The Protagonist System

133 Turbulent Times Part Four

You would think flying an airplane would be exciting and fun, and it was... for the first hour or so. After that, taking notes about what I was seeing and not seeing, namely no survivor camps, signs of life, or anything I could land and pilfer, was kind of disheartening. I knew if I didn't find anything noteworthy to report or potentially bring back, the whole flight might be worthless to the rest of the camp. It wouldn't be for me, however.

You see, I knew a few things about what would have happened if the camp survivors left the safety I had made for them and we tried to go find others. I knew the dangers, the threats, and the deaths that would be caused by others wanting what we had and trying to break us apart. So, I had to do something to prevent that from happening at any time in the future.

My plan of attack? The army base. Even if it was locked down or picked over, with magic on my side, it opened up so many options for me to use to clean up the area.

What's that? There's no modern launchers for those sidewinder missiles? A transfigured holder and a push spell would easily work. A disarmed bomb that needed bay doors to drop? A flick of my wand should reattach the detonator and I could drop it from my inventory under the plane. There were hundreds of thousands of rounds for modern planes that can't be used? A slight change to the calibre on the machine guns on my plane would solve that issue.

Yeah, I had a lot of ideas that I could enact by using magic to tweak things. I even had lots of time to do it, too. Landing before dark at the army base that I was sure had been abandoned, would give me all evening, all night, and then part of the morning to work out the best way to handle things. I might even stumble across more dry foods and MREs to bring back to the camp, since most of the plane was hollow anyway.

My flight plan took me over several of the safe zones marked on the map as I flew towards the army base, only I saw burned out buildings, wrecked vehicles, and masses of walking dead inside the compounds and around the areas. It was sad, really. None of them had stringent protocols in place and let bitten people inside, thinking they were only wounds. I would not be finding any help in those places.

I flew on and made note of disabled factories, empty towns, burned out malls, and so many vehicles that had been abandoned or ruined. It was almost like someone had intentionally gone out of their way to make sure everyone had to travel on foot, which was stupid. Any vehicle could provide some safety from the walkers, as long as you weren't swarmed. They could break the glass and get to you if there were enough of them.

After covering the bottom half of the state on the longer leg of the trip, I slowed my plane down as I approached the army base's airspace. By the looks of things on the first flyover, there were no obvious breaches in the perimeter. That did not mean there were no walkers inside, however. I knew better than that.

During my second pass, I saw that the runway was inside a large fenced-off area and was attached to the army base with no visible damage, either on the fences themselves or on the runway. It had to handle the large carrier planes for supplies, so my own little single person fighter could land there easily.

I did one last flight over, just to see if anyone heard or saw me, and came in for a landing. The winds were negligible, so I didn't have any trouble setting down and slowly coming to a stop. I didn't taxi myself over to the buildings I could see, either. I wasn't stupid. I left a lot of room between my only vehicle of escape and a possible ambush by either the dead or the living.

I opened the canopy and slit it back, then slowly stood and took my gun from the holster on my hip. I slowly climbed out of the cockpit and down the grooves on the side of the plane and hopped down onto the tarmac. Nothing around me moved or made any sounds, so I stood there for several minutes and waited, just in case.

When nothing came after me, I stored the plane and went over to the hangar that had an open front door. There was nothing inside, no cargo plane, no helicopters, and no supplies. There were also no walking dead that I could see, so I went over to the office and went inside. The only things I found were a bunch of messed up paperwork and two desks with rolling chairs behind them. The blood stains told a story that I didn't need or wanted to know.

The hangar must have been cleaned out before the army people left or they packed everyone inside every available flying machine and took off. I thought and went over to the fuel dispenser and checked it. There was no power, so no pump working to get the fuel.

I debated pulling out the wires and trying to rig something up, like the electrical panels in the moving vans, then shrugged. I could easily tear up the tank covering in the pavement and siphon out the fuel directly instead. I would also need to find a container besides the barrels I had in inventory, assuming there was any fuel left inside the base's supply tank.

