Saturday - Day 7 - 14 May 2021

  Making a water filtration system with Alchemy and Earth Magic sounds easy, but I assure you. It is anything but. What I wouldn’t give for a goddamn set of books on physics or even that ‘How-To’ series for dummy’s that’s in every book store. But my ignorant ass never had the brains to purchase that. All my survival books dealt with starting fires and basic shelters and skinning small game. Nothing in my pathetic library had a title of ‘How to Rebuild Society from the Ground Up’. Someday, I too shall have a brain.

  “Grant, you need pressure in the tank to have pressurized water.”

  “Thomas, I know you need pressure in the tank” I said with an overbearing mocking tone. “I don’t have a fucking air compressor. I have ‘Earth Magic’ and ‘Alchemy’, not ‘pressure magic’. I’m trying to work with what I got!”

  Elvis looked at etching in the stone plate where I used Earth Magic to create blue prints for plans.

  “Don’t you need a filter for the water too?” He asked, pointing at the water tower and the pipeline feeding into the house. “We’ve been boiling all the water that doesn’t come from the WaterBob and even that’s almost out.”

  My head hit the table as I struggled with the urge to not hurl my carefully crafted blueprints at the closest tree. I had spent the remainder of yesterday’s afternoon hours and most of the morning today crafting Alchemical versions of water filters, big ones that resembled barrels with layers of pebbles, ground up charcoal, sand, dirt. Each layer was separated by bug chitin that I had Alchemically altered into being circular mesh frames that were so small even finely ground dust wouldn’t fall through it. I poured dirty water into those barrels and only clean water came out. I had an actual success, something to be proud of, but no real way to implement it. I wanted fresh, clean water to come into the house so I could take a shower or fill a pot.

  The best part about Alchemy was that I could turn plain wood into activated charcoal which is useful for soaking up chemicals of any kind. I turned a base product into an end product. All ‘activated’ charcoal is charcoal that was ground up and heated to a very high temperature. For me, that’s five minutes of focus and applied mana. Easy day.

  I was most proud of one of the filter layers I’d invented on my own. I know that certain kinds of stone are porous, so I hunted around using Terrastria until I found one that allowed water to bead through it slowly. Sandstone. What made the idea brilliant was that I could use Earth Magic and Alchemy to fill in the pores found naturally in the sandstone and fill those in with even tinier bits of sand or activated charcoal.

  Then voila! Another layer of brilliance to get us closer to clean drinking water.

  But building a pressure system that works with my hill of a house? Not an easy day.

  “Damn it. Why couldn’t one of y’all have been a freaking plumber?!” I complained, staring at the two water barrel filters. “All I did with my life was try to be an important but technically useless paper pusher.”

  Thomas laughed at me while Elvis squinted at the blueprints. I kept staring at the filter barrels. They were overbuilt on purpose, standing at four feet tall and each layer of material being a foot deep or so. The outside frame of the barrels was a mix of wood with Alchemically altered bug chitin serving as the joining and bonding material. That stuff was heaven sent.

  “Maybe we’re looking at this wrong.”

  I glared at Thomas and shoved the slate closer to him. “Please, be my guest. I am open to ideas, dude.”

  “Don’t be an ass.” My brother grumbled right back. “All I’m saying is that if this ain’t working, then try something else. This ain’t suburbia anymore.”

  I rubbed at my temples. “No, you’re right. Sorry, just frustrated. We’re a bit too modern to be re-engineering this stuff.”

  “Too much schooling and not enough knowledge.” He said with a grunt. Thomas stood up and cracked his back, stretching until his hands touched the walls of the back fence. “Screw this man. I need to do something different. You beat your head against a wall, I’m going hunting or scavenging with Paul.”

  I sighed, realizing that my brother had a good point. I did not know enough to completely revamp technology with Alchemy. Knowing some basic stuff about physics did not a plumber make. “Go on Elvis, go with them and keep everyone safe. And if y’all pass the church, do not engage with them until I’m there. I’ve got a score to settle with those douches.”

