Risen World

Chapter 27: Taking Advantage of Jacob's Gift and a New Broadcast

Joshua, Laura, and Natalie followed Madalyn down a different road from the one that headed towards town. Madalyn had told them she had something to show them that she had found recently. Joshua decided to trust her and followed along although they had to leave Nathan behind sense he was still recovering from his illness. That's what lead them to their current situation. In front of them were five large storage houses that were closed up. The area seemed eerily quiet especially near such a large road that at this point should have some straggler zombies roaming it.

When Joshua approached closer to the storage lot he was able to see a body laid out on the ground in an awkward position. It looked as though it had collapsed on to the pavement and hadn't made any movements since. When he got close enough to get a good look at the head he was surprised at the shocked look frozen on Jacob's face. His eyes were fearful, but his face didn't match. Looking over his body Joshua found several bite marks all over his neck, arms, and anywhere else visible. "What happened to him?" Joshua asked as he turned to look at Madalyn.

"Well last night after you kicked him off the farm I decided to follow are little trouble maker to see what he would be up too." Madalyn said before clapping her hands loudly. In seconds screams could be heard coming from the storage houses along with thumps as the shutters shook at something impacting them from the other side. "Wouldn't you know it, I found wonder boy out here luring groups of zombies into these storage buildings. It wasn't too hard to figure out what he was up to after that."

"What do you mean?" Natalie said as she grew sick at the thought of what Madalyn was insinuating.

"Well of course he was planning to drag these thousand or so zombies back to camp when we least expect it. After seeing that final glare he gave Joshua and the others back at camp I knew he would be up to no good. If anything he looked like a younger George, petty and jealous of everyone better than him." Madalyn said as she growled out the last few words.

"If he was smart enough to do this then he should have been able to lead the hoard from yesterday in to a similar situation. Could have saved his two friends if he thought of that then." Laura said coldly before once again looking away in silence.

"The reason I brought you here Joshua is for you to learn a lesson." Madalyn said as she walked over towards him and looked Joshua directly in the eyes. "You are a good leader. People seem to follow you easily with your commanding presence and you're even willing to put the group before your own safety. All of us can testify to that, but you have one glaring flaw."

Joshua kept her gaze before sighing and responding with a question. "What would that be?"

"You are too soft. The way you handled things would have worked just fine in normal times when we could have just sent him to jail or something for his crimes. Well if the town's people aren't stupid enough to back the boy up." Madalyn said with a bit of snide tone at the end. "The problem is this is no longer a time of laws and order. So sometimes tough decision have to be made and if you have to kill someone to prevent problems in the future, then so be it."

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"I'm not sure that's right." Natalie said. She was clearly opposed to the way Madalyn viewed things.

"Of course you don't agree, you were a police officer after all." Madalyn smiled towards Natalie before continuing. "I can tell you right now the way things are going ideals such as law enforcement will eventually be a thing of the past. There will come a point when some people become too powerful to be put under control anymore. Even after the first phase is over there will be some people trying to enforce laws once again, but they will fail. They will fail simply do to the fact that in a world where anyone can become powerful, the truly strong will no longer be willing to take orders from someone sitting behind a desk."

Natalie was preparing to retort when Joshua signaled her to stop. "She's right. In the future I highly doubt things will work the same. We will all have to adjust to that fact and change accordingly." Joshua said to both Natalie and Laura. Natalie gave him a frustrated frown, but calmed down while Laura merely nodded as if she had already expected such things to become a reality. "I'm sorry for putting everyone in danger because of my decision. From now on you won't have to do this kind of stuff behind our backs Madalyn. If someone steps out of line again then I'll handle it."

"Good to know." Madalyn said as she had the look of someone who had just successfully taught a student a tough lesson. "Now that the hard talk is out of the way we need to do something with the presents Jacob left for us. Just look at all that experience."

The group looked over to the storage houses and could tell that all of the zombies were securely locked away. Joshua smiled at the gain, but quickly furrowed his brows as he tried to think of the most efficient way to kill all of the zombies. Letting them out wasn't a wise option and they didn't have nearly enough arrows to kill so many zombies on hand. If they had let the zombies outside then it would most likely come down to hand to hand combat which was both far more dangerous and wasteful. In that situation Joshua would end up getting most of the kills and taking the experience away from the girls. As long as one of the girls killed a zombie then the other two would also split the experience sense they were in what Nathan called a party link. On the other hand if Joshua killed one then no one would gain any experience.

"Well I've got a question for you Madalyn, well a couple of them actually" Joshua said as he turned his attention back towards her. "Do you think you can fill the five storage containers with your poisonous gas? If so can you make it more flammable?"

