Reluctant Necromancer

I woke up the next morning with Ashley wrapped up around me as the big spoon. She had managed to squish her sleeping bag right against mine and even had part of it over my sleeping bag as her leg curled over my hip. It was pretty much the standard way I woke up nowadays aside from the sleeping bag. It was also quickly becoming the best way to wake up and my favorite few minutes of every day.

I laid still with a small smile pulling up my lips until I felt her stir against my back. She squeezed me tightly, trying to drag me just a little closer. Like that was possible. I patted the back of her hand that was wrapped wound my stomach. “Time to get up, my little koala bear.”

“Ugh…five more minutes, babe.” She nuzzled her nose into my neck and I tried not to giggle as her breath tickled my skin.

I rolled over in her arms to face her. Before I could say anything she leaned forward and pressed her lips on mine. It was a soft, slow kiss. At first. It very quickly deepened and then became heated. I pulled away, both of us panting. “Ok. F-five more minutes.” I dove back into our kiss.

My arms were somewhat restricted by the sleeping bag. I started pushing it down, and then kicking it off when it got to my waist. My hand slid up the column of her neck until I was cupping her jaw.

Ashley was much less restrained. The hand underneath me wrapped around until her hand was clenched around my ass. The other she started slipping up my night shirt toward my breast. Her fingers stopped right as she reached the bottom curve of my breast.

A small moan echoed through the tent and I wasn’t sure if it was hers or mine. She bit my lip before sucking it into her mouth and I whimpered.

Suddenly our tent front was being smacked heavily. Mara called out loudly, “You two better not be fucking in there. We got things to do today, ladies.”

We broke apart. Both of us panting. I felt my face heating up. Ashley just smirked at me. She leaned forward and pecked a kiss onto the tip of my nose, “Guess my five minutes are up.” She rolled away and pulled herself from her sleeping bag.

I flopped over onto my back and let out a huge sigh, “Be there in a minute, Mara.”

There was laughter from outside the tent from several people. My face burned even more knowing I’d have to face all of them in a few minutes.

I crawled out of the tent a few minutes later fully clothed and ready to go right behind Ashley. She looked completely unrepentant in her smile at Mara and the rest. I tried my best to hide my blush when Mara smiled knowingly at me. Best friends are the worst.

We all took a few minutes to watch Ashley break down all of the tents. She decided it would be faster if she broke them down while we all put them away. Which I thought was fair. It was also hot watching her strut around all ‘in charge’ and stuff.

As we broke camp everyone discussed last night’s watches. Mara and Jenny had taken the final watch and Mara was summarizing the night as it had been passed down to her. “So, the lights that Grace and Ashley first noticed stayed on throughout the entire night and into the morning. My guess is they’re still on because they were left on when everyone evacuated. No other lights came on and no one saw anyone walking around. I’m not sure what we’re going to find down there today, but I don’t think it’ll be people,” she finished.

I wanted to stay positive and optimistic, but the news kind of dumped the wind from my sails. Part of me had suspected something like this was what had happened, but another part wanted so hard to believe that someone was down there for me to save.

We loaded into the van and then Oliver drove us down into the town. It was small. Smaller than even Whitcomb. From the hilltop I think we’d seen like two whole traffic lights in the entire town last night. There were no big chain stores or restaurants. Not even a Starbucks. We drove down the hill at a slow speed while everyone kept their eyes open for any kind of movement.

We drove around the perimeter streets first and slowly made our way inward. It was small enough that even going through every street at the slow pace of like thirty miles an hour it only took us twenty minutes before we made it to the tiny courthouse in the center of town. No sign of any movement anywhere. No blinds flicked open or closed. Nothing moved on the streets aside from the occasional squirrel and some strays.

There in front of the courthouse was where we saw the first signs of people. But these people were well out of our reach to help. Lined up in front of the courthouse were a dozen bodies bloating in the sun. A flock of vultures hopped around the bodies, unafraid of us as we pulled up.

They’d been dead for several days at least. We could already smell them from inside the van. The others seemed hesitant, so I was the first to step out of the van when Oliver put it in park facing the grizzly scene.

They were all face down. They’d all been shot in the back of the head. There were restraints tied around their wrists. I stood there and stared. We’d been fighting monsters for the last three weeks. Real, horrifying monsters out to hurt me and everyone I loved. But sometimes the biggest monsters were other people.

Before anyone else could gather their courage or whatever to step out of the van, I jumped back in. “Take us back to that general goods store we passed a few blocks over. We need to get some shovels. Those people deserve more than…that,” I gestured out the window.

Oliver nodded his head and put the van in reverse. Ashley pulled me into her lap and cradled me while I shook in her arms.

When we pulled up to the general goods store we parked at the curb and all piled out. John unlocked the door by punching his metal coated hand through the glass at the top of the door and unlocking the knob.

Inside with a little digging around we found a handful of shovels. Jenny also found a box of those dust cover masks for construction work or whatever. I smiled at her as we all trooped back to the van.

Jenny handed out the masks for everyone when we pulled back up in front of the courthouse. It didn’t keep the smell out, but it took the sharp edge off. I breathed through my mouth and tried not to taste the smell as much as possible. It still occasionally caught me in the back of the throat and I’d have to step away for a moment. We all did.

It took us almost an hour, but by the end of it we had a decent sized shallow mass grave dug in the courthouse lawn. John and Jeremy pulled the bodies over and rolled them into the grave. The rest of us filled it back in. We worked in silence through the entire ordeal.

“I want to kill them,” I muttered to Ashley as we all piled back into the van. I heard Mara and Oliver making plans to check some of the houses and businesses a little more closely, but ignored it. Ashley stroked my back as I slumped forward, my elbows on my knees, head in my hands.

“I know, sweetie. And I will be right there with you to help you do it,” Ashley whispered in my ear. She bumped my thigh with her knee. “Don’t try going off all lone ranger on me, ok?”

“Promise,” I told her. I sat up and leaned into her comforting touch. The next hour we went to random houses and searched around for anyone hiding in town. Many of the houses were unlocked. People had left in a hurry after all. We didn’t find anything or anyone else.

Ashley even spoke to some of the critters running around, but none of them had seen anyone around for a few days. They didn’t understand anything about what happened, people were as foreign to them as they were to most of us. They just knew that one day there was a bunch of people, then everyone left.

We trooped back to the van. From here we decided to check out the town that the refugees that had made it to Whitcomb had come from. They had a similar story after all. Maybe we’d find more evidence of what was going on there.