It had been such a close call yesterday for the sword woman, her name being Sasha.

Sylvie had told us that when she first checked Sasha, she had suffered severe brain damage and although she was alive, her body was not functioning or responding properly.

The healing waters had stopped the swelling and bleeding, but it had not done anything to repair her cognitive abilities.

Thankfully, after several hours, several healers working together managed to repair the damage by continuously using the healing skills, taking it in turns whilst each one rested.

They consisted of a surgeon, two doctors and two medics and Sylvie laughed as she told us how they kept making jokes with each, about how “majik was going to put them out of business” or “what was the point of med school when I can flick and swish the wounds away”.

Medical staff have the best humour.

Brain damage would be extremely complex and difficult to repair so it is understandable it would take so much Majik.

This was key information to remember, avoid brain damage at all costs. Even if it costs you an arm and a leg.

Talking about healing, the guy who had created the healing waters, whose name was Potri- you can’t make this stuff up! -had become extremely popular after multiple people all witnessed his tonic had saved someone who was missing half their neck.

Must resist calling the healing tonics ‘Pots’..or shall I just cave in.

Overall, the whole thing highlighted how vital it was that we continued to work together.

And the proof was in the pudding.

Working as a team was the sole reason we managed to not lose anyone as the others could fend off attackers whilst the wounded could be taken away and healed.

Sure we BARELY scraped a 100% survival rate, but still it is pretty fucking impressive how far we’ve come in a few days.

With all that in mind, I’d decided to volunteer to go with the team that was going to first check out the water situation at the well location.

Marri wasn’t particularly happy and I caught her whispering to my back asking my shields to “protect my stupid ass” as she hugged me from behind on my way out.

A makeshift gazebo had been built at the top of the green area and it was being used as a hub and meeting place.

It was good to point out that not everyone had an analogue watch and since seemingly all the digital ones had been consumed like other electronics, there were a few donated analogues that were hanging up that people could take with them if they went out.

And indeed people were already starting to carefully go out and explore.

Losing track of time could be a death sentence if it meant you would be travelling back in the dark, if you survived that long even.

There was also a large wind up wall clock that had been attached to the gazebo which let people pass by and check the time and right now it was reading 10:00, the time I was going to be meeting up with the team.

Bang on time, everyone arrived.

We had Steve, Tanner - who’d become best buds, Sylvie, Triya - the fast running girl, and a new guy called Arkly.

Triya wore a baseball cap that cast her face in a shadow, but at a glance, she looked in her late teens, blonde, blue eyed with a peachy complexion,and if we were in the states, she’d be a classic cheerleader type.

Arkly looked like, for lack of a better term, a bit of a cunt.

A slightly pudgy white face with sparkling blue eyes, but his mouth looked a little bit like a chipmunks and he had spiky brown hair.

I’d been told he’d not offered to help anywhere and had been negative against everything that involved cooperation. He was apparently the son of a rich old fart that owned the land the estate was on and had been given one of the big detached houses to live in by himself, but he was vocal about his dissatisfaction and acted the typical trope of a little rich shit that thought he was above everyone and better than everyone.

He’d said he was not going to do any ‘manual labour, pleb work’ or dare risk his safety outside, but after a quiet word with Sylvie he’d reluctantly changed his mind.

“Morning all.” I waved.

Everyone exchanged nods and smiles and Tanner started dishing out fist bumps.

Everyone except Arkly the a-hole returned the gesture, who physically turned away with his nose up and said “Let’s not waste time with needless working class exchangs.”

Tanner glared at him like he was going to punch his face off.

“Let's just be civil Arkly. We need to go over our roles and objectives and then we’ll be off.” Steve sighed.

I nudged Tanner and subtly pointed at Arklys back and made an ‘O’ shape with my hand and shook it like I was shaking a bottle.

He sniggered as Sylvie frowned, noticing my childish antics before getting into the details of the plan.

On the noticeboard was a sheet detailing a few things that every group or person should consider before going out.

The list was fairly straightforward:

PREREQUISITES FOR LEAVING SAFE ZONE

MEDICAL KIT / HEALING TONIC BE HOME BEFORE DARK ALWAYS. GATE SHUTS AT 9PM AND STAYS SHUT PLZ TRY TO AVOID PULLING/TRAIN-NING GROUPS OF MOBS BACK TO THE GATES.

“Training mobs back to the gates?” I cocked my head.

