POV: Jimmy Fletcher.

  The morning was cold and damp and foggy. The morning mist clinging obnoxiously to the earth, despite it being the middle of July.

  I looked out the window of the now run-down mansion and groaned. Realizing that I couldn’t see two feet in front of me to save my life.

  Once, that fact alone would have sent me running for the basement bunker beneath the overly decorated flooring. Once, the thought of zombies and runaway mutants would have sent chills down my spine. Once, that fear would have paralyzed me.

  Once.

  ‘But not anymore.’ I pondered. ‘It’s almost funny. Now that I think about it. It’s almost as if I’m more afraid for the sake of the zombies than I am for me or Ben.’

  I shivered and drew the thick comforter closer to myself.

  Once upon a time, it had been a cozy, fresh smelling thing we found in one of the house’s many closets. Now, it reeked of dried up sweat and body-odor. Proof that it hadn’t been washed properly in months.

  ‘Not that there’s anything I could have done about it.’

  Running water was a distant dream in the new world. So that was out.

  We did try to rotate which clothes we left outside when it rained, but the smells never quite left the sheets when we brought them back in. Not only that, we’d also found that certain bugs made their homes inside the few covers we left outside and getting them out was an even bigger pain.

  Me and Ben had ended up burning them outside. All while crying about missing soap of all things.

  Then we decided to keep the stuff we had beneath the house.

  Smelly and stinky as the linens were, having to endure the smells was much, much better than freezing to death when the temperatures dropped.

  The ash clouds were still very much a thing in the summer months and the weather could bring down sudden chills whenever the skies felt like it.

  I supposed we could have taken the sheets and the rest of our clothes to the nearest river or creek or whatever, but that prospect wasn’t a fun one.

  Before mom brought the sword, it would have involved trekking over miles upon miles of broken cars and abandoned towns. Meaning we’d be hiking while at the mercy of zombies and super-mutants and wild dogs and whatever else the world decided to vomit in our direction.

  After mom brought the sword…

  Well….

  It probably would have been safe, but that would have meant trusting the crazy hunk of junk for any length of time and that wasn’t something I was willing to try.

  ‘Mom can say that it’s safe until the sky turns bloody red again. It won’t change the fact that the damn thing turned the sky blood red in the first place!’

  I clenched my fists, but knew better than to act out.

  The sword and the insane freaking spirit thing inside it were both insane, but they were the only thing keeping the zombie hordes and the super-mutants away. Pissing either of them off would not lead to anything good.

  ‘And according to mom, the guy who made them is even more insane. And he can mind-control people all around the world without any of them being able to fight back.’

  I stopped for a second to bring my hands up to my face. Breathing into them while making my way back down to where Ben was sleeping.

  ‘And he can give people powers.’ I recalled. ‘The crazy guy can give people powers. Even without them having the crazy superpower video-game menu thingy in front of them. He can give people superpowers.’

  And that crazy guy would be able to come out of the Tutorial place and enter any human world out there as much as he wanted in three months. Give or take.

  I shivered again. Stopping mid-step while going down the stairs.

  ‘Well, at least we’ll have mom back with us again. For good this time. Three months…’

  It didn’t sound like a long time when I said it inside my head. Summer vacation had always been two months and it always went by in a blur.

  The school years had been much, much more than three months, and now I could barely remember any one day or any one week out of the last year we went to school.

  Besides, mom had left us the magic ring filled with food and stuff. And there was enough food and water in there to last us that much. Plus, she’s be back in just one month to bring us more stuff and all her world-travelling friends knew to watch out for us and leave us stuff if they came across us.

  It wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t as if she was gone forever.

  But it still hurt.

  ‘Fuck the System.’ I thought bitterly. ‘Fuck it and everyone who helped make it. Why couldn’t it have taken us along? Yeah, it sounded awful, but we’d have mom with us and we’d have gotten powers alongside her. We could have made it work. It isn’t as if things are that much easier and safer over here on our end. We could have made it work.’

  Mom had even said that the crazy guy had gotten his powers before he was taken. Back when he was six. If he was crazy strong back then, we could have been even stronger and better if the System took us. We weren’t crazy after all.

