Sponsored Apocalypse 2, ch 5

As we rounded the corner of the slatted fence, an SUV and a car came into view. I quickly counted nine people: two women and seven men. They all looked like rough customers. In front of me, Randy paled and turned back around, running back around the corner even faster than he’d first cleared it.  He grabbed my shoulder as he went past and tugged me after him. As I looked back over my shoulder, I saw that none of the newcomers had noticed us. All of them were heavily armed.

Randy hissed in frustration as he led me back to the door that we'd come through earlier—the small side door to the junkyard. He had locked the gate again before, so now he found the keys he needed for the locks with torturously shaking hands.  Once the door was finally open, he ushered me through and slammed the lock back into place. 

I’d picked up on Randy’s very obvious tension and fear, and I wondered what the hell was going on. If these were the same people that had caused the ruckus and tried robbing one of the junkyard families, I wondered what in the hell they were doing coming back like this so brazenly.

As I followed my guide at a jog, it didn't take long before I heard voices raised in anger. Finally, as I cleared a last row of cars, I could see the front gate from the inside to better understand how the situation was playing out. The newcomers were all taking cover behind the vehicles. 

The three vehicles were arranged in a loose line, but the one in the middle was much closer to the junkyard than the others.  A jeep.  The other two vehicles were an SUV and a truck.

It seemed like the group’s leader, sporting a sardonic smile, was behind the jeep.  He was a middle-aged man with a beard and a bandana.  With his spotty facial hair and rough style, I got the impression this had been his look before the world went to hell, too.  He was wearing a jean jacket and stained blue jeans.

"Jim! Don't be stubborn!" he was saying. "Look, mistakes were made before. I admit that. But times are hard, and we've been desperate. I figure everybody's desperate. But that's also why I'm here. There's more of us than there is of you. The way I see it, your junkyard is probably one of the most secure places around these parts, considering the monsters and all. And I'm not going to stretch the point. That's why I want it. So, I figure, as a sign of goodwill, after you open the gate and let us all in, I'll leave one of my group's cars to help you and yours find a new place."

"I can't believe this," shouted Jim, the old man. His beard practically bristled in anger. "Fuck you, Reed!  You came to us asking for help before, the day after… everything. We even gave you supplies!  Then you came back and robbed us!  You looted this whole area!  And now this!?  Coming back to do it again?! And this is the most bullshit, ballsy robbery I've ever heard of in my life! You've already caused how much trouble? The kids don’t sleep at night because of you.  And now you're doing all this?"

The man outside the gate held his hands up. "Correction, if kids don’t sleep now it’s because of monsters running around.  But still, like I said, mistakes were made. Things have changed, though.  Now we're talking in the daytime, face-to-face like men, and trying to find a good solution before things get ugly.  Right?"

"That's the problem," said the old man. "Things already got ‘ugly!’  And what you're saying is just a fancy way of telling us to get to stepping!  You and your crew are not even from around these parts!  You came from the damn city!  I know it! Meanwhile, here I am, wondering why I shouldn’t just shoot you for the shit you’ve already pulled!”

“That would be a bad idea.  Bullets won’t work on me fast enough to stop my friends from poking holes in your…people.  We also have a few folks who have their own new ways of fighting now.”  He gestured behind him, and as he did so, I finally caught the telltale glimmer of some kind of barrier covering his body.

A woman with a ponytail, one of the people taking shelter behind the SUV and the truck, waved a hand. A moment later, there was what looked like a gaunt goblin that appeared out of nowhere and ambled forward.  It had a spectral aura, and although it was hard to tell during the day, I thought it might be softly glowing.  

The new, controlled monster-thing immediately had my full attention.  From the moment it appeared, some of my new skills that I was not as familiar with had begun clamoring for my attention, especially [Sense Summons], which I'd gotten with my new class.

With a mental command and a blink, I activated [Bone Truth Eyes].  Once it was active, I saw:

Summoned Goblin Spirit

Necromantic

Strong Physical Resistance

Conjured by Hailey Tindall

There wasn't much more than that. 

