Chapter 108 - A Real Strength

  Now that we had tacit approval from the avians, we were able to cut directly past the old airport where they lived, rather than going all the way south around it. That would shave a good hour off our trip, so it was worth doing. We slipped out through the airport gate and continued on our way, using White Street toward the mall. The road would let us out on Route 2 just a short distance from our final destination.

  It was glaringly obvious when we hit the limit of the zombies’ advance, and equally obvious it wasn’t going to take them seventy-two more hours to reach the airfield. The edge of their destruction was less than a quarter mile from the avians’ home, which explained why they were so interested in helping us defeat them. The zombies would be at their doorstep tonight, and might even attack the Guard base at the same time. They had the numbers. Best case scenario, Turner’s people had until tomorrow evening before they’d be wiped from the map.

  The zombies didn’t leave much behind unturned. House after house was wrecked during their advance. I figured they had to be under orders to clear each building they passed, ensuring there were no humans still hiding inside. They’d been thorough about it, tearing doors from hinges, shattering windows, even ripping a garage door entire off the garage, leaving it broken in the driveway.

  A tattered, bloody stuffed panda in the middle of the street made me look away. Nobody was being spared this horror, not even kids.

  “Hey, Selena?” Kara said. “I still have those crystals the ratkin gave us, back when we offered to help them. Twelve clear crystals.”

  She held them out to me and I identified them quickly—interestingly, it was exactly two of each. I wondered if that was luck, or if one of the ratkin had a high enough Intellect to identify stones… Then I remembered that I still had a whole pile of untouched stones myself, most of them slated for Kara.

  “I’ve got a bunch, too. Stuff from the rats, and some from the undead we killed in the graveyard, too,” I told her. “I used some, but I figured you could use a bunch of these.”

  I handed her the five Darkness stones, six NightVision, six Phantom Step, and seven Shadow Walk crystals that I’d gained from the cemetery. That brought her Shadow Walk to tier four and Phantom Step to tier three. That was the easy part—just the stones I’d already sorted through from the cemetery.

  After that, I had to dig into the huge sack full I’d gotten from the ants. I hadn’t had time to so much as sort the damned things, and there were a lot of them. We had five more Natural Armor stones, each one tier two, which was enough coupled with my extra tier two to get Kara to tier five in that power.

  “Awesome. I can take hits now, for sure,” Kara said. “I can’t believe I’m finally tier five, and it’s in something that we’ve only ever seen one power for. What’s with these grey stones, anyway? Is Natural Armor the only one?”

  “Only one I’ve seen so far,” I replied. “I doubt it’s the only one, though. My guess is that grey is for crystals that give passive powers, like the brown ones give passive skills. We’ll just have to look around and see what else drops them. I’m sure something will.”

  She was still grumbling about not being able to fill the slot right away, but I could tell she was excited to hit tier five. I understood. It was a big deal, almost like a right of passage, post-Event. Once you were tier five you could sense what other folks’ power levels were, which was sort of the new version of being a ‘grownup,’ I supposed.

  “Still got all of this to go through,” I said, shaking the bag.

  The ants had also dropped another thirty green crystals. Since neither of us had green sockets right now, we set those aside for later. Mostly, they were the same spells we’d already seen, although I spotted a neat new one that had to be rare—Animate Tree! There were two of those, and that was crazy cool. I wondered what my life would have been like if I’d been out in the woods when things went to hell, instead of in anatomy class.

  That still left eighty-seven clear stones. They were a mix, with eleven Strength, seventeen Agility, sixteen Stamina, fifteen Intellect, fourteen Will, and fourteen Charisma. Most of them were tier one stones, with a few tier twos scattered among them. It seemed like the higher ranked ants were more apt to drop grey or green, not clear.

  Eight of those Agility stones cranked Kara right up to tier five Agility, opening another space. Since we had exactly sixteen Stamina stones, I pointed out she could run that up to tier five instantly—so she did. That opened another slot, of course. Kara opted for Strength and loaded up eight of those stones, giving her tier four there.

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  “Holy shit, I feel amazing!” Kara said, flexing her arm for me. She grinned. “This is awesome!”

  “Big boosts always feel great,” I said. I fitted together the two Stamina stones from the ratkin and added them to the other Stamina stones I had, bumping me up to tier seven there. I knew exactly what Kara was talking about. The flow of power was intoxicating as my Stamina tiered up. I felt like I could run six marathons back to back, and for all I knew, maybe I could.

  She handed me eight of the Charisma stones as well, allowing me to rank that stat up to tier six. I was an even match for Turner now, although I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. My connection with Sue and Hope felt much stronger now than it had been before, though. We’d theorized that maybe Charisma could impact control-type spells, but this was the first clear evidence I had to support the idea.

