The sun was taking its sweet time to set over the plains surrounding the town of Yarlford. The place had been all but a ghost town even before the Fall, judging by the distinct lack of railways linking it to the rest of the world, and the ‘closed for renovations’ notice on the local school dated to 2003.

  A dog barked at them before running off, down an overgrown street. Dan stared after it with mild unease, as he squinted, trying to make out if the shapes under the moss were animals, trash, or corpses.

  Vega was trailing behind. She wasn’t playing with the straps that remained on her left arm, but every time Farrah glanced back at her, Vega seemed just on the verge of saying something, but she never did.

  Farrah herself was clicking the top of her fag tin. There was one cigarette left, and she desperately needed it. Her status bars disagreed, of course, but their binary mechanic of ‘one a day’ didn’t account for how Farrah felt. She felt such a complex entanglement of emotions that she herself couldn’t name more than five of those. And the weight of the tin in her hand, too heavy but also all too light, was only adding to the aggravation.

  “Okay, I am going to say something,” Dan spoke, walking ahead. He raised an arm, with one extended finger, that quickly turned into two. “I’ll say two things,” He corrected himself.

  Farrah hummed in reply, moving her index finger under the lid of the tin, so that the clicking wouldn’t interrupt him.

  “Fist,” He stopped in his tracks, then spun around, “I appreciate you guys not leaving me behind.”

  Farrah nodded, and Vega whispered a ‘sir’ without making eye contact. The silence didn’t dwell for long enough to become anywhere close to uncomfortable, but Farrah forced herself to speak, to get her mind off the omnipresent lingering taste of her last smoke:

  “It’s what we Collectors do. For as much as I like to criticise Fabio and his group, they’ve got the right idea.” Dan didn’t react to this, beyond a slight narrowing of his eyebrows. “That being said, we should find shelter and debrief,” Farrah started walking again, clicking the tin out of rhythm with her pace.

  “The other thing,” Dan maintained eye contact as she walked past, “Is that the clicking is getting on my nerves. And I’m sure Vega will agree, right?”

  “Sir,” Vega shrugged, unconvinced.

  Farrah’s shoulders tensed, then she took a deep breath and relaxed. She got the tin into her pocket on the second try, before turning around, and quickly joining Vega.

  “It’s all over now, it’s going to be alright,” She wrapped her arms around Vega’s shoulders. The words felt strange as they left her tongue, taking with them the remnant taste of tobacco. She hadn’t said those words in a very long time, and she hadn’t meant them in even longer.

  She gestured for Dan to join in the group hug, which he did with less reluctance than she expected. They stood like that for an eternity, long enough for the sun to set proper, and for that dog to pop its head from behind a car, and sniff in the direction of Dan’s backpack that he’d dropped on the ground.

  “That was a very stressful day,” Dan was the one to pull away first. “I’m going to go find clean clothes and, or, water to wash the dead mutated zombie residue off.”

  Farrah chuckled.

  “It could have, umm, gone much worse, all things considered,” Vega spoke. “I’m glad, umm,” She glanced down, then wiped her lips, unsure of what to say.

  Farrah had the nagging suspicion that Vega was glad about something other than them all making it out, but she didn’t push. Instead, she took out her small flashlight.

  She activated the aim-assist and calibre change combo and shot down several flyers, about six kilometres away from them.

  “I’ll take the first watch,” She strode forward, flashlight pressed between her chest and her arm, as she reloaded the rifle. “I’m going to find somewhere tall to snipe from. Bring me back something from the sports store.”

  “This place doesn’t have a clothes store,” Dan dryly chuckled. “But sure, got it.”

  “I’ll look for food then. Where do we regroup?” Vega asked.

  The answer came in the form of the sudden ring of church bells. It echoed through the empty town five times before letting the silence and early-night fog roll in. Dan pretended not to be startled while Vega patiently waited for a reply.

  “There,” Farrah nodded in the direction of the church. She could just about make out the bell tower from above the rooftops to the west. It was no further than a few streets.

  “How about somewhere that’s not a church?” Dan asked. “I’ll check the buildings around it.”

  Farrah shrugged. To her, it seemed as good of a place as any, but she did reckon it would be inappropriate to kill zombies in it, and their potential arrival wasn’t something she could control.

