Jake's Story, ch 11

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The girl woke up about a half hour later.  She blinked owlishly, put a hand to her head, groaned, turned, and screamed when she saw Jake.  While she’d been unconscious, Jake had considered doing something to keep her from jumping off the moving train, but decided he didn’t have the means or the will.  If she was dumb enough to do something like that,  she wouldn’t be his problem anymore.

Jake just pointed up, still holding the pen that he’d used to draw on the wall above his head.  The girl screamed again, backing away and pushing herself as hard as she could against the opposite wall.  Jake motioned more strongly with this pen-holding hand.  Finally, she must have gotten the point because she kept screaming, but her eyes tracked the wall and she began to read.

If Jake looked up, he’d see what he’d written:

Hey goth chick

Don’t be afraid.  I know I look like a zombie, but I still have my mind.

I mean you no harm.  If I’d wanted to hurt you, you were defenseless while you were unconscious after I carried you onto this train.

Anyway, my name is Jake M.  I can’t really talk, only write (slowly), so be patient.  Also, please notice I am sitting against the wall and being unthreatening.

If you ask me yes or no questions, I can nod or shake my head.

Thank you, and I’m glad you are alive.

The girl’s scream died down like it had just run out of steam, but she was still breathing hard.  She gave Jake a new, unreadable look.  “You wrote this?” she shakily asked.

Jake nodded.

“Where have I heard this name before.  Your name is Jake M?”  She absently pulled her ruined clothes around herself and made some adjustments for the sake of modesty.

Jake nodded again.

“And you promise you won’t hurt me?”

He’d anticipated a question like this one, or asking where they were headed. So after nodding, Jake moved his pen to his other hand.  The motion made the girl jump.  Then Jake very slowly, very deliberately, pointed to another message he’d written on the other side of his body.  It read:

As best I can tell, we are heading east, and gradually north.

It’s dangerous to jump off the train until it slows down, but I’m not sure where it will stop

While we are on this train, maybe I can help you

I can actually sense a spark of magic in you.  Do you know that you have the talent for magic?

“Magic?” the girl asked, her eyes round.  “I won’t even pretend that I don’t think that sort of thing is possible...I mean, the world is ending.  But seriously?  What kind of zombie are you?  Why should I believe any of this?”

Jake thought about that one for a while.  Then without moving from his spot, he uncapped his pen, and wrote on the floor:  Because I saved your life after you passed out, and I’m bored.

The girl licked her lips and bonelessly slid down the wall into a sitting position.  “I can’t believe this is happening.”  She rubbed her face with both hands and said, “So you saved me?  Really?”

Jake nodded.

“You really can’t talk?”

“Mmmmrawr,” said Jake when he tried to tell her that it hadn’t work so far.

“Fair enough.”  She half laughed while grimacing.  Then she suddenly looked startled and glanced around warily.  “What about that asshole Alex and his friends?”

After thinking about how to most economically answer the question, Jake drew three circles on the wall next to him, then drew an “X” through two of them, and a question mark next to the last.  After a brief hesitation, he also drew an “A” under the second x’d out circle.

“So Alex is dead?”

Jake nodded, and withdrew his empty pistol.  At the sight of it the girl flinched back, so Jake slowly and gently set it down again.  He hooked a thumb at himself.

“You killed him?”

He nodded.  Then he held up his pen and went to work laboriously writing on the wall again.  The new message read:  Name?  And are you calm now?  We might be in here for a while, and I can probably get you started with magic while we wait.

“This is the strangest conversation I have ever had in my life, but hey, I guess I’m lucky to be alive, right?  Fine, my name is Samantha.”  Samantha sighed deeply, ran a hand through her hair, and suddenly her eyes widened.  “Holy shit!  Old Grim!  You’re Old Grim!”

Jake didn’t need to be able to talk to convey his confusion.  The way he frowned and cocked his head must have worked.

“You said your name is Jake M, right?  Are you the same Jake M. who left messages on message boards and stuff, and called yourself the leader of the Grasshopper Mice?”  Jake didn’t even have to nod.  Samantha must have recognized something in his expression because she continued, “Before the ‘net went down, people were talking like crazy about those posts!  Jake M.  They started calling you Old Grim after someone at a mobile park near my house took a picture of their door.  They said a monster wrote them a message trying to help.”

This was all news to Jake, and very surprising.  He made a face and wrote, So people listened to what I had to say?

