The Accidental Necromancer
Zombies are Good for the Economy

I got up early in the morning. I felt closer to Gren, but I knew relationships took time. Everything had been happening so fast, and I was looking forward to slowing down for a bit. I still wanted to explore the world of Amaranth, but right now I wanted to focus on my little corner of it.

I headed back to the forest after a light breakfast. Janeen wanted to show me that she wasn’t just easy on the eyes, she could also cook a mean steak. It was heavier than I normally like first thing in the morning, and I missed my coffee, but I had to admit it was very good.

That was pretty good, Enash told me. But couldn’t you fuck her just once?

Xyla intercepted me on the way home, and I filled her in on the deal I’d made. Gren would lead the first group of trolls, and then she could work out where they would go and how to use them.

“Thank you, Abby. They really will be helpful, I think. But I’m still mad.”

“Of course you are.” All around us I could still see the devastation. I’d be mad, too, whether it was helpful or not.

Give into your anger, Xyla. Feed it.

“I didn’t realize they needed wood so badly.”

I shrugged. “It’s hard to know what other people need sometimes. Even if they try to tell you.”

She kissed me and let me go. She understood that the deal meant that I needed to take care of a few things on Earth, and besides, she had to meet Gren and the troll work-gang so she could tell them what to do. Maybe bossing them around would help give her a release for her anger.

Hopefully she didn’t release too much at once.

I went to the big box hardware store and got my first load of two by sixes, and ordered more to be delivered to my house. I got a discount for ordering so much, which was nice. I also picked up some nice zero-gravity lounge chairs for outside.

Moving ten foot long planks is hard work, even if you don’t have to move them very far. Kathy was out working on her porch, feet up on the railing with a laptop balanced on her thighs, and she wandered over to chat before I had three planks inside.

“Is that for the fence?” she asked. “Kind of wide.”

I shook my head. “No. You’re right, I’d want narrower slats for the fence.” I wondered when I was going to get to the fence. It just wasn’t a priority. “I don’t mind having Roxy and Rover over. It’s nice to see them, actually.”

“Well. As long as it’s okay that I come over to fetch them,” Kathy said.

“Absolutely.”

She had an odd look on her face, but then it went away, as if she knew something she was trying to cover something up. Then she asked, “So what is all that wood for, anyway?”

There wasn’t a great reason to have that many pieces of wood that big for my house project, and I knew it. But I couldn’t tell her the truth, either. Maybe I should have sneaked them in during the middle of the night, although that would have caused even more questions. So I thought fast, and what I came up with was, “Building a workbench.”

“In the basement?”

“Yes,” I said, thinking that since I wasn’t going to let her see the non-existent workbench, and I wasn’t going to let her in the basement, I might as well combine the two.

“Ah. Well, I better get back to work. Good luck with it all.” She went back to the porch, and paid attention to her laptop, but I got the distinct impression that she was still keeping an eye out for what I was up to. Well, that was just hauling planks into the house.

To get them down to the basement, I made a backstop and let them slide down the stairs. Might as well let gravity work for me. Once there, it was harder to get them to Amaranth, since I couldn’t just drop them through the puzzle. I had to be holding them. But I could stack them right on top of the puzzle easily enough, and pull them through one at a time, and then let them drop.

Abby was strong, but her hands were smaller and her reach wasn’t as long, so I stood half in and half out, lowering plank after plank and letting them drop.

After that, it was easy. Each zombie could carry three planks at once. It took them three hours or so to walk down the path to the edge of the forest, and then three hours back, but they excelled at repetitive tasks. If I needed them to, they could make two trips. From there, the trolls could pick up the planks and carry them to the village. I had to follow the zombies the first time to make sure they could follow the directions I gave them, but after that I didn’t have to do any more of the work.

This is a serious waste of an army of undead.

“It’s the best use of an army of undead ever,” I told him. “They are creating peace, and people will be able to build better houses. Everyone involved is better off. We’re adding value.”

But the whole point of zombie armies is to let them multiply. Sure, each zombie isn’t much. But every time a zombie kills someone, you raise a new zombie. Five becomes ten. Ten becomes a hundred. A hundred becomes a rolling wave of death and destruction. Now that’s what I call adding value.

“Compound interest,” I said. “I’m familiar with the idea. But this way no one has to die.”

Yeah, that’s the other downside to what you’re doing. You know how big an army you could have if you just poisoned their booze? And poisoning is the best, it leaves the corpse completely intact for later use.

“Thank you for your diverse perspective,” I said, with more tolerance than I felt. “Question for you.”

I bet you’re thinking about disease. That’s pretty good, too. In fact, if you brought a sexual disease from Earth, they’d probably have no resistance, and you would get bonus points as a Seductress.

“Oddly, that wasn’t my question. What I wanted to know was, what would happen if I disassembled the puzzle and reassembled it someplace else.”

Hmm.

