Everyone was crying, screaming, or yelling.


    The unharmonic noise mixed with the growls from outside made my magic depletion headache even worse.


    “QUIET!!!” I glared at the Humans, then pointed west. “There is a plague cloud that is coming this way! If you stay here, you’ll be turned into Zombies in minutes!”


    That didn’t help to calm them.


    “Whatdoyoumeanaplaguecloud!?!” The woman holding the baby was speaking too fast for me to catch every word, but I got the gist.


    The other woman got in between myself and the rest of the Humans and held out one arm towards each of us. “Wait. Just wait.” She turned to me. “What do you mean, there’s a plague cloud?”


    I looked her over. I couldn’t see color as everything was a shade of black or purple thanks to my sword and my vision, but I could see certain features. Like the woman in the middle of us was older. Probably in her fifties, while the other woman was in her late twenties, maybe early thirties. They had dark hair, which could have been pretty much anything except blonde or white, though I didn’t think they were old enough for white hair. They were wearing simple dresses, and despite the overlay that I was seeing everything through, I could tell there were also a lot of patches covering their clothes.


    “I have no idea what it is. The Bokor have never seen anything like it as far as I know.” I pointed my sword at the door where the Zombies were scratching and pounding. “But I do know that it is turning people into Zombies in minutes, not hours.” I tried not to focus on the tears that I could see running down the children’s faces or the fear that was plastered there.


    “What do we do?” The woman shook her head. “We can’t go out there.”Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    She had a point. Even if I was covering them, there was no way that they could move that many children fast enough to stay ahead of the horde. Especially since the Zombies had gotten past the house. I would need to be in front of and behind the group at the same time and honestly, we’d need a third person to stay in the middle to deal with whatever got past us.


    “I’m thinking.” I looked around the room. There were a couple wooden chairs in the common room, but nothing I could use. The eating room had only the chairs since I’d nailed the table to the wall. The kitchen was almost bare, with basically just a stove and washbasin and I wasn’t about to risk lighting the stove.


    Unfortunately, the rush from fighting was starting to subside and I began to feel my wounds. My left hand was swollen, but not so bad that I couldn’t use it. I had bruises all over and my left leg felt like it was on fire.


    I looked down at the headless Zombies on the floor. There was another power source that I could use, but I had no idea how to draw the magic out of the heartstone other than to help them power my blade. Plus, using the heartstones for their magic was supposed to be very addictive, though at the moment that didn’t matter to me. All I wanted right now was to get the people behind me to safety.


    I heard a scuffle outside. It sounded like people fighting, which they really shouldn’t be doing. Most Humans were able to kill a single Zombie by themselves, which meant that by fighting, they were just increasing the Zombie population.


    I looked through the rope hole in the door to see what was happening.


    “GRAWW!!” The side of a Zombie’s face slammed into the door from the other side.


    I jumped back and gripped my sword with both hands, but the only other sound was a thud.


    “BYLER! WHERE ARE YOU!?”


    I grinned and looked at the women. “Stay here until I tell you it’s safe.” I pulled the latch up. I wouldn’t be able to get back in once I shut the door, but for now they’d be safe.


    I pushed the door open. There was a small pile of bodies in front of the door that had to be moved. If the door had opened inward, I wouldn’t have had that problem, but an inward facing door was easier to break down.


    I looked up the street and decided that leaving the Humans in the house was a bad idea.


    The plague cloud was two houses away.