And paper towels were found.

Along with canned tuna, more jerky, nuts and other foods that weren't totally just junk food.

"Since it's starting to get pretty dark outside, let's just fill up two of the dinky little carts each, then we can wheel them over to the church. Since the last message said that we'll get templates in the morning. We can start emptying the place out tomorrow when we hopefully have some light again."

Tok looked outside the window to the slowly darkening deep purple sky. Then she turned to look at me and Chloe. "You can see in the dark?"

I peered out the window and turned back to her, "A little, the purple light is pretty dim, but it's enough to get back to the church."

She looked out the window and then turned to me with a look of wonder. "Elves." then shook off whatever she was feeling "What is -Purple-."

"Ah... Purple. The color. Like ROY G BIV? Red, orange.." I ran off all the colors for her.

She stared at me for a moment. "Ours go des, red, orange, and then stops at indigo. I think our eyes may see different section of the energy spectrum. What does purple look like?"

"I...ahhhh?" How to describe a color to someone who has never seen it?

Chloe dumped a armload of cookies into a cart. "Kind of like red and blue at the same time, but also completely different."

The orc woman pondered that as she grabbed a cart of her own. "I think I would describe des almost the same way."

After that we scattered around the store filling up two carts each and gathering them up front near the doors. From the look of things outside we would need both Chloe's flashlight and Tok's magic lights to get back to the church without stumbling along in the dark.

Tok had mainly filled her baskets with junk food, canned vegetables, and some of the cheap tools and containers the stored stocked.

Chloe had gone for more practical goods like the canned stuff, dried fruits, as well as some odd stuff like a tube of plain white wrapping paper and some office supplies, as well as a bunch of children's books.

She noticed the odd look I was giving her. "I thought Tok could use then to learn how to read English, and we might end up with some kids showing up."

"Oh." I nodded, that explained the crayons as well. "Good thinking."

My two carts got filled with a shopping basket full of various pain pills, cough syrup, band aides, and even vitamin pills. Along with other odds and ends in the basket itself like duct tape, socks, and more dish soap.

Including four bottles each of chlorine, ammonia, and cans of oven cleaner. I hadn't quite given up on my dreams for better fighting through chemistry. A face full of Stove be Klean was a lot more crueler then pepper spray, but I had decided I was not going to risk being nibbled to death again.

Oh, and a bunch of outright junk food, candy bars, cookie mix, frosting, and some other treats. Man does not live by practicalities alone.

We negotiated getting the carts out the front door, and I stopped Tok from relocking it. "If anyone wants in, they probably need what inside, and we aren't gathering all this just for us, but for anyone in need."

She frowned a little at me and then her faced cleared and she nodded. Great, did I just do another elf thing again?

By the time we navigated the broken cement sidewalk and street, not the disaster's fault, just civil negligence from the Cincinnati city government. the sky had actually gone black. A deep starless black void without a cloud to break up the deep darkness above stretching all the way across to the horizon in all directions. With who knows what up there, looking down.

Why yes, I would like to get inside now.

Up ahead there was St Kentigern's, shining bright with every light in the place lit up, a beacon in the darkness. "I think that unless we decide to turn off all the lights, we're going to have some visitors find their way to us tonight. We should probably take turns waiting up by the front doors to welcome people in."

Chloe nodded in agreement. "You should sleep first, since you were the once getting all up close and personal with the undead."

Tok raised her hand and volunteered for the middle shift. "I'm used to standing a watch in the middle of the night, and their is more then enough light for me to see by."

Fair enough. "Then let's get the carts inside, down in the basement is probably best. We can move the electric stove and my microwave down there sometime tomorrow."

Me and Tok had to do all the heavy lifting in getting the carts downstairs, but Chloe did fill up the shopping baskets with everything off the tops of the carts that would have ended up falling off and ended up making almost twice as many trips as the two of us up and down the stairs.

Then they tried to send me off to bed. "There's a second bed frame, mattress and box spring in room B down the hall. I carried it down from the second bedroom in the rectory to make room, and I think there were bed sheets in room C.

