Jake's Story, ch 21

Based on your suggestions, I've decided to keep chapter 19.5 and make it chapter 20.

Thank you for all of your feedback!

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Well, I guess that question is answered now, thought Jake.  His flared his nostrils and observed the school-turned-gang base before him.

Part of him felt sad that he wasn’t more emotionally broken up. His head was cool. He’d been through a lot even since just seeing his parents’ corpses an hour ago, but he was completely functional at the moment.  There were lots of reasons for this--it was the second time he’d seen his family dead, he’d literally lived in hell before, and he was a monster now.  His new body actually helped him avoid falling into despair.  But these were all more complicated ways to say he’d changed.

Jake wondered if he could actually be called human anymore.  Probably not.  He wasn’t sure yet whether he thought that was a bad thing.  Being a zombie had given him a new perspective on existence.  As long as he didn’t have to try existing as a zombie again, maybe he could endure anything this new life threw at him.

The Warhound compound was actually laid out in a fairly clever way.  Fences, the kind that were often used at concerts, ringed the entire area, but positioned with plenty of space between the barrier and the forest.  Each fence had bags of concrete laid out on their feet to keep them solid.

A magical working had been laid on each section of fence.  Jake stared at one with his mage vision until he finally nodded, understanding what had been done.  All of the fences worked as an alarm.  If a monster touched one, it would create some sort of light as a signal.

Another row of fences, shorter ones, stood about five feet inside the first barrier.  These ones were electrified, probably charged by solar.

Knowing this, Jake eyed the rooftops from his hiding spot and noticed armored men in elevated guard shacks, armed with crossbows.  He would bet everything in his storage ring that they also had firearms handy in case of an attack by humans.

The Warhounds seemed to only be using two or three buildings in the school grounds.  This was wise, since that way they weren’t spread out too far and their communication would be easier.  Maybe another building had family members living inside.

Jake ducked lower as a golf cart with two armed men drove by.  One man shined a powerful flashlight, searching the perimeter.

This group probably only had a few dozen people in it, and Jake thought the way they were handling security made a lot of sense.  Most of what they had to fear was probably from other people and the occasional wandering monster.  Unlike some other places Jake had seen, Macon was relatively monster-free.  He assumed that the men with crossbows on the rooftops were probably using their weapons to dispose of zombies quietly so sleeping gang members wouldn’t be disturbed.  Most ghouls would likely look for easier prey.

Stronger, more dangerous monsters definitely already existed in the world, but not in large numbers yet.

Jake grinned wryly.  It hadn’t been very long since Purple Rain.  He might have imagined that his posts on the internet had led to compounds like this, but he knew better.  Armed, paramilitary groups had formed quickly in his first life, too.  Hurricanes had never caused this level of banding or organized capability for violence.  Normal disasters where people were scared were one thing, but Purple Rain had changed the world.

Most people had probably witnessed people being killed and eaten within the first day.  Millions, if not billions of people had died or been changed into mindless monsters.  Reports on the radio or on the internet that made it through would have shown horrors upon horrors without any messages of hope.  It didn’t take long under conditions like that for some people to act like animals themselves.

Even good people would withdraw, try to protect their own and become suspicious of strangers.  People who were away from home would do what they could to join up with other groups.  Or like-minded, or nearby people might form groups like this one for security in numbers.

Jake’s advice on the internet for everyone to stay indoors had been because he knew some people reacted to incredible stress and uncertainty in very strange ways.  Wandering around or looting too early was a great way to die.  In his first life, people had even actually tried to protest current events, claiming the government was responsible.

Monsters had eaten most of them.  

Groups of can-do people often banded together.  Some created communities of people who helped each other out of self defense.  But other groups formed for the hell of it, or for a feeling of control, or of power.  Some of these groups even started out with noble intentions but grew into pockets of predatory assholes over time.  The Warhounds hadn’t been one of the worst groups of his first life, but things had changed now that they’d killed his parents.  The Warhounds sure had a nice base, though.  Jake would admire the practicality of their compound if he weren’t about to wipe them out.

He needed to make it snappy, too.  Running into the fissure witch ritual on the way here had unsettled him, and he had some big questions that still needed answers.  He knew he couldn’t save everyone.  Heck, he hadn’t been able to save his own family.  But he’d developed a special hate in his heart for fissure witches in his first life that had only gotten stronger after death.

Jake was tempted to just pull out some gasoline from his storage ring, or use his new Demonic Contradiction Wave to blow the hell out of everything in the compound, but he wasn’t sure how many attacks he could make.  He was not invulnerable, either.  Even though he figured that he might technically be a C-rank monster now, he didn’t have any kind of protection barrier.

