In the end there were no fatalities from the lizard attack, but it was a close thing. The beasts had savaged an elderly couple before moving on to the people I’d seen them fighting, and with my limited mana supply all I could do was stop the bleeding and make sure they didn’t die before the ambulance showed up.
The fat guy was in better shape, and once I healed the bite he’d gotten he went off to hide in his room. The kids were more exuberant, excitedly explaining what happened to their worried parents while I tended the wounded. A small crowd had gathered, most of them armed, and stood around talking while I did my work.
“I didn’t think they’d attack a place with so many people,” Beth muttered, sidling up next to me as we watched the ambulance drive away. “What are we going to do about this? There must be some way we can make this place more secure.”
The solution to that seemed obvious to me. “You’ve already taken over the hotel. Are you up for running a militia too?”
She frowned. “I wouldn’t mind more security, but wouldn’t we need a lot of people? It would take days to organize that with my current methods.”
“You don’t need any special influence to make that happen, Beth. People around here are already disposed to band together in a crisis, because that’s how the local culture works. You just need to send someone around to ask for volunteers, and do the work of getting things organized.”
“Just ask? This is going to be a dangerous job, isn’t it? Are you sure that will work?”
People these days have really lost touch with the basics of human nature, haven’t they? I blame too much time spent immersed in unrealistic entertainment, and not enough life experience. Well, at least she was trying.
“You’re asking if a bunch of armed men will take on a dangerous job for the good of the tribe. If that was a hard sell humans never would have survived long enough to develop civilization. The younger men will do it to impress the girls. The older ones will do it to protect their families. Plus there’s the chance to do something important, build bonds with other men, and maybe bag a few points. I expect you can get a few dozen volunteers pretty quick, which is enough to set up patrols and sentries.”
“That easily? Well, I suppose I can give it a try. Perhaps I can find a veteran to tell them what to do, while I’m at it.”
“That would be my suggestion,” I agreed. “I’ve read just enough about military operations to know that everything is more complicated than it sounds. With a group this size there ought to be a few men with combat experience. If we’re lucky there might even be an Army sergeant or junior officer who knows something about infantry tactics.”
“That’s a good idea, Tom. I’ll see about getting that started while the attack is fresh on everyone’s mind.”
The rest of the group had drifted over while we talked, aside from Amanda who was apparently hiding in her room. Now Sara spoke up.
“Um, is that going to be enough? I’m worried that it would be really easy for monsters to break into the building. The whole lobby area is glass, and so is the back door.”
“That’s a good point,” Jenny agreed. “The ground floor has a lot of windows, too. Could you do something about that with your metal shaping, Tom?”
“What about the parking lot?” Bob put in. “It’s not safe to go out there. Maybe we could get the militia guys to build a wall around it?”
“Hmm. I’m pretty sure I could fix metal plates to the outside of the doors, but the rest of it could get complicated. Let’s go take a look, and see what we’re dealing with.”
“I’m going to start talking to people while you do that,” Beth said. “But I’m in favor of anything we can do to make the building more secure. I already have most of the hotel staff taking shelter here, so I can drum up a fair amount of labor if you find a use for it.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I told her. “I’ll touch base in a bit.”
It quickly became obvious that Sara was right about the defensibility of the building. The ground floor had the lobby at one end, with walls and doors that were all glass, and then a single hallway running the length of the building to another glass door. The hotel’s staff area, which included offices, a break room, some storage areas and a laundry room, filled a good chunk of that, and there was a business center and conference room on the other side of the hall. Most of those areas had a worrying number of windows, and so did the dozen or so ground floor suites.
But the news wasn’t all bad. The building itself was steel-frame construction with a solid brick façade on the outside, which ought to be pretty resistant to both monsters and fire. The doors were glass panels mounted in a steel frame, so it wouldn’t take too much work to strip the paint off and attach steel plates covering the glass. Exposed steel beams framed the huge glass panels of the lobby walls, and in theory I could do the same with them if we had enough steel. But the stack of little metal panels I’d bought this morning wasn’t going to cut it.
“Where can we get a lot of sheet metal in a hurry?” Bob mused when I pointed out the problem. “Take apart sheds? Maybe find some kind of metal distributor?”
Bob was the kind of guy who had a million clever-sounding ideas, but not enough practical knowledge to make any of them work.
