Epilogue

“He spawned a few minutes after I did,” Coot was explaining. “I saw him pop in.”

We were sitting around camp in the afternoon sun as Joan walked around and topped off glasses of shine for each of us.

When the battle had ended, I had thanked Ed and his crew for showing up and sent Jemmy another invitation to the Pink Flamingos that she was probably still ignoring. Then I turned off the broadcast, but not until after I saw that the view counter had peaked at 102,349 people watching. Somehow, we had been the show to watch. That little fact had me silently hoping each of them were paying subscribers and that Winnie was confused about the truck load of money being dropped off in her dorm.

“I’m surprised he didn’t just start fighting you guys all over again,” Joan was saying.

“Nah,” I answered. “He needs to rethink his position and how he’ll get his payback.”

“You think so?” Bear looked concerned. “I hope not. We were prepared for that one raid. We won’t be prepared for a direct attack.”

I shrugged and grabbed a hunk of bread that Joan was handing me. Around a mouthful, I said, “We’ll deal with that when it comes. Today, we celebrate.”

Eyeing Coot as he sipped his glass, I finally asked him, “What happened back there? Why’d you rush him?”

Coot looked at the ground. “How many people did we have to kill? How many people did we have to defeat that wanted to hurt that town? Who wanted to hurt us?” He looked up and eyed each of us slowly. “I got scared the last time Easter was raided. You died and I was alone, but then I got to thinking about how you put this entire crusade of yours in front of us and then told us we didn’t have to.” He pointed at Bear. “We could see it in your eyes, you didn’t expect anyone to stay on for the actual fight. It was kind of hopeless. It still is.” He shrugged, “Then we were done. All of us had made it. As a team, as a gang, we had defeated an army of assholes telling us we couldn’t do it. Telling us we were less.”

Bear nodded. “Then I went down.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Yeah, then you went down and I just saw red. Who was this,” he paused looking for the right word, “this monster to take our victory from us?”

I stood up and touched his shoulder. “That makes sense to me.”

Then rage filled his eyes, “It just reminded me of Miss Kentucky.”

“What?” Bear, Joan, and myself all said at once.

Then Coot’s eyes softened and a smile crested his lips.

“Just kidding. She was cool. Miss Florida was a piece of work though.”

We all laughed a bit at that before settling down a bit and doing our own things. I walked back to my cot and pulled up the Stream-Time menu to go over the battle and see what I might not have seen.

Halfway through the review, I got bored and started reading the comments.

A lot of people were cheering for us. A lot weren’t. Internet comments were usually too flattering or meant to be hurtful, there was never a lot of middle ground on that. A handful were sexual, especially around the time Jemmy came onto the scene. Folks who didn’t know much about me and my past life were hoping she and I would have some sort of ride into the sunset makeout scene or something.

Nice try, not gonna happen, but thanks for hoping for a happy ending.

Larry’s fans were in the chat, as well. A lot of comments were bordering on and crossing the line on racist remarks and I kind of loved it.

Have your tantrums. I won.

I stood up to head to the mailbox. Coot and I still needed to pick our professions. I think he had some sort of plan about them that I still needed to talk to him about.

“Hello to camp,” a voice called out.

All of us, including Joan, were on our feet and with guns drawn the moment we registered someone else was here.

Standing at the edge of our camp, near Joan’s supply wagon, was a woman who looked about the age I had chosen for my avatar, in her mid-twenties. She was dark-skinned like I was and dressed in slacks, an undershirt, and suspenders, much like Coot.

I pulled up the HUD and looked at her name.

H0neeP0t!!

Level 1

5/150 XP

Profession: None

Then I looked at her face.

“No!” I screamed and fell to my knees.

The girl held up her hand in a small wave.

“Hi, grandma.”