  “Then I’m off.”

  Vega jogged off down an eastward street, her jacket briefly reflecting Farrah’s flashlight.

  “Me too. What size are you?” Dan asked.

  Farrah chuckled.

  “First of all, rude,” She jokingly said, “Second, I don’t think there’s going to be enough choice for that to matter. Just grab anything that fits you.”

  At that, Dan seemed to take offence.

  “We’re about the same size,” Farrah clarified, slipping her right hand into her pocket to play with the tin again.

  “Yeah, but boy and girl clothes aren’t sized the same,” He stated as if that was an obvious thing Farrah was meant to address.

  “Just grab whatever doesn’t have mould or gore on it,” Farrah waved him off, letting the flashlight slip from under her arm into her palm, and heading off towards the church.

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  She heard him fish his own flashlight out of his backpack and watched as her shadow turned into two. Then his light turned towards the window of a house, and the sound of breaking glass soon followed.

  Farrah’s leather jacket and shoes went into a plastic bin-bag and were left where babes were left centuries prior.

  The church smelled of mould and very faint remnants of incense. Although perhaps Farrah was imagining the latter. Considering the domain, it was fairly well preserved. The benches had been systematically overturned, and mice had made nests in the embroidered cushions. They ran away when they heard Farrah’s footsteps, and the unlucky few that got caught in her light froze, confused at whom was waking them up.

  It was hard to tell if the glass panes were stained, or simply forming, through dozens of irregular shapes, the verses of the Lord’s life, death, and rebirth. Most of them were intact, and Farrah was well-familiar with the story, so she didn’t dwell on them longer.

  The candles on either side of the wooden cross in the apse were brand new. Farrah considered lighting them, just for the time of her and her companions’ stay here. But their white paraffin tops looked too perfect to be destroyed. Instead, Farrah crossed, and lit one of the smaller candles under a Renaissance-style – but clearly late 20th century - painting of Mary.

  “We’ll talk later,” She softly spoke, pressing her lips into a thin smile. It had been a while, she realised, but another scan told her she didn’t have much time to waste.

  She hastily walked past the altar, and entered the only door labelled with ‘do not enter’. Just like in that parable of the king and his three sons, the smell of incense was starting to fill up the church, and it made Farrah reach for the tin in her pocket. On the other end of the door, a startled bat greeted the woman, before leading the way down a short hallway. It fled through an open, glass-less, window, and let Farrah take a wooden spiral stairway up.

  It creaked with each step, and threatened in that familiar and non-menacing way, to break under her weight any second. It stopped at a landing, where a trap door and a step stool led Farrah outside.

  They were coming. Slowly, but consistently.

  It almost felt like a horde night, except the moon was less than a quarter big, and the zombies didn’t smell the humans; only the guts of their own kin on them. Without a bath, the two were one and the same though.

  Farrah could see Dan’s green dot on her minimap. She could also see three dozen yellow dots approaching at various speeds. The best to do would have been to continue running until they’d get out of range of those undead, or into a settlement where they’d get clean clothes. But with both Dan and Vega out of Power, and Farrah in the very low quadruple digits, they didn’t have enough Power between them to both defend against the faster zombies and run.

  Farrah fired into the distance, using her map to aim. The gunshots echoed inside the bell, and she flinched away from the noise she’d created. She swept her flashlight around the two-by-two-meter-wide tower, trying to decide on the best place to lay base. To her surprise, someone had used this place as a base before. A sleeping bag was folded up in one of the corners, and a metal case, about fifty by thirty centimetres, stood next to it. The lock was slightly rusted, and it took Farrah both hands to pop it open.

  Inside, three magazines of 45mm, a fistful of 51mm, and two boxes of 9mm were staring at her. An unsealed water bottle of questionable freshness, and several sealed and unlabelled aluminium food packets laid atop the ammunition.

  The Steyr went back over Farrah’s back, as she took out the cardboard boxes.

  “Hey!” Dan’s voice came from down below. “How are you doing?”

  Farrah leaned over the small guardrail and shone her flashlight downwards. Dan had his crowbar in one hand, and a large Mainland bright-green shopping bag in the other.

  “Come up,” Farrah yelled.