  I passed that tidbit along to Kara, who seemed excited about the prospect. “It just makes sense. Intellect made your attack spells stronger, right?”

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  “I’m not shocked Charisma makes control spells stronger, then. I wonder if maybe Will improves resistance type powers?”

  “Could be that, or maybe Stamina. Wish we’d tested your Natural Armor before you ranked up your Stamina!”

  “Oof, yeah, that might have been smart. Time is always gonna be a factor, though, and we don’t have that much of it,” Kara replied.

  She was right. We were closing on Route 2 already. Another few minutes and the mall would be in sight. I packed up the rest of the clear crystals from the ants and ratkin and handed the pouch to Kara. “Use them, swap them, whatever works.”

  “You sure? You earned these while I was sleeping off my fall.”

  “Positive,” I told her. “Think about it. If you’d had tier five Agility before, maybe you could have jumped from Sue’s back and avoided falling. Or with Natural Armor and Stamina, you might not have broken your leg. It’s just smart to arm you up as well as we can before we go in there.”

  “Thanks,” she told me, accepting the bundle.

  I was fine with it. I’d already gotten a pile of crystals from last night, and now we were literally going up against a horde of zombies. There’d be hundreds of them waiting for us, maybe a thousand or more. Since black crystals were sort of my thing, I figured a solid chunk of the loot was probably coming my way. That meant I’d be able to rank up a lot of spells.

  Helping Kara grow was just common sense. If she died, I lost my closest friend and ally in this nutty world.

  Then we hit Route 2 and turned onto it, pushing ahead toward the turn-off onto Dorset Street, where the mall waited. I could already see it, hulking in the distance like a stone monster. Most of the buildings around here had been places of business, but few of them still stood. In this area the undead had been even more thorough in their destruction, actually burning many of the structures to the ground.

  It was about three in the afternoon, according to my watch. We passed the old Barnes & Noble, still standing tall. I didn’t know if the undead hadn’t been able to torch it or if they hadn’t bothered for some reason, but unlike most of the other buildings nearby, it was mostly untouched. The glass windows all around the ground floor were shattered, leaving the interior open to the elements, but the structure was still in one piece.

  That was actually good to know, because information still had value, and we might end up having to relearn a lot of shit in the months ahead. I didn’t know how to dig a well, or build a castle, or plant fields of crops. All of those things and more were about to be a lot more important for survival. I made a mental note to swing back through there and check it out when we had some downtime, assuming we ever did, anyway!

  “Want to go grab a book?” Kara asked, seeing my stare.

  I chuckled. “Not today, but maybe next time. There’s a lot we need to know if we’re going to keep things together. But not today.”

  “No. Today, we kill a whole shit ton of zombies.”

  I glanced down at our troops. My undead were fine, of course. They didn’t get tired. But the humans, avians, and ratkin had all been walking for over an hour, and the last thing I wanted was to rush in there and attack when we were anything besides at our peak. I called a halt on Dorset Street just outside the Barnes & Noble. We were basically across the street from the mall.

  “What’s up?” Alfred asked, as I flew down from Sue’s back.

  “Figure everyone could use a breather before we go rushing in,” I said.

  “Smart. I’ll pass the word to my people.”

  I gave him a nod and passed the word to Patches as well, who got his fellows under some shade and resting. Then I spoke with Rawk, who seemed to get the idea. The avians flew up to rest atop the bookstore.

  Farnsworth came over to me then. “Doing okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. Not going to be an easy fight.”

  “I know.” He clearly had something he wanted to say, and I wished he would get around to it.

  “Brought something for you. You mentioned the ants ate your shield. I thought you could use a new one,” Farnsworth said. He pulled a round aluminum shield from his backpack, handing it over.

  It looked exactly like the one I’d lost, which was awesome. “Thanks. This will help a lot. And I really appreciate you coming with us. I know you risked a lot by doing this.”

  It was his turn to chuckle. “Yeah, I suppose. You were right. Turner was wrong. If we followed his plan, we might have been able to take out the avians, but we’d never have had the forces to win this fight right after, and then the base would fall. Hell, if we’d attacked the avians we wouldn’t have some of their people here with us, fighting alongside us! I’d never have expected that. Turner, either. We both saw them as alien foes to be defeated. Only you thought to make them into allies. The ratkin as well.”

  “Someone else would have tried sooner or later.”

  “Maybe,” Farnsworth said. “But you actually did it. It’s a good thing, Selena. You have a real strength when it comes to making unusual allies. Keep it going.”

  Then he stepped away, leaving me to my thoughts. I drank some water, glancing around at the disparate groups I’d brought together, thinking about what Farnsworth said. I’d brought all these beings together, and he was right—that alone was a major victory.

  Now I just had to win the battle, as well.