"It would take a while to fill up the storage houses with gas, but sure. Oh and my poison is already flammable when it is in a gas state." Madalyn replied.

"Good then here is what will do to end this as quickly and cleanly as possible. Madalyn is going to seep her gas in through the window above the shutters. Then Laura will ignite the gas with a fireball and roast them all alive without having to let them out. Will repeat the process on all five storage houses. In the meantime Natalie will kill anything that is attracted by the noise with her bow and arrow from distance. Everyone got it?" Joshua explained.

The three girls nodded and got ready to take on their roles in the plan. Madalyn walked up to the front of the shutter and started pouring gas in through the window slowly. Joshua stood behind her to help protect her if anything went wrong while Natalie pulled her bow out and watched their surroundings. After a few minutes of pouring in gas the screaming and thumping on the other side of the shutters was quieting down as the poison took effect. "All right you're up Ms. Secret Agent." Madalyn said as she signaled Laura.

Laura snorted at the way she was referred too before conjuring a ball of flames and sending it crashing through the window. The second it went inside the gas ignited causing the entire storage house to erupt into a massive ball of flame. The Shrieks of the zombies became loud for a moment before dying down as they were all roasted inside. The loud noise attracted a few zombies to come running from behind a tree line a ways away from their position. Natalie was able to easily pick them off before they could get anywhere near them.

They repeated the process four more times before they were finished and the group rested for a moment as both Madalyn and Laura had drained their energy with all the use of magic. "Well that wasn't so bad." Joshua said as he looked over the scene.

"Oh please, that's coming from the person who just stood there and watched." Madalyn replied while glaring at Joshua.

"Well if I did anything then you guys wouldn't be getting the experience if I ended up killing some of them. Besides I was on alert the whole time." Joshua said with a wide grin causing all three girls to huff at him. "Well let's head back for the day. We can check up on Nathan while we're at it. The kid is probably biting his nails right now at the fact we had to leave him behind." The others nodded as they all got up from their break and started following Joshua back towards the farm.

It took about an hour to reach the farm at their slow pace and the group was met at the gate by Dillon waiving at them from atop one of the wooden towers. He was as energetic and cheerful as always as he rushed down to open the gate for the group. "Glad to see you guys coming back safely. Find anything interesting?" Dillon asked as they walked inside and closed the gate behind them.

"Well we found Jacob's corpse. It seems he had a bad run in with some zombies last night." Joshua said. He didn't want to worry the others by telling them what Jacob had been up to at the time of his death.

"Well. I guess that's no surprise, but we can't have someone here that had no problem killing his own friends just to make things easier on his self." Dillon said. Even with his slightly depressing words the smile never left his face.

"Well were going to head inside and check on Nathan." Joshua said as he waived at the other man standing in one of the wooden towers. Dillon nodded and said goodbye before heading back up into his tower while the group headed for the mansion. Just as they reached the patio out front Joshua could hear Nathan screaming for them.

"Josh! Great you're back just in time. There's something about to happen that you guys need to see." Nathan said as he rushed down the stairs to meet them. Everyone in the immediate area was surprised to see him rushing down the stairs wrapped up in a blanket as he carried a laptop.

"Whoa, slow down. You're still sick and running around isn't exactly going to help that." Joshua said as he watched Nathan fly by him and head towards the room down the hall with the big screen television in it.

"Everyone come in here quickly, there's about to be another broadcast." Nathan shouted grabbing everyone's attention. Joshua and his group followed Nathan into the room and watched as he hooked the laptop up to the TV to show the same back ground setting as the last broadcast. Joshua noticed that the chat box was flying past even faster than last time which had to have been a sign that more people had found out about the broadcast since the last one they had watched.

In a few minutes everyone in camp who was not on watch duty at the time made their way into the room to see what was going on. At first there was low murmuring, but once Sarah walked into view on the television everyone grew quiet. She looked the same as the last time and her clothes were still fresh and clean, which was a sign that wherever they were broadcasting from was relatively safe. She took a deep breath and calmed herself before looking directly into the camera.

"I'm afraid my friends that this time I bring even more bad news. As of early this morning there have been sightings of new creatures hatching from egg like structures in small areas." Sarah said causing everyone in the room to gasp in fear. Joshua and his group narrowed their eyes as they all had a good idea of where these creatures were coming from considering the smaller egg at the factory was probably similar. "These creatures are far larger, more agile, and powerful than any of the things that have been found so far. If you come across one it is advised that you flee at all cost."

From that point on she continued to describe ways to avoid running into them, but Joshua was no longer listening. Now he had to think of how to deal with a ticking time bomb that was much closer to camp than he would like.