  Or maybe that was it. We couldn’t be taken into the Maze because we weren’t crazy. Maybe you had to be crazy to get inside.

  ‘That would explain mom’s ranting.’ I thought further.

  Then I sighed.

  ‘The only thing we can do is keep holding out here until mom finishes that real-life Tutorial superhero video-game world thingy.’ I dreaded. ‘We can figure out the rest then.’

  I briefly wondered what it would be like to have powers. To be able to do the things that mom did. Like teleporting and shooting fireballs and thunderbolts. To be able to fly.

  I snorted.

  Thinking about what all my friends would say if they saw me flying overhead. Setting zombies on fire and saving their lives.

  In the comics, the heroes always kept their identities secret because the bad guys would target their families if they knew who they were. But that seemed stupid now. The zombies didn’t care who you were if you weren’t infected. Same with the dogs. Neither the ones who had the infection nor the ones who were just wild and hungry would give two shits about who you were.

  As for my friends…

  Well.

  They’re probably all either dead or zombified. So, they wouldn’t be thinking anything at all.

  Ben was still huddled up on the bed when I made my way to the lower parts of the bunker. His hands were gripping the smelly sheets tightly. Until he looked more like some webbed-up caterpillar than a human. Even then, he was shivering.

  “Hey Ben.” I said when I came closer.

  “Mhmhm. Five more minutes.”

  I sighed.

  “Ben, wake up already. You’re not 9 anymore. You’re 10. And you need to start acting like an adult and have breakfast with me.”

  “Shut up Jimmy. You asshole.” He cursed while covering his face with the blankets. “Acting like a big shot when you’re fucking 12 now after your birthday. Who the fuck is going to care if I have breakfast five minutes from now or five hours from now? Get lost and leave me alone. Asshole. Asshole. Stinky asshole.”

  “Hey! I smell better than you! At least I try to wash up!”

  “Sound like a great way to get pneumonia and black death. Go right ahead.”

  “You can’t get black death from the cold you shitheel! You get it from rats!”

  “Then I better get away from you or I’ll get the black death!”

  I smacked him.

  He cursed me out some more.

  I pulled on his blankets. Hard.

  He kicked me.

  I punched him.

  And just like that, I was on top of him. Hitting and hitting and hitting while he kept kicking and…

  “AH! You bitch! Did you just bite me!”

  “Yeah I did! You taste like ASS! I must have bit your face!”

  ‘Children! Children! Stop it!’

  A voice called inside our minds.

  I stopped. Ben stopped too. Our eyes going over to where the sword was.

  ‘That’s better! Honestly! You children are both young and cute and precious human beings! How could you stoop so low as to start fighting amongst yourselves as if you were some…. Some…’

  The spirit inside the sword sounded as if he were spitting.

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  ‘Gnomes.’

  “I wish there were gnomes around.” The hilt started talking. After the metal shifted and melted into a form of semi-liquid steel. Resembling lips.

  “I miss skewering gnomes so, so, so much. Oh I miss them so much. I remember feeling the glee when the little gnomes bled all over me. Oh I remember the trickle trickle trickle of sweet sweet sweet red when it ran down the steel. Ooooh. I remember it all so well. Children. Sweet little children. Why don’t we go out and hunt some gnomes?”

  ‘There are no gnomes here.’ The spirit argues. ‘We were commanded to defend the children. And that is what we must do. Now the dead and the unbelievers… they are all over the place. So let’s go outside little children. Let us be heroes and bring the light of my master to all who suffer in this world.’

  The spirit’s voice quieted down for a second. As if his unreal lips were taking in a gulp of air.

  ‘LET US BATHE THIS FILTHY WORLD IN SOLOMON’S CLEANSING FIRE!’

  “AAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!”

  “AAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!”

  We both ran up the stairs. Leaving the thick blankets and the ring behind.

  We stayed upstairs. Shivering.

  Then the air began to get warmer and warmer. The morning mist vanishing outside as if some great big giant had come over and started blowing out all over the place.

  ‘Children.’ The spirit cooed.

  “Chiiiiildreeeenn.” The sword spoke through the hilt.

  ‘This really is no way to behave. We are both here to help you and to keep you safe and to…’

  “Expunge the faithless from the face of creation.”

