Chapter 34.3: What Does the Fox Say

Sometimes a battle was begun with a ferocious battle cry. At other times, it began with the beat of drums or the shot of a cannon. In the heart of a dark and foreboding department store, battle began with a stubbed toe and a mutter.

Mark shook Eric slightly to get him to quiet down, and then men continued onward. Scott used his ability to sense mana, rather the vital essence of that around him, to locate the closest zombies. He had tried to call wisp again, but she still refused to answer. He would need to determine what was wrong with her soon, but at the moment the trio used the LED lanterns that had lit the darkness for Eric and Mark for so long.

Up ahead a zombie milled around. Strangely, it held two bags of something, one in each hand. It looked from one bag to the other.

The men glanced at each other then back to the odd zombie. A noise caught its attention and it began to look around. When it saw them, it began moving toward them with outstretched hands. The two bags fell to the floor and were ignored in the process.

“You’re up.” said Scott quietly. He would stay back and start looting while they dealt with the monsters. He could see where the zombies were despite the darkness, so he was the closest thing to an early warning system that they had.

Eric ran in and swiped at the zombie’s head. He narrowly avoided being grabbed by its powerful fingers in his haste, and ended up barely nicking its forehead. It hissed loudly as the minor Jolt spell racked it with pain.

Mark shook his head. He trotted over while Eric tried to get away from the beast. He stabbed the zombie in the lower back and it turned toward him. It reached for him and he batted its hands away with a makeshift shield, really a small broken stool. The moment it was placed off balance, he whipped his sword to the left and delivered a hard strike to its neck.

The beast gurgled in pain then dropped to the floor. The magic of the blades was low-end, but they did not have much vital force.

“I coulda done that.” said Eric.

Mark merely nodded at him. “Yep.”

“Three more, incoming.” said Scott.

“Three?” asked Eric, obviously unsettled.

“Yeah, you guys got it or want me to help?” asked Scott while he stuffed a bag of salt into his side-bag.

“Let’s see what you got.” said Eric.

“We can do it. Unless you think it’d go faster if we did the looting.” said Mark.

“Coming from two directions. I’ll get the one on this side, you two get the others.” said Scott.

“Right.” said Eric.

It did not take long before the retail zombies staggered over. Scott stopped stuffing his sack long enough to walk over and casually decapitate his opponent with a single swing of his sword. These zombies were no threat to him at all. If he had been interested in trying to raise his skill level he would have drawn things out, but since he still could not do that, there was no point.

Eric blinked as the zombie took a single step and fell down. He watched as Scott casually returned to looting the grocery section. “Damn. What level are you.”

“Six.” said Scott. He had lost a level when he died. It had cost him a few stat points, and a few days of no real experience gain. Still, it was better than staying dead.

“Sh-shit! You’re level thirty in the dream world?” asked Eric, his eyes wide.

Scott shrugged. They didn’t know about non-humans, why fill them in yet. Let them assume what they wanted. As soon as his death penalty ended, he planned to train hard. Hopefully the zombies would still be in the parking lot by the time the looting was done.

Mark smacked Eric lightly on the shoulder then pointed at the incoming zombies. Their two were almost upon them.

Eric turned to face his opponent then nodded. He could do this. He’d never fought more than a few of these things in the dream world, but he had fought other things. His blade stabbed out at the zombies chest, and then he recalled a little of his training. He used his blade to knock its arms to either side in quick succession then stepped in with a hard downward strike to its skull. The rotting zombie’s head split open like a ripe melon as several short blasts of magic erupted within it. Full of himself, he turned to tell Mark that he’d showed the zombie who was boss, but the stool wielding former Archer’s employee was already wiping the zombie ichor from his blade. He’d been finished long enough to attend to maintenance needs.

“You ain’t better than me.” muttered Eric.

Mark laughed a little then casually flung the hand towel to the side. “Sure.”

Eric grunted then waved him off. “Whatever. Let’s steal things.”

They joined Scott in pilfering as much as they could from the grocery section. Once they had filled up most of the bags and sacks on-hand, it was time for the second mission operation. They had to get push carts, and bags to haul things.

Scott led them around the store killing zombies along the way. Several times he cut down a zombie before the other men even knew it was there. None of them gained experience right now anyway, so efficiency was the matter of course. Scott was delighted when a few random stones dropped. He would be able to make a few more death essence orbs soon. They were always useful for crafting as they could be fused with synergy to create permanent enchanted items, though the results were weaker than true enchanting. Sadly, they were a somewhat rare drop. It was strange that he had gotten three of them after facing so few of the zombies.

