Chapter 12: Run Forest (Patreon)

“You’re serious?” Jeb asked.

“No humans allowed.” The hulking melas said, holding up an orange palm in front of his face. “Surely you can read the sign.” He motioned to a big white sign with scribbles on it.

“This is usually the part where the bribe works,” Jeb muttered to himself, glancing greedily through the window, where dozens of minor magic items were sitting on glittering glass stands. Magic clips, magic pens, magic floaty paperweights.

Further back, resting inside the glass counter under the watchful eye of the clerk, were dozens of wands, each one hand crafted with magnificent decorative motifs that hinted at their function.

Behind the counter, there were rich, oiled boxes with silver and gold rings, behind an iron grate covered with glowing runes. It was enough to make him drool.

“I’ve got money. You can see I’ve got money, can’t you?” Jeb asked, motioning to the case of gold under his arm.

Selling tubs of people’s jewelry had netted him a whopping…sixty bulbs. Turns out a fair amount of the stuff was gold-plated. Add that to some steep price gouging, and he’d walked away with only a bit of cash.

Jeb hadn’t expected to get retail price for the jewelry, obviously, but he knew the seller had to be making money hand over fist reselling those chains, watches and jewels.

Since when is sixty grand only a bit of cash, anyway? When you’re pretending to be rich.

“I can see you’ve got money,” The guard drawled. “I’m sorry to tell you that your money’s no good here. Non-human Citizens only I’m afraid. The establishment doesn’t believe you fat monkeys can be trusted with magical equipment just yet.”

Jeb’s jaw dropped. Did I just get discriminated against? But I’m rich! Rich people don’t get discriminated against!

No, wait, I’m thinking of rich and famous people.

Jeb took one last, longing look at the candyland that lay beyond the glass window, watched a richly dressed keegan 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 that sells magical junk in town.

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 outside.

“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 and 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 and 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 Linnorm 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 did it too, although in more war-paint style.

Reluctantly, Jeb put his hands up.

“Hey, I’ll be the first one to congratulate you guys on a well executed ambush…but you’ve got a bit of a problem with your fields of fire.”

“Oh?” The tallest kid, wearing a Rufio looking Mohawk asked.

“In a circular ambush like this one, you all would want to be higher than me so that your bullets have no chance to hit each other. If you miss, there’s a chance you hit your friends here.”

Jeb motioned with his thumb to the two kids standing in front of the Barnes & Nobel. “When we’re all at the same height, it gets really dangerous.”

Rufio held out a palm and motioned for the kids to get down. They knelt and aimed up at Jeb's face. Suddenly their fields of fire no longer stood much chance of hitting each other.

Clever kid.

“Give us the gold, old man.”

“I’m thirty-seven.”

“What?”

“I’m thirty-seven, I’m not old.”

“Just put the case down and walk away. We don’t wanna shoot you.”

“Then don’t shoot me.” Jeb glanced around. “You realize there are more people right around the corner, right? I don’t know what’ll happen if you start popping off rounds in here, but it won’t be good for you.”

Rufio stepped forward and pressed the gun to Jeb’s chest.

“Last chance.”

Hmm. Jeb wasn’t inherently immune to bullets, his Body still being within human limitations, and they weren’t the kind of people he could go murderhobo on, given their age.

He could try to flip the safety on their guns on, but there were nearly a dozen of the little bastards, he could only do two at a time, and if they caught on before he was done, there was a good chance he would get shot.

Or worse, a child could get shot.

Lesson one, defuse the situation.

“Okay, you got me,” Jeb said, sliding the bulb strap off his shoulder and lowering them slowly onto the ground, keeping his other hand raised as he did so. “Can you at least tell me where the human selling magic stuff is…you know, assuming you didn’t make him up?”

“Northwest side of the city, up against the coast. He’s got a shop and temp Agency called Working Stiffs. You can’t miss it.”

Rufio flicked toward the door with his gun. “Now get lost, pops.”

“You know you guys are gonna get a terrible yelp review for this,” Jeb said, hands up as he backed away, out of the circle, armed children streaming around him, clustering around the bag of cash.

“We welcome repeat business. Come back if you’ve got cash to burn.” Rufio said with a grin before dismissing him entirely.

“I might take you up on that,” Jeb said, picturing his sweet kidnapping revenge.

