On Novem, depending on how fringe you like your news media, you’ll probably have heard about something called Molly Grindwall’s Socio-Economic plan, also known as the Grindhouse theory.

As for who Molly Grindwall is, or was, I don’t know and therefore, it doesn’t really matter. This particular conspiracy theory, pretty much states that it’s all on purpose. What’s all on purpose? The wars, the crime, the gangs, the bloodsport, and the monster raids.

Everything. According to the Grindhouse theory it’s all on purpose. As to why that would be the case, the idea is that, revenants, human undead, us, we’re not dying enough. Death is an integral part of life and integral part of society, because civilization is just communal response to life.

Whether its necessary changes in culture and policy, or simple resource and space allocation. Death is a part of the mechanism, out with the old, in with the new.

That sort of thing.

The thing is, the average person, will live for a minimum of two hundred or three hundred years. Their lifespan naturally extending itself, as their levels goes up each five years.

While sickness can lay us low, it can’t kill us, and while starvation can make us weak, we still march. What’s worse is that we still reproduce just like we used to do, before undeath was a thing.

Thus the worry that we might end up stagnating, running out of food, living space, jobs, etc… starts to come up. A law mandating self-termination or exile, would end in uprising and revolt.

We know that because history says we already tried. And that’s where the Grindhouse theory comes in. A theory that the constant strife that plagues the daily lives of your average Novemite, is on purpose.

A double whammy that preserves the power of certain shadowy groups and individuals while lessening population pressure.

A not-so-subtle way to thin our numbers, and make us die by violent means. I don’t believe it of course, that’s giving, them, whoever ‘they’ are, too much credit.

I suspect that if they really had their shit in order we wouldn’t have had a zombie plague to begin with.

Besides, the theory presupposes a civilization that has it together enough to make up such a scheme, but can’t think up anything better than slowly setting itself on fire. In my mind that’s illogical or even absurd so I reject it.

I reject the grindhouse theory, even though I know full well that universe is made up of a vast number of illogical and absurd things. (Oh, well, at least I get to sleep better this way.)

I know for a fact that while the average human might be much stronger than they think they are, humanity as a whole is fairly weak and fragile.

I know this because I’ve witnessed it for myself and once spent a little over a decade having this lovingly whispered to me by a friendly man with either no eyes at all or too many to count.

Naturally, the Hunter Association is part of the theory as well. Listed as one of the main ways the nations get rid of extraneous persons, because of its lax entry requirements.

With the Hunter Association accepting everyone, regardless of age, or health. But again the theory is crock, like I’ve already decided. Thus I can only assume that today’s experiences are just bad luck.

*****

“Hey...kid, stop peeking so much. I can assure you without even looking, those things are still out there. If you give away where we are....” said I.

The girl glared at me, but it quickly faded to a look of tense anxiousness. With a sigh she closed the door, of the closet that we were hiding in.

In my mind’s eye, I could see what was happening on the other side of the door. I watched a thin creatures in tattered clothing ambled up and down the hallway.

Moving on all fours with certain fluid grace, like the great apes of the jungle. Their hide thick and leathery, their eyes flickering with undead flame.

These creatures were ghouls. Ghouls were to your average severed, what wolves were to dogs. Bigger, smarter, stronger and much harder to handle.

Individually a ghoul wasn’t anything to make me sweat, but there were hundreds of the things. Possibly thousands. Each of them just tough enough that trying to fight them all at once could get me killed.

As to how I’ve found myself in this little situation, I do believe I’ve already explained that. Bad luck. It was bad luck, for me to end up in this little party of amateurs.

It was bad luck that my party of amateurs was assigned to cooperate with yet another, bigger party made up of mostly amateurs.

This new group was made up of hopeful, youngster. Heroes-to-be. The kind whose parents could at least afford proper gear and a mentor hunter before sending their overly optimistic progeny into the waiting maw of destiny. Because college educations were no longer the guarantee of success that they’d used to be.

I won’t blame the rest of what happened on luck. The fact that I’m here, is due to my own incredible bad judgement in believing that it’d be safe to stay with the group, because I could ‘handle’ myself. (Good one, Corny.)

As for the fact that no one had known that this big-time so-and-so whose body we’d been sent to find last known location was in the middle of a huge Ghoul nest. Well that, that was just cooperate hijinks.

I’m sure it was all just a big mistake and not because, they’d needed volunteers and weren’t willing to pay for the price increase that comes with sending out higher ranked requests. But I’m pretty sure if I survive this I’m going to be filing a complaint.

*****

We waited and hid, half a day’s time, then when I could sense the sun going down, I made my move. Stepping outside the closet while cautiously sweeping the area with my extra sensory perceptive abilities.