“A junkyard,” I said. “Better yet, one of those pick-a-part lots. Places like that end up with acres of cars, vans and trucks, and they’re happy to sell the stuff cheap. Girls, how’s your Google-fu?”
“I’m on it,” Sara said, whipping out her phone.
“Thanks,” Jenny told her. “I’ll leave it to you. Shasa and I will stand guard while you guys are busy.”
“Okay!” Shasa enthused. “Nothing is sneaking past me.”
I borrowed a tape measure from one of the maintenance guys, mapped out the dimensions of the lobby with a little help from Bob, and did some basic calculations. Hmm. The gaps between the support beams were too big to just slap a thin sheet of metal over it and call it good. I’d need to put in some extra bracing, so the metal didn’t buckle if something big hit it. Which made this a pretty big job.
“We’re looking at maybe fifteen hundred pounds of sheet metal and rebar to get the lobby reasonably secure,” I estimated. “The windows are less complicated, but there are a lot of them. Probably another eight hundred pounds of metal to do all the ones on the ground floor. We’ll need a truck to move it all.”
“Everyone around here drives a pickup truck,” Bob said. “Beth can get us one.”
“No doubt.” I opened the lobby door, and stuck my head in. “Any luck, Sara?”
“Some, but it might be dangerous. There’s a big pick-a-part place just a couple of miles outside of town that looks perfect from their web site. They’ve got pictures of hundreds and hundreds of old cars and stuff. But they’re outside of town, and they didn’t answer their phone when I called, so I’m not sure it’s safe. There’s also a police impound lot that’s actually in town, and they’ve got some vehicles scheduled for auction that they’d be willing to sell cheap. But it’s just a couple of cars and a van, so I’m not sure you could get everything you need from them.”
“Seems doubtful,” I said. “Still, that’s good work, Sara. Thank you.”
She perked up noticeably at the compliment. “Thank you, Tom. I’m just trying to pitch in. I’ve been feeling really useless so far.”
“It’s not your fault you didn’t spend your life training for an apocalypse, Sara. You’re doing fine so far. Maybe you could keep an eye on the news, and pass the word if there are any important developments?”
“I can do that. It’s kind of depressing and scary, but I guess someone needs to do it. Oh! Did you hear they figured out what’s causing the plane crashes? There’s some kind of monster bird that flies into jet engines when the planes are taking off, and gums them up. The Air Force is trying to figure out how to keep them away from runways, and the Russians are bragging about how their planes are immune somehow?”
“Heh. Yeah, I remember reading something about them having to put steel mesh over the air intakes on their planes, because their runways are always cluttered with garbage that could get sucked in. Well, thanks, that’s exactly the kind of thing I meant. If that’s the problem the airlines won’t be running passenger flights again until they have a good solution, and modifying thousands of planes is going to take weeks.”
“I guess so. I just wish there was some good news to go with all the bad.”
“Even if the news is bad, it’s still better to know now,” Jenny put in.
“Right,” I agreed. “Okay, so let’s look at that wall idea.”
The hotel’s parking lot was a bit bigger than it needed to be, probably so there’d be space for tour buses and RVs in the back. But even so, things would get a bit cramped if we tried to use it as the foundation for some kind of fortification. Between the space the wall itself would take up, and the need to clear enough room inside it for defenders to move around, we’d end up without enough parking spots for the vehicles that were there right now.
I could definitely see the argument for having another layer of defense, though. A little two-lane road ran down one side of the parking lot, with a sprawl of restaurants and shopping strips beyond. But the other side of the hotel faced that open field I’d noticed before, which had become noticeably more overgrown in just a couple of hours. At this rate it would only take a few days to turn into deep jungle, which would be an ideal attack route for monsters.
“We definitely need to do something,” I mused. “Stealthy monsters can already lurk right at the edge of the parking lot waiting for victims, and the way those bushes are growing it won’t be long before giant animals can do the same.”
“I saw a subdivision under construction over that way a couple of miles,” Bob waved vaguely. “We could get tons of wood, and put up a big wall.”
“What happens when the owner calls the cops on us for stealing his property?” I pointed out. “Or just gets all his workers together and comes out to stop us. Plus, do you have any idea how many man-hours it would take to pull all that lumber apart, and put it back together? Even with a big work crew we’d be at it for days.”
“Oh yeah? Well, what’s your idea?”
