Successor of Kukulkan

Chapter 28

[Laura POV]

The sun set, and Laura wanted to collapse into bed. Every day of this was probably the worst day of her life. People expected her to know things, and all she knew was that whatever had created all this was the worst. 

“Penelope. Please stay in your house.” Laura commanded as she walked past the firehouse that’d become a makeshift nursing home. “You can’t see well in the dark, and it’s almost night.”

“But you still need dinner, honey!” Insisted the kindly old woman. “I know you haven’t eaten much, and I made sure to set some of the eggs aside for you. You’ll get too skinny if you just pace and work all day!”

Laura sighed and rubbed her forehead before nodding and walking into the open garage of the firehouse. The engine had refused to start, and it’d taken five men working together to push the worthless lump of metal out of the garage and into the road. That anyone at all had been able to move it was a blessing, and Laura thanked her lucky stars that they’d been able to get the additional enclosed space by moving it. Jeff and Ricky insisted they could get the thing running again, and Laura let them fiddle away at the unresponsive beast. 

The fires were roaring and the space, set up with a half dozen folding tables from the church down the road, was functional, if not cozy. Laura nodded to a half dozen people that greeted her as she walked in, and with their enthusiastic greetings and barely retained questions, she regretted her first words upon arrival more than ever.

“My name is Laura McDougal, and I’m the current mayor of Kingman. Let’s work together and see if we can’t get out of this alive.”

She’d been one of the unluckier current residents of Pine, as she’d been teleported nearly half a mile away from the town center. The most unfortunate had had to hike all the way from the furthest edge of the girls’ camp, braving assaults from all sorts of mythical beasts each step of the way. At this point, they were fairly certain there wouldn’t be anyone else turning up, but the hunting parties they sent out continued to

“Nobody told me otherwise. Then, they don’t tell me much.” Penelope giggled as she reached up and patted Laura’s shoulder. “Have a good night. Make sure to get some rest.”

“Of course. See you in the morning.” Laura bid the older woman good night before finding a couple people to escort her the hundred yards or so to the “hunters’ lodge”. The chill air blew through her business clothes, but appearances were important, and Laura remained in her work best as they made the trek. Nobody had ever seen any enemies in the bounds of the town, but that didn’t mean that anyone was willing to take the chance. If tonight was the night that the little goblin things appeared, Laura refused to be caught out in the open all alone. Thus, a little convoy of five people made their way to the little antique store with an adjoined home. Laura had thought that they should leave people’s homes as untouched as possible, but, again, the hunters were a valuable part of the community, and people who weren’t here didn’t matter as much as those who were.

Zig and her people had dragged whatever antique furniture and wood carved accouterments struck their fancy into the home. When they opened the door, Zig and Charlie were draped over each other on a Victorian style loveseat, huddled under a thick quilt. It wouldn’t have been the first time for Laura to have stumbled in on two (or more) of the hunters indulging in the pleasures of sex, but this time, it was a mere companionable cuddle. Or post coitus. Frankly, Laura didn’t care. She’d been young and hormonal once, and it was the end of the world, who’d care if they wanted to bang all over the house. 

The twenty-something with bright red hair turned and drew an ethereal bow with supernatural speed, her breasts exposed. Laura cursed her mind as she mentally filed away the hunters’ state as “post-sex”. The animal side of her brain flinched and nearly screamed in fear, but Zig quickly realized who was at the door and let her bow disappear into glowing motes of light. Then, she seemed to understand why they were there and hung her head as she looked for a shirt to pull on.

“Shit, Laura. My bad. We… we should have come see you. Nothing worth eating today, again. And… we lost Hannah.”

That explained why they’d gotten distracted. Soldiers these kids weren’t, and Hannah wasn’t the first of the hunters to have died in the past days. Charlie stood and shrugged on his own shirt, one stained with blood, dirt, and who knew what else. Laura fought to keep her gorge from rising.

“I’m so sorry. How’s Seth doing?”

“Bad.” Charlie responded. “He’d promised to protect her this morning. Then… a pukwudgie got her in the eye with a spear. It was too quick to do anything.”

Laura sighed, again cursing her mind for calculating the slight excess in rations that the 19 year old’s death provided. “I’m so sorry. Have you all eaten?”

Zig swiped the tears from her eyes as she nodded. “Yeah. We had food here. Had a little wake for her.” Her breath caught in a strangled sob as she continued, “Haven’t even known her long enough to tell all the good stories.”

Their situation resettled over Laura. Nobody in this whole town knew another before they’d appeared here. Some came from as far as eastern California or western New Mexico, but nobody’d had time to truly get to know anyone else. “Do you want to talk about your day any more than that? Any news for the rest of us?”

They glanced at each other and Charlie shrugged. “There’s more and more of them out there by the day,” Zig answered, “doesn’t seem like us killing them does a whole lot. The System says that it will, long term, though. That’s all we can really trust for now. We got one Tracker Occupation, that was Nat. System told her it was because of how she was following the tracks, but the rest of us are doing the same, so who knows. We found some elk tracks, but too late in the day to follow out. It was on our way back that we were ambushed. Seth figures it's his fault, cause his Perception is the highest. Freak accident is all, though.”

“Again, I’m sorry. If there’s something we can do to help, let us know. We realize that you’re all the most valuable asset we have at this time, and want to ensure that you feel our support and appreciation at every step. Let us know if there’s anything else we can do.”

“We’ll keep you posted.” Zig answered. “If there’s nothing else, it’ll be safer for you to travel before the sun’s all the way down. We still don’t know if they’ll gank us sometime.”

“Alright. We’ll see you in the morning, make sure you get your ration allowance for the day.” Laura bid the grieving kids in the house as she let herself out of the house. Jeff, who’d tagged along, rubbed the back of his head as they walked out of the fenced front yard.

“Feels pretty shitty that we’re letting a bunch of kids fight for us while we stay safe in town. I don’t think I can convince myself to keep working on this truck when a kid just outta high school just died for me today.”

Laura fought to figure out what to say in response to that. How could they possibly keep morale up like this? Which was, of course, the moment that the pagan snake god decided to appear with a suffering, heavily bleeding man in its mouth.

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