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🕑 Added 2023-05-13 08:44:17 +0000 UTCGray’s shoulders grew more tense as the jeep drove further away from the relative safety of the main roads into town. He thought about the brave men and women who’d been out all night already, hunting monsters. A mix of admiration for the hunters and shame for himself ran through his shoulders like a wave.
The town’s new hunters went out into the dark practically blind. Lord knew enough of them had already died, sacrificing themselves for their community or a desire to get stronger. Meanwhile, Gray could sense any monsters if they were near enough no matter where they were hiding. He could light them up for others to see. Other people wouldn’t let Gray go anywhere without plenty of muscle even if he wanted to.
So the fact he was still so nervous was not exactly filling him with pride. It was also a big adjustment. Monsters or not, Gray had always been able to take care of himself. Even as an old man. But now…
He was a supporter, not a fighter. All he could do was live up to everyone’s expectations.
Charlie kept the jeep going at around 30 miles per hour. Not too slow, not too fast. They’d have plenty of time to react to anything blocking the road. The jeep had a couple spotlights but for the moment, they were off. Better to keep a low profile unless they got attacked.
The forest gave way to a small neighborhood. A public storage company was across the street. Suddenly, Gray’s ability pinged him.
[Known Enemy Detected]
“Incoming,” he said.
“How many?” asked Charlie.
“Just one. Big, but not huge.” His ability told him exactly where the monster was, hiding behind a house up ahead. He didn’t know exactly what it was yet, though. With a thought, he triggered his active ability and a sphere of light appeared around the enemy. The effect was bizarre, like a spotlight with no source. Because of where the creature was, most of the light was actually behind the wall.
All of his escorts knew exactly what this meant, so when a large canine monster pounced out toward the jeep, Ben nailed it with two rounds of 9mm. The small, powerful bolt of fire that Bryanna cast hit a second later. By the time the monster fell, it was very thoroughly dead.
Charlie drove on, not even slowing down. “Any more now?” he asked.
“Not so far. At least unless any of these things are immune to my ability.” Gray shrugged and chuckled. Charlie smiled wryly. They both knew that it was a possibility. It was one reason why the rest of the leaders of the area made Gray take at least two escorts with him whenever he left their semi-secure compound back near town. Even though it’d been a farm a few days ago, base was probably the safest place for thirty miles around. At last.
What they were doing now was effectively going, “behind the wire.”
Monsters tried to ambush them two more times, but Gray just illuminated them up and the escorts easily killed them again. The second attack was two more canine-type monsters, what locals were calling “hell-yotes.” Their official name, at least according to the system, was, “Lesser Razor Plains Wolves,” but Gray liked hell-yotes better, too.
The third time was a small troll, one of the many species of lesser trolls that Gray had already heard about. Bryanna’s fire helped a lot. All of the trolls seemed to be vulnerable to flames. When the troll had popped out of the woodline, Charlie had needed to actually slow down the jeep and swerve to one side, but the creature still went down with a bit more firepower from the two damage dealers.
What had been a goblin barricade or trap in the road would have been dangerous if not for the fact the handful of goblins that had been manning it were all dead. Someone or something had ripped the barrier apart, too. The jeep was able to pass over the debris slowly, carefully. To Gray, the noise of the plywood spintering sounded louder than gunshots. Nothing attacked while they were crossing, though.
Then a minute later, another canine creature attacked again, was lighted up by Gray, and just as quickly put down.
Gray leveled up. He shook his head. Video games and fantasy games had never been a part of his life growing up, other than a tiny exposure here or there. Not enough to make decisions on his own on what to use his points for. As usual, he planned to ask his wife for her input first. She’d been reading fantasy books since she’d been old enough to walk.
“I think I’m getting more experience because there are only four of us,” said Gray.
Charlie nodded. “We all are. I’m even getting some from driving, since we’re all in a group.”
“Yea, this is pretty good so far,” Ben agreed.
Bryanna’s tone was cold as the grave. “It’s only good if we live.”
That put a damper on things, but Gray was glad for the sobering words. He’d vowed a day ago not to let his ability make him too complacent. Besides, just knowing where a monster was wouldn’t be enough if there were too many or it was too powerful. Stories of the horrific giant that was directly responsible for the deaths of at least several dozen people came to mind.
The jeep slowed again and Gray was curious why but he kept his mouth shut. Instead of asking unnecessary questions, he peered through the windshield, eyes narrowed. Charlie had always had better eyes than him.
When they got closer, he understood why his friend had slowed. Off to one side of the road, it looked like goblins had been setting up shop in a single-wide that stood all by itself on some property with lots of lawn. Beyond the woodline behind it, Gray knew there was another small housing development and some farms. This would likely be a good base of operations for the little monsters. They could even try preying on people walking or driving on the road.
Now the area was strewn with goblin bodies. They’d been ripped apart. Gray had seen a lot of violence during his career as a law enforcement officer and he’d definitely seen even more after System Day, but this was…something new.
