pointed out. “No reason for anyone to risk the drive at night.”

“I guess. It’s just kind of freaky. The town was doing fine when you left, right Tom?”

“Yes. The militia had a busy day, but everyone has been pitching in to build defenses,” I assured her. “Look, you can see some skyglow off to the south from the lights.”

“Oh, right. Good.”

We trudged on.

Some minutes later the road sloped down into a valley, which my map said was full of small farms. But from this vantage the whole area was ominously dark. There were no scattered lights from farmhouses or vacation homes, no streetlights, and no sign of human activity. Just down the slope from us the burned-out remains of a gas station stood abandoned, with the body of a hellcow still tangled with the remains of a pump.

“The truck stops are going to need concrete walls and sentry towers,” Earl muttered.

“Good luck building something like that with a monster attack every few hours,” Dale replied.

“That’s a problem for another day,” I reminded them. “Another fifteen minutes, then we’ll take a break.”

What was it those old army field manuals recommended? A five-minute break every hour? Or was it ten? If only I had an internet connection, I could look it up. Well, we’d just have to muddle through.

I was checking my map to see how far we’d come when Hana suddenly shrieked in surprise. She flipped sideways like something had jerked her legs out from under her, and started sliding towards the ditch to my left.

“Hana!” Dale shouted, swinging his spear around and looking for something to stab.

“Help! Something’s got me!” The girl replied.

“Where? I can’t see anything!”

Earl cursed, and an astonishingly bright flashlight beam stabbed into the darkness. Squinting against the glare, I realized something long and thin was wrapped around Hana’s ankle. A tentacle? No, an animated tree root. The thing already had her halfway across the ditch, and now I could see a vertical slit full of teeth yawning open in one of the tree trunks.

“Tree monster!” I shouted, spinning up an explosive fire missile. “Light it up!”

Dale reached for Hana’s outstretched hand, only for more roots to spring up to fend him off. I needed a couple of seconds to build a missile powerful enough to affect a tree, and it would have the poor girl in its mouth by then…

Shasa jumped over the outstretched roots, landing on Hana with her shield positioned to cover them both. “I’ve got you, Hana! Stupid tree, I’ll bite your roots off!”

“Lightning bolt!” Jason shouted, and the world exploded right in front of my face.

Holy crap, that was loud. And bright. That wasn’t dinky little spark spray, or carefully contained movie special effect. The kid’s spell hit with all the force of an actual lightning bolt, blasting a chunk out of the tree monster and setting its trunk on fire. The thing’s roots and branches thrashed angrily, but my ears were ringing so badly I couldn’t hear a thing.

Was it dying? I couldn’t tell. No, it still had a hold on Hana. Shasa had both hands on the root, hauling back with all her strength to keep it from pulling Hana in. The terrified healer was hacking ineffectually at it with a knife, and not making any progress.

Fine, then. I focused on my fire missile, feeding in more energy. Lots of penetrating force magic, because if a lightning bolt didn’t kill this thing I needed to get deep. More explosive power, too, and a bit more fire magic to ensure anything it struck would ignite. It might not be enough, but there were roots grabbing for Shasa now. Did I have time to make this bigger?

Suddenly Earl was in the ditch, hacking away with one of the fire axes the Dragonslayers carried. The root holding Hana parted in two strokes, and the rest of them recoiled momentarily.

Excellent. A little more penetration, a lot more explosive power, and that was as big as I could make this thing without it going off in my hand.

“Fire in the hole!” I shouted, barely able to hear myself over the ringing in my ears.

Earl pulled Hana back a few feet, stumbling towards the edge of the ditch. Shasa looked up, saw the ball of energy in my hands, and crouched over them with her shield raised. Good enough.

I threw the biggest force missile I’d ever built, and watched with satisfaction as it punched deep into the trunk of the carnivore tree. Then it exploded, and blew the massive trunk apart. A shower of splinters and debris smacked into me, stinging my cheeks and rattling off my armor as my aura collapsed from the impact.

There were shouts and curses from the rest of the group, but a quick glance confirmed there didn’t seem to be any injuries. Everyone here had enough aura to fend of flying splinters, or I wouldn’t have dared set off a blast like that.

Then I looked back, and realized the tree was falling in my direction.

Everyone scattered, but I only made it a few steps before the branches crashed down around me. For a split second I thought one especially pointy-looking branch was going to impale me, but I managed to dodge it. I still got a face full of leaves and twigs, and something whacked my arm hard enough to knock me down. I laid there for a moment, dazed and groaning.

“Fucking ow,” Anthony complained.

Oh, good, my hearing was coming back.

“I want to go home,” Hana whimpered.

“Aw, we’ll get you home soon, cutie,” Shasa confidently declared. “Tom? Do you need help?”

I sat up gingerly, and started working my way out of the tangle of leaves and broken wood. “No, I’m okay. What about everyone else?”

“We’re good on this side,” Jenny called from the other side of the tree.

“The trunk missed us,” Earl announced. “Nice shooting, Tex.”

Shasa giggled. “We killed a tree! I love you guys. This pack is the best!”