After the intense conversation, Erik was left alone in Command to wait for the colonel and the major, and meanwhile, the general went to get him some food and water. He knew what she was planning.

  She was going to hire him as a civilian contractor, using him as an asset, moving him wherever she pleased, make him kill whatever beast she wanted, and get some recognition to herself, her troops, or both.

  Erik didn’t mind, so long as she gave in to his demands as well. His demands were, after all, a boon to them both. Erik was surprised when his food arrived. He was sure he’d get some type of ration, something rehydrated from a bag. When he got a full-on hamburger and fries, his stomach churned in excitement.

  He hadn’t been feeling hungry at all since he left, but he had eaten a little bit. He was still not sure if he needed food, how much of it, or how long he could go without it. Even if he didn’t need it, his body yearned for it right now. He waited politely for the man from the mess to place the tray down in front of him and turned to leave before he attacked the burger.

  When he had ravaged the burger to completion, and halfway done with the fries, a woman cleared her throat behind him. He turned around, two fries hanging limply from his mouth. It was the colonel from earlier. She was alone.

  “Nice to meet you, my name is Angela Ashleigh,” she said.

  “Hi,” Erik said, his mouth still full. She smiled.

  Another woman entered the building from behind Colonel Ashleigh, who moved out of the way. It was another attractive woman. Erik realised what the general was trying to do. She was trying to get him over on their side, trying to manipulate him with beautiful women. It was a good effort, but women were the last thing on Erik’s mind right now.

  “You must be Erik. I’m Major Svensson. A pleasure to meet you,” she said, much more formally than Angela, who became visibly embarrassed.

  “I am, Major Svensson. Any first name?” Erik asked, looking over at Angela with a smile.

  The major wore a helmet just like most others outside and her hair was braided tightly into a ponytail hanging down her left shoulder, barely reaching her chest. It had hazel colour and was quite shiny, revealing that she likely took good care of it. Next to the colonel, Svensson was a head shorter with a slimmer build.

  “Of course, sir. Emma,” she responded.

  “At ease, Major,” Mathisen said as she entered Command. “He’s a civilian. He’d prefer to use your name rather than rank.”

  “Of course, sir.” The major visibly relaxed her stance, but somehow looked more uncomfortable that way.

  “Please, all of you, sit,” the general said as she went back to behind her desk. The two soldiers did as told, Angela sitting next to Erik, followed by Emma next to her. “Have you reconsidered, Mr Fried?” she asked when everyone was sitting down and paying attention. Erik was still picking up one fry at a time, eating it calmly.

  “No, General,” he said. The colonel next to him tensed up, unsure what they were talking about. She could see in both their eyes, however, that a war was raging between them.

  “I see. In that case…” the general started, her eyes suddenly transforming from that of a raging sea in a storm to calming waves at the beach.

  Somehow, this tensed the colonel up even more, and Emma just looked confused at the two of them. Had the general really backed down on something? The major had never seen that happen before. General Mathisen was known to be one of the most stubborn officers ever, and she would always get her way, one way or the other.

  “Colonel Ashleigh, Major Svensson,” the general started after a short while of complete silence. “You are hereby relieved of duty from the Scandinavian Empire’s Military Power and the Emergency Council.”

  “What?” the two exclaimed, rising from their chairs in near-perfect unison.

  “Sit!” the general ordered in a harsh tone.

  The two sat down with reddening faces, and Emma stared daggers at Erik as she did. Erik wasn’t sure what the General was doing, but he was intrigued. This wasn’t heading in the direction he thought it would. He continued eating.

  “General, what-” Angela tried, but was only given a hand signal to stop.

  “Let me finish. The two of you are both exemplary soldiers, and I believe you have what it takes to assist Mr Fried in finally taking the upper hand in this war. Colo-.. I mean, Angela,” the General corrected herself. “You are among the greatest military strategists in the world right now, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep you under my command. Under normal circumstances. Emma, you are among the best marksmen and CQC-officers in Europe. There’s a reason the two of you are here on the frontlines with me. However, since Mr Fried arrived here a short while ago, things have changed.”

  “What the hell does he have to do with anything? He’s no one, just a civvie!” Emma shouted, losing what little remained of her composure.

  “He killed a Hellbeast,” Angela whispered to her side, as if the others couldn’t hear her.

  “He killed two,” Erik leaned over and whispered.

  Emma’s eyes grew wide, and she seemed to panic. She kept it bottled up, however, and she calmed after a short while. She sat up straight and stared at her general. Mathisen cleared her throat, attempting to disregard the last twenty seconds or so.