I left the hangar and went to the nearby motor pool building and saw the chained door. I let out a sigh and had to go back to the hangar to grab the two office desks and went back to the motor pool door. I set up the desks in front of the door, careful of leaving room for the door to swing out, and I prepared myself for another cleansing mission.

I stored the chain and lock and stepped back to wait. Nothing happened, so I carefully went to the door and jiggled the handle and leapt back behind the desks to push them into the space. There was no bang or anything like I expected, so I sighed and went back to the door.

I braced myself and flung the door open with a bang and dove back behind the desks, pushed them in front of the open door to stop the walkers from easily leaving, and left only enough room above both desks for headshots. The loud noise definitely gained some attention and I heard the groans and growls of the walking dead.

I waited until I saw the first few appear before I opened fire. The forehead caved in and the back of the thing's head exploded, dropping the dead body long before it reached the desks. I had an errant thought and took out my wand to stick the desks to the metal frame of the doorway and then took aim at the next walker and fired.

The gunshots were excessively loud and echoed among the buildings, so I had to also keep an eye out around me. It was at that moment I remembered my alert ward trick and cursed myself for not setting it up beforehand. There was no chance of doing it now, not with more and more walkers coming into sight. My eyes saw a few of them staggering along the fence and coming this way, too.

Fuck. I thought and couldn't do much about that yet. I needed to clear out as much of the motor pool as I could before I needed to handle the horde starting to gather near the left fence... and now at the right fence. Double fuck.

I had a lot of work to do before nightfall and I was extremely grateful that I had infinite ammo.

*

Amy looked up at the darkening sky and she couldn't help voicing her thoughts. “Do you think he landed already?”

Andrea put her arm around her sister's back and hugged her. “You know I hate to say this...”

Amy rolled her eyes, because her sister always made that statement when she was trying to teach her something.

“I saw that.” Andrea said and took a breath and let it out. “He's smart.”

Amy gave her a squinted look.

Andrea huffed. “I'm not being sarcastic when I say that. He really is smart. Smarter than us.” She said and looked up at the sky as dusk fell. “He would have landed long before it started to turn dark and made sure he was landing somewhere safe.”

Amy leaned into her. “Is this that mysterious big sister intuition you're always claiming you have?”

“Yes, and it's always best to listen to your sister.” Andrea said and suddenly remembered what happened back in Atlanta when they first met Rick. “Most of the time.”

Amy nodded and looked back up into the sky again. “Do you think it's bad there?”

Andrea fell silent and didn't say anything for several moments.

“Andi?” Amy asked and looked at her sister.

“It was one of the biggest refugee camps in the state.” Andrea replied, her voice soft. She didn't have to elaborate any more than that, not after how they had escaped their own little hell with Dale.

Amy's eyes started to tear up and she didn't try to wipe them away. She looked back up at the sky and didn't say anything else. All she could do was pray that he would make it back to her tomorrow.

*

I huffed and panted as I rested on the roof of the motor pool. I looked down at the absolutely massive horde of walkers that had gathered from all the noise I had been making for hours. It hadn't been so bad until the doors to the main building had burst open and nearly a thousand walkers stormed out looking for food.

How did the army fit all those people inside the compound, have so many of them turn undead, and not have any breaches in the walls or the fences? Well, that was before I showed up. Now half the fences were crushed when I couldn't get to them to cull down the hordes in time as I fled for my life.

“It looks like it's time for the shotgun.” I said and took it out of my inventory, its wider spray should help a lot with such a target rich environment. “I really needed to have some sleep tonight, too.” I said as I aimed for the heads that were only ten feet below me, before I remembered I still had several gas cans in my inventory, too.

I took one out and a bit of transfiguration later, I had the world's biggest Molotov cocktail. I had to make the plastic weak and brittle and still strong enough for me to throw it without splashing it all over myself and the building I was on. The smell was going to be horrible, though. I sighed and tied a t-shirt around my mouth and nose, lit the fuse, and threw the can as far as I could.

There wasn't a huge explosion, since there was no pressure inside the can, and all it did was spread the gasoline all over a huge area and then the fumes lit on fire. The walkers didn't scream or tried to flee the fire, even with them all packed together like they were, and it spread by contact.