  She then added two bullets into her gun. She activated the usual long-range skills, and having learned her lesson about shooting under a metal bell, added another.

  Cost: Weapon-dependant. 1P per bullet.

  “I think I’ll stay here, if you don’t mind,” Dan yelled. “I got you some clothes. And one of these,” he fished a pack of cigarettes from the bag.

  From this distance, Farrah couldn’t distinguish the brand, or if it was sealed or not. Regardless, she thought over her next words carefully. From what little she could make out of Dan’s posture, and readiness to collapse and call it a day, she needed to come up with a really strong argument to make him come up yet another set of stairs.

  “Thank you,” She yelled down. “I found ammo and rations here. It’s a good vantage point, so if we were to discuss the menspehere, and everything else you’ve found tonight, this’d be a good place.”

  “Why are you two yelling?” Vega called out as she emerged from a nearby street.

  She was carrying several packs of either oats or cereal and a bottle of some fizzy drink.

  “You’re-” Dan turned towards her. Farrah couldn’t make out his exact expression, and apparently Vega couldn’t either, because she didn’t comment on it. “Never mind. I suggest we camp in that house for the night.”

  “You can’t abandon me up here!” Farrah protested.

  “I thought you were fine with keeping watch?” Dan asked. There was enough doubt in his voice to make Farrah feel bad about asking a keeper to do even more physical activity when she knew he had no power to help him with it.

  “Vega, could you bring me the cigarettes and clothes please?” Farrah yelled.

  “I’d, umm, offer to stay up with you, but I think it’s best for safety if I stay with Daniel,” She replied, before doing as she was told. When she picked up Farrah’s smokes, she paused for a second. Farrah wondered if she was going to have to come down there herself to get those, but Vega looked up and spoke, “You already had four today, you don’t need one to remove your status effect.”

  “I need one to make me feel alright inside,” Farrah replied without thinking.

  She was going to add that she could come get them herself if it bothered Vega, but a scan told her two heavies were only 7 kilometres away from them, so she shot into the distance instead. Thankfully they were far enough away that the rooftops didn’t hinder her aim.

  “Here you go,” Vega put down a sweater, yoga pants, and an oversized blue and white soccer t-shirt at Farrah’s feet a few minutes later.

  “Thanks, Luath Vega,” Farrah smiled, putting the pistol down.

  “What?” Vega tilted her head.

  “Luath, the delivery company? Never mind,” Farrah pulled off her bloodied tank top, replacing it with the t-shirt that smelled of freshly applied deodorant. She noted that Dan had put a fair bit of effort into this as she swapped her denim for similar-scented trousers.

  “Here,” Vega handed Farrah a pack of 5 cigarettes, which promptly got transferred to a much sturdier tin. “About the menspherea,” Vega continued, “You won’t, umm, try to access it, will you?”

  “I’d have to know what it is before trying anything,” Farrah replied. “Dan said it was a higher dimension. Is that true?”

  “I don’t know,” Vega shook her head. “All I know is that it’s how the System is controlled.”

  “So you want to access it? To get rid of your daily quests?” Farrah asked. The pieces suddenly clicked together. “And you need 'the', not 'a', OBELISK facility to enter it?”

  “I don’t know…” Vega muttered after a short pause. “I have a lot to think over. I’ll be guarding Dan, yell if you need me.”

  Farrah frowned ever so slightly. Vega’s demeanour had changed.

  “Hey,” she shone the flashlight in the other woman’s direction, “We’ll make a grave for your friend first thing tomorrow morning. The church grounds is a good place to do that, but we can pick anywhere you’d like. I can’t say that call was the right one, and,” Farrah sighed, “I’d be lying if I said I had anything better than a gut feeling to assure you he is fine now.”

  Vega nodded. Her gaze was firm, but not fully focused.

  Farrah parted her lips to say that she knew it mustn’t’ve been easy to go back to that facility and to kill so many people who were in Vega's shoes, or rather in whose shoes she’d been. But she decided that now was not the time to give up on that specific lie. So instead she said:

  “I’ll see you tomorrow then. I’ll be out of Power by morning, so you’ll be our main defence line.”

  “Got it. See you tomorrow,” Vega replied.