I scratched my chin, and thought about it.
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“The main thing is to slow down an attack, and give our people time to react. Even a chain link fence would keep out a lot of stuff, and you can see and shoot through it. But it would be nice if we could get a clear field of fire, and some better vantage points for sentries. I wonder if we could get our hands on some earthmoving equipment?”
“Wouldn’t that just make someone mad at us for stealing it?” He said sullenly.
“We don’t have to steal it. There are companies that rent that kind of equipment. If there’s one nearby it would only cost us a few hundred dollars an hour, and we could dig a ditch and berm in an afternoon. But then again, that kind of defense is intended to stop vehicles and give your infantry cover against gunfire, not to keep monsters out. What we really need is a whole lot of razor wire, and a way to clear back all that undergrowth every few days so we can see threats coming.”
“Can’t you just set it on fire?” Jenny suggested.
“I can light fires, but I don’t have a good way to put them out,” I replied. “Maybe I should invest some points in that, the next time we kill something.”
“Might be worth it,” Jenny said, eyeing the overgrown field. “I don’t like the looks of that. If we don’t come up with a good way to keep the plants at bay they might just grow over the town, and tear down all the buildings.”
“That’s a cheery thought. Okay, a perimeter defense is going to be a big project no matter what we do, and I don’t see a way to get anything useful done in an afternoon. But we can get the building secured today if we work fast, so we don’t get eaten in our sleep. Bob, you up for a dangerous trip to a junkyard?”
He hefted his giant rifle. “Heck, yeah. Bring it on. Ain’t nothing going to stand up to this bad boy.”
“Good. Let’s talk to Beth, and see what kind of manpower she can organize.”
We tracked her down in the break room, where she’d put a couple of hotel staff to work making a list of militia volunteers.
“How does it look?” She asked.
“I think I can get the building secured by nightfall, but we’ll have to work fast,” I said. “Can you come up with a work crew? We need to move a lot of sheet metal from a junkyard just outside town, so we need strong backs and some extra guns. Maybe a couple of guys with pickup trucks, and a couple more with guns to help with the work?”
“I can make that happen,” she said confidently. Then she glanced at the laptop one of the hotel staff was using to make a list of militia volunteers, and frowned. “Should we be planning for the power to go out?”
“Hmm. Have there been any news stories about monsters attacking power lines?” I asked.
There was a general shaking of heads.
“Well, there’s some good news. The government will certainly try to keep the grid up, and the power lines are the vulnerable part of the system. If monsters aren’t targeting them there’s a good chance they can keep the power running, at least for a while. Eventually the lack of fuel shipments will be a problem, but maybe they can organize convoys.”
“If something knocks down the power line for this neighborhood they’ll never get it fixed,” Bob pointed out.
“True. I guess it’s a matter of luck, then. The town should have power for at least the next few days, but it would be a good idea to make contingency plans in case the building loses power.
Beth sighed. “One more thing for my list. Alright, Tom, give me a few minutes and I’ll get you some volunteers. I don’t know how useful they’ll be if this junkyard is full of monsters, but they can at least drive trucks and carry things.”
“Good enough. Jenny, Shasa, let’s head back to our rooms and get ready to go. We’ll meet up in the lobby.”
Beth worked surprisingly fast, and fifteen minutes later a group of four guys met us in the lobby. The group’s leader was a middle-aged Hispanic guy named Juan, who was one of the hotel’s maintenance workers. The other three were militia volunteers, all beefy guys in their twenties carrying an assortment of hunting rifles and AR-15 variants. They were all dressed like they were going hunting, in camo fatigues with well-used boots and an assortment of outdoor survival supplies. Not ideal for the current situation, but not bad. They were bound to be more useful than Bob, at any rate.
“Okay, guys, here’s the deal,” I told them. “I’m an engineer with some metalworking powers, and I’m getting ready to put barriers over all that plate glass on the ground floor of the hotel so giant animals can’t just smash their way in. But to do that we need a couple of truckloads of steel, so we’re making a quick trip to Don’s Auto Salvage. They’re not answering their phones, so I don’t know what we’re walking into, but if the place is overrun by monsters we’ll just have to deal with them.”
“Ain’t none of these critters bulletproof,” one of the men commented.
