The wind was howling outside the small compartment, the dust in the air whipping back and forth, forming tendrils that licked at the sides of the vehicle like motes of flame.

As the air washed over and rose off the ground, it twisted into little spirals, tiny tornadoes that danced and flickered in a display far more beautiful than anything that could be delivered by the human form.

Goodie did not see any of it, however. Still clutching Diane’s arm, he stared at the shadows ahead of him.

As negative as he was about his abilities or lack thereof, there was one thing he knew he was better at than most others…noticing things. Not people and certainly not emotions. Things. Especially oddities.

And right now, he saw something odd within those shadows. They were moving as what little light that was able to make it past the cloud cover was constantly being altered by the shifting winds. But one had moved differently.

Some would say that there was no pattern to what was happening outside, that it was random and unpredictable, but he would have said that that was the pattern.

If he were to describe what he saw, it was that everything outside felt like a curve…but that shadow, that brief second of movement that he saw had felt straight.

The billowing curtain of dust in front of him made seeing anything a task as it constantly shifted, its currents dipping and diving in chaotic swirls, but he stared at those shadows as if his life depended on it. And something told him it did. Every part of his body was reacting. His spine tingled as the hairs on the back of neck rose, that familiar acidic feeling rose in his veins as stress born not from worry, but fear flooded his mind, he could even feel his heartbeat beginning to increase in speed.

Diane worked her way free from his grasp, not a monumental task considering his lack of strength.

“What’s out there?” He asked.

“I don’t know.”

Diane sat back on the seat beside him.

It was another oddity that she did not doubt that he had seen anything, or at least did not give voice to her doubts. If he was still on earth, people would have dismissed him simply because he existed.

They sat there for what felt like an eternity as they stared out, looking for whatever he had seen.

As the seconds passed, doubt started entering his mind. He knew he had seen something, but he just could not avoid succumbing to self-doubt, too many years of being a loser had left its mark on him, his instincts having been conditioned by those around him to assume that he was wrong, even when he was right.

The veil lifted once more.

And there was nothing there.

Goodie sat back, literally having been on the edge of his seat.

He felt like a fool, his insecurities already having a field day as they on what would be another exhibit in his hall of every reason why he was an idiot.

“What the fuck?!” Diane yelled.

“What?” he asked her as he sat up.

He looked at her, her face struck with horror.

She had seen something he had missed.

“What?” he asked

She said something, her voice barely a whisper.

“The baby!” she yelled.

His head shot round to where she was staring, his eyes darting everywhere as he tried to see everything at once.

The clouds?!

No!

Baby?

The waggon!

The baby in the waggon ahead of them!

He had been too busy looking for what might have been there, that he had completely missed what was already there.

The woman who had been clutching her children to her bosom.

The older of the children had been knocked aside

And the baby…the baby was gone.

But that was not important…not what he considered important.

The woman’s face!

It had been chewed on!

Goodie’s hands clenched into fists so hard, that if he were stronger, he would have surely drawn blood.

An animal could not have done what had been done to the woman. Even in a magical world, life still needed to breathe and that was something the dust storm made impossible.

If it was not alive, then it was dead.

Dead but not a zombie.

The zombies of this world did not follow the Hollywood cliché. Headshots did not kill them, their bites would not turn you into one of them, and they did not eat brains, or flesh, or anything, the existed by draining spiritual energies. They only ever attacked the living and when they bit someone, they did it to kill, not consume.

So what the hell did it?

Within the dust, another shadow. It moved away from the waggon ahead, a humanoid figure climbed down from the front of the waggon. The dirt in the air too thick to make out anything more, they watched and waited.

Seconds later, a gap formed, just long enough for them to catch a glimpse of decayed flesh.

“It’s a zombie. Fuck.” Diane turned to him, “You know not to go for the head, right? And I can’t summon anything outside, with all that dust and shit floating about.” She sighed, “Fuck.”

After a moment she continued.

“Fuck.”

“It shouldn’t be able to get in here, though, right?” he asked her.

“That’s not the problem, they drain spiritual energy, it’s why we don’t give XP from them. That aura or whatever it is extends a few feet from them. We’d probably be able to avoid it if we go upstairs, but we’ll still have to deal with it once the air clears up and my bugs don’t do well with them. They can usually get in a couple of hits before they have to go back, but if there’s more than one out there, we might be stuck here even longer.”

Diane looked around. Goodie assumed she was looking for signs of more of the dead or for some way to deal with them.

“Listen, that snake of yours, is it the only summon you have, or is there some way you could use it to deal with that thing?

He just shook his head.

“Fuck!” she rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands. “Fuck! Well, whatever.”

Diane slumped back into the small, leather-covered bench seat she had been sitting on.