Eric shook his head every time it happened. One moment they would be walking, and in the next Scott’s sword whipped out and killed something that he had not even seen coming.

“We’ll move ten carts at a time, go slow and quiet to keep the assholes outside from noticing us.” said Scott softly.

They followed his instructions and each pulled five carts out of the carousel. They slowly pushed the carts, but even so they made a lot of noise. The zombies outside would not hear it, but inside the building it echoed out into the darkness.

“I don’t see any up ahead, but some of them are coming. Keep heading back to grocery, and I’ll take care of the closest ones.” said Scott.

Eric said, “Alright.”

Mark nodded and kept pushing. He wanted out of here as soon as possible. So far the planned seemed to be working. At the very least they would be able to have the run of the store if something happened.

Scott trotted through the store tearing apart whatever zombies he came across. He took care not to go too far from the others so that he could sense them and any zombies close to them. He killed another eight zombies before heading to the checkout lanes to snatch up some bags, and then head back to grocery.

By the time he arrived, the carts were separated and they had started filling them with the bagged up items that had already been prepped. “Here we go.” said Scott.

While they filled the carts and looted more stuff, Scott considered the situation. “Hey, this place has generators right?”

“Yeah. Why, you want the lights on?” asked Mark.

“No. But, if the zombies all get cleared out and people claim this place, the fences and generator would make this a good place for a temporary government building.”

“True, the walls are pretty strong. The steel shutters are alright too. Don’t like the glass windows up front, though.” said Eric.

Scott nodded then turned toward a new arrival. “Be right back.”

“Zombie?” asked Eric.

“Yeah.”

Eric and Mark continued bagging and loading as fast as they could. They were done not long after Scott returned.

“Alright, let’s go ahead and stage these, then get ready to move some more.” said Scott.

The trio moved forward. Each of them had a cart this time, and they were heading toward the back of the store. On the way several zombies popped up and were dealt with swiftly. There were not too many more left in the store if Scott remembered correctly.

In the backroom, three more zombies met their end before they reached their destination. They began staging the carts near the loading bay doors. It was the one place that was not protected by a fence, though it was behind two different steel shutters, neither of which could be opened from the outside.

However, the outer door was open. Six zombies were there reaching to get in. The inner shutter was only halfway down, blocked by a fallen rack.

“Shall we?” asked Scott.

Eric and Mark nodded then all three of them moved forward. What followed was a series of rapid strikes to slow moving movie-monsters. The mystery of how they had been getting in was solved. That also meant that more zombies must be spawning outside of the fences. They might be spawning in the sewers in general, or perhaps the police had simply missed a few dozen of them while packing the other few hundred into the parking lot. Scott was surprised that they had not torn the fences down yet, even if the wall beyond them would have held.

The zombies were dispatched as quickly as possible. Scott hopped out the door to see if any others were around, but saw nothing too interesting.

“Right, I can’t stop you from running off now if you want. You can keep helping, or you can go.”

“No point leaving on our own. We’d just get killed again.” said Eric.

Mark nodded. They had tried that once already.

Scott said, “Alright. Let’s clean out and close this inner shutter. I don’t get why this place hasn’t been looted all to hell, unless people are just scared of the zombies.”

“Yeah, not like a few hundred Thriller rejects are scary.” said Eric.

“Well, I’ll still lock this place down when we leave.”

“How you gonna get back in to get the rest of the stuff?” asked Eric.

Scott shrugged. “Doors and Locks can’t stop me, but they can stop other people.”

“Right, right…” said Eric as if he truly understood.

“Let’s finish up.” said Mark.

They went back and gathered up the other carts three at a time. Twelve carts were now staged and filled to the brim with food stuff and various household supplies. One cart was full of toilet paper, glorious toilet paper. Another two were cases of water. The rest were canned goods, and a few other things. Battery operated power tools were another good grab as far as he was concerned.

There was one final thing to do before escaping into the night. Scott and his part-timers went over to the main office once more.

“What are we doing here?”

“I’m getting some war funds.” said Scott.

They stared at him stupidly for a moment and then their eyes widened in shock as he morphed into his shadow form once more. They had seen it before, but it was still surprising.

He flowed through the door and kept going. Two more doors barred the way, but they might as well not have been there. He made his way into the office then smiled. He changed back to human form then took an LED lantern out of his sack. His bags were all full, but his backpack had just enough room, or so he hoped.

