The Unknown - Chapter 9c - by nova

"Oh my God!" Was the first thing out of Kat's mouth quickly followed by, "Grandmother!" Both her and Ty went running to where Grandmother was laying in the sand. For a second I considered going to her side but I decided to instead to go find a rock to sit on while the drama ran down. It didn't last long and I didn't expect it to. She was pretty hardcore and Ty was an EMT, or what passed for one around here, and they had grown up in a tough world. I figured I had about five minutes of star gazing at most before they were done. I was wrong. It took her all of two minutes. Helped by the fact that Grandmother was dead I'm sure. I had found that Kat's generation were realists about death, blood, and other facts of life that were once considered "gross."

I heard, "Where the hell is Gardener?" from Kat and I decided to get up off my ass and mosey on over. Ty replied, "Damn. I think he killed everyone of them. This is fucking amazing."

They didn't hear me walk up behind them so I startled the hell out of them when I said, "No. Just doing what was needed." I wanted to say "I'm just a simple cowpoke" but this wasn't the right audience if one even existed. They both stared at me like I had just dropped in from another planet.

"We'll bury her here if that is okay with you."

"Sure. That's fine." Then Kat added, "I'm glad you killed them Gardener."

"Yep. Ty, I want you shoot the horses. I'm going to see if we got any live ones and see what I can find on them."

"Shouldn't I look for live ones?" was Ty's reply.

"No. You'll try and heal them. I just want them to talk to me."