“Wow,” he said. The two damage dealers behind him were standing, both on high alert.
There was blood everywhere. The trail of bodies told a story. Dead goblins by the woodline showed where the first had probably died. Then a few more might have been run down as their attacker raced forward before reaching the house. The nasty little monsters had been stacking pallets and furniture to make half-ass walls or fortifications.
Their defenses hadn’t done them much good. One shoddy wall had been obliterated.
One of the windows was shattered. The jeep came to a stop at the end of the long driveway and Gray used his flashlight to illuminate the side of the house facing where it looked like the goblins had started dying. The corpses in that direction were face-down in the direction of the house.
No glass was on the ground on this side of the building. The windows had been busted through from the outside. In fact, the windows had been covered with some plywood before this, so the attacker had gone through the plywood and the window at the same time.
Outside the house facing the road, the door had been broken outwards and goblin bodies were all over the front yard, most of them facing the road. The monsters’ faces that Gray could see looked frozen in horror.
Gray asked, “Do you know if this place has been checked out, Deputy Perry?”
“I’m not sure.”
Gray sighed. “One of us should check, just in case there are any survivors.”
“I’ll go,” said Ben Habber. He jumped out of the jeep, bristling with young, 20’s confidence and athleticism. Then his rifle came up and he turned on a light. The young man cautiously but confidently walked toward the ruined front door, adjusting something on his light to make it a bit dimmer.
“Should I go, too?” asked the Bryanna.
Gray thought about it. It galled him to admit it, but he and Charlie needed to mage out here with them. If something happened to the jeep, they were all probably not gonna make it back, not on foot. “No. But if we hear anything, get ready for me to change my mind.”
The woman nodded. Gray wondered if he should think of her as a wizardess or sorceress or something now. The apocalypse was new so the terminology of this new world was sort of up in the air.
Ben poked his rifle through the door of the house, swept his light around, then entered. “Is he x-military or something?” asked Gray, nodding at Ben.
“Nah, boy did a lot of airsoft,” said Charlie. “Played the Call of Duty, too.”
“And that was…a video game?” Gray shook his head. “I wasn’t even used to the new world we already had before we got another new, way worse world.”
“Ain’t that right.”
Behind them, Bryanna grunted as she scanned their surroundings. Whether she agreed or not, Gray couldn’t tell.
A few minutes later, Ben came out. His face looked white and he kept swallowing. “No survivors. Uh, it’s…bad in there. Real bad.”
Gray didn’t ask any further questions. He said quitly to Charlie, “Note this place down for day cleanup. Let’s get a crew to throw all the goblin bodies in there and burn the place down.”
Charlie nodded. He understood. “Got it. I just made a mental note.”
Bryanna’s frown could be heard as she asked, “What about the human bodies?”
Ben was woodenly getting back in the Jeep as Gray answered. “They’ll be separated before burning everything, we have a crew. But sometimes it’s hard to do.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sometimes the goblins don’t leave much, or they mix up pieces everywhere,” said Charlie. “Or worse. And this place probably has goblin bodies on top of everything…they were doing.”
Ben was suddenly noisily sick over the side of the jeep. Gray kept his face wooden. “Let’s get going.”
“Got it,” said Charlie. The jeep moved back to the road. Since the mill was only about a mile away, they made it there pretty quickly. There weren’t any more monster attacks.
Grey wondered if the good luck might be because the monsters in this area were scared of whatever had been massacring the goblins. If the monsters in this area had all been goblins, they might all actually be dead.
The mill had a gate that was open. It’d probably still been open for some reason when the world got turned upside down. A truck was partially in a ditch to one side. One door was open. For some reason, this looked even more ominous to Gray than if the windows had been busted out.
Sticks had been erected on both sides of the driveway with severed human heads on top. Other sticks held fetishes or other ritual-looking clumps of feathers, bones, and beads.
“They were really setting up shop, here, huh?” said Ben.
“Making themselves at home,” agreed Charlie.
When the goblins first invaded the area, they’d moved fast. The little monsters didn’t seem to need to sleep much, just eat a lot, so they’d been like a plague. This mill had been the largest group of them in the area. Now nothing moved.
The jeep rolled to the end of the long driveway and came to a stop, engine idling. “Should I leave it on, Gray?” asked Charlie.
“Nah, cut it.”
Charlie nodded, and a second later the area was heavy with unbroken silence. Gray listened. Behind him, Bryanna and Ben were no doubt listening as well, but in reality, they all knew if anyt monsters were around, Gray would know it.
Not for the first time, he thought about how dangerous that particular assumpion might be in the future. Even though he wasn’t a gamer and didn’t really care about fantasy movies, Gray was a realist. This…system…seemed to exist to screw people over. What better way to pull a fast one than lull people into thinking they knew how this world worked only to change it again?
“Alright, let’s get out,” he said. “Ben, can you stay with the Jeep?”
“Got it.”
Charlie drew his revolver and Gray did the same. Then the two old men and the former teacher walked into what had been the largest goblin hive in the entire county.
