Daylight found us on the road North. We didn’t stop at the strip mall we passed by. The “Sunrise Mall” hung invitingly in large letters in the large sign. We passed by the Target, Walmart, and Best Buy. The windows of every store were shattered, the manikins laying in the broken glass as if they’d tried to break free. I shivered at the thought. Anything was possible, right? The plastic figures never moved, however, their clothes-less bodies were proof of the looting that had already happened.

Andy was on my left, the tiger on my right, while our other party members followed at the rear of our civilian group. It was painfully slow-going with the children in tow. Whenever moving as a caravan in the army, the safest thing to do was one of two options. First, a small group of people could move slowly and carefully, from one location to another, avoiding detection. Second, any size group could move quickly from one location to another. It was this rapid transfer that reduced the likelihood of an ambush occurring. We were not that kind of group. We moved slowly, down the wide open interstate. I could feel the itch between my shoulders.

“Andy?” I asked the man at my side.

“Yeah?”

“Something feel off to you?”

“Yeah.”

“Like a fly buzzing?”

“Yeah.”

“Good talk,” I muttered. I knew if he had anything to add, he would have said something, but his monosyllabic responses could be annoying at times.

Our options were limited, and I trusted the senses of the tiger. Her ears were up, and her head was on a swivel, but she wasn’t looking in any particular direction. Simply moving her head from side to side, just like when we were hunting. I doubted we would catch anything, what with our loud tromping steps and the unbroken undertone of muttering children and shushing mothers. There was nothing for it, but to keep moving forward, though I had one eye on our furry companion to see if she spotted anything before us.

She did. Her ears perked up, swiveling forward. Her eyes focused ahead of us, and a low growling came from her throat. All of a sudden, the growling ceased, and she looked back up at me. We, naturally stopped moving. If the party member with the keenest senses catches a whiff of danger, it’s best to take things carefully.

“What is it?” I asked, cocking my head to the side.

She cocked her head back at me, then looked ahead. She chuffed, but began her lazy stride forward. I lifted my hand, signaling we could move forward. There was clearly no immediate danger, but the tiger could sense something ahead.

After another half a mile, I picked up on it too. Gunshots.

“Something up ahead,” I spoke quietly to Andy. “I can hear gunshots.”

“I can’t hear anything.”

“It’s very faint. Three miles.”

“I’ll update the others,” Andy said.

***

We made it another two miles before we stopped for lunch. The Chase Bank was too tempting an option, and perfectly placed. The second story of the building was the last tall building before an empty stretch of open road.

“You’re not staying,” Carter said to me, after I wolfed down my food. It wasn’t a question.

“Scouting trip,” I said. “I’ll be back in under an hour. Should be plenty of time for everyone to rest. Then, we can get a good sense of what’s ahead on the road.” Even now, we could hear the intermittent crack of a rifle, the sound much closer now. I estimated it at less than a mile away.

“We’ll hold down the fort here,” she said.

“Hey,” Chavez said when I stood to my feet. “Don’t do anything stupid, yeah?”

I chuckled. “No worries, I’m leaving the stupid here with you.”

“That just ain’t nice.”

I nodded to Bragg and Andy on my way out, my silent companion in tow.

We didn’t get back on the freeway. It would have been faster, but it was too conspicuous, and the road was elevated to the point you could pick out travelers from half a mile away. Since we were about half a mile from where the shooting was happening, that was a good argument not to take the freeway. Our path moved with the land, rather than cutting through it, even as we loped down hills, over fences, and through the silent yards of a sleepy suburban neighborhood. In less than five minutes, we’d made it within a hundred yards of where the shooting was happening. At this distance, I could tell the weapons being fired were high caliber rifles, rather than handguns. The shooting was aimed away from us, for the moment, and the people shooting were stationed on the overpass. We crept forward, moving from house to house until we encountered a bustle of activity.

People. Hundreds of people were scurrying back and forth from house to house on the street. Most paid no attention to the regular sound of rifle fire that cracked through the otherwise silent afternoon. Anytime a series of shots came close together, some of the people stopped to look up at the overpass under which they milled.

Cars cluttered the area between houses, ending any thoughts I had of sneaking into the encampment. Not that it would have mattered. Someone might not think much of a human survivor, but my companion would have drawn stares.

I pulled back from the row of houses, leaving a block between myself and the makeshift compound. I kept an eye on the overpass, but no one was looking back into the town around us, their attention focused on the . While I wasn’t confident I hadn’t been spotted, I was confident no alarm had been raised. At least no one was shooting at us.

In no time, we stood in the shadow of the underpass. Cars were turned on their sides, stuffed into the large gap, exactly like they’d done to fill the gaps in the buildings. The roof and windows had been removed or crushed, leaving no room for a person to fill the gap.

Five men stood on makeshift platforms, mostly built from the tops of those same cars, and they occasionally prodded long poles down at something on the other side of the wall.

Another dozen were sitting in small groups, some talking, some napping, and some playing cards. I scanned the area around them carefully. Not a single one carried a firearm, which I thought was odd, but they each had a number of plastic and wooden poles. From this distance, I couldn’t tell if there was anything special about them, but I decided to risk it.

I stepped out from the cover behind the house and into the open, the tiger at my side. I made it several steps into the open, and still none of them had seen me.