There was also explosives, fire, magic, and all sorts of other issues to worry about.  He frowned as he thought about it.  Being a shadow ghoul wasn’t so bad, but he wasn’t that much more durable now than he had been in his first life, just a hell of a lot stronger and faster.  If he could heal like a normal ghoul, he’d be better off, but he couldn’t.

That meant he would have to be sneaky, or at least formulate a plan.

Jake began following the fence line, sticking to the forest and remaining out of sight.  He moved Northwest, taking the long way around.  This school had two entrances to the nearby road to the east.  The Warhounds had blocked off the nearest one, so Jake would eventually come near to the only exit in the northeast once he’d done about 50% of the compound’s circumference.

Most of the illumination near the edge of the former school was being cast by solar lights and tiki torches.  Jake spotted a few powerful floodlights on standby, the type that were used at construction projects.  They were all hooked to generators.  He figured if there was an emergency that these would be turned on.

Actually, now that he thought about it, if this group was smart enough to set up their compound this way, he could probably also assume that at least half of them were awake.  Being alert and ready to respond to problems at night would be common sense.  Jake hated smart enemies.  They made everything much, much more difficult.

After he’d traveled about a quarter of the way around the school, Jake stopped in his  tracks and cocked his head.  A feeling he’d never expected to encounter again so soon had just tickled his supernatural senses.  He had been cycling his cultivation base as he’d studied his enemies, but he quickly turned his attention in the opposite direction.  The sensation tugged on his dantian.

Holy shit, thought Jake.  No way. I never heard about one of these here.  But the feeling was unmistakable.  He’d located another challenge portal.

Jake slowly sank onto his haunches, watching the compound before him while also making careful mental note of where he’d just felt the portal.  He’d never heard of one showing up in this area before, but he could think of several reasons off the top of his head.  Maybe nobody had found it before it’d disappeared.  Another possibility could be that someone found it and died before it had vanished, or found it and survived and either didn’t tell anyone, or died before telling someone.

But the most likely reason was because dark gods were probably trying to turn Georgia into the evil factory that Mexico had become in his first life.  This would change everything, magically-speaking.  Jake couldn’t feel it, but there had to be a lot of power descending on this area.  The fissure witch ritual he’d interrupted had likely not been an isolated incident.

He’d been avoiding thinking about the entire thing, though, dammit.  Jake frowned.  If he really started thinking too much about what Ahriman and his asshole buddies were trying to do, he might feel a sense of responsibility about it, and Jake wasn’t sure if he wanted to play that game, yet.  He wasn’t naive enough to think that he wouldn’t end up being used by someone or something.  So if and what that time came, he wanted to really know his own mind before jumping in feet-first.

It seemed weird to begin having such a serious conversation with himself in the middle of a mission to kill a few dozen men, but he couldn’t deny some of his feelings anymore.  Something big was going down in his hometown, and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could ignore it.

After spending a few more seconds thinking about it, Jake shook his head and decided to get on with what he was doing.  He’d made a promise to his sister.  It was true that with his family dead, he didn’t feel much of a purpose, or really much personally connecting him to this world anymore.  But he would honor his promise to his sister...maybe without the part about killing dogs, though.  Jake liked dogs.

From inside the compound, he heard shouting.  Some men walked from one building to another.  New lights cut on.  Some sort of commotion seemed to be taking place at the gate of the compound.  Engines rumbled and the area grew brighter as vehicles turned in from the road.

There didn’t seem to be any monster attacks taking place, so Jake was as curious about the new, higher alert.  He kept moving around the perimeter of the school until he got close enough to the gated entrance to see what was going on better.

Jake stayed hidden and cycled his cultivation base to improve his senses further.  Quite a few Warhounds were  manning the gates or standing behind the fence.  They were all armed, and all had the red, “W” armbands that the Warhounds wore.  Jake figured this was how his sister had identified them, too.  Most post-Purple Rain bands had some kind of identifying mark or even wore uniforms.  Jake’s Grasshopper mice had worn hats, bandanas, or shirts with the team’s logo on them.

Humans and our tribalism, Jake thought.  He smiled.  What tribe am I now?  Team monster? He felt a pang of deep, despairing loneliness before dismissing it.

Facing down the warhounds were a caravan from the Post Apoc Kings.  A number of Post Apoc Kings members had come from the area around the lakes and had money prior to Purple Rain.  This soon after forming, it showed.  Most men in both groups were still using weapons they had owned before the world went to hell.  The Warhounds had decent guns, but nothing too fancy.  A few standard pistols, lower end pistol caliber carbines, some budget AR-15s, and plenty of pump shotguns.  Their melee weapons were baseball bats, axes, and machetes.

