Nora's earlier steel is crumbled now, unable to keep all her grief contained as she watches her world literally crumble. She looks from Shadrach to Oliver, watching the boy stand on the lip of the grave for a minute. "...yeah. A town," she replies absently. After an awkward pause she turns, putting her arms around Shadrach and hiding her face in his shirt. Her body shakes silently as she hides her grief.
...
The grave filled in, Hansel excuses himself. A half-hour later, there is a grinding of metal - the tractor pulling the bent lift-cage from the side of the house. The bent metal box has a comm server crammed in with four antigrav hoverbikes.
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...
The long night ends at last, a red dawn illuminating the heavy storm clouds that still hang above in the sky. The house crumbles slowly in on itself, the group finding shelter in the barn in case the downpour resumes. Everyone needs some rest and the barn providing some comfortable dimness once the upper doors are closed, blocking sight of the zombie corpses scattered in the fields beyond.
"Chickchickchickchick...," coos Nora, luring the chickens outside with a bucket full of seed. "They'll have a better chance on their own," she says sadly, getting the last of the animals out of the barn before shuttering the doors for the last time.
A campfire on the packed earth between the barn and the house provides light as the sun goes down, a pot of stew simmering. Nora tastes it and finally approves for it to be served to the others.
Returning with a duffel full of battery packs from the tractor, Hansel sits next to the fire, accepting Nora's offered bowl of beef stew. When the others sit down and there is silence over the savery gravy, he asks the question on his mind. "What is Peytr? How can he be put down? We tried several methods that were…unsatisfactory."
Nora contemplates her own bowl, pushing around a carrot with her spoon. "He was smart. Not many wanted to know science... too busy trying to scrape a living after the fall. My parents -- my mother, really -- tried to preserve what she could while the war tore things apart.
When Petyr showed up and showed interest my mom loved him immediately." She cuts a potato in half with the edge of her spoon. "...and I did, too." She wipes her nose and takes a minute, chewing the stew before she continues. "Petyr wasn't just interested in science. He gathered all kinds of books, and that included necromantic texts. My mom's arc-gate led her to the inner city to get lab equipment and let him get things from the abandoned libraries. He loved to dabble... it seemed harmless at first." She scrapes the bottom of her bowl. "It was when he fell in with the Sons of Vukodlak that things really got worse. The... well, the evil of Hell, I suppose, changed everything about him. He made pacts for power and swore he'd be in charge there soon... I didn't let him come back any more."
She sets down her bowl, her fingers interlacing on her lap to keep them from fidgeting. "Whatever the hell that thing was that we saw last night, that wasn't barely human anymore." Her brow furrows, thinking on it. "You'd normally expect hemorrhaging from a gunshot wound. His blood didn't flow. Did you notice that? A gunshot without bleed-out isn't that severe - I don't think puncturing him will do any good.
I think his necromancy changed him... changed him for good. His body didn't even react like it was alive." She blanches. "Now, the whole walking skeleton thing after the explosion... let's just hope his magic can't keep that up forever. At least he couldn't walk without ligaments. He still needs the body to function." There is a moment of uncomfortable silence, then she pushes up and moves to go into the barn. "I'm going to find an axe."
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