  “As I was saying. You will no longer be under the jurisdiction of SEMP or the Emergency Council. I want you to assist Mr Fried in whatever way you can. I could have ordered you as officers of the military, but I need him to be completely autonomous, and I also want him to be able to trust you. He can’t do that if you are under my command,” she said, looking expectantly at Erik.

  He nodded in confirmation. He wouldn’t have. He wasn’t sure if he could anyway, but it was at least a gesture of good faith from the general, which Erik appreciated.

  “I can’t guarantee he will treat you well, and I have no idea what he will use you for, but I trust he will do what’s right and what’s needed. Of course, I’m giving you a choice to follow him. It’s up to the two of you, but I won’t trust anyone else with this. If you decide you won’t do it, I’ll transfer you from my command to somewhere else. Mr Fried, you will of course have whatever resources I can give you, and I’ll pull what threads I can for you. Do note, however, that this is completely unsanctioned, and I can make no guarantees. I can only ask you to accept these girls’ help, should they offer it after this.”

  Silence filled the building. Emma and Angela both looked at each other, at Mathisen and at Erik in varying intervals, carefully considering this. Angela was the first to speak up. She looked at the general with determination.

  “I’ll help. I don’t know what I can do,” she started, then turned towards Erik, who smiled at her. She smiled back. “- but I’ll do what I can. If you’ll have me.”

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Of course,” Erik said with a nod.

  Emma wasn’t as easy to convince. She went out for some air after a few minutes had passed, and stepped back in after a while, still undecided. She took both Angela to the side to speak, and even the general. Eventually, she wanted to talk to Erik, who obliged, and they both stepped outside.

  “Listen, I’m not as gullible as Ashleigh. Whatever magic you’ve weaved here will only get you so far. I won’t hesitate to arrest you if you can’t deliver on what you’ve promised. Do you understand?” Emma said.

  “I understand. Does that mean you’ll help?” Erik agreed.

  “Not until you tell me how you plan to do this. How did you kill that Hellbeast?” she asked, pointing towards where his bike was. It seemed she had gone to see it for herself when she had stepped out earlier.

  “Magic,” Erik responded.

  “Magic?” she asked, a tinge of annoyance growing in her voice.

  “Yeah. If you join me, I’ll show you stuff you thought you’d only see in movies.” Erik said.

  “Don’t flirt with me,” Emma groaned.

  “I’m keeping that part more or less secret, but if you won’t join, no one will believe you anyway, considering you don’t even believe it yourself. So I’m fine with telling you the how.”

  “You really intend to keep to that explanation?”

  “Yes.”

  Emma sighed, and went back into Command. Erik followed her, just barely hearing Emma’s words as he entered the door a few seconds behind her.

  “I’ll go with them,” she said.

  “Excellent,” the general said, smiling at the girls. “Keep in mind that you technically won’t be part of the military any longer, so you shouldn’t tell people you are. You aren’t even black ops. Technically, you’ll be mercenaries, I suppose.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Now, let’s talk details,” the general said, folding her hands together in front of her chin.

  The four spent the next hour in Command, talking about how the general could help with her resources, and how Angela and Emma could assist him. As far as he was concerned, they would have to help with logistics and acquisition of gear, and hopefully support and intelligence.

  They agreed, but they also wanted to fight the beasts. Erik wouldn’t stop them, but he couldn’t promise he could protect them, nor did they want him to. This was their job, or it had been, at least.

  The general could help by providing a chopper and pilot, at least to the UB, where she could pull some threads to get them further assistance from an air base close to his destination.

  During their talk, Erik told an abridged version of his story, and that he was looking for clues about his father, who may or may not be dead. The fact that he may or may not also be behind the Hellbeast invasion, he kept to himself.

  In regards to his previous request back when they first met, General Mathisen also apologised for not being able to send anyone into enemy territory to pick up any remaining survivors. After the initial evacuation, nothing they had sent in to scout or surveil the area had returned. All they got were final transmissions of a rather confusing nature before the comms went down. Everything past Bridgefort was designated a no-go zone.

  They did have cellular at the base, and several generators provided power, so the general sent an intelligence officer to gather what information he could about Erik’s father. It wasn’t good news the officer brought back, but Erik was sort of happy about it just the same.

  His father had died in the fire along with his mother and himself. In fact, what little remained of him was right in the entrance of the house, where fire investigators surmised the fire had started. The officer brought with him a printed picture of the front page of the local newspaper where Erik lived. The title said ‘Mysterious fire kills family’, and in the article, it mentioned his father, his mother and himself as their only son.

  That was true, of course, but it didn’t escape the notice of the general. Erik hadn’t considered that, and didn’t have a half-truth prepared for that line of questioning. He decided to tell the three of them the truth.

  “So you believe someone is behind this? A person? A Remnant?” Angela asked, to confirm what she’d heard.

