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

enter the shop, then turned away. He might be able to find a way to get what he needed out of that shop at a later date.

It wouldn’t do him any good to make a scene right here.

Hmm… Where to now? Jeb thought, stepping into the center of the mall and glancing around.

Just like humans had hermit-crabbed into tons of abandoned buildings, aliens loved the mall.

The previous bazaar of Solmnath had gravitated into a mall south of the ruins of Dodger Stadium, clearing out the wares of the previous occupants and setting up shop.

Even the fancy shops like the one he’d just been refused entry had made their way inside the massive building, taking up residence on the upper floors, while the fish hawkers, farmers, blacksmiths and general nonmagical wares settled to the bottom of the four-story mall.

Jeb had forty bulbs on his person because he’d been expecting to buy some magical equipment, and now he found that the rest of his day he’d planned on spending shopping had become rather…open.

Well, that can’t be the only shop in town that sells magical junk.

Jeb fixed his head on straight and started looking in earnest.

In total, Jeb found four places that sold magical equipment to the ruling class. Three of them simply turned their noses up and the last one laughed in his face.

I can’t waste my entire day on something that’s pretty obviously a lost cause, here, Jeb thought, heading down the unmoving escalator and aiming for the door leading out into the glaring light of day.

“Psst.”

Jeb glanced up.

“Hey buddy.” A whisper from the Barnes & Noble across the hall caught Jeb’s attention.

The bookstore itself was poorly lit, with all the lights off, shadows flickering from shelf to shelf, and nine-tenths of the windows covered in some kind of awful graffiti, leaving only a narrow band of the interior visible.

“Nope,” Jeb said, turning away.

“You’re looking for a place to spend some of that cash, right?” the whisper called after him. “We got the answers…for a price.”

Jeb glanced back at the defiled Barnes & Noble, brow cocked. He looked over the graffiti more carefully this time.

Plastered among the poor drawings were the words, boldly written: ‘Surch Enjin’ in big capital letters across the front window.

What the hell is this? Did some feral species of goblin move into the Barnes & Noble? Jeb didn’t know if goblins were a thing in this new reality, but he wouldn’t put it past them.

Then a kid stepped out into the light of the hallway. He was maybe twelve, with a Cobra Kai headband and a suit that was six sizes too big for him.

Oh, kids. I guess I was close enough with feral goblins.

“Welcome traveler, to a suppository of all human knowledge. Do you need information on how to farm, build a boat, make mortar? Brew? Fish? The Search Engine has the information you need to get by. How are you gonna survive the apocalypse if you don’t know how you’re gonna survive the apocalypse?”

Come to think of it, there’s probably millions of white-collar workers who don’t know a damn thing about how to get by and need to find a new niche before they’re forced out of the city. And without the internet, you need books…. Hey, these kids are pretty clever. Or, at least, whoever’s leading them.

Of course, you can’t let a child know you think they’re clever or they’ll walk all over you.

“Suppositories go in the butt. You mean repository. And you spelled both ‘search’ and ‘engine’ wrong.”

“I know that,” the kid said, bristling. “Nancy didn’t know how to spell them and she didn’t bother to ask when she was putting up the sign.”

“And now you told a stranger Nancy’s name. Great. Good job,” another kid said, slapping the first one on the back. This one was dressed more like a typical teen, with a T-shirt and jeans, but wearing a ridiculous amount of gold chains.

I guess I couldn’t have been the only one looting.

“My name’s Jebediah Trapper. I bought the Linnorn mansion up on the northeast side of the city. I’m a former sergeant in the Army, and I know a thing or two about magic tricks. There, now we ain’t strangers no more.”

“Nice one, Forrest Gump,” the preteen chortled.

Jeb clenched his teeth. Perhaps in his effort to relate to children, he’d pulled dusty lines out of his lexicon that seemed to match the occasion and accidentally opened himself to ridicule.

Let’s move past that.

“You said you knew where to spend my cash?” Jeb asked.

“Yeah, we’ll show you on a map. Come on inside.” The preteen boy motioned inside the darkened building.

“Nuh-uh,” Jeb said, shaking his head. “Looks like a trap.”

“I told you,” the freckled kid in the suit whispered to his buddy before the other one pinched him.

The one in the gold chains sighed. “Okay look, there’s a human dude who sells the kind of stuff you’re looking for.”

“And how do you know what I’m looking for?”

“Because we’ve been watching you since you tried to bribe that bouncer!” the one in the suit blurted.

“Makes sense.” Jeb nodded. “You guys trying to rob me?”

“What? No!” the kid in chains protested.

Jeb looked him in the eye.

Ever-so-slowly, his gaze slid away from Jeb’s face.

Cha-chick. Jeb heard the sound of a gun cock from the empty stall across the hall, and he almost sighed in disappointment.

“Hands above your head!”

Kids between the age of seven and twelve came out of the woodwork, every single one of them pointing a gun at him that didn’t belong in their pre-pubescent hands. They were wearing all kinds of clothes, from mad-max to notice-me. A few of the girls were slathered in amateurish amounts of makeup, while even some of the guys were too, although