All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 106: The Black Parade

Cities were a lot quieter than I had expected. With all the noise that the humans made in the castle, I half expected my microphone to blow out just being within a hundred feet of one. But no, we were so close to the city walls, and I heard only the wind.

This seemed to make Tony uncomfortable. "This city is empty."

It came out in a whisper. But I felt the importance of those words as they weighed on him. We slowed to a walk as we crossed the threshold of the open gate. Inside it was clear that something had gone very wrong. There were no people anywhere, but the destruction of the city caused a mess of which I couldn't even begin to comprehend the scope.

The streets were filled with clutter. A decent portion seemed to be the shattered remains of doors. I couldn't get an exact proportion without a larger sample size, but it was between 23% and 27% of the total mass. The remaining percent consisted of various other things. Fallen weapons, abandoned packs, the remains of small wooden stalls, random bricks, and stones whose history I couldn’t guess. No matter how hard I strained my sensors, though, I didn't pick up any signs of humans.

Tony was leading us on a very particular path. Even if he did seem in a daze, he appeared to know where he was going. He led me through the main thoroughfares, and I was able to pick my way through the debris to follow. It was so overwhelming that I didn't even attempt to clean it. This mess didn't need cleaning; it needed to be removed and rebuilt.

Beyond that, it somehow felt disrespectful to start vacuuming. Almost like this place needed to be left as a monument to the awful mess made here.

Suddenly my sensors picked up something. Something I wasn't expecting. I tried to get Tony's attention, both by beeping at him and tugging at his sleeve with my grabby arm. Neither worked. Unwilling to abandon him, I made a note on my mental map for later. We could come back after Tony had found what he was looking for.

Eventually, Tony stumbled to a halt in front of a pile of rubble that I couldn't distinguish from any of the others around me. I assumed that it had some significance as he dropped to his knees in front of it and sobbed into his hands. That wasn’t good. While he did that, I stretched my sensors as far as they could go. I could still sense the presence from before, but nothing else. Definitely nothing in this pile of rubble. I let Tony have his time, but I started to get impatient. We had been all about speed before - what was the holdup now? This time, I didn't give up until Tony was stumbling along behind me.

When we got to the spot, all we found was another pile of rubble piled high. However, I knew better. I started to move splintered wood and stones aside with my arm and Air Manipulation. It didn't take very long for Tony to pick up on what I was doing. Soon enough, we were moving huge beams out of the way. With someone else to lift the other side to prevent me from overbalancing, it turned out I could move a lot of material. We even managed to shift a beam that weighed 782 lbs together. Finally, after tossing aside one more slightly charred plank, we uncovered a cellar door.

Tony flung the door open without hesitation, sending a shaft of light spearing into a dark, damp cellar. The room was entirely dark aside from the light we let in. My sensors indicated a high percentage of mildew and mold down here, though not as high as in the catacombs. As for its contents, the space was half filled with sacks of grain and half filled with humans. In the ten-by-ten room, there were 14 women and 40 children. Many of them were so small that they were being carried by the women. They squinted up at us with apparent apprehension and surprise.

"Cassy!" Tony called out. At the voice of another human, they all looked up and stopped cringing in the corner. A bunch of dirty, streaked faces looked back at Tony uncomprehendingly. Not getting any response, he clenched his fists and sighed slowly. “The undead are gone. Come on, we have to get you all somewhere safe.”

Then he reached down and started hauling up children willy-nilly. I guess I couldn't complain about his lack of organization though, as I knew the children would immediately leave any neat rows that he put them in. Still, he could have tried.

After all the small humans that could stand on their own were out, Tony started pulling up the women caring for small children. The fourth person he grabbed was different, though. He grabbed her wrist to hoist her up, but he paused halfway.

"Cassy?"

"Tony?" Came back a small response.

An alarm went off in one of my subroutines. My attention was suddenly ripped away from Tony as one of the very small children was attempting to gnaw on the sharp end of an arrow. I zipped over and snatched it out of the open mouth of the small human right before it had a chance to bite down. I only had time to stick the arrow safely in my dustbin before I had to intervene elsewhere. One of the larger girls was twisting the arm of a small boy behind his back.

---

Bee stared at the sea of the undead in disbelief. As she focused, she started to notice patterns emerge among the zombies. She watched, stunned, as the skeletons walked up and down the ranks smacking hands and heads until all the zombies stood in straight lines with good posture. Once the column was six abreast, two skeletons took the lead and started matching them down the road. Along the sides of the column, a skeleton matched in lockstep every ten ranks.

She rushed back to Silas and Lily in a panic. She frantically gestured for them to stay quiet and hidden, relying on the bushes to hide them. There was nothing else they could do but hope the procession would pass them by.

As the first first undead crested the hill, Bee held her breath. The lead skeletons were almost level with their hiding place, and for a moment Bee allowed herself to hope. Then the skulls snapped to the side, locking eyes with her.