“Hell yes they did!  Not everyone, but some people are saying you’re an angel, some people are saying you’re just a monster trying to trick them, or even the Devil.  Basically nobody could figure out who or what you are, but everyone agrees that everything you’ve written so far has been true, so they’re calling you Old Grim.  It’s like a meme...sort of.  A meme after all the memes died?  A new legend?  I don’t know what I’m saying.  Maybe I’m more rattled than I thought.”

Jake put a hand to his forehead and closed his eyes.  Not only was this turn of events odd, but he was also wondering how much the future was changing.  Oh well, if fewer people were killed or went feral, it was all worth it.

Samantha crept closer.  “So Old Grim...um...Jake...can you really teach me magic?”

Her reaction to recent events was definitely not normal.  A few weeks ago, Samanth would likely have been totally terrified, barely functioning, but after the Purple Rain, people either got tough or died.  She was probably going to cry tonight, and she definitely had trauma, maybe for the rest of her life, but she was alive, and she was moving forward.

Jake liked this girl already.  Maybe she could have been part of his team in the future if he’d met her then.  He nodded, and began drawing diagrams and instructions on the floor of the train.  Before cultivating monster cores, it would have taken him much longer and likely would have been illegible.  Luckily, Western magic was something Jake knew a lot about, and just getting started wasn’t too complicated as long as someone had the spark and some talent.  In his first life, Jake had learned a lot of theory,  but had never been particularly talented.

Just finding, and then using mana wasn’t exactly intuitive.  Samantha made progress right away, though.  She was obviously much more talented than Jake had ever been.  In fact, she managed to find her inner spark in an astonishingly short amount of time.

“Seriously?  That’s it?” she asked after about half an hour.  She’d already manifested a flame in the palm of her hand.

After uncapping his pen again, Jake drew a “+ mana” on the floor next to all of his other chicken scratch and mimed holding his hand out.  Then he pointed outside the open boxcar door.

“So, I need to throw it?”

Jake shook his head.  He put his hands together, then spread them apart, and held one palm out again.

“Oh, so I have to push more mana into it and hold my hand out?”  When Jake nodded that she was right, Samantha frowned in concentration, and the flame shot up toward the ceiling.

Jake frantically mimed holding his hand out, and Samantha copied the gesture just in time before her little fire had turned into a full-on flamethrower.  This was a very simple spell, but Jake was still shocked that Samantha had picked up how to use magic so quickly, and that her flame pulse had manifested with so much power.  Fire shot out for twenty feet from the girl’s palm for at least three seconds.

That’s crazy, he thought.  For a brand new mage to create a flame that big and powerful on her first try?  How talented is this girl?

Very good, he wrote.  Practice that a little more, and you won’t need to worry about guys like Alex again.  If you exhaust your mana, it will naturally grow, but the growth rate is not consistent.

“Wow!” she breathed.  “I feel a little tired now, but can’t believe I did that!”  Then she read Jake’s newest message and made a face.  “I get the feeling you aren’t sticking around, and I get it.  You are a monster--no offense--so no matter how much you want to help, it’s not like you can really just...mingle.”

Jake didn’t take any offense at all.  After he nodded, Samantha continued, “Okay, so how am I going to learn more?  Who will teach me?”

That was a very good question.  Luckily, for the style of magic that Jake had begun teaching her, he had the answer.  He jotted down the title and author of an old book, then wrote, Find in a used book store, and circled it.

“This will help me?” she asked.

Jake circled it again.  He wished he could talk, but she’d figured it out.  The book he’d pointed her to was actually a fantasy book that had detailed descriptions of characters using magic.  After Purple Rain, a number of adventurers had figured out that copying some of the techniques from that vintage fantasy book actually worked in real life.  The author had been dead and gone, so the mystery of why the book contained real magical formulas had never been solved, at least not during Jake’s lifetime.

And considering Samantha’s talent, odds were that she’d figure out a few more ways to use her mana before ever even finding the book.

As Jake thought about the book, he noticed that the train had begun slowing down.  He got up to look outside.  After all this time together, Samantha still flinched a little when he’d actually stood up, but settled down immediately afterwards.  Jake pretended he hadn’t noticed and scanned the surrounding area.  He thought he recognized some of the landmarks and buildings that he was seeing outside.  Using his pen, he wrote, You said people have read the stuff I put on the internet?

Samantha answered, “That’s right.  Nobody knew who or what you are, but you haven’t been wrong about anything yet.  Imagine how people are gonna react when I tell them that Old Grim isn’t old at all, and he’s actually really nice, and has taken the form of a zombie!”

