The Dead Scout's Handbook of Afterlife Survival

Chapter Twenty-Four: Final Preparations

Morning kicked their eyelids open. It was time, and they had a god-damned plan. Well, they hoped they did; Sarah had spent even more of the past week on battle strategy than training. She elaborated their plans.

First and most importantly, their strongest advantage was also the least intuitive: the location. Because The Four could catch up at their convenience, they would theoretically choose the battleground--but they might not know where they would choose yet. So they could map the town they would fight in. Furthermore, they could alter the battlefield and remove all of their opponents' advantages. Finally, they had a timeline of when the skirmish would occur: Martha foresaw it just after nightfall on whatever day that would be.

So they paced themselves to arrive in the morning and would have at least 10 hours to change the town as they saw fit. Plus, they had two further advantages. First, Martha told them how Charlie's stolen bracelet became a far more important factor than anyone expected. The Four would try to ambush them in Charlie's parents' hometown of Greybull. As happened with some places in this world, residents rebuilt an exact replica--even the Aerospace museum stood as it was in the other world. By a stroke of luck, Charlie still knew the area well, having finalized plans for a group trip there on the morning he died.

The second advantage was that Martha knew a secret about the town. Under the floors of the Greybull Hotel sat a massive panic room converted from a speakeasy that opened into a tunnel to the GeoScience Center. All this was kept hidden by an enormous steel door behind the front desk of the hotel.

As they came upon the city limits, a hideous makeshift wall of scrap metal rose two stories high. A sheet metal gate partially opened to the town, and passing through the opening, a bridge carried them over ranch houses along a street that dipped below. Snow blanketed the sidewalks, the road, the roofs, as well as bikes, porches, and any doorknob sticking out past the awnings and roofs. Cayden warily glanced at the complete lack of any evidence of motion.

They walked onward into the town center. Buildings huddled together there as the wood paneled ranch houses transformed to brick shops. Charlie excitedly pointed out the museum full of trinkets and the two story Hotel Greybull.

Just beyond the Hotel Greybull stood, or rather lay, the charred remains of the only destroyed building in the town. They stopped.

It likely had been at least two stories and had the largest footprint of any of the buildings in town. The bricks along its outer surface rested charred and crumbled, its interior unpolished metal, collapsed gangways, an intact wood platform, and an enormous cone shaped ramp in the center.

Sarah broke the silence. "What gives? Just screw this building in particular?"

Martha hummed and nodded. "It was the transportation building. Greybull didn't have one for general use but in emergencies it was an escape route."

"They must've destroyed it before attacking the town." Sarah said. "Probably the only way the townspeople could've evaded them. I bet snuck in and burned it from the inside."

"Why do you think that?" Cayden cocked his head and examined the structure. Something didn't feel right.

"Only way they could have destroyed it before everyone came charging in. I think the strong guy's the only one who would be able to do this and no way was he sneaking anywhere."

Martha cleared her throat. "I have heard that every town attacked by the four has the transport building destroyed. Seems like a strategy of some sort..."

Charlie shrugged and scampered off to survey Greybull further as the group followed. Yet Cayden couldn't tear his eyes from the building. He never doubted Sarah before but something seemed very different from what he understood about campfires. Before he could place a finger on what bothered him so greatly, Sarah called him to follow. Cayden did as asked.