Jeb backed away slowly as Rufio picked up the case, surrounded by the grasping hands of his henchmen. The further away Jeb got, the less chance they would hit him or each other.

“Calm down, calm down!” He said, holding the case up and out out of the reach of the smaller children “We’ve gotta get this out of sight before somebody –“

Yoink. Jeb infused the case of gold with a strand of Myst and yanked it straight up, out of the boy’s palm.

The children watched, dumbfounded as the case sailed straight up, hovering ten feet above them in the high ceilings of the semi-abandoned shopping mall.

Rufio, though. Rufio’s gaze followed the strand of orange-gold Myst back to Jeb, his eyes widening.

Jeb whooped as he drew the satchel zipping through the air towards himself, catching it like a football before diving around the corner.

For being totally armed children, there was a hell of a lot less gunfire than Jeb had expected. None, actually. It’s possible that Rufio was aware giving children loaded guns in a crowded mall was a stupid idea, Jeb thought as he clomped full speed toward the exit.

Still, Jeb would rather not test it.

The click of his wooden leg echoed through the halls for a moment before the sound of screaming children and squeaking sneakers against polished concrete echoed from behind him.

Rufio was the first one around the corner, and Jeb whipped out a strand of telekinetic force, aiming to pull back the slide on the kid’s…

Where’s his gun?

Rufio thrust his hands forward and Jeb spotted a bit of green Myst condensing around the kid’s palms before a blast of slime squirted out at fire-hydrant pressure, covering every inch of the hall Jeb was standing in, including Jeb himself.

Whoah, shit! Jeb’s foot and peg flew out from under him as every surface in the mall’s hallway suddenly became slippery as hell.

Jeb’s pegleg, held onto his stump by tension, slipped free and went spinning off into the distance while Jeb barely managed to hold onto the gold, the leather case trying to squirt out of Jeb’s grasp at every opportunity.

These kids are trying to make me work for it.

Jeb was spinning at stomach churning speeds, sailing down the hall. In a matter of seconds, he would pass by the door leading to the parking lot.

..and there it goes.

“Oof!” Jeb rammed into a drinking fountain, the wind knocked out of him by his own mass. He unclenched his eyes and spotted the kid bum-rushing him, heedless of the omnipresent film of slime.

Rufio lunged for the case on the way past, a narrow band of slime disappearing in front of the kid’s grasping hand.

Nope.

Jeb wasn’t strong enough to lift himself telekinetically, but the non-friction of the surroundings made that a non-issue.

He yanked himself to the side, snatching the cash out of range and sliding toward the exit like a luge rider.

One of the kids near the other side of the hall tried to jump for him, but slipped and face-planted on the ultra-slippery floor.

Jeb squirted out the big double doors into the light of day, yelping when the sliminess cut out suddenly and he began road-hauling himself across the pavement.

Several alien patrons of the bazaar paused upon seeing a man hurtle out into the open air of the parking lot, scream, then hop around on one foot, but they shrugged and went about their business, cruising from one open-air stall to another, where the lower quality goods were on display for the common man.

Hopping in place and rubbing the road rash on his ass, Jeb eyed the dim double doorway, watching the children shy away from public spectacle. With a few sullen glances toward him, they faded from view, retreating back to their bookstore refuge.

Goddamnit. Jeb was tempted to gloat, but he was the adult, and they did tell him where to find the guy he was looking for. He didn’t wanna owe these punks anything, either.

Let’s see, buying food for twelve kids…gotta be expensive.

Jeb slipped a bulb out of his case and threw it through the doorway. The gold coin clattered into the mall’s dim entrance, and a moment later a tiny white hand snatched it off the ground before disappearing.

There. That’s my good deed for the day, Jeb thought, turning around and hopping away, stabilizing himself with his own Myst. A minute later, he traded a few of his spending silver for a decent cane and clomped away.

“Well, if there’s one thing I’ve accomplished today, It’s that I’ve found some at-risk children to kidna–er, preemptively rescue.”

After a bit of hopping around and some advice from concerned onlookers, Jeb found a prosthesis shop where he ordered a custom built spring-aided piece of wood to walk on. Since he put five bulbs toward the down payment, they let him walk out with a simple loaner. The height was a little off compared to what he was used to, but Jeb had plenty of time to get used to it on the way to the Working Stiff temp agency.