I deactivated [Bone True Eyes] after one more quick glance at everybody involved in the turf conflict just to verify that they were all human. You can never be too careful, I figured.

The enemy group and the Larson family went back and forth a few more times, yelling at each other, but I tuned it out. After all, I was pretty sure I knew how this was going to end. Or rather, I knew that it was going to end one of two ways. Either the Larson family was going to leave with their tail tucked between their legs, or they were going to get massacred. Even though I had no way to truly know for sure, my feeling after being among them was that none of them were particularly high level, or really dangerous people to begin with, and they'd been leaning heavily on the junkyard's fences to keep themselves safe. Ironically, those same fences were now putting them in danger with other humans.

The new group, Reed's group, not only seemed much more hard-bitten than the Larsons, but they also gave me the feeling they were higher level. They were likely telling the truth that they just wanted the compound. The only reason they probably hadn’t gone in guns blazing or tried to talk it out to begin with was to avoid casualties or save the vehicles.  And I got the feeling that if any local groups had killed anybody yet, Reed's group probably had. I also agreed with Jim that Reed's group was probably from the city.

Part of me was dismayed that people could already be acting like this towards each other, at least openly, after only a few days. But I reminded myself that Reed's group might be a statistical anomaly. It could be that only one out of a hundred–out of a hundred–out of a hundred people were both cold and future-oriented enough to figure out where the world was going and immediately take some of the top seats at the table by force. I wondered how many people in this new group had even known each other three days ago. Probably not all of them.

On some level, I understood that I was watching what would probably be a future raiding party taking its infant steps. It was pretty obvious who the bad guys were here, considering they were not only trying to steal the Larson's compound but even threatening to attack them when there were children inside. 

This is gross. I couldn’t help how I felt, and I wondered how long it would take for my modern mindset to change. Who I was now was a lot different than before, and I knew I'd adjusted a lot already, but even before the New World, my mentality and worldview had gotten me into trouble sometimes. Despite my dislike of people, I've been told that I was too nice. With that in mind, I knew I definitely had changed because at the moment I was very seriously considering murdering Larson and his group. If they attacked right now, I was in the compound. I also still needed to finish business with the Larsons.

Good justification, too.

But I wasn’t ready to just start battles with humans over how I perceived a conflict was going.  I decided that it was time to try defusing the situation before it got worse. Using my superhuman strength, I climbed to the top of a pile of cars that was closest to the fence.  Only one or two people from the invading group noticed me. Then, I gathered myself and vaulted over the fence. I barely cleared the razor wire with an awkward aerial maneuver while still wearing my pack. 

Having superhuman stats was definitely coming in handy.

In the air, before even coming down, I activated [Stalwart Pan of the Lonely Mountain]. It was one thing to believe intellectually that I was at least close to bulletproof, but it was another to be facing down an entire group armed with guns. With the added boost from my antique skillet, I was feeling much more confident.

For the first time since the apocalypse had started, I began seriously wishing that I had a helmet. I briefly thought about the football helmet back in the junkyard compound that I had put into my pile of possible loot. Now I wished I'd bonded with that thing and worn it…but with my luck, it could have a really useless ability attached instead of something armor-related.

I walked over closer to Caleb Reed, who finally spotted me and drew a pistol. He held out his other hand and said, "That's close enough, partner. Where did you come from? Who are you?" 

After hooking my thumb at the Larsons, I said, "I'm doing business with them right now. This is a personal matter between y'all. I would appreciate it if you could leave and maybe come back later to have your business with them."

Caleb blinked before throwing his head back and laughing. A few of his group behind him also chuckled. I ignored him while he was cackling and instead examined his face. He had laugh lines, but also frown lines.  The man had weathered skin and a few scars as well.  Caleb got himself under control and, with mirth in his voice, said, "You have some big brass balls, I'll give you that. My name is Caleb. And you are?"

"I’m Shru–-," I began to say, but then finished with, "Miles. Miles Lindstrom. Look, I really don't want to get involved here, but you guys are making it difficult. Is there any way you and the Larsons over there can maybe come to a compromise? Maybe they let you live inside the compound, and you all get along or something?”  I shrugged.  “Just spit balling here.  I don't know, I haven't talked to them about this either."