“Not so far, and thank God for that,” I replied. “If we find something that is I’ve got an attack power that might still kill it, but I only have so much juice so I won’t be using that unless I have to. Does anyone have any special abilities they want to mention?”
There was a general shaking of heads.
“Anyone wake up in time to spend all of their points on something useful?”
“Does a twelve-inch dick count?” One of the guys joked.
“Not unless you’re going to club things to death with it,” Juan replied. “I’m in better shape than I was, but I don’t think fixing my heart problem counts as a super power.”
“I imported my marksmanship, and put a couple of extra points in it,” the youngest guy in the group offered.”
“That’s something,” I said. “What’s your name?”
“Sam.”
“Alright, Sam. Even one point in a skill is a big improvement, so that combination probably makes you the best marksman in the group. Unless someone else was winning national championships? No? Okay, then you’re our designated sniper. The girls here are a melee team, and I can do some healing if we need it. Aside from that we’ll have to play it by ear, because there’s no telling what we’ll find.”
A few minutes later we were on our way. Jenny, Shasa and I took Jenny’s rental car, and I had her drive so I could use my phone. The men followed us in a pair of pickup trucks, one old and a bit battered and the other practically new.
Another call to the junkyard got no result, not even voice mail. I thought about it for a minute, and tried Dale. His phone went straight to voice mail, with a message saying he was busy but he’d call back later. That wouldn’t do me any good, so I hung up and thought for a minute.
“Try Sheryl,” Jenny suggested. “She can’t afford to turn her phone off when daddy might call to check up on her.”
“Good point. Only, how did you even know what I was doing?” I asked.
She tapped her ear with a grin. “These work. I put a point in general senses, and now I can hear both sides of a phone conversation if I’m close enough. I recognized Dale’s voice.”
“Sounds handy,” I mused. “I wonder if I should put that on my list of things to buy? Well, let me give her a try.”
Sheryl answered on the third ring. “Gunslingers Unlimited, you find the targets, we service them. Got something for me?”
I chuckled. “We’ll see. This is Tom Wilson, we met at the gun store this morning?”
“Yeah, I know, I gave your number its own ringtone. Just a sec.”
Six gunshots rang out over the connection, so close together it almost sounded like an automatic weapon. But the timing hadn’t quite been regular. More like two shots, a very slight pause, two more shots, and so on.
“That’s got it,” Sheryl said, sounding a bit smug.
“I, ah, don’t want to distract you if you’re in a fight.”
“No worries,” she assured me with the arrogance of youth. “I’ve got a hands-free phone setup, and we’re just sweeping some open pasture. Nothing can even get close. Find something you need help with?”
“Not sure yet. I’m headed over to Don’s Auto Salvage to get a few loads of sheet metal, so I can fortify the hotel my group’s staying at. But they aren’t answering the phone, so I figured I’d touch base and see if you guys know anything.”
She snorted. “With any luck Creeper Don got eaten by his dogs, and his employees just bailed. Good riddance.”
“Sounds like there’s a story there.”
“Kind of. He was always finding excuses to hang out around school events, and creep on the girls. A few years back there was a scare when one of them ran away from home, and at first everyone thought she’d been kidnapped. At one point the city cops raided Don’s place to see if he had her, and found a psycho dungeon setup in his basement. Rings set in concrete, a box full of chains and locks, and a bunch of pervy stuff dad wouldn’t tell me about. No sign he’d ever used any of it, and the girl turned up a few days later, so they had to let him go. But we’ve been keeping an eye on him ever since.”
“So he’s a nutcase. Great. Have you heard about the System turning pets into animal people?”
“Yep. Got a catboy out here helping us flush these feral dogs. But if they get a choice about whether to help their owner or eat him, I know which way Don’s would go. He’s got three of them, all mean as heck, and he’s gotten into trouble before over how he treats them.”
“Well, at least that gives me some idea of what to expect. Oh, in case you haven’t seen one yet, there are some monsters with mind control powers. We ran into a bush with hypnotic flowers, that turned its victims into vine-infested zombies.”
“Oh, great. Like the fire-breathing cattle aren’t enough of a problem. Is there a defense against that?”
“Yeah, if you go into your mental stats there’s an entry for willpower, and that seems to do the job. Killing it took some doing, though. I had to burn down the bush, and then blow up the stump to keep it from growing back.”