***

“Oh man, that was a lot of children…and I’m pretty sure that big one could see me. Children usually have a bit more Myst when they’re younger. You should have made some Deals with those kids. Something as small as a little girl’s stuffed teddy bear could’ve gotten us some serious juice.”

“I didn’t think of it while they were pointing guns at me,” Jeb said dryly.

Smartass perked up for a moment. “Did I ever tell you why we fairies like children so much?”

“I don’t think you did,” Jeb, said, carefully clomping along the cobbled street, trying not to stumble on his loaner leg and cane.

“Then get ready for another Wizard Lesson. I don’t know what the official word for the phenomena of children having more Impact is, but I like to call it ‘time value’.” She said.

“Lifespan?”

“Exactly. When you’re young you have tons of Impact simply based on the sheer amount of potential lifespan you’ve got remaining, barring violent or untimely death. If you take away a piece of a girl’s innocence by trading her dolly for food, that experience echoes throughout her entire life. Boom, huge amounts of Impact for the price of a loaf of bread.”

Smartass grinned maliciously, rubbing her hands together.

“I’m not sure I’m comfortable with taking a child’s innocence,” Jeb said, glancing at her askance.

“Oh come on, they’re losing them by themselves all over the place, why not take a piece of the pie?” Smartass waved her hand dismissively. “Childhood innocence has tons of Myst and is great for the skin. Why else do you think so many lady wizards use it?”

“I’m starting to understand why Pharos society labeled you as a menace.”

“Who, me?” Smartass asked, her cheeks dimpled.

“Fae in general.”

“Pfft. They just haven’t adapted to us. Not like humans have.”

“Oh?”

“You humans are innoculated. You’ve got cautionary tales about making Deals with strange forces in the woods passed down from mother to child for thousands of years in every culture. Thus, when a stranger comes up and offers you a Faustian Deal, you’ve long since been conditioned to nope right out of there. Pharosian natives don’t have that kind of deep history with us. Not yet, anyway. Did I use ‘nope’ as a verb correctly? I’m still absorbing modern human vernacular.”

“You used it right…” Jeb fell silent as he thought for a moment while he walked.

“Are you implying fairies existed on Earth?”

“Wizards, too, as recently as four hundred years ago,” Smartass said, perching atop his head. “Then we came here.”

“Why?”

“Idunno,” Smartass said, kicking her heels against Jeb’s eyebrows. “You’d have to ask an older fae than me. Good luck with that. They tend to be mean and not as awesome as me.”

Smartas slapped her hands on her cheeks, nearly outside Jeb’s field of view. “Ohmygosh, does that mean I’m about to stop being awesome?”

“I think you’ll be fine.” Jeb said, considering the ramifications of Smartass’s words. Humans and fae coexisted as recently as four hundred years ago, and fae have only been on Pharos for a short while? One more mystery to ponder. Icing on the Weirdness Cake.

Jeb stored that information away for later perusal and focused on finding the human with magical gear for sale.

The Working Stiff temp agency was a new business, just started a month ago by an upstart human who’d bought a vast section of land off the northwestern edge of the city. It was reputed to be a farm/shop/labor rental service, run by a single human proprietor.

Jeb made out the shop nearly a quarter mile off, as the dense city died away to reveal row upon row of brilliant green vegetables sprouting in the beating sun.

How does he water all these? Jeb wondered to himself. Was there some kind of aquifer or irrigation he wasn’t aware of? He couldn’t see anything to that effect.

Gradually the scene became clear as distant dots resolved into strange figures carrying oversized buckets of water. Closer to fifty-five gallon drums, he thought, studying the creatures. They had to be bigger than he’d thought originally.

They definitely weren’t human, but Jeb honestly didn’t know what they were. From their silhouettes in the distance, they looked like driders from D&D, with a human upper torso, and eight long legs with knobbly knees.

Except they definitely weren’t driders.

As Jeb got closer, he could make out the strange creatures using the tools that were seemingly welded into their flesh to ho, weed and shovel dirt, replacing the occasional unhealthy crop with a new one.

What horror is this?

They did say this guy was human, didn’t they? Jeb was starting to understand the general sense of unease people had when referring to this place.

When Jeb got close enough to see the whites of their eyes, he saw there was nothing but whites. The creatures’ eyes were glazed over with death, their skin slowly desiccating.