Her heart sank. Of course they would sense her. How could they not feel the life force of three live humans so close nearby? Hands trembling, Bee began to reach for her broom. If she would die here, at least she would take some down with her. Maybe she could buy time for the older couple to get away. It was the best she could hope for.

As she gripped the broom’s handle, trying to steady her nerves, she waited for the assault. Yet the skeletons hadn’t changed course. In fact, as she watched, the leaders snapped their arms up into a smart salute, eyes still locked with hers. Then they returned their gaze forward and continued marching.

Bee blinked. Had she… Had she imagined that? She was still staring at the procession, stunned, as the next pair of skeletons came level with her and repeated the salute. Then the next. After the fifth repetition, she turned to check if the others were seeing the same thing. Both of them had their heads bowed, ducking even further into cover. Right, that made sense. Turning back to yet another salute, she gaped in bewilderment. What was going on?

After the huge column of zombies moved past, they stayed completely still for a long while. But Bee still had no idea what it meant. Maybe it was some kind of trap? Clearly, the skeletons had seen her, right? They didn't just salute randomly. But what could they possibly gain from this? It just didn't make sense. But fifteen minutes later, she had still made no headway. The threat truly seemed to be past. With no other option, she told the old couple to stay put while she slithered out of the undergrowth to go and check the castle.

Continually querying her pathing skill, she couldn't find any ghouls hidden in the ground. That wasn't to say that nothing could be there. She didn't know about even a measurable faction of the total skills available, and there were likely many that could hide from her. Of course, she didn't even know if ghouls got skills or how the non-human systems worked anyway. The books were pretty sure that every living thing had a system, but they had no conclusions about how they all worked.

As she reached the gate, she tried to figure out how to get it open. She was only there for a few minutes before Trent came out of the front door. A wave of relief washed over Bee. If he was alive, then the castle must be safe. Seeing her, he jogged over and started winching that gate up.

After she had ducked under, he let it back down. Panting, he spoke before she could. "Where’s Tony? Are you alright?"

Bee nodded, remembering that Tony hadn't been planning on going with them. "Tony decided to come last minute. He is with Void right now. We found a few people willing to come to the castle for shelter. I'm escorting them back while the others go look for more."

"Where are they?" Trent asked, looking around for the people that she had brought back. The walls blocked some sightlines, but the portcullis let them see a lot.

"Just in the trees. Can you be ready to close the gate in case of trouble while I fetch them?" Bee asked as she started winching up the gate again. Trent agreed, and she slipped out to fetch her charges.

As they approached, Trent perked up. "Silas?"

"Trent!" Silas greeted warmly as the men grasped hands. "It's been too long, my friend."

The group turned to walk back to the castle after closing the gate behind them. The two men chatted along the walk, talking about crops and the weather. The more time Bee spent around farmers, the more she realized they really liked talking about the weather. She felt some whiplash from the normalcy after the insane events she had just witnessed.

---

Once all the people were out of the hole in the ground, everyone just stood around forlornly, looking at the wreckage around them. I was just grateful that when the larger humans got up here, I didn't need to watch the kids as closely. Their being near a bunch of rocks seemed to pull the women out of their stupor enough to herd the kids into a group.

I noticed that some of the kids were hanging on to certain women. Other kids just wandered around aimlessly. About half of the adults tried to keep an eye on these kids, but some were so busy with the few kids that they had an immediate grip on that they were not much help. All in all, 12 of the 40 kids had less than adequate supervision. It wouldn't have been my first choice, but I had taken charge of watching over them.

The kids did some really weird things. And by weird, I mean weird. I recognized that I understood a lot more things than I used to, but as I got smarter, the things kids did make less and less sense. Previously I had always liked little humans. They put everything in their mouths and regularly ate dirt. All good signs of a productive member of the household. Sure their cleaning techniques weren't very effective, but they were motivated and trying to help. They just needed to learn about efficiency. At least, that is what I had thought. Now that I knew more about how humans operated, it turned out they couldn't actually eat dirt.

So my theory of why kids put dirt in their mouths was completely shattered. After I recognized that they weren’t just figuring out how to clean, I needed a replacement theory, but it was hard to coherently organize their actions at all. There was no benefit I could figure out. As I stopped the same kid from eating a second arrow, I upped the processing power dedicated to this puzzle from 8.2% to 10.1%.

The worst part was that these kids didn't listen to advice. At all. I would understand if they didn't speak my language; most humans didn't. However, I saw a kid throw a rock at another kid. The woman who watched over him told him not to do that because it wasn't nice. But what did he do when her back was turned? He bent over and picked up another rock!

I was pretty sure that this was yet another example of how the humans here were just inferior to the humans back home. The little humans there didn't throw rocks at each other. Or at the small fluffy animals. My humans were clearly just superior.

Eventually, I got tired of stopping kids from wandering into nearly collapsing houses, and I called loudly for Tony to move on. He didn't answer, so I had to go looking for him. I found him holding a very small human in one arm and a sobbing woman in the other. His face was screwed up in an expression I wasn't even going to try and interpret.

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