  “No prob, boss.” Elvis stood up, already dressed for daring the wilds that now replaced sweet old Fredericksburg, Virginia. “I think Paul went south, wait, no, east. Towards the river but also towards the railroad.”

  I nodded. “Yup. That’s north and east together, northeast.” I pointed in the general direction. “Thattaway.”

  Watching Elvis trot away in his upgraded armor reminded me that I needed to get some gear put together for Thomas and maybe for Paul too. Wearing a helmet never killed nobody.

  The best thing I did yesterday though just before dark was use my Terrastria and install two large stone doors in the front and back of my house that is now a hill. Unfortunately, in reshaping the landscape, I basically destroyed my back porch and pulled the earth away from the tall stone walls where my fence used to be, which is why I was actually behind on my list of things to do. I had to fix all that early this morning before tackling the less important things, like a ready source of drinkable water.

  I glared at my schematics again.

  “Maybe I am thinking about this the wrong way. Why use engineering when I should be using magic?”

  Figuring there was no time like the present, I focused part of my attention on my mind-space and knocked on the door of Sandra’s connection. [Babe! What kinds of plants hold onto water? Like the desert ones with fat roots? Like the one from the movie ‘Holes’? Or is that the cactus with the leaves . . . I don’t remember but you know what I mean!]

  I felt the sigh more than I actually heard it. A slip of paper slid underneath the doorframe of my mental-room and I looked down. Laughing a bit, I touched it with a cautious poke and it unfolded into a book with pictures, names, and even helpful little descriptions.

  In bold letters at the top, my lovely wife had written: BRING ME PLANTS. I MAGIC PLANTS. PLANTS STORE WATER. WATER WE CAN DRINK.

  I think this was her revenge for me falling asleep on her last night. Laughing because she ain’t wrong, I flipped through a couple pages and she had oh so kindly laid out a few more useful plants to gather as well.

  START LOOKING NEAR CANAL PATH. THEN RIVER. FIND ANY/ALL PLANTS. BRING TO ME. ME CAN MAGIC NOW. MAGIC PLANTS. SEEDS WORK TOO. MAYBE BETTER. GO HUSBAND.

  In much smaller letters on the last page, her notes lost their joking intent. Sandra pointed out that I should look through the remains of Mildred’s home that was at the eastern end of the street. She was a nice old lady who had an obsession with plants and tea but didn’t actually like to spend time with people. Her idea of a good time was tending to her many, many plants, her chickens, and sipping tea on the front porch while ignoring everyone else who walked down the sidewalk. The only reason she even spoke to my wife is because Mildred had overheard us arguing a few months back about how Sandra was buying too many plants from Lowes. My complaint was that they were taking up all the room that I had set aside for the potatoes (the most holy of plants) and she wanted ‘variety’. As if potatoes are not the absolute King of variety.

  But my wife had made an excellent point. Start with Mildred’s house and work my way to the river. However, this information came at the wrong time. I was alone.

  “God fucking damn it. Who the fuck has shit-ass timing like this?!” I grumbled to myself, donning all of my gear to include a few more items. On my left arm, I had my new and improved shield. On my back, I had my trusty warhammer that had an ax head on one side with a hammer’s face on the other. On my belt, I had a long knife on my left hip and a small throwing ax on the right hip. In my right hand, I held a spear. This spear was a new addition to my arsenal, Alchemically upgraded to be heavier and denser than normal to be extra durable even though it was still the standard seven foot length.

  With Elvis and Thomas having a head start on me, I still took the time to make sure everything was properly strapped in. Nothing is worse than having your own weapons in their sheaths awkwardly smacking parts of you as you try and run. The only reason I had all of this on at the same time is because super strength made it easy.

  Now that I was ready to go and knew the general direction that Elvis and Thomas had gone in, I decided to go up the road that would make me pass the church first and then take the right past the graveyard to head towards the railroad. At this point, I mainly just wanted to toss a middle finger at Lannie for being a major dick. I knew that she was the one to turn the opinions of the healer team against us. She’s lucky Sandra didn’t have anything to say about it.