Goodie turned back to look at the figure.

The dust in the air had formed ribbons of various browns that danced in the wind, fluttering back and forth. For a brief moment, another gap formed, too quick for him to see anything more, but long enough for the thing in front of them to have seen them, apparently, as it turned towards the vehicle.

It began moving towards them.

It was not the end of the world, he had dealt with zombies before, though never directly. And as long as it still had its head, it would be just as stupid as any other zombie he had seen.

As the thing came closer, its form became clearer. Feminine. A break in the winds revealed the departed woman’s chest, decayed and leaking a blackish ichor, but overall, it looked dry, dehydrated. As if it was a walking piece of jerky.

It was not a zombie. At least not a kind that Goodie had ever heard of.

Though the ones he had seen had always been down in the dark and dank sewers, so perhaps this one had dried out from all the heat and the dusty air?

Goodie’s thoughts returned to the mother in the waggon, more specifically, her face. Why would it have done that to her face? The undead only attacked the living. Had one of them still been alive?

He knew that in the real world, people did not just die. Real death took time. Seconds, minutes, hours. Time to bleed out, time to slip into a coma, time to rot.

The dust had hit them, that much he had seen, but maybe it had only been enough to render them unconscious, choking them of the air that they needed to remain awake, but not enough that they suffocated?

The winds parted and Goodie saw that the thing had had its face savaged, missing its lips, its nose’ and its eye. Horrific. But not as horrifying as what it held.

Dangling from its leg, was the baby. Its body swaying in the howling winds.

Something was wrong…zombies did not do that!

As the undead’s leg revealed itself as it parted the stream dust, Goodie summoned liquid shadow stuff where its foot would have landed.

The thing stopped.

Goodie saw its head lower towards the ground where his puddle should have been.

It felt as if something cold and sharp had pierced through his guts.

The dust-obscured his view of its lower body, but from the way its torso had moved, Goodie knew that it had slowly and deliberately pulled its leg back.

It was intelligent!

Goodie was almost hyperventilating as fear began to seize him. His heart threatening to burst from his chest, his skin feeling as if it had shrunk, constraining him as if it was two sizes too small.

After lowering its foot, it raised its head, its hollow eye sockets stared right at him. He felt his body freeze like a deer caught in oncoming headlights.

Its body shifted, its intent to move around the small obstacle more than clear.

Goodie panicked.

He summoned as much shadow stuff as he could on the ground in front of it, fully draining him of his mana and forming an inch-deep pool of liquid that curved around the thing in a three-metre arc.

But that black rainbow was only a metre wide at its thickest, a space even he could have jumped.

Wait, could that thing jump?

Of course, it could!

He knew it could!

And it would! And then there would be nothing between him and it.

He should have used his tar-form shadow stuff!

No! No, it would not have done anything!

Even if did step in it, that thing would have had the power to easily pull itself free…or its flesh would have come loose. Either way, it would still have able to get to him.

Whatever that thing was, it was powerful. He did not know how he knew, but it was.

His mana was drained, and even if it was not, what could he do?

Nothing. He could do nothing.

Diane?

She could not summon her bugs outside because of the dust, but she could summon that smaller, golden one inside; but once that thing smashed its way through the windshield, the dust would pour in and choke them all.

He could have blocked the hole, but he had spent all his mana on that stupid moat. Why had he done that?

Her Majesty? Could she do anything?

No.

The dead did not get drunk.

There was nothing he could do.

He had nothing left.

No plans.

No tricks.

This was it.

Diane could get drunk.

The thought cut across his mind like a knife. It was wrong, so wrong…but it was also true. He could have Her Majesty bite the woman and make a run for it.

But where would he run to? The dust out there would choke him just as easily as it had done everything else.

No, there was nothing.

The two of them sat there in silence.

Watching the thing, as it watched them.

Goodie could feel tears rolling down his face.

He did not want to die, not like this, not when he had done nothing with his life.

Something slapped against the window.

The sudden shock of that sound causing Goodie to piss himself, he was so scared.

He could not see what it was. Not the thing in front of them, it was still standing behind the shadow moat.

The sound of more slaps filled the small cabin.

Water. Drops of water. Falling on the windshield.

His eyes darted back to the undead.

The thing was looking up into the sky, a second later it turned back to face them.

After the longest moment, it turned again, this time its whole body, towards the woods, one of the few…that had been one the few remaining forests in the land. Now, choked as it had been for days, it was unlikely to survive.

It walked off into the distance, its form soon lost the dust.

They sat there in silence. Neither of them daring to move.

Eventually, it grew to be too much for him; he summoned shadow stuff in the form of a bag and vomited.

Diane began screaming.

And he began crying.

They both sat there.

Him, crying, Diane, screaming.

And the rain poured down.