  ‘Yes, that too. But that is no reason to run away from us. Honestly. You two have been behaving like this for so, so long that I’m starting to think neither of you trust us?’

  I didn’t say anything. Neither did Ben.

  ‘Children… you know I can read your minds, right?’

  I didn’t say anything. Neither did Ben.

  ‘That’s okay. I’ll just remind you! Here, let me send the screen to your minds again.’

  “Right. Uh. Thank you.” I managed to say after a few minutes. “I really. Uh…”

  “We really appreciate everything you’ve done for us.” Ben finished for me.

  “But mom told us to stay put right here and wait until she came back. I… I…”

  “I don’t think going outside and killing some zombies is a good idea.”

  ‘Children! Children. Come now. All the zombies are dead and burned.’ The spirit paused. ‘At least all the ones in a 500-kilometer radius. Your mother and I took care to burn away all the infidels we could find. But there will always be more. We must all be heroes if we want to live up to the example his high holiness left for us.’

  I didn’t say anything. Neither did Ben.

  ‘Okay. I know! I’ll just use Slasher and create a field of [Unstable Reality]! I may not be able to create a stable portal to your mother, but I can create a link between this place and the Lakeside Estate! I’ll be able to bring in all sorts of friends to keep your spirits up and do all kinds of justice on this side of the world! I mean, (Gnome). If the master has degraded his side of reality enough, you might even be able to see glimpses of him!’

  “Yeeeeeeesssssss!” The sword hissed. “I want to see master again. I want it. I want him! I want my daddy!”

  The sword did its weird magic thing again and the world started to bleed.

  I could feel the energy choking me. Pressing down on me like the hand of a titan coming down from above.

  Ben started wheezing in my arms.

  I hugged him more tightly.

  Then, the skies began to turn purple, as the green fields outside began turning a bloody red. Crying out at once for blood. For vengeance. For death to the dead.

  ‘Oh! Look at this! My master HAS weakened the veil on his side! What a treat!’

  “Daddy! I want to see daddy again!”

  The world had a wound now. A window that opened up in the middle of the air.

  Beyond it, was hell.

  A street that ran red and black with dried or drying blood. Rivers of it running in all directions.

  On the edges, posts stood tall. With wooden boards at shoulder height where many, many little people had been nailed with their hands spread out.

  None of them had teeth in their mouths. Or eyes in their skulls.

  And in the middle of that street, four figures were singing while covered in blood. Two ghouls, one four-armed horned woman, and a super-buff bodybuilder with three eyes.

  “Crucifixion! Crucifixion! La! La! La! Crucifixion! Crucifixion! La! La! La!”

  “Crucifixion! Crucifixion! La! La! La! Crucifixion! Crucifixion! La! La! La!”

  The buff giant stopped for a second to look straight at us.

  He alone noticing us.

  “Oh! Look at that! Monique’s kids!”

  He waved happily at us.

  “How do you do kids?”

  I grabbed Ben and rushed out of the room. Dragging him behind me for a brief second before he too started running.

  “We have to save mom.” I told Ben as soon as I was sure we’d lost the sword.

  “Really!? Gee whilikers Jimmy! That never fucking occurred to me! You’re a fucking genius!”

  “Shut up shitface! I’m serious! Mom’s in danger around that guy!”

  “Everyone is in danger around that guy! Did you see his muscles! He looked like he eats kids for breakfast! And he was dancing with two zombies and a monster!”

  We were both heaving by that point. The cold air digging into our bones as we tried to catch our breath.

  “What the heck are we even supposed to do anyway? That guy is massive! And he can mind-control people! And he has a sick fetish for crucifying little people on top of that!”

  “I know Ben! I…! Shit! Let me think! I’ll think of something!”

  I started pacing around the empty road, but nothing was coming up.

  All the while, the chilly winds blew through the burnt-out wrecks scattered up and down the cracked road.

  The cars parked here had been turned over or otherwise abandoned a few weeks ago. Some of them still holding trapped zombies that were left over from the time when the toxic rains first started pouring and the people trying to get back home were caught in the cross fire.

