Reluctant Necromancer

It was late afternoon when we came across the first town I’d seen besides Whitcomb. There was a wooden palisade blocking the road through town. Someone ran off deeper into the town as we pulled up and stopped in front of it far enough to turn around. Our party jumped out of the van and approached the fence.

“We’re not taking in any strangers friends, so best be on your way,” a man called from the other side.

“We’re just passing through from Whitcomb,” Mara called back. “We don’t have any plans to do anything in your town except see if you have any gas for sale.”

“We haven’t got any, miss. Best for you to turn around and detour around us if you please.”

The sound of running feet could be heard from the other side. A mumbled conversation took place while we waited to see if it’d have any impact on our convoy or not.

“Hold on. Mayor wants a word with you before you go.” The man’s voice which had been polite and business like up to this point was dripping with condescension and disdain. If I had to make a bet, he did not like whoever this mayor was.

The rest of the convoy began stepping out of their vehicles. Oliver went back to talk to them and urge them to stay close to their vehicles. Just in case.

Mara attempted to small talk the guy across the palisade while we waited. You could tell he tried to stay quiet and ignore her, but eventually I could make out little snorts as Mara said just the most unhinged shit to get a rise out of him.

A few minutes later someone arrived on the other side. There was more whispered conversation before someone stepped up to the wooden beams planted in the ground.

“Hi folks. I’m Mayor Brisbee,” an older woman’s voice came through the gaps in the fence. “I hear you’re from Whitcomb.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mara answered.

“What are you doing all the way out here then?”

“As we told your guards, we’re just passing through and were hoping to buy some gas off of you.”

Silence reigned for a several minutes. “Where are you headed?”

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business ma’am,” Mara returned.

“It is if you want to buy my gas,” came the quick retort.

“Your gas?” Mara asked incredulous. “So you’re the mayor and the gas station attendant?”

“Of course not. But this is my town, so it’s my gas.”

“You know what ma’am. I’m not sure we can do business with you guys. Best of luck with the whole fence thing though,” Mara turned on her heel and marched away. She swirled her finger through the air and the rest of the convoy began hopping in their cars.

“Wait!”

Mara froze halfway to the van.

“We…we can work something out.”

Mara turned and gave the palisade a slow shake of her head. “We’re good thanks.”

We all loaded up into the van and I watched the palisade shake a little as someone apparently gave it a good kick or shove. If it wobbled that much I didn’t see how it could keep out half of the monsters we’d faced just in the past week.

“Why didn’t we try and make a deal?” Ashley asked as Mara got into the van last.

“Because I hate people like them,” Mara said simply. When Ashley looked at her confused she explained. “We’re in the middle of a pretty big crisis. Now I may not agree with Lieutenant Peckerhead all the time, he’s actually been pretty good for the town and people and kept things running smoothly and safely.

“Those people though took the same situation and decided to hunker down. Nothing wrong with that necessarily, but that mayor was turning the whole situation into a power grab. You heard her, ‘her town and her gas.’ I won’t deal with people like that if we don’t have to. And fortunately for us there is a route around this town and every other one. It might add some hours to our trip, but it will keep us safe and out of the hands of power hungry cunts.”

Mara turned around to face the front windshield again and pulled out her phone. Oliver got us turned around and the convoy followed behind us. Mara figured out a new route to take us around the town and hopefully to a small gas station out of the way. We weren’t hurting for it, but if we found places to top off it’d go a long way to helping make the trip as painless as possible.

We got to the first turn off heading away from town and drove a mile or so down it before pulling over to the side of the road. The rest of the convoy followed suite. Mara and Oliver went back to the rest of the cars and talked to them about what we were doing. They were the locals after all and might have an idea of safer routes all things considered.

A few minutes later they returned to the van and we took off once more. Oliver followed along to the directions Mara’s phone spat out at him and it wasn’t too long before we were pulling up in front of an older gas station. Neither of the pumps even had a credit card reader on them.

