Aleister’s fumbling with the supernatural caused untold damage that changed the course of civilization. But humanity is not so easily extinguished. It’s not that things returned to normal, but that we adapted to a new normal that contained more meaning. A life of intention. For once, I felt that my fate was up to me, that I had a clean slate to work with—a tabula rasa—and not a destiny thrust upon me from the chaotic circumstances lurking in my background like time bombs.
For a time, people were scarce and revs were plenty, but nature took over for the short half-life of biology and black magic to claim the dead once again…leaving them where they rotted. After a while, revenants could only be found in the cooler, darker areas like vermin. This posed a hazard for months afterward, especially when it came to scavenging.
Sticks and I roomed together in the Camp Jackson barracks until he recovered, and then he took to leading a group who hunted the remaining revs in those dark places. They became his nemesis, and he developed a close friendship with Tarah over their mutual disdain for them. Although I teased him about their relationship, I couldn’t imagine him being safer with anyone else. And once Vicki arrived from Illinois, guarding a group of folks with technical skills, the three of them formed the core of Camp Jackson’s revenant extermination force.
I wished them the best, but like Payton and Hector, I functioned best inside the camp, away from the action. I learned how to grow things, build things, repurpose things. I collected books for the library I set up near the camp’s PX and spent much of my free time with Sam and Sue Spirit, who brought the first birth to the camp within the first year.
Naomi and I watched their toddler, Tabitha, run ragged steps across the tarmac and into the patchy grass where her parents sat on discarded barrels near the officer bungalows, laughing as though just being alive was a pleasant joke.
I pulled out the Magic 8-Ball, smiling. It no longer held liquid, but the die inside still occasionally showed its face. “Is this great, or what?” I asked, shaking it.
You may rely on it.
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