  All those who were taken on the roads had been given the choice of opening their windows and letting the toxic air transform them into monsters, or to sit prettily and wait for those who did get transformed to get hungry and start breaking down the survivors’ windows for a few easy meals.

  A few with old cars or with damaged air conditioners didn’t even get that choice when the vapors got inside their cars.

  We had seen cars like them all over the country, when mom was still with us and when we were still running with the other guys who made it out of town.

  I’d always felt we’d been lucky. That being trapped in a car with no way out, waiting for a death you knew was coming was the worst.

  ‘And now I feel like I’m trapped in one of those cars with Ben.’ I thought with a sad laugh. ‘That crazy guy will be free to do whatever he wants as soon as he’s free. Just like mom and just like all the others. They’ve all got powers and we don’t.’

  I looked over the cars again and paid more attention to the charred corpses beneath the wrecks. The reason for them being in this state now was the sword. Mom had used it to burn away entire miles of terrain. From woods to roads to houses to little gas stations that didn’t have anything in them to abandoned towns on the outskirts of Denver. To even a quarter of the city itself.

  The sword had burned them all away while laughing.

  The sword was the powerful, when it was just some trinket the crazy man made and then forgot about when he outgrew it.

  The sword could have killed us fifteen different ways to Sunday and there was nothing I or Ben could possibly do to save our own lives when it decided it was done playing by the crazy man’s rules.

  And the crazy man was somehow crazier and more dangerous and more powerful than the sword.

  “It’s going to be okay.” I told Ben.

  “Don’t lie to me asshole!” He cursed through sobs. “We’re all fucked!”

  “Yeah! I know Ben! But I was trying to be supportive! That’s what older brothers are supposed to do!”

  “You suck at being an older brother!”

  “Yeah? Well I’m trying okay! It’s fucking hard! I’m doing my best!”

  Ben only sobbed harder.

  “I miss mom.”

  “Yeah.” I said. Feeling as if my limbs had turned to stone. “Me too.”

  “Is mom going to be okay?”

  “Yeah. Probably.” I lied. “She must know some way to get in the crazy man’s good side. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have gotten the sword from him. Remember that nutjob back the hunting store? The one with the axe and the beaver costume?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Mom and all the other grown-ups got him to put his axe down. They managed to talk him down even though he was completely out of his mind. They even managed to get some crossbows from him after saying something to him. I think this is the same. Mom probably knows what she’s doing.”

  “Really?” He asked again.

  My heart throbbed at that.

  I knew it was a lie and he was smart enough to know I was lying through my teeth too.

  But he needed to hear it from me. Otherwise, he might not have the strength to go on.

  ‘I’m the older brother.’ I told myself. ‘It’s up to me to lie to him. It’s up to me to make him feel like there’s still hope. If I don’t, no one will.’

  “Yes. Really. Mom has a way to keep him on a leash. Things are going to be okay.”

  The air shivered and a new figure appeared next to us.

  I whirled and turned to see a man with a buff body and a fat, toad-like face. And eyes that seemed to see right through us.

  “Greetings children of Monique.” The creep said. Fluttering a few wings behind him.

  “An angel?” Ben gaped.

  “Indeed!” The man spoke out. “I am Serpent-Tongue! Herald of the mighty and fair supreme being! Solomon Carter!”

  I pushed Ben behind me.

  “Run! I’ll hold him off!”

  “No!” Ben cried. “I won’t leave you!”

  “Shut up! Get out while you can!”

  His body froze. So did mine.

  “Now now children. Do not react that way.” The thing wheezed through fake laughter.

  “The Tyrant has told your mother of what happened and she asked him for more help. I am here as a harbinger. To lift you two up in case you had some kind of issue with his sword.”

  He waved to the empty air behind him.

  “Here is the Tall Man. The shadow of our most glorious lord. He is here to grant you power. Like the one granted to your mother. And to share memories with you two, so that you know how respected and appreciated your mother really is, and that there is no danger in heeding his word.”

  He was insane. There was nothing there.

  But then, the air screamed even louder than when the sword did its thing.

  And a freaky, slinky, two-headed thing came out of nowhere. With a tailored white suit and bare feet that dripped black oil wherever it stepped.

  It blinked at us, and the world fell away.