  “I believe so, yeah. There’s another one in Leicester I think can help, which is why I’ve been travelling that way,” Erik explained.

  “How sure can you be that this other one isn’t the one behind this?” Emma asked.

  It was clear none of them believed his story, but they had little choice but to go with it for now.

  “I was with her the three months after we died, in the same place. Don’t get me wrong, both me and her can kill these things. But we’re new at this, which is why we need help.”

  “And crystals or gemstones will help you get stronger?” Angela asked. From her disbelieving tone, it sounded like he was telling her about alternative medicine. That wasn’t far off, he had to admit.

  “Yes, they’re supposed to. I haven’t stumbled upon any in the woods or on the road, obviously, so I can’t say for certain what will work and what won’t.”

  Erik decided to stay the night at Bridgefort. The following morning, a pilot would take him and his two companions to the air base near Leicester, and Angela would talk to the leadership over there, passing along a missive from Mathisen, while Erik and Emma would go find Jessie.

  After that, they would seek out various rock shops, museums and so on, requisitioning what material they needed. After that, if Jessie would join them, the Remnants would have to train to fight as they would get more powers added to their arsenal.

  As night descended, however, the soldiers at the walls shouted that an attack was incoming. Moments later, Bridgefort was drowned in the loud sounds of gunfire, explosions and monsters crashing into the thick wall standing firm between the beasts and people.

  Erik rushed over to the wall he’d entered earlier that day and climbed the small metal stairs to get on top of it. Right behind him were Angela and the general.

  “How many?” Erik asked the scout that had given the warning. A couple of others were shooting short bursts close by and it was hard to hear, but the scout raised two fingers in the air. Just then a hellbeast rammed into the wall beneath Erik, and the wall shook and rumbled.

  “Mr Fried! This is your chance to get in my good graces and prove yourself,” the general said.

  “Yes, sir,” Erik said casually, and saluted as he dropped down the other side of the wall. He brought his stuff when the alarm rang, of course. As he landed, he cushioned himself by bending his knees, a frisbee already in his hand.

  “Soldiers! Fire up all the generators and get those floodlights on! I think you’re all going to want to see this,” the general said, and everyone stopped firing.

  A few on top of the wall had visibly panicked when Erik dropped down, but the general had motioned that it was okay. The fact that she had to believe he was telling the truth, didn’t mean she did. If he died down there, she would personally sign the paperwork telling the SEMP he was a mentally unstable civilian with suicidal tendencies.

  The floodlights were mostly off, as they drew quite a bit of power. They were turned on to do a quick search a few times a night, but she had now ordered them all on. One after the other, people manned the large torches, and they aimed them at Erik and the beasts.

  The gunfire had been replaced by murmurs, but everything turned completely silent when the civilian that had knocked on their door earlier that day threw a small plastic frisbee towards the hellbeasts and the frisbee stopped in mid-air.

  The sprinting dogs stopped right in front of the frisbee, as if met by a wall. Except they didn’t stop. They smashed into something. There was nothing to crash into, but by the help of the floodlights, they saw blood trickle out of the frontmost beast’s mouth. They had never seen any of them bleed.

  The civilian then searched his backpack of goofy stuff before he ran towards the confused monster dogs. He was fast! A few soldiers shouted to keep away from the frisbee, but the man rushed straight past it unhindered, and ran past the closest dog. Something audibly clinked, but no one saw what as they all focused intently on Erik.

  The stupid man rush-kicked the next dog in its face, which amazingly seemed effective. The dog was pushed back slightly, and the man followed up with a punch before grabbing its massive snout with one hand. He stuck his other hand down the beast’s throat for a short second, before pulling it out again, finishing with a punch to its throat.

  The man then retreated backwards, always keeping his eye on his enemies. Some had noticed the bright lights around the closest dog by now, but when Erik retreated past it, everyone else noticed as well.

  A blue light strobed all around the beast, and it kicked sporadically with its legs until the light show stopped. It didn’t move after that, but Erik went closer to it with a knife in his hand. They knew that wouldn’t work, and as the soldiers whispered that to each other, the civilian stabbed the metal into the beast’s neck.

  The squelch as he retracted the knife was audible to everyone on top of the wall due to the almost eerie silence. Erik then cleaned the knife on the dirty fur of the beast before he went back towards the wall, picking up his frisbee which was now lying on the ground.

  “The other one,” people murmured. Angela looked towards the beast his new boss had fought in close quarters. It was melting from the inside. A yellowish goo trickled out from increasingly large holes all over the beast. Never before had she seen anything like this. She looked back at Erik’s confident stride back towards the wall. What was he? The man looked up at the large gathering of uniforms atop the wall.

  “Mind opening the door?” he asked.