They were monstrous amalgams of body parts harvested from half a dozen different sources, fused together to make these makeshift all-purpose tractor creatures, then animated by foul magic.

One of the creatures reached down with a slender leg and tapped the single two-legged figure working in the field on the shoulder, gaining its attention.

It was a tall, slender man bearing a dusty ho, wearing a woven straw hat over tufts of curly ginger hair with a wet towel over his shoulders to help with the heat. He wore denim overalls over a white T-shirt, and some obvious signs of repeated sunburn on his forearms.

More specifically, it was Ron the Necromancer.

***Nancy, 8 years old***

“Did we have to try to steal that old man’s money? Stealing is bad.” Nancy didn’t really have the words to describe how bad making other people sad felt, so she put the feeling into the word itself.

“Maybe we didn’t.” Colt said, flicking the shiny coin the old man had thrown at them between his knuckles. “But we didn’t know that he’d actually pay us until after we attacked him.” The leader of the orphans chuckled.

Nancy frowned, trying to make sense of Colt’s logic. Sure, a few people had walked off with books without paying, and a few others had gotten answers, then left without paying, then…

Oh, I get it.

“Still, that was mean.”

“Gotta be mean to get by sometimes,” Colt said, pushing himself to his feet. “I’m going to go buy food with this. You guys lock the door after me, and don’t open it until I get back, okay?”

“Because of Slenderman?” Nancy asked.

“Pretty sure Slenderman doesn’t actually exist.” Darius said. The older boy with plastic gold chains around his neck was reading a novel with a flashlight.

“Casey said he saw him before he vanished.  A tall, skinny man in a suit. with white skin!”

“That was a keegan.”

“But he was wearing a suit!”

“Keegan in a suit,” Darius shrugged.

“Hey.” Colt snapped his fingers and drew their attention back to himself. “Doesn’t matter who or what is taking us, only that it needs to stop. Lock the door until I get back, okay?”

“What kind of food are you buying?” Nancy gasped with sudden realization. “Can I get some Reese’s cups?”

Colt frowned at her, an expression that Nancy couldn’t quite read. Sad…or angry? Both?

“…I’ll try.”

“Yay!” Nancy did a double fist pump, like she’d seen her dad do whenever he beat a game. It felt good.

“No guarantees. Reese’s are getting…hard to come by.”

“Aw.”

“What else are you getting? They’re not charging gold for candy nowadays are they?”

“Rice.”

“Booo!” Catcalls echoed from every corner of the bookstore as the children heaped disdain upon their leader’s plans.

“Deal with it,” Colt growled. “Rice will last the longest. Any idea when the next rich guy is gonna wander through looking for a book or a map?”

They felt silent.

“Didn’t think so.”  Colt pocketed the coin and headed out into the dim hallway. It was dim now, but things started to get really dark inside the mall when the sun went down. The shadows looked deep and hungry during the day, with plenty of room for wicked things to hide.

At night, it was much worse, bad enough that Nancy couldn’t see her hand in front of her face. Night wasn’t very far away, either. Colt would have to travel back through the dark.

Colt will be fine, he made it through the Hard tutorial and can see in the dark. He’s practically a superhero, Nancy thought to herself before Colt turned and looked her in the eye.

“Lock. The door.” he said, poking her in the snoot.

“You don’t have to be mean,” Nancy said, sliding the door closed and flipping the knob with a click.

The painting on the door obscured Colt as she listened to his sneakers softly scuff away.

Darius stifled a yawn. “I’m gonna hit the sack.”

“Okay good night.” Nancy said absently as she picked up a flashlight and began searching for something by Doctor Seuss.

Or whatever this is, she thought as she pulled out a book from the shelf. It had a pretty cover with weird, blurry ink on the front. Lots of blues and purples.

Purple is the best.

Nancy took the book to her bean bag and shook the flashlight until it was bright again, sounding out the words on the cover.

“The wait-chus…hand.” Nancy looked up for confirmation on her pronunciation before realizing that Darius had already left to take a nap. Or play with Bess. Those two had been playing a lot together recently. Nancy wasn’t dumb.

K-I-S-S-I-N-G. It was the biggest word she knew, mostly thanks to the song about it. Gross. Nancy rolled her eyes, copying mommy.

The story, from what Nancy could tell, was about when a witch crept into a kid’s bedroom, dripping snakes and spiders, breathing smoke, and the daddy…

Nancy felt 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.