WWotWW - Chapter 31 - Restless  (Patreon)

“You scare me sometimes Zoey,” Clara declared, causing me to stop loading up Nightmare and glance towards her.

“Why? Because I was willing to shoot that thing without any hesitation?” I asked hopefully.

“No, it’s because of how thoroughly you managed to remove that creature with your magic,” she replied, running her hand through the dirt just outside of camp. “I wasn’t expecting to find any scorch marks or anything, but I can’t even find any footprints or magical traces to help me figure out where it came from. It’s like it never even existed.”

“That was going to be my second guess,” I grumbled before tightening up the last straps on my gear and turning so I could give Clara my full attention. “And I didn’t exactly plan to do that. When I saw that thing go down spewing fluids, and how much the spirit was freaking out because of it, I just kind of… reacted. It wasn’t as much a structured spell as it was an involuntary outburst. I wanted to stop whatever it was from spreading, so… I did.”

“And the fact that you have that much power but not much control doesn’t scare you?” Clara asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh, it does,” I said. “However, ever since I came out here, I feel like I’ve started to get a better feel for my magic. It’s less ‘take the magic and form a spell’ and more ‘direct the magic in a direction’. Less structured, more reflexive,” I explained. “While I find the lack of control unnerving, the freeform, reflexive nature makes it easier to perform actions in the moment.”

“So I saw last night,” Clara grumbled, pushing herself to her feet and rubbing the dirt off on the side of her dress. “You ever see anything like that thing before?” she asked.

“Well, I’m pretty sure it was some sort of restless dead. More specifically, some sort of zombie,” I replied. “However, the twisted musculature and strange ichor are new. If I had to guess, either someone found the zombie and performed experiments on it, or… whoever that was died in immense pain.”

Clara shuddered. “I don’t even want to imagine that possibility. It’s ghastly,” she muttered.

I nodded. “The thing is, I can’t think of a good reason for someone to perform either experiment. I mean, I can see someone trying to improve the musculature, but the damage that thing suffered went WAY beyond anything I can imagine. I’m pretty sure I saw the arm bone poking through the side of that slab of muscle which had replaced the right arm, and it looked like the shoulder muscles had bulged so much it had snapped its own neck.”

“Unintentional side effect?” Clara asked.

“Sure, but of what?” I muttered, staring at the small patch of dirt where the creature had been standing. “You know… something else just occurred to me. Didn’t you just say that you couldn’t find any tracks for that thing?  I’m pretty sure my magic wouldn’t have erased those, only consume the body and whatever was leaking out of it,” I said. I went over the encounter in my head for a couple of seconds before looking over at Clara. “You know what’s weirder? I don’t think I heard or saw anything weird when it showed up. That thing was a shambling mess; there’s no way it should have been able to sneak up on me.”

“So… what? You think that someone set that thing on us? Intentionally?” she asked. 

“Well, it could have been something other than a zombie, something more advanced,” I admitted. “However, you have to admit the whole damn situation was odd. To the best of my knowledge, there are no settlements anywhere in the area, and as far as I’m aware, we’re the only ones to travel this way in weeks”

“It’s odd, but from what I’ve read those things can rise up and wander mindlessly for months until they find a target, or rot away. I find it far more likely that it wandered in from some place back east than someone set it on us. The coven knows all the local practitioners, and if someone sick enough to make that thing was around, we’d have heard about it already.”

“Maybe…” I conceded. 

“I hate to interupt you two,” Mary exclaimed from behind me. “But could we please get moving? This place has been giving me the creeps ever since that… thing nearly wandered into our camp last night, and Plays is super anxious because the spirit apparently decided to run ahead.”

“It did?” I asked, glancing around the remains of our campsite, confused. “When? I could have sworn that it was here just a minute ago.” 

“It was. It said something to Plays, I assume, letting her know it was running off ahead; then it turned towards the entrance and just… vanished,” Mary explained. 

“Wonderful,” I grumbled. “It seemed to be aware of the zombie’s presence before it approached the camp last night, so I was hoping we could rely upon it to warn us if anything else was in the area.” 

“The spirit seemed to be extremely unwilling to leave Plays side up to this point,” Clara said. “For it to run off without her now…” she shook her head. “Something must be seriously wrong.”

“Well, I don’t think there’s anything too dangerous in the immediate area; otherwise it wouldn’t have left her alone,” I said. “That being said, I don’t think we should sit around for long. Who knows what else might be out here. It’s safer to stay on the move.”

“Right, let’s move,” Clara replied, before stepping over to her horse and unhooking the reins from the tree she’d lashed them to. She swung up onto her saddle in a single smooth motion before wheeling her horse around. 

I waited until I saw Mary and Plays start scrambling up onto their horses before stepping over to Nightmare and pulling myself up into the saddle. As I did, Kaylee got up from where she was lying, jumped up onto the saddle, then climbed up onto my shoulder.

“Mow!” she exclaimed.

“No, I wouldn’t have left you behind,” I sighed. “I saw that you were awake, and I trusted that you could jump up on Nightmare on your own.”

The cat looked at me through half slitted eyes. “Murrrrr…”

“Well, it’s the truth,” I replied, bringing Nightmare around and following the girls horses away from our small shelter. “I don’t supposed you know why the spirit ran off so suddenly, do you?”

“Meow!”

“I don’t know why I figured you’d know,” I replied. “You were watching what was happening in the camp while Clara and I were distracted. I figured you might have seen something.”

“Mmmup,” Kaylee huffed.

“So you were having your post-breakfast power nap and missed everything? I’d say I’m surprised but…” I chuckled. 

Kaylee batted my ear, then slid down my back to curl up on the bedroll lashed to the back of my saddle. 

“Alright, since we got up late due to the zombie last night, I want to pick up the pace today so we can make it through the passes before it gets too dark. Do you girls think you can handle that?” Clara called back.

“I think so,” Mary replied hesitantly. “I doubt I can handle it for a full day, but we can at least give it a try. If I have any problems I’ll let you know.”

“And Plays?” I asked.

Mary blushed. “When Plays was playing with the spirit last night after dinner I heard her complain, saying the ride yesterday was too easy,” she said. “I doubt she’s going to have any problems keeping up.”

“Good to know,” Clara replied. “I’ll keep the pace relatively easy at first, and slowly speed up. If you have any issues just speak up, okay?” 

“Alright,” Mary replied hesitantly.

“Alright,” Clara replied, turning her horse towards the nearby pass and spurring her horse into a fast canter. “Here we go.”