Reluctant Necromancer

It barely took an hour to make it to the next town that we suspected to have been hit by the same group. Ashley held me and did her best to soothe the hurt that I was carrying around with me. I didn’t expect to find anything here either. The attack had happened longer ago and if it was the same group that meant they’d already moved on before we even heard about it.

There were no convenient hills to sit atop before we drove into town. Just a turn in the road and through the clearing of the trees there it was.

We drove the streets, eyes peeled for any kind of movement. Some dogs barked along the empty streets, but no window curtains twitched. No doors opened. No one walked around. Shops were shuttered or shattered. There had obviously been more looting here than in the previous town.

This town was as dead as the first. Maybe even more so if that made sense.

Fortunately there didn’t seem to have been any executions. At least none that we stumbled across. No bodies needed burying here.

We made our way through all the streets and then Oliver parked the van in front of a small park in the center of town next to a smaller schoolhouse. We all looked at each other for a few moments.

Finally Mara spoke up. “It doesn’t look like we’re going to find anything here either. Though we may need to think about bringing in some trackers or even some of Montgomery’s people. We’re just not built to do more than hit hard,” she shrugged her shoulders.

“Yeah, maybe we didn’t think this all the way through,” Ashley grimaced. “And we may have pushed Montgomery into letting us act more hastily instead of more carefully.”

“Ugh. Et tu Brute?” I groaned.

“Sorry, babe. But none of us are investigators or know the first thing about what we’re doing,” she answered.

“You used to go hunting. Can you track them?” I asked already dreading the answer.

“No. I was never the best tracker. I could maybe find something if it was in the last few hours, but both of these places have been abandoned for days or more.”

“What can we do?” I all but begged the group. None of them would meet my eyes. Ashley slung her arm over my shoulders and pulled me into her side. I went willingly enough, but I sat stiff in her arms.

This felt like a betrayal of those poor people who had fled from here. Of the people who had been left behind. It felt like I’d failed even though I’d done everything I knew I reasonably could.

“Can we check houses?” I asked.

“All of them?” Mara sounded a little exasperated.

“No. Maybe just a few at random?” I hedged. “We might find something we wouldn’t otherwise have noticed.”

“Three,” Mara offered.

“Five,” I countered.

“Three here and three in the last town on our way back.”

I groaned. A few extra houses here or there probably wouldn’t make that much of a difference. Three versus five when none of us knew what we’d be looking for anyway. “Ok,” I agreed.

Mara looked around and met everyone’s eyes. Some nodded, some looked away guiltily. When she was done she turned to Oliver and directed him to a neighborhood on the eastern side of town not too many streets away. “Here,” she signaled Oliver and he pulled to the curb.

We got out of the van into a small group kind of shuffling around. Mara once again took charge, “Alright, John you go first. Go through the front door into the first room and stop.” She turned her head to catch Jeremy’s eye, “Then you go in and stand between us and the rest of the house. Ashley goes next,” he head swiveled around our group finding each person. “Then me and Jenny. Grace you come in last. Oliver, you and Josh stay out here for now. We’ll call you with an all clear, then you can come in.”

Everyone nodded in agreement to her instructions and we formed up in a short line to the side of the door. I summoned my spear. Mara was really coming along as a leader and tactician. She was much more confident in leading our little ragtag group than she had been in the first few days. I was proud of her and how she’d grown.

The house in front of us was a simple two story, middle class looking house. I couldn’t tell you the difference between a ranch and a craftsman. It was a nice little house with red and tan brick on the bottom floor and white vinyl siding on the top. There were several large windows on the bottom floor, and a few small ones on the top one. The front door was a dark blue with a brass knocker.

John reached forward and put his metal coated hand on the doorknob. With a gentle twist it opened and we surged in as a group. Inside the door led to a small hallway. The first room off of it was a livingroom. John stepped into it and Jeremy stepped past and managed to take up the entirety of the rest of the hallway with his silver skinned presence.

The rest of us followed John into the livingroom. I stopped short just inside the doorway when I saw the room. It had been absolutely destroyed. Pillows and cushions had been slashed with their stuffing strewn across the room. Furniture was tipped over. Glass was smashed and ground into the carpet beneath our feet.

“Holy fuck,” Jenny muttered into the quiet. I couldn’t help but agree.

“Looks like this place has been ransacked,” John added angrily.

The destruction was wanton and pointless. What did the people really expect to find in couch cushions? Why were picture frames smashed and pictures torn on the floor? Nothing of value was still sitting around. No TV, computers, games, nothing but the destruction.

Numbly we did the same routine through the rest of the rooms downstairs. The kitchen had smashed dishes all across the tiles. The fridge hung open and empty, water pooling underneath it. The dining room had the chairs smashed to pieces and disgusting images carved into the table’s surface. The door to the backyard had been kicked in. It lay splintered, hanging crookedly against the wall.

I guess we knew where they’d come into the house from. Why the front door had been unlocked and easy to enter.

Upstairs the destruction did not end. Beds and dressers were flung onto their sides. Drawers hung out. Clothes, blankets, and more glass littered the floors. In the master bedroom someone had taken a shit in the middle of the room and just left it sitting on the carpet like some disgusting little calling card.

We didn’t find anything of value left in the house. After the livingroom I don’t think any of us expected to either. After clearing the house of threats we called in Oliver and Josh. Everyone went through the house with more intent, but no one found anything of interest other than the orgy of destruction we’d already witnessed.

We trooped outside and headed to a house on the southern part of town. Then another on the western edge of town. Each house was just as ransacked. Just as empty of anything worth taking. Not all of them were quite as destroyed with such abandon and obvious enjoyment as the first, but none of them were gone through gently.

It was nearing dinner time by the time we were finished in the little village. We ate a quick, silent dinner. Everyone was worked up by the utter lack of empathy or humanity that seemed to have been visited on these people’s lives. All for what? I didn’t even know. Stolen electronics? Small stores of food? Some random cash? It didn’t make a lot of sense. Why destroy an entire town; run so many people out of their homes for so little?

After dinner we piled into the van and headed back to the first town. The same search. The same destruction. The same strange hatred for their fellow people.

We returned to the hilltop as evening was setting in. Mara suggested we use the same campsite as the previous night and no one had another suggestion. So, Oliver pulled us off into the trees at the bottom of the hill away from the town. This time Ashley quickly set up everyone’s tents herself. There wasn’t time for her to babysit us all while we learned something we may not ever need again. Though considering the way things had been going, it was a skill I wanted to pick up if I could. I watched her intently as she set up the tents. This time not just because she was bent over with her tight little butt sticking out all over the place. I may have missed a step or two here or there. But between all three tents I’m sure I got the gist of things.

Once the watch had been set I followed Ashley into our tent and laid down. “Are you ok?” she asked me quietly.

“No. Not really,” I answered. She pulled me into her lap and began running her fingers through my hair. “I just can’t wrap my head around the kind of people that would do that to someone else. Whether they knew them or not, they were people. No one’s dignity was left intact. I honestly hope that those people never have to go home to find all of that,” I whispered into her neck.

“Me too sweetie. Me too.”