  It was getting harder and harder to keep those evil thoughts at bay. A serious part of me wanted to sick my wife on’em, just let her loose, bulldoze that pristine white building down to the ground. The daydream almost got me killed as I was passing the park and county tennis courts. Between my super strength empowered stride and my armor, I’m just lucky the damn cougar missed.

  Teeth the size of kitchen knives landed on the chainmail mesh hanging from the back of my helmet yanking my head up. The cougar’s second head clamped onto my shoulder pauldron, snarling as it raked its teeth further down my arm. Of course my shield and spear, the weapons I was actually carrying in my hands, were useless. The damn feline was inside my reach.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  Dropping both of my weapons as the cougar’s unexpected weight bore me down to one knee, I did my best to keep my back straight so I didn’t bend over forward. I didn’t need to expose any more of my side or back to its back feet that were trying to maul their way through the armor.

  My curses were cut short as I almost hyperventilated, feeling a stinky hot breath on my neck. By all accounts, my panicked flailing was the right move. Super strength translated into an over-powered grip. My left hand got an awkward grip on its skull and mouth, my thumb sliding into the back of its mouth past the teeth. I squeezed as hard as I could, digging my fingers into its skull and eye. I felt more than a few soft things pop and one of the heads went limp. The rest of the cougar’s body went crazy just as I managed to land a right elbow, flinging the beast off my back.

  Adrenaline coursed through and everything in me screamed to hurl myself at the cat before it could get away. I was wearing armor that was clearly up for the job. Common sense spoke up through the haze.

  “Pick up the spear, you idiot.” I muttered, leaning over to calmly but very quickly pick up my shield and spear. I approached, spearhead pointed directly at the tan demon snarling at the air and pawing at the flopping head. Horror coursed through me as a fresh new eyeball rolled back into its devastated socket. Bone popped back into place.

  “Shit!” Fresh adrenaline drove me forward. Blood spurted as the two-headed demon howled, my spear pinning it through its lungs into the ground. Caution demanded overkill so I kept my distance, instead drawing on Terrastria to shoot spears of earth upward to finish the job.

  “You are the ugliest shish kebab I’ve ever seen.” I spat, yanking my spear out. I stepped forward to clean my spearblade off on its pelt when the left head yowled and tried to bite me again.

  I hopped back, cursing a blue streak. “What kind of devil thing are you?”

  My earth spears held the beast off the ground so it couldn’t get any purchase to haul itself off the stone. Since the beast couldn’t actually get to me, I gave my surroundings a good look. I wasn’t far from the church or far from the spot where the wild animals tore the women apart and this was the same kind of beast, just with two heads and a lot more attitude. Come to think of it, it was definitely bigger than the other ones.

  Other than howling its agony at me, I didn’t really see or hear anything else that would be a threat so I shut it up with a spear to the brain. I pulled out my big warhammer and proceeded to sever the two heads with the ax-blade side. Once they were free, I buried them ten feet down and ten feet apart from each other with a flex of will. Not taking a chance that this thing would regenerate, I buried its body twenty feet underground making sure that it was still impaled by my rock spears.

  “Well this is uncomfortable.” My shield sat on my back and I carried my big warhammer in my right hand on my shoulder and my spear in my left. Hallelujah for super strength.

  “No, no. Don’t be stupid.” I said, admonishing myself. “Comfort gets you killed. Caution keeps you alive.”

  Having two big weapons out like this is useless to me. Super strength or not, I don’t have the leverage to swing them both independently so that they’d be useful. I was better off using two hands to hold a two handed weapon. Griping at the fact that I’d be losing time, I cleaned off the warhammer’s ax blade in the grass and strapped it to my back.

  Once fully prepared, shield in one hand with spear in the other, I set back off down the road. Even though the beautiful weather did its level best to lull me into a sense of complacency, the adrenaline churning through my veins kept me wide awake and focused like a laser.