“I’ll pass the word,” she assured me. “On our end I can say the animals are no big deal as long as you’re prepared, but watch out for the bugs. It seems like the System makes them just big enough that their venom is lethal, and then makes them fast so they’re hard to hit.”
“Hard for you?” I asked.
“Hah. No, but I was taking state in the kiddie-league three-gun championships when I was twelve. Everyone else had a lot of trouble with the bees we ran into, and Tyler would have died if Hanna didn’t have her healing. After that Jason figured out a trick for making his lighting balls always hit.”
“Yeah, I’ve got guided missiles too,” I said. “We’ll be careful. How big are we talking?”
“The giant bees were the size of your fist. The mantis things were as big as a cat, and they jump around like crazy and go for your throat.”
“We ran into some squirrels that were like that. I’m really wondering if there’s going to be a set list of monster species we can get used to, or if the System is going to keep experimenting and throwing new stuff at us.”
“Who knows? Every group we run into has more points that the one before, so either way we’ll need to level up as fast as we can. You want me to bring the guys over there when we’re done with this job?”
I seriously considered that. Having a good working relationship with these kids could be important, and I was curious to see them in action. But I also didn’t want them thinking of me as someone who needed help with every little problem, and for all I knew this could be a false alarm.
“Let me see what we’re dealing with first,” I decided. “My team can handle most threats, as long as there aren’t too many of them. If we run into a horde or something I’ll give you another call.”
“Works,” she said. “Good hunting, Tom.”
“You too, Sheryl.”
There was a moment of silence after I hung up. Then Shasa stuck her head between the seats to join the conversation. “She sounds strong. Is she going to join our pack?”
Jenny giggled. “Harem route! Two action girls are better than one, right?”
“She’s a little young for me,” I pointed out. “Besides, she’s got her own team. Shasa, her pack is going around town hunting monsters to help everyone out. So we’ll probably see them at some point.”
“Oh, okay. Are we there yet?”
“It should be just up ahead,” Jenny confirmed.
We were outside the town proper at this point, on a two-lane road that wound through a suburban sprawl of farms and small businesses. The junkyard sprawled across several acres of open fields, with clusters of cars, trucks and random junk dotted around it here and there. A chain link fence surrounded the whole property, with barbed wire at the top to discourage anyone from climbing it, and there were signs reading ‘Beware of Dog’ at regular intervals.
It was a fairly isolated location, surrounded mostly by a patchwork of open fields and wooded lots. We passed a deserted church a few hundred yards before reaching the edge of the property, and in the distance I could see a white building that was probably the junkyard’s office.
But my gaze was immediately drawn to the column of smoke rising from a building on the other side of the road, and a bit further away. As we drew closer I could see that it was some kind of diner, and flames were licking up the side of the building. There were several wrecked cars in the parking lot, one of which was also on fire, and I heard a gunshot as we approached.
“Looks like a monster attack,” Jenny said, slowing down. “Should we go help?”
“Yeah. Time for action girl mode, Jenny.”
Driving up into that parking lot didn’t seem like a smart idea, when we had no idea what was happening. But there were drainage ditches along both sides of the road, so there wasn’t much of a shoulder to pull off on. I hesitated a moment, before reminding myself that indecisive dithering is the worst thing you can do in a dangerous situation. Pick a plan and go with it.
“Stop the car, and we’ll approach on foot,” I told her. “I want everyone ready to open fire if we run into whatever did that.”
“You got it.”
Two pickup trucks and two cars thoroughly blocked one side of the road, but depending on the situation that might be for the best. I grabbed my rifle and got out as the girls did the same, and turned back towards the pickup trucks. The guys in the pickup trucks were already starting to unload, obviously understanding my intentions. Bob was still behind the wheel, staring at the burning building.
I saw his eyes go wide, and he pointed. Then a horrific screech rose up from behind me, like some kind of demon-possessed steam whistle. I whirled, and saw the most intimidating monster yet climbing out of one of the diner’s broken windows.
It was built like a centipede, but so big I was surprised it had fit inside the building. Its body was covered in black armor, liberally decorated with jagged spikes. A ghastly maw of churning teeth dominated its eyeless head, and four long limbs like giant fishhooks waved in the air above it.
Deranged laughter rose from the ruins of the diner, and a male voice shouted something indistinct. The monster responded with another hiss, and clambered across the mass of broken cars towards us.