Part 7: Phantoms of the Past

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#7 of Deep in Kansas

Amanda has a plan for triangulating the signals of the zombies. Yet she finds herself in need of a few more things. She dispatches Angela out to retrieve a directional radio antenna, while she herself searches for an ammeter. Yet along the way she learns of the disappearances of townsfolk, and remnants of the past. What will she learn?


Inside a nearby barn, Amanda set down her collection of mashed bodies. Carefully, she began removing their heads.

"So, how exactly are we tracking the zombies?" The fox inquired, her arms crossed. "Earlier, you talked about triangulating their signals."

"I'm going to leave a zombie head here, then take the two others with me elsewhere." The Indagator responded, busy with her work.

"Why?"

Amanda recalled her experience with directional antennas from serving in the first and second World Wars. "I'm going to trace each zombie's head signal with a directional radio antenna and take their bearings with my compass."

"How are you going to accomplish that?"

"I'll need to get a directional radio antenna from the top of these houses." Amanda stared at the fox with a stern, piercing gaze.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" The fox was thrown off by the horse's gaze.

"I need you to climb atop a roof and tear down one of them."

"What?! Me?! Why can't you do it?!"

"It's physically impossible."

"Wha...? How?! You stopped falling through floors earlier!" The fox yelled in objection.

"Because my horseshoes displaced my weight. The magic on them has stopped working."

"How does horseshoe magic just stop working?!" The fox threw her arms into the air.

"By the inscription on them fading away." The Indagator firmly responded.

"Don't they make better quality inscriptions at the Nostrum Organization?"

"Yes. Which is why they lasted a hundred years."

"Bullshit!" The detective yelled.

Amanda sighed. "I am one-hundred and twenty-one years old." She paused. "I was there when they first made them."

The fox froze, peering at the horsewoman. "You look like you're in your twenties!"

"Mutations. Whatever age you were mutated at, you look forever like it." The Indagator removed the head off the last zombie. "Now get my damn antenna." The horse watched Angela leave. She had no doubt about the fox's success after seeing her rapidly patch herself out in the field. Setting the head aside, she searched through her mind. Damn it, need an ammeter. The horse recalled the antenna would create a current when signals bounce off it. Hope they have one around here. Setting a hoof outside the barn, she began her search.

Amanda found more scraps of papers in the nearby buildings. She found a common trend among them of humans and anthros disappearing. At first, it started off slow until it grew more frequent. The number of people investigating the problem grew at a similar rate. The evidence that they found pointed to the village leader being responsible for the disappearances.

When the townsfolk arrived at their town hall, the notes indicated that they found their leader dead and his second in command immediately taking over. There were conflicting views on the woman. Some accused her of murdering their former leader, while others were skeptical.

As Amanda continued her search, she found the notes made less sense. But, as she encountered more, she found randomly capitalized letters and strange symbols. They appeared in greater consistency until the latest notes were rife with them. It might be a code. Curious, after she found her ammeter, Amanda decided to investigate.

Setting off for the town hall, she found it in the same dilapidated condition as the rest of the village. The only exception she noted was all windows had been boarded up. She recalled the rest of the town ranged from not at all boarded up to boarded up slightly. Suspicious, she paced around the area, killing a few zombies; until she found evidence of a break-in. One of the boarded-up windows had been smashed through.

As she peered inside, Amanda found no remains. Odd. Just as she was about to crawl through the windows, she stopped. As the Indagator recalled her mammoth, rumbling sack, between her toned, thick thighs. It barely gave her any ground clearance. The horse wagered if she'd stepped through the window, it would likely smash through the lower half of the window frame. As her cloak didn't conceal what was below her.

She stepped away from the window in favor of the front door. She'd prefer to mitigate the damage her titanic assets caused.

The door, much akin to the rest of the place, was boarded up. Fortunately, for the Indagator, this was not an issue. As she was capable of ripping apart the reinforcement. Tearing them down, she found the door-frame, much like anything else on the farm woefully undersized for her. She was required to stoop low, to fit through the door.

