Tanya turned, rummaging through the cupboards of the back of her shop. She had some wound dressings and all sorts of antiseptic wipes and creams.

  “What d’ya need?” She asked over her shoulder.

  “What are you offering?” Mrs Eceer replied. Her voice slurred slightly, like staying awake was a huge effort.

  “Antiseptic stuff if ya got bitten, some bandages too. I could probably makeshift a splint for somethin’ broken.” She looked around, spying an old shoe horn that could be used for a wrist and some spare armrests for her tattooing chair she might be able to use to stabilise a neck or something.

  Not that stabilising a neck this late would do much good. The only other things of note were the metal towel rack hooked over the radiator next to Mrs Eceer and a couple of spare towels poking out of a drawer. This room was all that was left of the original shop layout. It had been some kind of food place, or maybe a cafe considering the kitchen was so small. It was barely larger than her kitchen upstairs.

  Tanya turned back to the cupboard of boxes. In her desperation to sit down, she wrapped her arms around a bunch of things in the cupboard and dumped them on the surface next to the little sink. She shoved the coffee machine further back and dragged the stool across the tiles to perch on. Each second of standing hurt her legs even more, and she sighed in relief, taking the weight off them.

  “As many bandages as you can spare, please,” Mrs Eceer eventually said.

  The room was filled with the words neither of them were saying.

  Does she just stay here now? How much do I share with her? I mean, this isn't exactly a friend of mine. It’s Mrs. Sneer. But a bonus like that…

  Her mind flew through the scenarios from earlier. With 25% extra power from Mrs Eceer’s shields, could they have defended it? It scaled too, so at later levels, the difference would keep growing.

  Tanya rummaged through her pile, collecting all the bandages together from the cupboard. She had more in other places, a box in the cupboard from the new shipment and probably at least a few more stores like this of different sizes. It hit her that she should have been tracking all of this too, not just food and water. She would later when she got a chance without Mrs Eceer watching.

  Is that ridiculous? Do I really need to hide me supplies from her?

  She pushed the thoughts away, grabbing a lax handful along with some antiseptic cream and passing it over. Friend or not, Mrs Eceer had saved her life multiple times there; they'd both saved each other. There was no point in counting or calculating. They’d done it together, and now they were here together. Mrs Eceer grabbed the best she could with one hand, and some of the bandage rolls sprinkled her lap.

  “Thank you,” Mrs Eceer said, unrolling the first bandage.

  Tanya could see in her eyes that was only part of what she was going to say.

  Tanya began unrolling her bandage. “What is your class called?” she ventured. She could hear how cagey she felt in her voice.

  Mrs Eceer tensed. They sat in silence for a moment.

  “Bunker Wizard,” Mrs Eceer said. Her lips were pursed slightly, and her eyebrows furrowed. She looked down as if already regretting giving the information.

  “Tattoo Summoner,” Tanya offered back before she could ask.

  Mrs Eceer’s eyes jumped back to Tanya’s. She looked absolutely disgusted. Her lips, usually poised or scowling, were parted, eyebrows raised and twitching. “My word… You mean to tell me this dreadful bodily defacement will help keep us alive?”

  Tanya’s laugh could only be described as a cackle. For a moment, it almost felt like the old days. After Mrs Eceer wiped the shock from her face, the corner of her mouth twitched. Tanya watched her fight it back down again as she tucked a stray curl back into her head wrap, and that made the whole thing much funnier.

  “What level?” Mrs Eceer demanded, the smile escaping again. “One must be sure-”

  “You’re just hoping you’re stronger, aren’t you?” Tanya exclaimed.

  “We need someone to protect both of us from these dark arts,” Mrs Eceer said, and Tanya knew this time that she was playing it up.

  The words fizzled on the edge of Tanya’s lips. Mrs Eceer’s furrowed brow returned at Tanya’s change in demeanour.

  Am I gonna tell her?

  “I’m level two an’ I got three Abilities, all focused on creatin’ and controllin’ Tattoo Summons,” Tanya said.

  Mrs Eceer raised her eyebrows, pausing with lips poised as she decided whether to share. “I’m level three and I have three Abilities and one to choose. So far they all focus on protecting an area either through shields or wards.”

  Tanya noticed how she used all the correct terminology, she doubted Mrs Eceer could do that before this.

  She learns quick. That’s a bonus.