“H-..hey?! Where are you going?” said the girl.

“For a walk?”

“Are you stupid? They’ll kill you!” said the girl.

I couldn’t help shrugging.

“Not necessarily. Besides it’s not like we can stay in that closet forever. Plus I don’t about you, but that closet only has one bucket, and ‘I’ kind of have to go to the bathroom.” I said. Leaving her with those words as I walked off.

She frowned, biting her bottom lip as she weighed the odds in her head. Then with a nod she reluctantly followed me. Trailing behind me as I wandered through the dark halls of what might have once been a cinema.

I’m not crazy and I didn’t suddenly get brave. It was just that I knew from old Corny’s memories and my own wanderings through the wastes that ghouls were nocturnal.

And Though night was the time that the creatures were the most active, it was also the time where they were the most spread out. Wandering around in search of prey instead of sleeping in mass.

Meaning that this was the best time to try and sneak out, because I was less likely to run into and then almost immediately awaken, a pack of them.

Once I was under the open air, it’d be easier to get away. Like so easy, I was sorely tempted to blow out a wall and just immediately hoof it. The only reason I didn’t try it, was that my senses were telling me, that something troublesome would pop out if I directly damaged this building like that.

Thus the girl and I tried to make our way down to the ground floor, sneaking about and darting into whatever hiding spaces we could find, whenever something foul smelling and raspy came by.

If your wondering why it was only the two us, the answer to that is also quite simple. The old guy, Dalton, who’d been serving as the third member of our three man party ran off with the young all-stars. Likely sucking-up in hopes of getting a job as support-staff or something.

Which I guess could respect, since being support staff was decent, steady work and was significantly less demanding and dangerous than traditional being a hunter if you had a good employer.

We would have been fine if he hadn’t come running back when everything on their end inevitably went terribly wrong. Yelling for us to save him, while a line of ravenous ghouls nipped at his heels.

We got chased but got away. He got chased and got caught and the guy’s screams drew more ghouls to our location. (Way to not take it on the chin, Dalton. So much for team spirit.)

*****

We made it to this old ruin, which just so happened to where ghouls’ nest was, which is just a mind-boggling level of bad luck on our end. Fortunately it seemed like we were just about to escape.

*Boom*

There was a crash and a rumble like thunder, the whole building shook, hell the whole city shook. This had nothing to do with us, from what my senses could pick up, it was just two powerhouse, two high leveled individuals, fighting in the distance. They were nowhere near us but the shockwaves that came from their combat was effecting us all the way out here.

It was like being on the outer edges of a massive hurricane. Sure there were no clouds over ‘our’ heads but we were getting “wind and rain” all the same.

*Bang*

“....Fuck.”

“What?” said girl. Turning to me as she saw me stop.

“Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

First there was just the sounds of distant battle and the chirrup of evening cicadas and crickets. Then it started.

A cry that was cross between, a wolf’s howl, a banshee’s cry and a train whistle.

High and shrill and grating and loud. Getting even louder as more crys joined it. Growing louder still as all those cries began to move in our direction. Heading towards the first cryer.

“That.”

She didn’t answer. She just paled, growing still in a way that made me think that she might have shut down for a little bit. I chaffed her cheek a little to bring her back from wherever she went and the first thing she said was,

“What now?”

I didn’t really have a good answer but I did have ‘a’ answer. I swung my fist and a wall came crumbling down.(No point trying to be tactful, since the troublesome one is already awake.)

I took the girl’s hand, swung her up into my arms, because I didn’t want her slowing me down, and then I started running.

*****

Naturally if you run from wolves(ghouls), one can expect to be chased by wolves(ghouls). I ran for quite a distance and the buggers stayed on my tail. Being chased by a few ghouls was one thing, being chased by the thing that ran behind them was another.

It came up like freight chain, mowing its tiny peers and turning them into paste. It was a moving charnel pit, a wretched amalgam of bodies that would occasional spew out a small oil covered blob that would grow to full size and almost immediately join the chase.

This creature was a ghoul mother. It, she, scuttled through the alleys and freeways of the wasteland city like the world’s biggest cockroach. She leaped from rooftop to rooftop like the world’s biggest flea.

She was as persistent as an unwanted lover, and resistant to brute force and cutting damage, which was pretty much all I had in my wheelhouse.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t just let her keep chasing me. With her dozens of misshapen limbs she was actually quite fast. Troubling as it was to admit it, it wasn’t impossible that she might catch me. So I threw the girl I was carrying up into the air, and found a nice, decent sized skyscraper to hurl at my uncouth pursuer.