By the time they were done, Daryl had found a likely building in the form of the auto shop; its large warehouse would keep them out of sight of the trolls while also giving them plenty of tools to work within the meantime. They could break into one of the back doors easily enough and have Trey put up an illusion to make it look like it was still intact.
Drew and Daryl went first, clearing the warehouse and front room of a couple of rats, which were as big as the one Sarah killed, that had taken up residence inside the warehouse. The group joined them inside when they announced that it was clear. The troll skins were claimed by the seamstress, who thought she could probably use them to make some armor, while everyone else either found some relatively soft places to sit and wait or began digging through the parts looking for things they could turn into weapons.
Bill stood up on a bucket to get everyone’s attention. “Alright everyone, IT2, myself, and Jholie are going to go get two more survivors. We should be back before dark.” Drew winced at that, the exact words he had said the day before to Katie. “We need to figure out a way to get everyone else out of the DIA building, so start looking for weapons that will do fire damage. Also, see if you can all get together and make a map of the place. Anything you remember of where the Trolls usually were and where prisoners were would be helpful. While I’m gone, the chain of command is Chuck, then Daryl and Trey.”
He indicated the woodworker, who at 57 was the oldest person in the group by a fair margin. Daryl and Trey were working on the defenses. He then turned to Drew and Jholie and nodded, “Alright, let’s go save some people.”
Chapter Twenty-Five — Traveling
After exiting the auto shop, Drew looked at the chief, “I was thinking we should head east and walk up the freeway, give the trolls a wide berth.”
The chief nodded, “Same thing I was thinking.”
“Why do you keep calling them trolls?” Jholie asked, “Aren’t trolls supposed to be short and rock-like?”
Drew laughed, “You mean like the ones in Frozen? No, I guess I base most of my names on games that I’ve played. In most of those, trolls are immune to physical attacks or have super high regeneration that makes it almost impossible to kill them with physical attacks but they are vulnerable to fire and acid. The first trolls I killed seemed to take extra damage from fire, so I started calling them that.”
“I think I liked the Frozen trolls better. We’ve been calling them green skins, and I think that’s a pretty good name for them.” Drew glanced at the chief, who had pulled ahead of them, and frowned. Jholie had the ability to create headaches in people, and he was pretty sure he understood what aspect of her personality had induced the system to give her that capability.
“Yeah, it’d be nice if we could all pick which enemies we find. But the…creatures that we had to fight in the bunker had green skin too. I called them orcs because they kind of looked like the orcs from my games. But they called themselves the Go’rai, which I think was like the name of the tribe they were from, and the whole race they called…” He paused, trying to remember the other name Chakri had called his people. “Nathzim? It was something like that.”
Bill spoke from in front, “There was a prisoner that could understand the language they used to talk to each other. He said they called themselves the Ashalla. But we should probably be quiet, don’t want to attract any monsters.” Drew wasn’t sure if that was true or if the chief just didn’t want Jholie to talk more.
Jholie looked a little frightened at that and moved to catch up to the bigger man. Both had an Ashalla dagger at their side, and Bill also had a four-foot-long crowbar he must have picked up somewhere in the auto shop. The route they had decided on was about half a mile to the wall surrounding the base, from there it was another mile up the freeway to where they would jump the wall and get to the Coast Guard HQ, and then a final half mile from that point up to the exchange.
The first monsters they saw appeared suddenly as they came around a blind corner. There in a field to their right were several rabbits. Ranging in size from three to four feet long, they each had a nub of a horn on the top of their heads. The two biggest rabbits were using their horns to bash each other like goats fighting over a mate. The smaller rabbits sat about the field watching the two bash each other. In total, Drew saw more than two dozen rabbits all glowing with a red/green aura. Bill had come around the corner first and had held up a hand to stop them, while Jholie made an “Awww” sound.
Several of the rabbits turned to look at the group as they heard the noise, but none of them seemed interested in pursuing them. Drew pointed closer to the building away from the field and all three of them moved quietly over to that side, watching as the rabbits continued to bash each other silly in the middle of the field.
Once they were on the other side of the road and a few hundred feet away from the rabbits, Drew looked at them, “We’re calling those things Bashers. They looked exactly like some monsters I read about in a book.”
Bill looked at him strangely, “What sort of books do you read?”
They could see the wall now and headed towards it through the parking lot of the swimming pool. Drew was about to answer, but Jholie spoke instead, “I don’t really read books, but I watched Perks of Being a Wallflower and that was based on a book, so it’s like I read it. I also watched the Hunger Games movies and those are based around books too. I really miss movies; I was excited about the new Jungle Book movie-the live action one that was supposed to come out next month, that’s going to be great. My friend Shea says…”
Drew and Bill both turned to stare at Jholie, who didn’t seem to realize that they thought it odd how much she talked, then looked at each other and shook their heads slightly. Jholie kept talking, quietly enough that it wasn’t really an issue, but Drew tuned her out, nodding and grunting whenever the girl paused. He was impressed with her energy, to be honest. She had probably just had her parents and most of her friends killed, and her world had been invaded by trolls, but right now she was talking about how much she loved Minions and Inside Out.
They made it to the wall without further incident and with Jholie only ceasing her constant flow of words for breath. “We need to be quiet up here, this is where I was attacked by the squirrels, and the trees are thick enough that there could easily be a couple hundred more of them. Bill, I’ll help you over first, then you can help Jholie on the other side. I can get myself over.” Both Drew and Bill looked at Jholie, who nodded her head, and pantomimed locking her lips and throwing away the key while Drew leaned against the wall, so Bill could use his legs, shoulders, and hands to climb over the wall.
Bill threw over his crowbar and then took the pre-offered boost up from Drew to scale the 8-foot wall with relative ease. Drew grunted while trying to push him up to make it easier. At the top of the wall, he looked around, “Looks clear.” He said before dropping down to the other side of the fence. Jholie watched and then shook her head.
“I can’t do that.” She said with a frown.
“Sure you can, it’ll be easy, and the chief will catch you on the other side,” Drew said, interlocking his fingers together again to help.