  Tanya looked at Mrs Eceer properly for the first time. They’d never truly been face-to-face before. Tanya mostly saw her through cocked blinds or for a brief moment before the door slammed in her face. She was uniquely beautiful behind the frown, and for a moment, Tanya saw the woman behind the blood and dirt. Her broad shoulders were draped with expensive silky navy against the dark brown of her eyes and skin. Black curls disappeared into a headwrap in all the colours of a peacock. Puckered red lips coated in a bright red rouge opened and closed, the voice escaping them low and gravely as Mrs Eceer murmured the words of a Christian prayer.

  Tanya wondered if Mrs Eceer was a local for the first time since she’d given up on being acquaintances. Hearing the prayer, she felt compelled to ask how being trans had affected Mrs Eceer’s life in the church; she saw her leave every Sunday morning with the biggest hats Tanya had ever seen. At first, Tanya had thought Mrs Eceer being LGBT was something they could bond over. She’d invited her girlfriend of the time around, and they appeared on her doorstep with a slightly smushed homemade cake with rainbow icing. It hadn’t come across properly, with a very offended Mrs Eceer insisting that she wasn’t a gay man, she was a woman. She’d calmed down and listened to them explain that the flag included trans people too now and even taken the cake in the end, but the next time Tanya had turned up she’d opened the door to an even smaller slit.

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  A moan pulled Tanya out of her thoughts. Mrs Eceer was straightening her fingers one by one. The way they stuck out at odd angles churned Tanya’s stomach. This wasn’t the Mrs Eceer Tanya was imagining. Her clothes dripped with black, inky blood, and all the skin Tanya could see was dirty and grazed. After each pop Mrs Eceer would wrap the finger in bandages and then dab her sweaty forehead before braving the next one.

  There was very little Tanya could say to help her. It’s not like numbing cream would do anything for popping joints back into place. She gathered some of it anyway, and the over-the-counter pain meds she had for period pain or particularly pained clients. Grabbing some stubby stationery in case any of it would work as a splint, she slid the lot across the floor wordlessly.

  Mrs Eceer pulled a pair of small wire-framed glasses out of a pocket Tanya hadn’t seen before. They were golden with a small neck chain dangling beads off the arms. It looked like she’d summoned them from the air, but Tanya doubted that she had any powers like that. One of the lenses was cracked, but she looked through them anyway, reading the back of the packets. There was something so domestic about it that Tanya felt tears form in the corner of her eyes. Mrs Eceer popped a few out and swallowed them all at once without the water bottle Tanya was offering her.

  “We should save the water,” Mrs Eceer said. Then she continued mumbling her prayer, unwrapping the first finger to try out a pencil splint.

  Tanya’s fingers, slick with antiseptic, rubbed her leg. She wondered what it was like being religious in the apocalypse, knowing there were more gods—or at least god-adjacent things out there. Was it comforting to see some proof? Tanya supposed not if the person believed enough before, not that she knew how much Mrs Eceer believed.

  “When this is done,” Mrs Eceer started, “we should try and barricade this place. I never worked out why they broke in instead of waiting outside like they had been. We need to be prepared.”

  Tanya nodded and made the final bandage tie on her calf. The bandages bloomed red above the deepest cuts but most of it was hidden beneath the cream wrap.

  “I can start,” Tanya said. “Any tips?”

  “Spikes were the best idea I used next door…” her voice wavered mentioning her flat. She cleared her throat and continued. “The planks are worth it, but only buy a few seconds. If I did it again, I’d reinforce holes on purpose—”

  Tanya tilted her head.

  “They could have easily broken through the wall into the bedroom with enough effort, but they didn’t; they focused on the doorway.”

  “Like battlements?” Tanya asked.

  Mrs Eceer hummed, leaning back and sucking on her teeth until there was a small pop. She wagged a finger, “That could work. The barriers holding them still were efficient for killing them but too…barrier intensive?” She waved her hands around to find the word.

  “I think Vitality feeds spells,” Tanya offered.

  Mrs Eceer nodded, “Hm, that’s one of the words on my interface, isn’t it? I’ll check that next time.” She stumbled over the word interface, it sounding foreign on her lips like Tanya’s mum saying the word ‘Pokemon’ or ‘GG’.

  Mrs Eceer’s words faded behind the closed door as Tanya left the little kitchen into the main shop. It was so much worse than she remembered.