But a few of the Post Apoc Kings had some seriously impressive hardware.  With Jake’s keen night vision, he checked out their weapons and felt a moment of jealousy.  One of them even had a skeletonized, competition AR-15 with a higher end variable magnification optic.  A few of the men had ACOG optics on some very sweet looking rifles.  A slender man had a pair of raceguns, what looked like tricked out 1911’s on both hips, superhero-style.

One of them even carried a katana, and a pretty good looking one from what Jake could see.

All of the groups that had formed in Macon had mostly been neighbors and friends before Purple Rain.  There were always smaller, more nimble groups, too, and pre-rain gangs often stayed together for a while. The Post Apoc Kings had been weekend warrior types before the apocalypse with a few competition shooters in their ranks.  Most members of the Warhounds had been working-class people.  The Night Rangers had kind of been everyone else, with an eclectic mix.   Of course, class distinctions had mattered less and less after Purple Rain in Jake’s first life, but right now, people still seemed to be most comfortable around people they still related to.

Both sides Jake was currently watching were putting on a strong front, but he could smell stinky fear from at least a few of them.  It looked like both sides were about to have a showdown.  Jake remembered his sister saying that the Post Apoc Kings had chased away the Warhounds from the Andersons’ house, and the situation suddenly made a lot of sense.

He crawled forward on his belly silently, getting closer so he could listen in.

“...and you expect me to believe that?” snarled what looked like the leader of the Post Apoc Kings.  He was a short, middle aged man wearing what looked like real, military body armor.  A shemagh hung loosely around his neck.  His vehicle’s KC lights up top were on, his jeep idling.  The vehicle was turned at an angle, and he had his body positioned mostly behind the engine.

Jake was impressed.  At least some of these guys, maybe on both sides, were prior military or law enforcement.  Actually, some of them might have been cops before the world went sideways so it made sense that they’d know what precautions to take.

Actually, Jake didn’t know what kind of experiences they’d had.  It was entirely possible that both groups had already been dealing with raiders.  It seemed like organization and inter-survivor violence had been accelerated this time around.

“Believe it or not, but I’m telling the truth.”  The man speaking was tall and had a beard.  His overalls mostly hid a modest beer gut that probably would be gone in a month.  He stood on an elevated platform behind the gate to the school-turned-base.

Nobody on either side was actually pointing weapons at each other yet, but Jake could tell they were about a hair’s breath away.  One man, an overweight guy on the Warhounds side, had manifested bony spikes on the backs of his arms and up to his shoulders, punching right through his shirt.  An awoken, thought Jake.  Some people had awoken to powers during and after Purple Rain.  Jake’s mage senses also pinpointed gathering energy.  Both sides had at least two mages, or some kind of other magic-slingers.

If he hadn’t just spoken with his dying sister, this might have surprised Jake.  Now he knew he might personally be part of the reason more people had discovered magic so quickly.

Jake was interested in this confrontation for a variety of reasons.  At this point after Purple Rain, when most people would be running out of food or drinkable water, violence between survivors was bound to erupt.  Maybe the Post Apoc Kings would help him kill some Warhounds.

“Was it just my guys; imagination that Warhounds were running around my territory, stealing shit and mercing people?” demanded the King leader.  “If it was a figment of someone’s imagination that burned the hood of that truck over there,” said the man, pointing, “I’d love to hear about it.  One of my people is in critical condition right now.”

“It’s not rock science, man,” drawled the big Warhound.  “It wouldn’t be all that hard to make or find what we use for ID.” He pointed at his own armband.  “It wouldn’t be hard for someone else to fly Warhound colors, just like it wouldn't take a genius to wear all camo like you guys do.  Besides, like I told you, I don’t have any people like the ones you chased.  No fire mages at all.”

The King leader shook his head.  “Why would I just believe you?  I wanna see all your vehicles.  We shot the one we were chasing.  If you have the make and model, the holes would prove it.”

The Warhound leader took a puff on his cigarette and breathed out smoke before sighing.  “Come on, man,  You know that’s not gonna happen.  Even if it were us, would we be dumb enough to come right back here?  And if these folks aren’t back yet, are you just going to camp out at the gate?  If you do, what would stop them from ditching the vehicle somewhere else?  Besides, why would we rob from our neighbor?  You don’t shit where you eat, right?”

The other leader crossed his arms over his armor.  “So what now?”