“Hey!” I shouted over, finally grabbing their attention. Even some on the “platform” turned around to look at me.

“Who the fuck a’ you!?” The one who called back spoke with a thick Long Island accent.

“Who cares who he is,” another one said. “That’s a fuckin’ tiger.”

Every one of them were on their feet, and I was impressed by their physiques. I guessed this world gave preferential treatment to anyone who was in better shape – survival of the fittest and all that – and the more energy a person absorbed, the stronger and more fit they would become. I’d already seen that in our own group. Chavez, the shortest in our group, had even grown an inch or two since he started absorbing mana from the cores of monsters. I wasn’t sure how that worked, but if matter can be converted to energy, I suppose it can go the other way too. Magic is cool.

That’s when I noticed that none of the men had cores. Mana swirled in their bodies, certainly, but it wasn’t focused enough to create a dense core.

“I’m another survivor. This is my companion.”

“Looks like fresh meat!” the first one said. “That thing could feed twenty people!”

The men on the ground were all on their feet by that point, their long poles held in their hands and advancing slowly toward us.

“Yeah,” I said slowly, “that’s not going to happen.”

“It’s eight against two here,” the leader – I guessed that’s who the first man was – said.

“Yeah, but you have sticks,” I said lazily. “I mean, the points aren’t even sharp.”

“Let’s show this prick what our sticks can do, boss.” It was the second man again.

“I’m not here to fight,” I said, taking a step back from the advancing group.

The tiger matched my retreat, but I could sense the tension in its stance next to me. It was ready to jump into the fight at a moment’s notice.

“We don’t want to fight you neither,” the leader said. “We got a lot of people to feed, and you got a nice little feast right there.”

“I say we kill the tiger, and throw him to the zombies,” the second one volunteered.

“I like the look of his sword though,” a third chimed in.

“And he got a gun,” a fourth said. “Looks brand new.”

“Zombies?” I asked. “Is that what you’re guarding against? And what the shooting is all about?”

“Where have you been hiding, man?” the second man spoke again. “You been under some kinda rock?”

“Something like that,” I said.

“Welcome to the real world,” the leader said. “Everything’s gone to shit, and it’s every man for himself out here.”

“Look, if you want to attack me, I’ll just go. I don’t think you could exactly catch a tiger, even if you wanted to, so there’s no way you’ll actually get anything here. On the other hand, I could probably help you.”

The leader considered for a moment before speaking. “We got more people than we need, but if you bring something, then maybe we can let you in.”

“I am – or was – a Lieutenant in the Army.”

“A military man!” he chuckled. “And an officer at that. Well, your highness” – he sketched a bow as he said it – “why don’t you just come on in and take over?”

“Tempting, but why do I get the feeling that you are lying?”

“Because I am. You can’t just claim to be in the Army and show up here, expecting handouts. You gotta work for it.”

“That makes sense. What did you have in mind?”

“I tell you what.” As he spoke, he put his spear up, holding it in one hand and the butt of his spear resting against the ground. “We’ll give you a little audition.” He gestured at the line of cars behind him. “You go out there and kill a few, say, five zombies. You do that, and I’ll personally take you to the boss and recommend we let you into our merry band. How does that sound?”

“Kill five zombies?” I asked. I bit my lower lip as I said it, trying to indicate that I was worried about the difficulty. Of course, I wasn’t worried. Five zombies would be no issue at all. Even if this was supposed to be an impossible task, the man clearly had no idea of what power looked like in this “new world”, as he put it.

“Ten, and we won’t try to eat the tiger.”

I looked down at my companion, who still watched the group warily. She hand’t attacked, but the hackles were up on the back of her neck. Was I missing something? Was there a danger here that I didn’t understand?

“Can I look at the zombies first?” I asked. I tapped my fingers against the holstered gun at my side.

“Sorry, can’t trust you that much.” The Long Island leader had a wicked grin on his face. “You want in, you gotta pony up. Drop yer gun. You can use your sword for the audition.” There was a round of snickering.

“Okay,” I said, shedding my feigned nerves. I unholstered my sidearm and placed it carefully on the pavement at my feet. “Let’s do this.”

I walked forward, the tiger at my side, and the group led us through. At that moment, I could have killed them all. Even if they’d tried to surprise us, I could see the mana in the bodies of these men. They were naturally absorbing the mana from the world around us, but it was weak compared to my own mana. I knew, without a doubt, that if I decided to carve my way through these men, it would be easy. They didn’t even have a real weapon among them, simply put here to keep zombies from climbing over their barrier.

I took the platform next to a couple of the pole-wielders. The platform was tall enough to look down on the zombies outside the barrier. They were the vanilla zombies. Slow and stupid.

“Ten of them?” I asked, just to be sure.

“That’s not too much, is it?” The leader asked behind me. “We could always eat your cat.”

“No, that’s fine.” I said. “I kind of like my cat.”

There were five zombies right there. It wasn’t like they were milling around. When one was pushed down, they simply shambled to their feet and walked aimlessly around.

I vaulted the barrier. My feet had to clear a good four feet in height, which I did easily. I ran across the top of the cars, pulling the sword from its sheath on my back and jumped over the group of zombies pressed against the vehicles. As I sailed over them, their dead eyes tracked me, accompanied by a dangerous hunger.

“This is where the fun begins,” I said when I landed. The tiger chuffed next to me as she landed as well.