Caleb shook his head. "I'm afraid not. Desperate times create desperate people. And the truth of the matter is, my people don't have a home or a base. And your friends in there, the Larsons, are already far behind. If not us, they are going to lose this place.  They've stayed buttoned up in their fence. We've watched them for the last day and a half as the only monsters they killed were the handful that came right up to the fence. And even then, they killed a lot of them with guns."

I nodded at that. I had to admit that he had a point. But I said, "Even if that's true, what gives you the right to take everything they have?"

"What gives me the right is that I'm stronger," he laughed. "This is a new world, friend. The fact we are having this conversation in sight of my friend's goblin summon over there proves it. Things have changed.  A lot of people might still be waiting for the world to right itself, for any kind of normalcy to come back.  But this is the new normal.  Food trucks might not ever run again. What you have in your bank account is gone and doesn’t mean shit anymore."

I nodded slowly. "Well, that's true. But I really think that we all should be focusing on fighting the monsters, not each other. And like I said, I'm trading with the Larsons right now. So I'm asking you again if you can leave and come back later if you still want to have this out with them."

Caleb shook his head. "I'm sorry, but no can do. We need a home, and this is the best that we've found in this area. The rednecks and hicks around these parts might not see the writing on the wall, but I have, and it's time to start building a kingdom. Rag tag groups aren’t going to survive. We need power bases for people to flock to.  Leaders."

I shook my head. "Are you serious right now? You might be capable, I'm sure you are, and you have some people with you who seem like they are, but I'm telling you, man, you don't know what's out there."

Suddenly, I suddenly thought of Aldina.  I wondered how she would have handled this situation.  For all I knew, she might have already killed Caleb, but I couldn't quite bring myself to do something like that, though. Maybe I never would. But I had to also admit that I've never killed a person before, and I really didn't want to. 

Part of me was still seriously considering just walking away, but strangely I kept thinking about what Aldina had said before. Something like, "I can't save everyone the world, but if I see someone who needs help, I will help them.”  In this situation, it didn't take a genius to realize that if Caleb and his group were willing to threaten murder to take over a junkyard like this, they might be a problem in the future and be willing to kill people for a lot less.

Was killing worth it?  My brain was saying yes, but my heart was hoping that these people would just go away.

"Well, it seems we have a problem then," said Caleb.

My heart sunk.

I nodded slowly. "Yeah, I can't let you guys keep doing this stuff. I mean, at least wait until I'm done with my negotiations inside before causing a ruckus."

"So you're not going to stand aside?" Caleb asked.

"No, I don't think I can," I said.

"Well, that's too bad because now I need to make an example of you."

The man's hand came up with a boxy little pistol in it. As soon as I registered what was happening, I realized several things at once.  First of all, Caleb definitely moved a lot faster than me. I was guessing he had some sort of superhuman dexterity. As  the muzzle of the gun pointed at me, I also realized that although my body couldn't keep up with what was happening, my abilities moved at the speed of thought–they were faster.  I prepared to use one of my abilities before Caleb ever started pulling the trigger, and I got it off before the man squeezed off a shot.

To one side, right as the pistol fired, the weird goblin summon standing nearby disappeared. 

I was only about fifteen feet away from the muzzle flash.  The bullet seemed to hit my chest almost instantly. As it impacted, I realized that maybe what I'd just done–taking it on faith that I was bullet proof– hadn't been the smartest thing in the world. After all, I'd just put myself in danger without even knowing for sure. Deep down, I guess I hadn't truly believed that anybody would shoot me over a shoddy junkyard. Obviously, I'd been wrong, but luckily, I'd been right about being bulletproof. Sort of. 

The pistol bullet hitting my chest felt like I had just taken a baseball thrown by an adult. It didn't quite put me on my butt, but it didn't feel good either.

Several people started yelling at once, and for some reason, I could clearly hear the dismay and confusion in their voices. Before Caleb even squeezed the trigger again, I had made up my mind about whether I was capable of killing people or not. It turned out that I was.