  The stench assaulted her nose: rotting flesh. Her heart lurched. It was still beating in her chest, but it felt like it had fallen out, helplessly pulsing on the floor. The ache was overwhelming. It was easy to forget that her little shop was a complete wreck. Well, not easy, but she’d been ignoring it ever since it happened. Staring at the room like this with the sickly smell of a corpse filling her nostrils, she couldn’t pretend anymore.

  Tanya stopped breathing through her mouth, the scent still lingering in her throat. She could almost still smell it, but it was more bearable.

  She steadied a picture frame to her side, one fixed thing in a room of broken things. Technically, this was broken too, a crack spiralled through the glass on the poster, the centre a shattered fist print. She winced, wondering which of the men it had been. The knife danced against her back once more, and Tanya spun around to confirm it was all in her head. Staggering backwards, glass crunched underfoot. She stepped off it, looking down with the fervour of a small child hoping they hadn’t stepped on a snail. The familiar yellow petals of her grandma’s lamp sparkled against the limited light that danced through the blinds.

  She backed towards the wall, retracing her steps from the fight without meaning to. She drifted between the two versions of herself in her memory. Adder flickered in and out of her mind's eye: towering over her, screaming as his flesh burst with ink, his body lying on the floor next to the corpse. Wherever she looked, he was there. If she stared long enough, she could push him away, bringing her attention back to the dim, dusty shop. None of the gang members were ever truly gone, though; their blood splattered against floorboards and furniture everywhere they’d been.

  Sections of the floor near pools of blood were surrounded by footprints, the ghosts of men long gone. Her eyes followed the bootprints around the shop and towards the door until she saw the cause of the smell. She couldn’t avoid looking at it any longer. From here his face was obscured by his shoulders, coat splayed out across the floor and a booted foot sticking out from behind the side table between her and him. An unintentional shaking breath flooded her nose with the smell again, and she coughed over and over.

  Her eyes were locked onto that boot and the bloodied hem of the coat until the door was between them. Tanya couldn't breathe anymore. The body was far enough away now but she could still smell it on her clothes and in her hair - she didn’t know if it was real or she was just unable to let go of it.

  Her chest heaved with each breath, vision swimming as she panted in whatever air she could stomach. Pressing her fingers against the wood she tried to calm herself, forehead touching the wood between them and eyes closing. In the black of shut eyes, the image came back—the boot and bloody hem. Her eyes flashed back open and she backed away further, away from the door to the counter.

  “That bad, hm?” Mrs Eceer said.

  She shuffled to her feet. Tanya heard footsteps coming closer behind her. The weight bore down on her shoulders, the edge of a ring digging in slightly on one side. Fingers on that side gripped in, but the other was flatter, like a wrist. Tanya’s breathing hitched as she paused for a moment, the panting stopping from surprise.

  “Whatever is in there is heavy,” Mrs Eceer said, “but this is heavier.”

  She pressed down harder on Tanya’s shoulders. Tanya adjusted her feet to stay up, feet planted hip-width apart, hands off the counter so it was pushing her down rather than forward. Tanya sat in the weight of Mrs Eceer’s hand and wrist on her shoulders until she could breathe again. Just as Tanya had enough, Mrs Eceer stepped away without a word.

  Tanya turned to face her, expecting frustration or apathy but Mrs Eceer’s eyes met hers, filled with so much emotion that Tanya didn’t have a word for it. Mrs Eceer nodded at her, military-like, quite different to the look on her face.

  “What am I going to face in there?” Mrs Eceer said.

  Tanya opened her mouth to reply, but no words came out.

  “A body? Multiple? Just one?” Mrs Eceer asked.

  Tanya nodded and shook her head for each one.

  “I’m so sorry,” Mrs Eceer said, the sadness creeping into her voice. She laid her hand on Tanya’s shoulder. “A partner? Friend?”

  “A gang member,” Tanya stammered.

  Mrs Eceer looked puzzled. “If you’re in a gang, then you've been dreadfully stingy with your combat skills.”

  “They broke in—he tried to kill me,” Tanya whispered. His face was clear and bright in her mind, more real than she could ever picture on purpose.

  Mrs Eceer’s voice was so scathing that a smile ghosted Tanya’s lips. “Oh, well, that makes this much easier. The dead deserve as much respect as they gave the living.”

  BONUS CHAPTERS

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