The Arbiter
Copyright© 2025 by James Girvan
Chapter 44
The sun had just set; so all that was left to see by were the moon, stars, the fire pit, and the distant glow of lights from the farm. The shitbox started first try, and I put the headlights on before turning it as best I could to illuminate the open area near the fire pit. Sarah was frantic the whole time, pointing off to where I assumed we’d find Robbie. Just as I got out of the car, she stiffened and pulled her weapon, running back to the fire pit.
I followed; hearing a yell just before I caught up, and our mystery girl took off again down the path into the woods. Again I followed, pausing at the tree line for a few moments to let my eyes adjust. I’d bet everyone back at the camp could hear something by now, Robbie crashing and cursing from the woods, and the unmistakable smell of the dead. They always smelled of old rot, not like soil or compost and never the sharp tang of blood or just-recently rotten meat. Axe in hand I trotted towards the sound of combat, Sarah must have joined in since it suddenly got louder.
There were six of the undead, grabbing and pushing at my two collared Weapons (but mostly Sarah) when I finally got there. Robbie had a deep bite on his thigh and was obviously in trouble even with Sarah swatting at them with her Sceptre. Zombies are slow, but once they detect a target: it’s either kill or be killed if that target happens to be you.
I’m not exactly quiet in the forest (but the damn Z’s don’t hear all that well anyway) so after dropping the Whetstone, my axe decapitated two of the shambling things before the others even clued into the fact that there was another meat-sack near them. One more of them got his skill split with a backhand that came from about my waist and cut right through the skull like it was a ripe melon. Getting rid of that cursed whetstone always made a difference, but it wasn’t usually this big.
The other two took out their own opponents and I absentmindedly tossed my Footman a healing potion while looting nothing but Silver from the six corpses. “Those things came apart easier than I expected. You mentioned she’d have something to do with that?” I asked over my shoulder, my eyes and ears were scanning the forest for more of these walking dead.
Robbie was breathing hard, and took an extra second or two to respond. “Yeah, Sarah’s got some sort of bonus against evil, or undead. Can’t quite figure it exactly but it helps.” She had her shoulder under his; holding his weight off the leg as the wound on the fleshy part of his thigh knit back together under the torn fabric. “There’s dozens of these groups in the bush, some of ‘em split up to go South, but enough of them are coming this way.”
“Dozens ... as in dozens of zombies or dozens of groups of zombies?” I paled.
“Groups ... There’s gotta be at least 200 of those things, and that ain’t the worst part,” he paused again, taking a quick swig of water. “ ... there’s more than a dozen Ghouls to go along with them, a lot more.”
“Fuck, can you run? We’ve gotta get some place more defensive than this.” I sounded worried, but anyone would be.
“Not yet,” he glanced down. “ ... it’s not done yet.” We moved at a steady walk back to camp, I was casting about left and right (and behind, and above!) with both my Skills open, hoping I’d detect one of the damn Ghouls before it caught up (or fell on us). We got lucky (kinda) as the Ghoul that eventually managed to catch us wasn’t one of those ‘smart’ ones. Robbie said there were dozens of them out there in the dark, but this guy just attacked us all alone.
There was no subtlety in this one; claws extended and mouth open as he rushed us. I dropped back and turned while bending my knees. I sidestepped as he came in range, assuming it’d turn with me, but the damn thing ignored me and went straight for Robbie. It got my axe in the front of its neck as a reward for being stupid. My first strike was not exactly ideal, but sliced through enough to kill it even if it wasn’t a perfect decapitation. Another swing, and ‘the top was off’. If the damn thing wasn’t fully dead before, it was now. A quick stomp and I pulled a swirly black marble into my inventory.
Robbie was barely leaning on Sarah at all by the time we made it back to camp. I must’ve stumbled half of the way; facing backwards or up. The tree branches were large and sorta intertwined and looked strong enough to support a Ghoul. I had no desire to be taken from above like Mace had been.
Those left behind at the camp had started all the remaining cars, then positioned them so their headlights illuminated the four sides of the kitchen. I could see them on the roof, and they’d even managed to demolish the little staircase to the door, putting them a full story (and a bit) off the ground. The ladder they’d used was still leaning up against the edge of the roof, waiting for us while they called out and waved us on. Helpful of them, but I had no desire to trap myself up there; even with all of them backing me up.
“Don’t tell me; you’re gonna hold them back from the edges while the archers and the FireMage knocks ‘em down? Won’t work; get down and to the cars, we gotta find a better position.” I hollered out. Robbie paused, already having started on the ladder.
“You forget that the four of us are level three, any one of us could hold a side of this building by ourselves!” Jimmy called back, glancing toward Grace as if she was going to confirm his view in this.
“Can your level three’s hold against two hundred zombies and twenty Ghouls? We don’t know for certain that the Blue portal hasn’t broken out too ... can you handle that same amount of Skeletons as well?” Jimmy didn’t really know what to say obviously, since I could see his jaw just hanging open. Robbie had gotten down from the ladder at this point, and Tina (bless her tiny little brain) was already swinging around the top of it, feeling for her footing as Robbie held the bottom. “We need something stronger, something that a huge press of zombies can’t just push over or collapse ... and guns, we need lots and lots of guns!” I hollered, and having reached the shitbox, I wrenched its driver door open.
