Apocalypse: Fairy System by Macronomicon (fox in socks read aloud txt) 📕

The door was locked.

Jeb broke into a limping sprint, focusing on the old vehicle’s peg-locks in the window, pulling them up before yanking on the door handle with everything he had.

The last week or so of dedicated Myst gathering had raised Jeb’s Myst capacity substantially, and yanking open the door of a nineteen ninety-two Buick Roadmaster fell within Jeb’s mind-bending supernatural powers.

Jeb put his head down and dove, jumping head-first into the front seat. The gearshift punching him in the liver almost distracted him from closing the door, but he managed to curl his legs out of the way and tug the door closed with his mind.

Clank!

The escape only took about three seconds, and he’d only stayed ahead of the creatures by a hair. The succadillo bouncing off the car door was pretty good evidence of that.

“Ugh,” Jeb groaned, rubbing his gut and sitting up in the bucket seat and peering out the window, careful not to put his face too close to the glass. No telling if these sonsabitches could pierce glass.

Jeb momentarily contemplated the horror cliché of getting trapped inside your car by a monster, your only means of defense tantalizingly out of reach. In this case, Jeb’s gun.

He rolled his eyes and formed a telekinetic hand.

Jeb’s ability to move things telekinetically fell into two different categories. He could either imbue something with his Myst and move it around directly, but he couldn’t bend the object itself; it was held rigid.

Good for bulk and immobile weapons.

Or, he could create exterior force and use that to act on an object, which allowed for more delicate and complicated maneuvering. In this case, pulling a trigger.

Jeb telekinetically reached under the Jeep and grabbed his revolver before he blew away the closest four succadillos harassing his wagon, sending bits and pieces of keratin armor and blood scattering around the sizzling hot pavement.

Crap, empty. There were still thirty or so. This could take a few minutes.

Jeb glanced into the back of the station wagon as he was rummaging around the Jeep for his box of bullets. The station wagon must have been some teen’s hand-me-down car from a parent or an older brother, because the supplies in the back spoke to a teen road trip.

Jeb snagged some Cheetos, Red Vines, and a box of root beer, shoving one of the cheesy confections in his mouth while he watched what his telekinetic hand was doing.

It was hard to lift a backpack up with one mental hand, place it where he could see it, then rummage around in the pockets for his bullets, but Jeb was managing. He slung the strap on the back of the headrest, then worked his way to the pockets.

Smartass waved from the backpack, pointing to Jeb’s left.

Jeb glanced over and saw a group of melas and keegan ‘adventurers’ carving their way through the succadillos, using gear that looked specifically designed to penetrate the armor: short-hafted picks with wicked-sharp spikes at the end designed to ignore the armor.

They almost looked like those people picking up trash on the sidewalk, minus the reflective jackets...and a fair amount more acrobatics. They moved superhumanly fast, but not so much that Jeb couldn’t follow.

Presuming no points in Myst, they’re probably clocking in…high teens, low twenties?

Jeb reached into the twelve pack and snagged a root beer, wincing when the hundred and thirty degree can scalded his skin. He reloaded his gun, setting it on the hood of the station wagon, then settled in to watch the caravan guards do their job.

All it took was a creative application of mountain river water flowing around the soda can, and within minutes, Jeb was kicking his feet up on the dash and indulging in a bitingly cold can of some of the last root beer produced in the U.S.

Tap tap. There was one of the keegan adventurers standing outside the window, his face outside Jeb’s field of view.

Jeb worked the ancient window, rolling it down with the squeaky winch.

“Yeah?”

“Mr. Trapper, the sand fleas are taken care of. It’s safe.”

“Damn, I kinda liked ‘succadillo’,” Jeb muttered, stepping out of the car.

He glanced out across the road and saw the caravaneers were taking stock of the situation, figuring out who needed help and who needed burning. Brav, unfortunately, was in the latter category. The hornless melas lay still along with two others on the side of the road.

The caravaneers were practical people, and the deceased were cremated quickly, placed atop a rather small pyre and burned while surrounded by their family, who seemed to take comfort in watching their loved ones reduced to ashes. There were tears, but they were quick to dry.

From what Jeb could glean, it was because people dying on a long trip was par for the course. Everyone threw in together expecting that some people would die. They were already mentally prepared to say goodbye to the people they travelled with.

The thing that Jeb didn’t get was why there was a general resentful look in the caravaneers’ eyes when they looked at him. As if he was personally responsible for the three deaths somehow?

Am I the albatross, perhaps?

The caravan guards explained it to him when he inquired about it.

“The caravaneers thought you might guarantee a safe journey. They believed you were a rather high-level individual travelling in secrecy. They are simply disappointed that their expectations were unfounded. It’s no fault of yours.” The guard spoke while roasting a sand flea leg, waiting for the caravaneers to finish burning their dead.

“They feel lied to. Damn, people have gotten lynched for less. How do I manage this?”

“Clear things up?”

Jeb glanced at his Jeep. He could ditch them here, but that was a last resort. As