After about ten minutes, a good quarter of the massive horde was on fire and burning, generating smoke and a really strong smell. I couldn't tell if it was working, though. Were some of them dying? Collapsing? It was dark and difficult to see, even with the fire lighting up the place.

So, I did the only thing I could do. I doubled down on my gamble and took out another gas can. This one I cast a small barrier around and poked holes in the plastic, then I threw it as hard as I could in another direction. The weak barrier dropped in mid-air and sprayed gas all over the place like a sprinkler.

The fire easily spread with more fuel to eat and even more of the walkers caught on fire and spread it further. I started taking potshots at the closest walkers by the building and the horde moved forward slightly when there was room. The light from the fire lit up the night a lot more than I thought it would, since I forgot that there were no other sources of light to dull it down.

“You know, with thousands of you catching on fire, they can probably see you bastards from space.” I said and kept firing into the horde by holding the trigger of the shotgun and pumping the pump-action constantly.

Was that cheating? Probably. Did I care? Not right at the moment. I needed to destroy as many of them as possible before I was too tired to pay attention to what was going on around me. I didn't want to die... and I especially didn't want to die because of a stupid mistake, like letting them climb over the bodies of their fellows.

Plus, it wasn't like I needed to aim with any kind of accuracy with so many of them literally at my feet. It was going to be a very long night, even with Pepper-Up Potions to keep me going.

*

Amy woke up in bed and felt soft arms around her, holding her. She tried to not let the disappointment get to her that it wasn't Rick's strong arms doing it and her thoughts went to him and wondered what he was doing. She couldn't stop worrying that his reassurances about being able to handle everything he came across, might not have been accurate, considering the mess the world around them was in.

“Did you sleep for long?” Andrea's voice asked her.

Amy turned her head slightly to look at her sister over her shoulder and saw her bloodshot eyes and worried expression. She turned all the way around and hugged her tightly, because she realized Andrea had stayed up all night, just to make sure she felt safe, and she did feel safe. She really did.

Andrea knew at that moment that forcing herself to stay awake all night was worth it, just to see her sister's thankful look again. She hadn't seen it much over the last few years and she deeply regretted that they had drifted apart, even though there wasn't much she could have done to fix things.

Then the world came to a stop and things changed, mostly for the worse, and also for the better. All of their normal worries and fears of the future had disappeared almost overnight and were replaced with survival and worrying about finding each other and then looking for food. Struggling to live had given them a chance that neither of them ever thought they could have... to become sisters again.

When you looked at things a certain way, the end of the world didn't seem so bad.

*

It was over. Finally over. I felt supreme relief as I sat on the edge of the charred roof and I was happy that metal and concrete buildings were very difficult to catch on fire. I also promised myself to give both Fate and Death a kiss the next time I saw them, because they bought the handgun and unlimited ammo for me, which gave me the idea to buy the shotgun, too. Both guns had saved my life so many times last night and I was very grateful for that. Very, very grateful.

My eyes looked upon the spread of dead and mostly burned bodies that the last 14 hours had reduced from an imminent danger into stuff I needed to wipe off my shoes. It was honestly the hardest fight I had ever been in and that was saying something, because some of the situations I had been in were just as scary... the only difference was this time I had to survive and couldn't go out in a blaze of glory.

I sat there for quite some time as I let myself relax. I had cleared out the whole horde and lost count of how many I had put down in the end. I had even used up the last of my gas to keep the fires going and threw out several stacks of wood to stoke the massive bonfire, which is kind of creepy now that I think about it. I actually cooked more of them to death than I shot, which was shocking.

I absently dug through my inventory and pulled out the pieces of scrap metal I enchanted as an alert ward and tossed them off of the roof around myself and waited until I heard them bounce from the metal roof behind me and dropped to the ground before I took out my wand and activated it.

I felt the magic click into place and I sighed and pulled my legs up. I stored my guns and wand, curled up into a ball on my side as I hugged my knees, and fell right to sleep.