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

the tears begin to take hold as she watched the evil witch menace the fuzzy-haired daddy with a snake-knife.

Just like my daddy.

But this daddy won, because mommy was there to help get daddy’s witch sword.

“Nancy.” A whisper came from the front door.

“What?” Nancy’s head came up, glancing at the paint-covered windows. There was a faint shadow against the glass, all distorted from the flickering firelight from the bazaar outside. It was about the right shape, though.

“Nancy, open the door. I left something here,” Colt whispered.

“Oh, okay.” Colt forgot stuff sometimes. It seemed like keeping track of all of them was a lot to remember, so he was a bit frazzled sometimes. That made sense.

I wish I could help more, Nancy thought as she set the book aside, walking over to the door and clicking the lock open. She put her whole body into opening the stubborn door, grunting as she tugged.

Once that was taken care of, she peeked out into the darkness.

“Colt?”

A pale white hand snaked out of the shadows and wrapped around Nancy’s mouth, dragging her into the dark.

Chapter 13: Networking

Ron glanced over at Jeb clomping down the road, patting his forehead with the damp towel. Then the Mystic Taxidermist did a double-take.

“Holy shit!” Ron dropped his hoe and leaped over the waist-high fence, landing on the dirt path outside his land and sprinting toward Jeb at a decidedly inhuman pace. Maybe not car speed, but definitely as fast as a four wheeler.

“Ron, hold up, I’m not—”

Ron tackled Jeb’s chest, sending both of them careening to the ground. The necromancer’s arms were like living iron, squeezing Jeb with no regard for the sanctity of his bones.

“We thought you were imprisoned by the empire or dead or something! What happened!?”

“If you don’t let go,” Jeb gasped, staring up at the sky, “I might be.”

“Oh.” Ron released Jeb’s waist and stood up, peering down at him quizzically.

Jeb decided to stay down a little longer, poking his ribs to make sure they were whole.

“So what’s up, man?” Ron’s eyes flickered to Smartass hovering above Jeb. “Smartass.”

“Ron,” Smartass said, arms crossed.

“You want the long story or the short one?” Jeb said, taking Ron’s hand and pulling himself to his foot.

“Let’s go with the long story. I got time.” Ron crooked his finger, and the nearby tractor-zombie lumbered closer.

“Tell Tony to bring the good juice from the bottom shelf, along with some ice, and a bunch of wood for a gazebo. Yeah, bring Jack and Jesus.”

“UUUurgh.” The zombie lumbered off.

“Semi-autonomous,” Ron said, motioning to the zombie with a flourish. “Figured it out a few days after we got out.”

“So what happened to everyone?” Jeb asked. “I’m very curious.”

“That makes two of us,” Ron said, motioning for Jeb to follow. “You show me yours, I’ll show you mine?”

“Gross. But acceptable.”

Ron chuckled.

Ron led him to a gate leading to the inside of the property and together they followed a little dirt path until they came to an artesian well where water simply squirted out into the air on its own, and zombies lined up to fill water barrels.

There was a refreshing mist of water in the air, and Ron motioned for the rotting corpses to wander off while they sat down next to the splashing fountain.

Jesus and Jack were codenames for Ron’s lumber-based zombies, with saws, hammers, planers and more fused to their insectoid limbs. In a matter of minutes, they constructed shelter from the sun around the two of them while they spoke.

Jeb told Ron everything he could about the last couple months. He left out fairy Impact harvesting techniques and his suspicions about the lump on his head, but for the most part, he told the necromancer everything.

“That’s total bullshit,” Ron said, shaking his head.

“To be fair, option number one was killing me,” Jeb said.

“So you’re supposed to kiss the ground they walk on? Assholes.”

“I don’t think they’re universally assholes, or even evil,” Jeb said, rubbing the ring on his finger.

“Well, whatever. I’m sure you’ll be fine. You got a knack for being the underdog. What are you planning to do without a Class, though?”

“Ah ah.” Jeb held up a finger. “I told you what happened to me. Now you have to tell me what happened to everyone else.”

“Let’s see…” Ron said, setting his mug of fruit juice on his knee. “Well, when we got there, they congratulated us and threw this huge party.”

He stared into Jeb’s eyes. “I’m talking a huge party. And there was every kind of entertainment you could possibly ask for. I mean it. There were these melas dancers who—”

“How about we focus on the survivors.”

“Ahem.” Ron cleared his throat. “Right. So there we were at this party, and after the festivities had wound down, the emperor gathered us all together in the same room and he gave us this amazing speech about how we should all consider working together with the empire to ease the transition. Politics-type stuff, you know. He offered us citizenship for free as well as jobs to the ones who were interested.”

“He said all this in the speech?” Jeb asked.

Ron frowned. “You know what? I don’t really remember the specifics of the speech.”

“You don’t remember, but it was amazing?” Jeb asked, little alarm bells going off in his head. “What’s your Nerve?”

“Twenty-seven,” Ron said, staring out into his farm, idly thumbing the handle of his drink. “Anyway, a lot of us took him up on the citizenship thing, but only a few people wanted to actually work for the empire.”

Let’s not poke at the gaps in his memory, Jeb thought. As far as he knew, twenty-seven was enough Nerve to remember nearly everything in crystal-clear detail. The specifics of a speech fell well