  First Christian church was at the top of a hill. Part of me expected the building to be dingy and run down courtesy of the mana-rain melting everything made of synthetic material but the other part of me wasn’t surprised. The red brick building looked like it had just been powerwashed and the white columns and finish in the front and on the top looked freshly painted. Even the grass looked freshly mowed, like this two acre plot of land hadn’t been touched by the apocalypse.

  I kept to the other side of the street as I took a right on Washington avenue. A minute of powerwalking seemed to fly by until it hit me what I was about to pass. My chest seized up for a second. I looked back. I had passed the church but I was about to walk next to the cemetery.

  Paranoia tickled at the hairs on my neck as I kept walking albeit at a slower pace. Well, I couldn’t tell if it was paranoia or common sense but the something about a big ass graveyard and a magic apocalypse was sending the pucker factor up to a hundred. Nothing like adding zombies to the mix to add to the already shitty situation.

  Odd singing sounds grew louder as I kept up my steady pace down the road. The breeze muffled the choir’s ringing endorsement. I heard ‘Amazing Grace’ come to an end and then they went straight into “It Is Well With My Soul’. Reaching the top of the hill and looking down, I saw thirty people along with their preacher and attack dog at the fore. They were standing inside the iron gated fence that served as the boundary for the cemetery. Even weirder, I saw Elvis and Thomas leaning up against the fence just watching.

  “PSSSST! Hey!” I whisper-shouted, picking up my pace to catch up. “YO, what’s going on?”

  I turned around to make sure nothing jumped out at us as they stared. “Where the hell is Paul?”

  My questions went unanswered but who could blame them? I certainly couldn’t really look away from the scene in front of us. In complete contrast to the Bible thumpers singing their hearts out stood a horde of undead at least four times their number. The swaying corpses slowly stumbled towards the choir but the weirdest thing happened as they did. The closer they got, the slower they moved.

  Two men and one lady I didn’t recognize stood in front of the rest of their group wielding pure blue and white flames shaped like swords. Their moves were mechanical, efficient. The undead didn’t stand a chance. They didn’t even moan or groan or mutter ‘brains’. Holy fire sliced right through them, reducing the decomposing bodies into a pile of rotten meat that went up in flames.

  The musical massacre didn’t take long, just another slow hymn and the graveyard fell as silent as, well, a graveyard.

  “MIKE!” My shout cut through the reverential peace like a harmonica strapped to an airhorn. “HEY! YOU!”

  My former neighbor whirled around, his weapons at the ready. I didn’t see his wife or any of the healer ladies here but I still wanted to have words with them.

  Mansfield and Earl walked over to us at a quick clip, reassuring their flock with meaningless platitudes. Earl put his hand on Mike’s shoulder, pushing him gently back towards the choir.

  “My friends.” Pastor Mansfield started, his visage even younger than the last time I’d seen him. “It’s good to see you both again, and you’ve brought someone new!”

  He stepped up to the gate to reach over and shake Thomas’ hand but I stepped forward to establish a hint of boundaries.

  “Pleasantries can come later.” I growled. “We have business first. Specifically, with Mike and his wife.”

  The preacher looked more and more like a mega-church pastor as time went on and less like a small-time country preacher. His suits looked better, maybe due to losing the weight and his smile . . . well it was too white. Too magnetic. It wasn’t normal.

  “Surely there’s a better time and place than here.” He said, holding his Bible in one hand while he gestured around with the other. “My flock has just soothed this disturbed place and they have no part in this.”

  “Your ‘flock’,” I said, grinding my teeth, “Went back on a damn deal. I don’t work for free. Now, on account of Earl helping me out a few days ago with some advice, I’m going to give some leeway, but this ain’t right.” I nodded at him. “And you know it. But I didn’t make the deal with you. Where are Boris and Lannie?”