Jake wasn’t sure what to think of that.  It seemed like there’d been a misunderstanding, but he wasn’t too worried about it.  Most people didn’t have access to the internet or electrical power anymore in the US, so Samantha’s weird take on this meeting ultimately didn’t matter.  In reply, he just wrote, So people got the part about using the Golden Arches? He actually didn’t spell out the last bit, just used a symbol.

“Yeah.  On the message boards, they were saying it was genius.  Those fast food restaurants are practically everywhere, and easy to find.”

Good, thought Jake.  In his past life, McRonald’s restaurants had served as a kind of a beacon and a hub for adventurers a few months after Purple Rain, and before the militaries had begun organizing.  In his messages online, Jake had just explained what people should do and how to survive based on his experiences in his first life.  It seemed that enough people had seen what he’d written that hopefully they would begin organizing faster than during his first life.

Some powered people; mages, warriors, tech lords, and all the other varieties, would have known something was different with their bodies right after Purple Rain.  Jake’s messages had instructed that everyone who’d been touched by power, basically future adventurers, should meet up at the golden arches to coordinate and try to save their communities.

He’d suggested that martial artists, hunters, law enforcement, and military types with their own weapons could help out too.

Jake looked out the boxcar door again and would have breathed a sigh of relief if he actually breathed anymore.  Yes, this was definitely Valdosta, an area he was at least somewhat familiar with.  The train was slowing down even further, and Jake stuck his head out of the box car, trying to catch a glimpse of the part they were approaching.  If he was right, the train should be going right by a couple of McRonald’s restaurants in just a few minutes.

Then Jake noticed a change that made him even feel optimistic--he couldn’t see any more random zombies wandering around, unlike most of the trip up until now.  The train slowed down even further, a little faster than a run, and the businesses up ahead looked undamaged.  Yes! Jake thought.  He could see people on rooftops with rifles, obviously coordinating with each other.  This was a community--not anarchy.

Jake bent down to write, You should get off here.  The train is probably only slowing to avoid hitting people on the tracks.

Samantha crossed her arms, holding herself tightly and said, “Thank you Old Grim...Jake.  I think you’re right.  Seriously though, thank you for everything.  I would shake your hand or give you a hug, but you really look gross and you kind of smell.”

Jake shrugged and tried to chuckle, but it just came out as a gurle.

“If we ever meet again, I just want you to know that Samantha Walsh owes you a favor.  Hell, I owe you my life.  Thank you.”  She began to tear up, and almost like she was avoiding talking any more, she jumped off the train.  Jake watched her go with bittersweet feelings.  

Strangely, he also felt a tickle in his memory.  Samantha Walsh, where have I heard that before? He thought.

Samantha rolled after she hit the gravel and cried out in pain.  Jake was worried at first, but saw it was just a scrape.  She’d be okay.  A couple of men yelled in concern  and ran over to Samantha

Something was just on the tip of his mind.  Samantha Walsh.  Have I heard that name?  Jake’s wandering mind almost cost him his un-life.  At the last minute, he registered the cries of alarm, Samantha frantically waving her arms and shouting, “No.  It’s okay!”

But one of the men was yelling, “Zombie!”

Someone else screamed, “That girl just escaped!  Kill that thing!”

Jake ducked right before bullets whined through the boxcar.  Shit shit shit shit shit! He thought.  The door would take too long to close and he’d be too exposed doing it, so he rolled over to one side of the car and plastered himself against the wall.

Apparently, the train’s conductor heard the gunfire, because Jake could tell by the vibrations as he lay on the floor that the train was speeding up again.  A few more bullets left scars on the bottom of the car, and as Jake continued hiding, he tried to say, “No good deed goes unpunished, huh?”

Instead, what he actually said was, “Hunhhhhhn.”  Jake really, really hated being a zombie.  Then it finally dawned on him where he’d heard Samantha’s name before, and who she likely was.  No fucking way! he thought.  No way!

In his first life, a woman named Samantha Walsh had been one of the Archmages, the most powerful magic slingers in the United States.  He hadn’t recognized the name right away, because she’d most often been called by her nickname--Pixie Midnight.  Jake had never met her, just seen her from a distance.

Did I just teach magic to Pixie Midnight? He wondered.

Jake huddled in a corner, hoping that the train would speed up fast enough to escape from anyone with heroic ideas.  Being a zombie sucked, but being unarmed now made it even worse.

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This story is seriously fun to write.  It's also hard, but I like the challenge.

Now I'll be finishing the Delvers chapter I'm almost done with.