“Ah it means not to lead a group of nasties back here. Kids call it ‘train-ning’ it's a gaming reference. Same with Mobs, which means monsters in gaming lingo.”

“Ah. Fair enough” I smiled politely, but inside I was dying.

Dammit Steve! We can’t use gaming terms for these fucked up real life or death situations! It would be like calling zombies undead or something, whilst they chewed on our limbs!

“Alrighty! aaand has everyone got their Pots?” Steve clasped his hands together with a sweeping earnest look.

No! Steve! Stop! You can’t let yourself succumb to this universe's twisted attempt to make real life into an RPG! NOOOOoooo..

I stared off into the distance like a war veteran.

“Everything okay Godu?” Steve had a puzzled look.

“Oh yeah all good, just a minor existential crisis. Here’s mine.” I replied, shaking myself out of it and shook my plastic bottle of HEALING TONIC to show it was full.

“Ugh. Cretins..Are we going to move now?” Arkly said with clear spitefulness.

Eyebrows were raised at that comment.

Does this dickhead not realise how trivial it would be for his house to be burned down?

It was absurd watching an adult act like a spoiled brat, especially considering the circumstances.

“Yes Arkly. Let's head to the gate and then we’ll just take the direct route to the building that’s supposed to hold the well. Once we confirm it’s there and accessible, we’ll come back with a sample and I can test the PH and quality.” Steve kept a flat tone.

We made our way to the gate in silence and opened it up enough for us to get under.

There were a couple of older looking teenagers, a boy and a girl that had volunteered to keep watch up in the lookout platform and Triya grinned and waved at them as we walked past.

The guy had something in his hand that waved back.

“That’s Nessi and Gunner or rather Elaine and Greg. They’re together so of course they would volunteer for the hidey hole job.” She rolled her eyes.

“I wonder if they spotted anyone yet…do they have weapons? I thought I saw something in Gunner’s hand.” I asked.

“Yeah, Gunner’s really good with a slingshot, that was probably what you saw.” She nodded.

“Also I’m not sure if they’ve seen anyone or anything yet. Have we set up an overnight schedule to keep watch yet Sylvie?" She glanced at Sylvie.

“No. I don’t think we can afford to risk having people out at night right now and nobody volunteered regardless. It’s still very early days but we’ve done a tremendous job so far. We’re all just civvies at the end of the day..” Sylvie replied.

Civvies, usually a term that military personnel would use to refer to civilians or non combatants. Is it rude to ask a maternity nurse if she's been in the armed forces?

“Well yes, you’re right Syl! but give it a few weeks and I reckon we’ll be strong enough to be in a position to offer anyone out there a safe place to live. A bastion of hope in these dark times!” Steve said enthusiastically.

“sure, but one thing at a time Steve, one thing at a time...” Sylvie sighed but I saw a hint of a smile.

It was becoming more and more natural to talk about such topics as survival and finding others.

Although what even is the natural baseline these days?

The building that was supposed to house the well was really quite close.

As we turned right at the first T junction, we could see it up ahead 50 metres away, and there was nothing suggesting danger close by so we kept walking forward scanning around constantly.

“By the way, what happened to the people in these houses?” I asked a question that probably wasn’t appropriate at the time, but it occurred to me that there were quite a few people that stayed behind in the squirrel estate but the other streets were practically deserted.

“There’s probably a few too scared to come out, but when I was watching from my old home, I saw a lot of families and groups heading towards town.” Triya looked down and hid under her cap.

“We also heard a lot of screams with the nightmares constantly attacking…” She trailed off and went quiet.

We’d all heard the screams and the wails. It was rare for an hour to pass without hearing such a noise, either faintly or disturbingly close.

“Our safe zone is pretty tucked away don't forget.” Steve filled the silence.

“We’ve got the trees, the large sound proofing fence, and that huge ditch which provides some natural defences. So the only way things could get in is through the two road entrances. It definitely helped that I was also sending out my little kitchen knife golems to attack any dodgy creatures that started wandering around our streets, mind.” He grinned and stretched his fingers out, cracking them.

“...fucking Steve…fucking pyscho..”

WELL WELL WELL!

Arkly had barely whispered but I was at the back of the group and his utterings had reached my ears.

We reached the building which was a large long old brick pumphouse, with a fence bulging with overgrown vegetation and windows with mesh shutters covering them. We had to climb over the fence and follow a short path to the entrance.