“The way I figure it, this can go a few ways.  I suppose someone could start shooting and most of us will die.  That would be the dumbest, lose-lose choice.  Or we can recognize that someone is playing us.  Hell, maybe we could even act like we still have a little bit of civilization left and figure out who is impersonating my people, because I’d sure like to put a bullet in them.”  The man spit, then offered a nasty grin.  His eyes glinted and some of his people muttered behind him.  Anger was in the air, underscoring a promise of violence.

Jake narrowed his eyes.  The tension at the standoff hadn’t relaxed at all, but now it was shifting.  If the two groups started fighting he would pay attention again, but he doubted they would at this point.  Not only that, he believed the Warhound leader.  Jake’s mind began to turn over what he knew.

In his past life, the Warhounds hadn’t been too bad of a group.  The leadership had mostly been construction types who’d tried to keep their people from being too big of bullies.  After his sister had told him the Warhounds had killed his family, he’d just assumed that the ripple effects he’d caused had changed everything.  Maybe that wasn’t the case, though.  Now he could put his finger on what had been bothering him about this entire situation--it hadn’t made sense earlier.

Jake briefly thought about saying to hell with the consequences and delivering a Demonic Contradiction Wave or two, taking his frustration and anger out on the two groups before him. Ultimately, doing so would be unjust. Jake might be a monster, but that didn’t mean he had to act like one. Besides, even if he wanted to go on a rampage, it currently wasn’t worth the risk.

There were at least a few dozen angry, frightened men who were itching to kill something as much as Jake was. Some were in vehicles, or otherwise sheltered. Many would survive whatever Jake could possibly do as an opening salvo. This was not an action movie, where all the bad guys could be assumed to be a horrible shot or otherwise inept. And Jake didn’t have any kind of natural barrier. Even though he figured that he was technically a C-rank monster now, he could still be killed by firearms.

So whether he used a firearm from his storage ring, or one of his Daoist arts, he couldn't be sure to wipe out his enenemies, and couldn't predict whether they might start fighting each other.  They might come after him.  His Demonic Contradiction Wave was flashy, and firearms had muzzle flashes.  If he attacked, he might have a hail of bullets coming back at him.  Jake didn’t plan to ever underestimate human weapons the way supernatural assholes always seemed to.

No, he needed to continue being cautious, and more importantly, he needed more information. Hell, these people might not even be his enemies.  Everything had changed too much and was too complicated. He felt like he was flying blind. And he still needed to get revenge for his family. That mission hadn’t changed. Killing some random people and calling it a day would be a horrible travesty of justice. He wanted to make the true killers pay.

Then there was the fissure witch ritual, and how some random, out-of-shape cultist living in an apartment had somehow had a room full of restrained children and monster backup.

Jake watched a moment longer before making a decision.  Maybe if he found out a reason to, he would still do his best to wipe out the Warhounds but he couldn’t justify it right now.  No, he needed to do some poking around.  Also, now that he’d run into a couple of actual groups, he was feeling a little undergunned.  The world was full of dangers but there was only one Jacob Hessian Mazzariello.  He wanted to keep his monster ass alive for the time being.

So he had a lot of problems, and he needed time to think about what to do.  Time to grow would be nice, too.

Luckily, Jake had just sensed the nearby challenge portal.  He pulled his dark lips back from his teeth in a mirthless grin as he melted into the dark forest.  It would be a little bit of a risk to enter the portal, but one thing that was true for all challenge portals was the time differential.  No matter how long you spent inside one, only moments passed in the real world.

Maybe Jake could use that.

He needed to find an edge.  He also needed to get to the bottom of whatever the hell was going on in Macon.  To do so, being a shadow ghoul was a good start, but not quite enough.

Since the moment Jake became a zombie, he’d  instinctively known that trying to cultivate natural energy would destroy him.  Now he felt the same level of certainty that if he started digging up whatever was rotten in Macon, he would not succeed as he was.

It was awfully lucky to have bumped into this challenge portal, maybe even suspiciously lucky.  Jake had learned to be skeptical as a mage, and he was not willing to discount the fact that some or other god was pulling strings somewhere.  Maybe even The Morrigan.  But as long as he didn’t have to pay for it, he’d take any boon he could find.  His first life had taught Jake a very important lesson.  Without power, principals and plans were just wishes.  Nobody can protect themselves or others without strength.  And it usually took risk, or hard work, or both to become strong.

Jake cycled his cultivation base and let the pull of his dantian lead him to the new challenge portal.  Hopefully this one would be as easy to cheese as the last one had been.