The safe was bolted to a table that was bolted to the floor. It would have been difficult to remove in most instances, but Scott had made a side-trip to the home improvement section and acquired a power saw. He knew that the sound would be loud, but they would not hear it outside. Even Eric and Mark would only hear a lightly muffled buzzing sound.

Scott slapped the battery into the saw and then got to work. The sound was intolerably loud, but he had no choice. He could not open the safe here. However, that did not prevent him from doing what he intended.

The safe started to dip forward and Scott turned the saw off. He gripped the safe tight and heaved. He wiggled it up and down and soon broke it free of its moorings. He then put the whole thing into his backpack. Scott grinned then packed up his saw. It was time to end this field trip.

He transitioned to shadow form and returned to his little helpers. Rapidly changing forms took a lot out of him, but he had no reason to change more than one more time tonight. “All good?”

“Yeah. Did you get what you wanted?” asked Mark.

Scott nodded.

“Right. Let’s go then.” said Eric.

They head to the back of the store once more, and then Scott left to go get Ashton. Eric and Mark waited for a few anxious minutes and just when they were worried that he was not going to come back despite all the loot, a beat up van drove up and then backed into the area.

The back doors opened and Scott hopped out. Ashton waved to them from the front. “I like the work ethic, but I still won’t authorize over-time.”

“The hell?” asked Eric in shock.

Mark stared stupidly at Ashton for a moment. “Wha?”

Scott laughed a little then waved his hand in front of their faces. “Come on, let’s finish this and get the hell out of here.”

They worked as quickly as possible and loaded up the van with a little bit of everything. They could not load all of the carts inside, but that was fine. The next trip would allow them to rapidly load the van once or twice more before they needed to stage more trips. Scott wanted to have the store stripped of most of its contents within the next two days.

As they drove away Scott could only lament the fact that the building was not designated as abandoned. He would have just taken over and kept everything intact. A transfer node would have made the whole transfer aspect so much easier. Still, maybe the mayor or the Sheriff could claim it for the city or something.

“Where we going anyway?” asked Eric.

“Our place.” said Ashton lightly.

“Wait, you two live together?” he asked.

“Yep.”

Scott rolled his eyes, but could not hide his amusement. She was deliberately screwing with them. It was a far cry from the somewhat shy girl who wanted people to respect her. Maybe this was the true Ashton? She was a bit of a foxy smart ass?

“So, you two…?” asked Mark.

“Well, there’s four of us.” said Ashton.

“Ah, so who else.” asked Eric.

“Shara and a girl named Sonja.” She said before making a turn off to the right. A scarvulf bounded out into the road and banged off the side of the van. They rocked sideways slightly, but kept driving anyway. It was certainly worse off than the van was after that interaction.

“I suppose hairless wolves are the new deer.” said Scott lightly.

Eric snorted at the morbid humor then cracked a smile. “Wait, Shara. Isn’t she that red-headed girl who just started a while back?”

“Yeah.”

Eric slapped grinned then said, “Oh yes.”

Ashton rolled her eyes. She’d heard Eric babbling enough in the break room to know what he was talking about.

Mark glanced at him. “Oh yes, what?”

“You know man.”

“No, tell me.” said Mark with a smirk.

“C’mon, man… Dibs, you know…” said Eric.

Scott’s eyebrow quirked. Mark spoke up. “Right. You go ahead and tell the smoke monster from Lost that you’re calling dibs on one of his girls.”

Eric frowned. “Come on. He can’t be with all of them…”

“Do you like how they talk about this like we’re not even here?” Ashton asked Scott.

Mark said to Eric, “Who knows.”

Scott glanced over to her. “Let ‘em talk, let me know if their hands do any unwanted walking, though.” He didn’t whisper it when he said it, either.

“See, he said unwanted walking.” said Eric. “You’re not all his girls, right?”

Ashton laughed. “Kinda.” She did not elaborate on whatever relationship may or may not be had among the four, and that just made it more fun for her to say.

Eric blinked. “No way…”

Mark could not fight down a laugh. “So, that means that Scott has a harem?”

Eric’s eyes began to water. “The guy who wears bunny-ears at work has an apocalypse harem and what do I have?”

“You got me.” said Mark in a cheerful tone.

Eric gave Mark a flat look then sarcastically said. “Oh, what is this pain in my chest? Why does my heart beat faster when you’re around?”

“Is it love?” asked Mark helpfully.

“I think it’s cardiac diarrhea.” said Eric.

“Yeah, man. Love is the shit.”

Ashton laughed as the two guys in the back continued their somewhat witty banter. They were fun if nothing else.