The door was a large solid metal looking one with a keyhole.

A few things scuttled off in the underbrush and we heard a screech abruptly cut off and then crunching further on in the vegetation as it sounded like something had been caught by a bigger something.

“Fuck sakes…I ‘ayte nature” Tanner muttered as me and him stood slightly crouched, guarding the others backs whilst they inspected the door.

“Yeah man well….not sure nature likes us much either anymore.” I replied quietly whilst straining my senses to detect any danger.

I couldn’t shake off the feeling that we were being watched, but then again why should that surprise me? There were probably several different monsters sizing us up on if we were tasty enough to attempt an attack, or if they should move on and find some poor defenceless target in one of the surrounding houses..

Behind me I heard a clunk and the door creaked open..

“Easy peasy.” Steve gloated.

“It’s just a simple skeleton deadlock with 3 pins. No sweat.”

Seriously, what on earth did Steve do for a living??

He’d pick locked the door open and it opened inwards into a long dark room with a ton of pump machinery and pipes all dotted around.

Off to the side was a bunch of cabinets but there wasn’t enough light to see all the way down.

We had a ceiling window shining light through and it showed that the room was pretty dirty and dusty with a bunch of cobwebs in places.

Normal spiders are fine.

Mutated giant Skullwearer spiders? nope.

I heard Steve cursing.

“It’s a sealed electronic pump system! But it needs mains power! Piss sakes! No manual pump or backup generator system. I haven’t a clue on how we would go about converting but I bet the controllers are gone anyway...” He put his hands behind his head and started pacing in a line.

“Hmph of course you would screw this up Steve. Why anyone would have a shred of confidence in you is completely beyond me..” Arkly sneered.

Steve screwed his face up and shook his head, shrugging off Arkly’s cunty comment, impressively refusing to lower himself with a retort.

Sadly I didn’t have the same patience and I was fed up at his attempt to bully Steve.

Not normally one that enjoyed confrontation, my sudden crash into a world of extreme violence had swiftly changed that.

I was also nervous as fuck and this uneccessary hostility was not helping anyone.

“Do you have any better ideas?” I snarled and took a step toward him clenching my fists.

He gave me a slimy grin as if he was pleased with my reaction.

It would be so easy to just smash a hole in his face…

“Ah why yes of course I do! Throw out unwanted outsiders like you and your cretinous family, off of my family's land and return those supplies to myself. I tell you, once this is all over, I’ll be getting my lawyers involved that’s for sure-”

“ARKLY! Shut your mouth. Else I’ll tell everyone why Daddy forced you to stay here instead of in some toff's mansion. There will be no throwing out of anyone and you DO NOT own any of the land!” Sylvie snapped.

He narrowed his eyes and gave Syvlie a murderous stare, before looking around nervously at everyone else and then putting on a fake smile.

“Ah forgive me Sylvie, newcomer. I’m merely stressed out about our situation I-”

He stopped dead and froze.

“..Arkly?” Sylvie said, frowning.

He was just staring at her and then he went white as a sheet.

“...Arkly? What is the matter?”

He started to slowly shuffle backwards towards the exit, his lips were trembling.

Puzzled, I turned to look at Sylvie and out of the darkness behind her came a noseless, hairless face.

Its mouth and jaw was splitting horizontally to show several rows of human teeth and fangs all pointing inwards.

Fuckshit.

Its eyes were jet black with dark red reflective pupils, shimmering from the little light coming in from the doorway.

When I said eyes, I meant at least 8 eyes. Two large ovals and 6 smaller ovals neatly positioned up and around the forehead.

Shitfuck.

The nose was gone, leaving behind an empty dark hole and the skin looked slimy and grey.

Two long leathery arms with two long thick claws at the end, smoothly grabbed hold of Sylvie’s torso.

“Shit.” I said.

Sylvie shouted something expletive.

Triya screamed.

Arkly ran out the door.

Tanner screamed “WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT!” in a very high pitched voice.

Steve did not hesitate and threw a mass of thick chains that gave off the brown glow as it flew in the air and connected with the things skull.

An ear piercing screech rang out that made everyone cover their ears, as the chains started to come alive and wrap around tightly and bind the face of the creature.

Another set of long leather arms reached from behind the darkness and started grabbing at the chains, trying to pry them off.

The other pair still gripped a quite rightly panicked, screaming and struggling Sylvie.

ANOTHER PAIR OF ARMS?

***