  Earl walked up, one hand tapping on his holster. “I thought we left on better terms than this, son.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “No, no. You and I did. Me and him,” I nodded in Mike’s direction, “and him”, nodding at Mansfield, “because of Boris negotiating on his behalf, these terms are unsettled. I craft Alchemically enhanced armor and future repairs as needed and I get free healing for me and my team. And then the healers up and left.”

  Pastor Mansfield’s fingers drummed on his thick Bible as his brow creased. “I don’t see the problem here, the services of our healers are still available to you. You know that.”

  “We’re not doing this lawyer bullshit.” I said, fighting to keep the growl out of my voice. “Mike was on my team wearing armor and using weapons I’d made for him and now he’s gone. Isabella was on my team and she was our healer and now she’s gone. She brought Denise and Rochelle to my house and now they’re gone too. For all intents and purposes, the location and convenience of the healers is part of the deal.”

  Earl nodded slightly. “Maybe, but you didn’t say that, did you?”

  I looked him straight in the eye. “Believe me. You don’t want to do it this way. You do not want to lawyer your way out of the spirit of the deal and stick to the letter.” I raised my voice to make sure Mike could hear me. “I know that my wife is the primary maker of food around here and y’all have a lot of people to feed. I’m betting Holy Fire and healing are great until people run out of potatoes. And onions. And the rest of all the kind of food y’all can’t produce. The stuff we were so generously providing for goodwill seems to have not been appreciated.”

  Mike blanched. Stepping forward, he opened his mouth but I cut him off.

  “I’m guessing more than eighty mouths to feed,” I mused, resting my warhammer against my foot. “So you’ll run out of food in two days or so. I’m betting y’all didn’t save any meat from the monster rush from yesterday and only a few of your church group have any skill at hunting.” My eyes grew hard. “Gentlemen, we can play this game if you want . . .”

  Elvis, who was being me towering over all of us like a bodyguard, chuckled. “I can always talk to Granny Wick. She has a way with words, or pans.”

  The color in Mansfield’s face fled. Earl coughed a bit and I saw his hand surreptitiously leave his holster.

  “I’m sure we can come to a better arrangement,” Mike said pointedly, glaring at Mansfield.

  Thomas leaned forward. “Bro, you got them by the balls!”

  “Shut up!” I said, my frustration warring with the laughter I was trying to stifle. “Huh, maybe you weren’t aware of the details or the circumstances, Mansfield. But I’m taking this seriously. Healing is valuable and I’m not going to give up on this. I also know food and armor and weapons are also highly valuable. This was a fair deal and your people decided to screw with it.”

  Elvis nodded sagely. “Being in charge means when your people fuck up, it’s your fault.”

  Earl scratched at his new beard. “I don’t like this.”

  “I don’t care what you like.” I snapped. “This isn’t about you. It’s about my team, my community. We don’t have healing, you guys do. We made a damn trade. What if my wife gets hurt? If she dies because she gets injured in this madness and we don’t have a healer on hand because your people reneged on a deal? What then? Huh?”

  “You’ve made your point.” Mike said, sighing in defeat. “The girls were scared when the ground shook. They said they thought the house was going to fall down on top of them. They didn’t know what was going on, they just heard a huge explosion and thought they were going to die. That’s why they left.”

  “Lemme guess,” I said. “Lannie was the one pushing them to go. And Boris let his wife walk all over him?”

  He shrugged. “I can’t force anyone to stay.”

  “You CAN give me back all the armor I’ve made you and all the weapons too.” I retorted.

  “What do you want me to say, man? The church is safe. Monsters can’t go near it. There’s a bunch of us with magical fire and stuff.” Mike sighed again and I almost smacked him. “My wife is just more comfortable over there. We can build onto the church and make a new home because someone demolished my old home.”

  I rolled my eyes and made sure to speak very slowly and clearly. “Giant mutant spiders and giant mutant lizards wrecked your home first. I cleaned them out. You are WELCOME.”

  “You know what, screw this and screw you, asshole.” I muttered, turning around and marching down the street. “I’m going to have a word with Granny Wick. Elvis, Thomas, come on.”

  “WAIT! WAIT! Don’t do that!”