In the end, she created a bubble around herself free of draugar, except for the ones she had bonded with, which she could send to anywhere within her range. This exhausted her, both mentally and physically, and required deep concentration.
She reported all this to Clarence, who asked, “What happens when you go to sleep?”
“There’s only one way to find out.” She yawned.
“Could you let me sleep some before you try that? I’d rather be awake for that test, if you don’t mind, in case it doesn’t work.”
“Oh, I understand.”
Jocelyn glanced at Clarence’s battery-powered digital alarm clock. It read 12:37 a.m. “I’ll give you four hours. I can take the next four. I desperately need a shower anyway.” Lucky for Jocelyn, Clarence had a full bathroom attached to his safe room.
More like a safe suite. It must have been nice being that wealthy.
When Jocelyn awoke, it was a little past 8:30 in the morning, and Clarence reported that the draugar outside had not tried to attack while she slept. She sensed that some draugar had migrated back into her range—but none of them were moving toward them. She ate some instant oatmeal, adding hot water which Clarence had because of plenty of town water, a propane tank, a gas stove, and lighter guns to light it with. Clarence said he’d already eaten.
She settled into a cross-legged position to start a meditation and traverse the astral plane. Starting in her Inner Temple, she asked for a doorway that would allow her to astral-travel on the material plane. Once out the door, she found herself in the safe room, looking at Clarence, his nose deep in one of those post-apocalyptic novels. She looked back and saw herself meditating, a cord attaching her astral self to her aura.
<Don’t you ever get tired of those?>
“I thought you were med—” Clarence looked up from his book and laughed. “I’m going to have to get used to this. Where are you going now?”
<To find my sword. I’ve read that I should be able to make myself invisible. I’m going to try that now.>
She Willed herself invisible. She looked down at herself, at where her cord should be, but saw nothing.
<Do you see anything?>
“Wow. No.”
<Good.>
She winked in and out of visibility a few times, getting a sense of how much effort it would take, and how quickly the transformation would take. It turned out it was not much effort at all to switch, and the time it took was a fraction of a second.
Good to know.
Jocelyn Willed herself to remain invisible while astral-projecting to where her sword was. Almost instantly, she appeared in front of the blade in the break room at Beaver Park Market, facing the wall it leaned against, the familiar sounds of two people in the throes of passion behind her. She turned around. A large bear of a man fucked a woman with a buzz-cut from behind. Both wore fatigues, their pants down at their ankles.
She stifled a spontaneous laugh (that might cause a projected thought) and left the two love-birds to search the rear area of the store, wanting to understand the nature of the defense of the store and her sword. No one occupied the bathroom or refrigerated areas or the rear entrance, but in the grocery area near the break room on the floor sat two men in fatigues, two assault rifles and shotguns off to the side. They were smoking and playing cards.
“Do they realize we can hear them?” asked the man on Jocelyn’s left, the larger one of the two. The question startled Jocelyn for a moment until she realized he wasn’t speaking to her. She reminded herself that she was invisible.
“I don’t think they care much,” said the other man.
The larger man grunted. “I don’t like it. It’s too soon since their families died, or turned into zombies, or whatever.”
The smaller man shrugged. “Times like this . . . I wish I could have her.” He inhaled deeply from a hand-rolled cigarette. The way he held the smoke in, it may have been marijuana—she couldn’t tell for sure as she had no sense of smell (only sight and sound). He passed it to his friend/colleague.
The larger man inhaled and held it in, then expelled and said, “Leadership has privileges . . . still, it ain’t right.”
“You’ll feel different in a month or two.”
A chuckle. “If we last that long. We were damn lucky we were all in the training when the zombies came attacking. Did ya notice that all the ones assigned here have no family at the ranch?”
“Why d’ya think that is?”
“Too dangerous.”
There was a long pause. Jocelyn was about to leave when the larger man said, “The zombies are all around now. Why d’ya think they stopped attacking?”
“Ollie told me they’re smart enough to know they can’t take us, after we slaughtered them yesterday.”
“Hell, that’s something, at least.”
“He’s still worried, though,” said the smaller man. “And we haven’t been here long enough to know for sure.”
“He always worries.”
“It’s his job to worry. Anyway, he thinks it may be only a matter of time before they gang together into larger packs. So far, since they came back to town, they never attacked the ranch by more than eight at a time. Eight we can handle, as long as we keep a lookout. But 15? Maybe. 30? Not a chance.”
“And then there was that psycho bitch,” said the larger man. “What was up with her? They said she attacked us after we slaughtered the zombies. Makes no sense.”
“People will do strange things now. Things are different.”
“You’re smart. Are you gonna be the leader if he dies?”
“I don’t know,” said the smaller man. “It’s