Well, if he had to think about it, at least he’d be quiet for a bit. I set up the two chairs out front, wondering if Xyla would come join me at some point. I felt a little guilty for not working on the house, but my shoulders and arms were sore from lugging so much wood around. It would be nice if by letting Abel do most of the work, I was fresh as a daisy once I changed, but it didn’t work that way. Lifting things as Abby made Abel’s muscles sore, too. Right now, I was going to sit and drink some water. I could use a cold drink, but I didn’t want to change back to go to the fridge. I could install a mini-fridge down below, I suppose, but if I kept putting gadgets in Amaranth I’d have to do more electrical work.

I leaned back in my chair. I was wearing a snug blouse and shorts, and as I looked out at the forest I noticed that I was displaying an awful lot of cleavage, especially from my angle. And my legs were nice, too. Natural beauty, in all respects, but it was hard to focus on the forest for the trees. Or the trees, for that matter.

I have an answer for you.

“Yes?”

If you could actually take the puzzle apart, which you can’t, you would probably tear the fabric of both universes in the process, causing unknown destruction and probably several extra-dimensional invasions. The weak would perish first, but perhaps some of the strong would survive. I think you should try it. It’s a chance to make a difference.

I latched on the part where it was impossible. “But you’re saying I can’t.”

No. But is that a reason not to try?

Can anyone do it?

Well, I think I could. Back in the day. Maybe some other powerful wizard. And I hear you almost destroyed your world by building something called a Large Hadron Collider, so maybe that would do it. I, personally, don’t even know what a hadron is.

“It’s a subatomic particle. And anyway, there’s no reason…” I stopped. I wasn’t going to explain that the whole worry about the CERN thing was a silly conspiracy theory.

Subatomic? Atomic like the weapon?

Yeah, I wasn’t going to explain it, especially as my understanding was a little hazy anyway. Nor was I going to do any high-speed physics research near the gate. Just in case.

Xyla startled me by coming out of a nearby oak. Almost all of her bandages were gone, and she looked like herself again. In fact, as I looked at her more closely I realized she’d relocated her bandages so they made little X’s over her nipples, and she had a little bikini of sorts made of leaves below. Her skin was largely healed, with only a few reddish spots to show where the blisters had been.

“Hello Abby,” she said. “Are you drinking that awful stuff again?”

“What? No, this is just water.”

Xyla smiled. “Good, I’m sure that’s much better for you. Do you have any chocolate?”

“And here I thought you were here for my sparkling personality.”

“Is that what you call it?”

Wow. I wasn’t sure she deserved chocolate right now. But I gave her some anyway.

“Wait, no,” she said, “you told me it was called cola. Not sparkling personality. Thank you, Abby.”

Ah. “Were the trolls useful?” I asked.

She made a face. “Yes.”

I nearly laughed at the way she screwed her face up when talking about them. “Good,” I said. “Have a seat.”

She looked at the chair dubiously, and then at the way I was sitting in it. Then she got in. She shrieked as it tipped into a perfect lounging position.

“It’s okay, it’s supposed to do that.”

“You could warn a girl!”

“I could, but then I wouldn’t get to hear you squeak.”

“I do not squeak.”

She totally did. “I was just thinking about how much this place has started to feel like home.”

“Oh?” she asked, rolling over on her side to face me. I gave myself a moment just to look at her lovely, barely covered curves.

“Yes. You, the forest, Gren, even the other trolls. Even Enash’s musty old windowless tomb.”

Xyla smiled. “I’m glad. Abby, this is nice, but do you think one of these chairs can support two of us?”

“Absolutely.” Put the two of us together and you’d barely have one of Abel.

“Good.” She carefully managed to pivot her chair up, and then crawled in next to me. “I’m glad I’m part of home, Abby.”

It was strange to realize that on Earth, I’d never said that to a woman. I knew I hadn’t said the conventional things – want to move in? Will you marry me? But I’d never said they were part of what made a place home, either. I had my life, they had theirs. I had my house, temporary though it usually was, and they had their house, apartment, what have you. Possibly, they had someone else in their life who was home.

Maybe I’d never really been fully home in my own house, either.

I kissed Xyla, feeling her body press up against mine, the slightly awkward squishy but delightful way our boobs got in the way, the soft fruit and kale smoothie flavor of her lips, the satin feel of her leg brushing against mine.

Maybe I’d never felt fully home in my own body, either.

She grabbed my ass, and squeezed. My cock hardened against her belly.

That wasn’t right, I decided. I’d always felt fine being a man, and had never really thought of being anything else. But this body I had now was amazing. Abel was ‘home’ but Abby was better than home, like a mansion I’d inherited from a long-lost aunt.

Okay, I’d stretched an analogy too far, and gotten oddly specific, and I wasn’t paying nearly enough attention to Xyla’s tongue in my mouth and the fact that she was tugging up my shirt.