After taking my keys, they again very firmly told to go sleep.

Upstairs in the rectory I started off by stripping off all the armor. I think I had taken more bruises from wearing the stuff then I did from the fight with the zombies, but then I guess that means it had done it's job as armor.

I shut down the lights and found my way to my bed by my cell phone's screen light. Snapping the phone shut, I thought I could see some very dim light shining in through the window.

Then I crashed for some of the deepest sleep I had in years until I was awoken by something staring down at me with a face out of nightmares.

Which turned out just to be Tok, I had gotten used to seeing her and thinking of her as Tok, the orc girl who saved my butt. But not recognizing her at first glance while half asleep made her, for a moment, a monster with tusks and dull green skin.

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"Your turn to watch at the doors Sean. The sky has brightened to various shades of grey over the night, and now it is so faded away to be nearly white."

I rolled out of bed, just wearing my undershirt and boxers, but the orc girl didn't seem to mind. "I thought Chloe was supposed to wake me up, what's happening?"

She shrugged. "She watched first, then me, now you. I can go back to the front doors for a bit longer if you need more time to wake up."

I tried to shake off my grogginess and got out of bed. "No, I got it, you should grab a few more hours of sleep."

"Gratitude." and with that she crawled onto my bed behind me, stretched out with her feet hanging off the end of the mattress even while lying down at a angle and seemed to immediately fall asleep.

Well, I guess we do only have the two beds. Which might prove to be a issue if we do get other people showing up.

I started to pull on the same shorts I had on the previous night, realized they were the set that were soaked in laundry detergent and some other nastiness from the undead and decided on a fresh set of clothes.

"Hope the Upgrade included making the dryer not burns clothes anymore." I whispered to myself as I wandered out of my bedroom fully dressed. The washing machine tended to shake around with anything more then a half load, but I had been forced to rig up a laundry line down in the basement or go to the laundry mat to get anything dry for the last few months.

A package of knock off pop tarts from the dollar store, bought pre end of the world, was going to have to serve as breakfast as I headed downstairs to the nave.

I had just taken a large mouth full of what was left of the first of the two pastries in the packet, when I noticed that Tok had left the center set of doors wide open to the dull off white sky that lit up the world outside. I also noticed that someone, or ones, had cleaned up the spilled dish soap, the bodies, and replaced almost all of the pews back to their rightful places. With the exception of one off to the side with a variety of clubs, kitchen knives, tools, and a bottle of oven cleaner.

Whoever did it had been busy last night.

While I had been noticing all of that, the two scaly humanoids that had wandered into the church had noticed me.

One, wearing a dull light salmon colored wrap around garment that folded around to cover it's head like a hood, but left it's entire left side bare along with a hooked shaped blade on a long handle bared in it's hand. That one was hissing at me while the other, with a deep blue wrap and holding a somewhat short carved staff, seemed both calmer, and somehow older.

Both barely reached five feet tall, even while effectively standing on their tip toes since their legs were shaped like the back legs of a dog, or a horse, or a lizard. The last being the most appropriate I guess.

Me, I didn't have anything but another toaster pastry. I had left my hammer and all my armor scattered on my living room floor up above. All of which was making me nervous enough to make it awfully had to swallow my mouthful of gooey half chewed breakfast.

The blue wrap one held up it's staff in the air to block the hissing one as it advanced on me, symbolically at least. "This seems to be a holy place, and you bear no weapons. Is it inappropriate for us to have them in this place?" he gestured with his staff back toward the entrance and the pew covered in make shift weapons. "Or should we have left them there?"

Oddly, he sounded Italian, or maybe that wasn't odd for a lizard guy. "Ah...well beliefs vary on that." I looked at hisser who seemed to be giving the older one a pleading look. "But I would appreciate if your friend could put, his? Hers? Away."

He made a series of deep choking sounds and his shoulders shook. hisser looked offended. "This is my granddaughter, so hers, yes. I myself am male and named Olta, or Abb Olta is you wish to be official. This child's name is Rill."