I looked around the place as I got out of the van with the others. The civilians stayed in their vehicles parked next to the two pumps. We’d fill up gas last in case there wasn’t enough. The little convenience store attached to the gas station had also seen better days. Faded beer signs hung from dirty windows underneath flickering neon signs for other beers. The lights were on inside the store, though I couldn’t see anyone behind the counter.

John walked in first, the bell above the door jangling in the quiet. We all froze for a moment, some instinct kicking and screaming that there was something off about the whole situation.

That’s when I noticed the blood pooled from behind the counter. A faint coppery smell filled the air with a more pungent odor of decay as I stepped in behind Mara. Nothing in the store moved.

A sick curiosity had me following John around the end of the counter and peering into the little alcove behind it. The blood on the floor was already dried and a little tacky under my boots. I looked around John’s tall frame and found the source of the blood and the smell.

Lying in the middle of the puddle that seemed excessively large for what little remained of the body was a very chewed on torso and scattered, cracked bones. Something had come into the store at some point, killed and then ate the poor clerk.

John staggered away, one hand in front of his mouth, trying to keep down his meager lunch from earlier. “What the fuck,” he exclaimed hunched over trying to get his breathing under control.

The others crowded around the end of the counter to get a look. A few moments later it was just me and Ashley staring at the remains. Mara hadn’t handled the sight much better than John, and Oliver was busy running comforting hands over both their backs as they tried to minimize the urge to throw up.

“We need to check that whatever did this isn’t still here,” I muttered to Ashley. She nodded and drew her pistol. I summoned a spear into my hands and strode toward the back of the store and the employees only sign.

Nothing moved in the front of the store except us. So I pushed open the door to the back room. I tried to go slowly until the door squeaked loud enough to wake the dead. With a groan I shoved the door open and jumped through the opening, Ashley flowing in behind me. Nothing jumped out to eat my face.

There were several pallets of mixed inventory, mostly beer, spread out across the floor. The room wasn’t large and the pallets made it feel smaller. On one side of the room sat the back of the coolers for someone to stock. We moved through the room, clearing everything. But there wasn’t much to it and we were done within a few minutes.

It was quickly apparent that there was nothing back there. With a nod we moved back into the front rooms and then cleared the bathrooms and mop closet. Nothing remained in the store from the fight aside from the chewed on body.

“Hey, we didn’t find anything in here, how about you guys go check around the outside to make sure it’s safe for the others to get out and pump gas. Ashley and I will try and figure out how to turn the gas on at the pump for everyone,” I offered.

Mara and John nodded thankfully. They headed outside and started making a circuit around the gas station while Oliver went over to the convoy to relay what was going on.

I turned to Ashley, “Any chance you know how to turn on the gas?”

She chuckled. “Nah, but it can’t be too hard to figure out. It’s not rocket surgery.”

“You mean rocket science?”

“I said what I said,” she smiled at me. I smiled back. God she was beautiful.

It really wasn’t hard to figure out. Within five minutes we’d gotten the pumps flowing. I opened the door and gave Oliver the thumbs up as John and Mara came around the far side. They gave him their own thumbs up. He turned to the convoy and gestured for everyone to hop out.

Glen and Junior pumped gas while Sheryl came inside to use the restroom. She carefully avoided looking at the bloodstain on the floor. I took a few minutes to fill my pockets with little snack cakes. I grabbed a few diet cokes as well while John snagged a few beers. It seemed that no one had been here since the beginning of the apocalypse or whatever we were calling it.

After a minute, I went out to talk to Dennis. Maybe the town could use some of the supplies in there. He agreed to take a look, but refused to meet my eyes as he stepped out of the truck. None of them had looked at me much since the fight with the bandits. I let him go in without me. Glen and Junior were finished pumping and I decided to pull the van up to get us filled up as well.

Mara, John, and I stood guard while Ashley and Oliver helped everyone pack up the convenience store and load up the trailer and some of Sheryl’s coolers. A half hour after showing up and we were once again on the road toward the depot.