Sarah was in the rear, and Robbie waited until the first of those on the roof (Grace) was down at the bottom to steady the ladder for the others before he raced for the passenger side door. Tina had thrown her lot in with us and we sped off as fast as I dared down the rutted path. I leaned on the horn as we drove, hoping to buy the rest of them some time by baiting anything nearby towards us before we outpaced them.
“Got any ideas?” Robbie asked before answering his own question. “The school?”
“Too many windows to hold up inside, but from the roof we could try what Grace was attempting, it was a block wall building though.” I replied. I was tapping out S.O.S with the car horn, it was the best that I could do for these remote houses and farms. “Maybe one of these Silo’s?”
“It’s October, they’re most full of silage already.” Tina threw that one out, and I remembered she’d been here months already, so she’d probably seen it happen.
“You recall any brick, or cast concrete buildings that are in town?” I asked over my shoulder.
“Bank, VFW hall, town hall, maybe the Firehouse?”
“Firehouse: one floor or two?”
“One.”
“Nope, they’ll bust down the rolling door and we’ll die. Bank, VFW, and town hall will all be closed. Got anything else?
“I bet the VFW and the Longhorn bar are still open, it’s only about 11:00 and we could spread the word of the Zombies even if they aren’t defensible positions.” Tina argued back, “They’re right across the street from each other, well basically...”
I weights the options as we slowly drive towards town. “Where?”
“Edge of town, just past the Thrift store and the Co-Op.”
We were silent for the next few minutes, me driving along, tapping out three short honks followed by three long ones only to go back to the three short ones. I can’t even guess what the others were thinking, but I was wondering if we should just keep on driving.
Longhorns had a dozen or so cars in the lot, and old-school country music (Live!) coming out of the open door. Tina led the way in and I followed, Robbie had taken Sarah across the street to the VFW hall.
Imagine one guy and one girl walking into your country bar with historically accurate weapons and armour while you’re halfway through the best line (square?) dancing song of the night. I didn’t get much time to assess, but their fiddler sounded damn good. The catcalls and taunts started at I hit the small stage, well before I’d even managed to grab the mic. The guy on the mixer board must have been too startled to kill the sound from my stolen microphone.
“Guns? Good. We’re gonna need them.” I started out. A few of the rowdies at the bar had pulled their over shirts back, or to the side enough that I could see at least three pistols. “You’ve heard of Portal Breakouts? Well, there’s a Purple portal just out past Needham farm that’s puked out two hundred zombies and a few dozen Ghouls. I surely hope that the Blue one that’s just a bit further out hasn’t barfed out a bunch of Skeletons too, but I wouldn’t bet my life on it. We need a solid place to make a stand, and to somehow notify anyone we can get a hold of. These things have no honour and will kill sleeping children in their beds!” There was a sudden silence, and I had an (oddly) good idea. “Now, who’s the highest ranking soldier in here?”
Half the bar turned to look at a tall man a bit older than my age, and the other half looked towards a really old guy with grey hair and a fake eye.
“Gunny, let’s assume this is real for a while. I’ll take the civilians if you organize the servicemen. If we had a squadron of Cobra’s I’d be all over this, but I think we’d best leave fortifications of ground installations to you.” The younger guy said with a grin.
“yessir,” the old (Sargent?) nodded, I could see him trying not to salute, both men bring out of uniform. “ ... but I’ll take the Warrant Officer’s orders if he gets here.”
“Civilians over at this end, those with cell phones start calling everyone you know...”
“Servicemen over this end, if you have a weapon, check it. If you have a spare, share it. You two: you’re portal Divers right? You join this end and after I send out for more firepower; I want to know what we’re up against.” His voice was nothing like what I would’ve expected from an old man.
This was more than I could have hoped for and within two minutes five armed men were sent with two different trucks to various houses, ostensibly those with a known amount of weapons and the least-crazy owners. The whole bar ended up moving across the street since ‘The Hall’ had smaller windows and a better roofline according to “Gunny...”
Grace, Jimmy, and the others showed up right about then, they’d fought off about a dozen Zombies and one Ghoul. Anna was the worst off, with a chewed and broken arm but their condition confirmed what I’d said about a Breakout. Sarge (that name was being used as often as ‘Gunny’ by those around here) assigned the heavies and I to guard the door and window from outside while the tornado barricades were put in place. Having no experience with military besides my abbreviated ‘Tour de France’ I’d never seen an operation like this, what surprised me was the silence. There was little idle chatter.
We pushed the perimeter back an extra hundred meters over the next hour, covering people running in from cars parked strategically by their drivers under the eye of a thin black man who never shouted, just waved and pointed.
“Ok, Sarge says that anything inside the ring of trucks is ours, and outside of that, the rifles are weapons-free so don’t cross that line. I’ve pointed out that heads, hearts, and spinal column are really their only targets.” Grace said, as she walked back from ‘the line’. She’d been putting bottles and glasses on the cabs and hoods of the trucks.
“What’s with the glasses? Free beer for the Z’s?” Robbie asked.
“Ranging targets. Once we know they’re coming the rifles will all take a ranging shot or two. If they can hit a beer, they can hit a head.” Grace replied, taking a long pull from a bottle she had in her hand, then putting the empty on the hood of a Toyota. After popping the cap off another bottle using a car door frame like a pro she turned back to us. “Want one?”