Rill glared at her grandparent. "I earned the right to carry a blade grandfather. I am no child."

I looked between the two of them, I guess no matter how someone looked, deliberately embarrassing younger people seemed to be universal. "I'm Sean, Sean Murphy and I am the caretaker of this Church, it is a holy place and I am hoping to make it a safe place for those left without shelter by being brought here. We're short on bedding and we will eventually run out of food if we don't find a new source, but we have power, and plenty of water."

I gestured vaguely around me. "so you're welcome to stay."

The girl looked suspicious while the older guy gave me a bow, "That is most generous young man, but will you extend that offer to more then just the two of us?"

I looked out the door, but no one was in sight. "Well yeah, unless you're talking about so many we run out of room."

He shook his head. "Only a few dozen, not enough of the proving grounds came with us to be structurally sound. A few were injured as it fell down around us, but the "Upgrade" fixed everything that was wrong with them. It even restored me, well, not to my youth, but to at least not so impossibly old. I feel the lost of the world and fear what has happened to it, but I look forward to a new great adventure."

He turned to the girl. "Rill, you may fetch the others."

The girl started to argue with him, but the old man had taken his staff in both hands and had began to advance on her, lifting the stick high above her head as she nervously backed away. "I can't leave you in danger, I swore vows to protect you."

He wiggled the staff over her head. "I'll be fine, the only thing our savoir has is a intriguingly sweet smelling bit of food. I think I can take him."

He winked at me as the girl reluctantly left with a warning glare for me.

Hint taken I handed over the mixed berry pastry. "Hmm, tasty, but a little dry." He took another bite

"It supposed to be lightly toasted, and drank with something, but I was supposed to be watching the door and just wanted something I could grab and munch on the way down."

The old man grinned as he finished off my food. "Sounds like all too many of my own meals. So what kind of person are you Sean?"

I shrugged. "An human, although Tok. A Hazak? Is convinced I'm a elf, which I guess both our races have stories of. She's from a different world, different race. Humans are well, mammals while you look to be a reptile, if those words translate for you. We already found that some words, like the colors us and Tok can see vary, and their names don't translate. She can't see purple and doesn't know what it means, while it's the same with des for me and Chloe."

He nodded along, seemingly fascinated. "We have mammals as well, so I guess you are armed with your venomous spurs."

Spurs?

He leaned forward. "I am so glad that this is a holy place. I have felt the presence of the dark spirits that the sacred books warn us will be freed at the end of the world. I believe they have followed us here, and while the ruins of the proving ground would protect us, they would offer no shelter."

From outside I could hear the commotion of a small crowd approaching what must be a alien structure for them up ahead of them. The old man continued to look around, his attention finally stopping at the statue of a man nailed to a cross, bleeding from his forehead, hands, side and feet, while looking up in agony, pleading to the sky.

He glanced at me sideways, a trifle concerned. "What is this place holy to?"

Oh yeah, I guess that would look bad. "A prophet named Jesus who taught peace, non violence, and sacrificing your wealth to help others. So naturally the people in power at the time killed him. He also was supposed to be the living incarnation of the creator of the universe, but I always felt like someone added that in later."

The old man looked at me for a long moment, then let out a short hard choking sound before waving his staff as me warningly. "I think you may lack some piety young man, as I suspect that is not the entire story. Not even the short version. But I don't think you would live in such a place if you did not believe in, and respect, your teaching on some level."

I started to deny that, and explain it was just a job. But on reflection, I nodded. I had grown disillusioned with the church since I was a kid, and even more so with it's servants, but however much I had become dubious of a faith reshaped by two thousand years of political editing and cherry picking, the core message still struck a cord with me.

Treat others like you wanted to be treated.

Help out.

Try not to judge.

And other basic ideas that had taken root in me even if I could not put them in words

I eyeballed the old guy. "Soooo... I'm guessing Abb is a title for some kind of holy man.

He grinned.