The inside of the town hall was just tall enough for her to stand to her full height. Unfortunately, every step she took had the wood screaming out in protest until she ultimately fell through the floor, cracking the foundation beneath her. Along with this, she found her colossal nutsack smashing a hole through the bottom, causing similar damage. Its tightness making it unable to squish against the floor. She cursed.

Inside, weapons laid against the walls with ammunition boxes beside them. The Indagator quickly found several spent bullet casings across the grounds and blood on the walls. She examined them and could not tell what caused them without further analysis.

As she examined the town hall, a shadowy figure appeared before her. From their outline, she guessed it was a parrot anthro. Next, a human shape appeared, followed by more anthros and humans until she was surrounded by shadowy figures. Shit. Anticipating an attack, the horse quickly unsheathed her blade. The figures continued to stand around her in a circle. She furrowed, her brow confused.

The scene around her began to change. Splinters zipped through the air back to the wood they had fallen from. Broken glass flew back through the air into the shattered windows and broken lights. It was as if someone rewound the clock. As broken pieces reunited, the time of day quickly changed. The morning of the sun fading away to the dark night, right before her eyes, the town hall promptly reverted to a much earlier time.

The shadowy figures from earlier had disappeared, and soon she saw several humans and anthros. Checking various firearms and ammunition crates. They paced around the inside. The holes Amanda had created were no longer present. Yet, she found herself feeling the same chilling breeze.

The Indagator found the people around her socializing, paying her no mind. Yet she could not hear them. All she could hear was the wind blowing through the broken window. She carefully watched their actions. They seemed ready for battle. As their guns poked through the gaps between boards.

The whole scene was surreal. It was as if phantoms danced before her. Whenever they moved, a halo of themselves followed afterward. It was as if they smeared across reality. At one point, she saw them open fire. The all-out war had finally broken out. The Indagator grew tense. The phantoms waved, pointed, and hollered at each other. Curious, Amanda took a step only to feel and hear the familiar creak than snap.

What I'm seeing isn't real. It's an illusion. She tried to convince herself. Usually, she'd be quicker to spot magic at work, as her badge vibrated in its presence. But, the entire time she'd been on the farm, her badge constantly vibrated. Therefore proving ultimately useless.

The horse found herself curious as to the reason for the battle. Peering through the gaps between the boards, she discovered zombies similar to the one's she's encountered. How long have they been around? Was a question that struck her.

As she continued to watch, she found the zombies taking bullet after bullet yet continuing to shamble forward. These people have no idea how to fight zombies. Soon, her thought was proven accurate as the zombies reached the boarded windows, riddled with bullets, and started pounding away. She recalled the window which was smashed through and carefully watched it.

Soon, the boards snapped, and the zombies poured through the window. At first, she was tense, as the illusion convinced her they were real. As a zombie shambled closer, she lashed out with her blade with a single precision strike to its head. Only to find her blade phase through the zombie. As if it never existed. She shook her head, reminding herself of the illusion.

The zombies passed through her like a phantom and attacked the defenders. She found the zombies punching holes straight through the defenders or ripping their heads off. Quickly the number of defenders decreased. She noted not a single zombie had fallen to their gunfire. They continued unimpeded as if the many bullet holes were a mere suggestion.

Why didn't they get an Indagator? She assumed the inhabitants had known about the zombies. Yet she quickly retracted her thought. She recalled the zombie factory she found earlier to be entirely underground, concealed by the butcher's shop. They were hidden. She paused in thought. Who hid them and why? More questions filled her head. She watched the gruesome scene before her unfold.

She found most defenders to have been slain by the zombies. It wasn't except for one, an opossum-anthro, which had managed to narrowly escape. She wanted to follow him but found it difficult as her mobility was seriously inhibited by her own mass and the building's inability to support it as she crashed through the wood flooring.

Damn it. She turned her attention back to the scene. Once all the defenders had been slain. The zombies stopped. They simply did nothing. Some continued to lumber around while others just stood around. They never showed any interest in the corpses. Instead, she found a familiar figure walking inside.

It was the black-furred fox she had encountered earlier. Except, she noted her more meek appearance. As she slouched, gripping her tail-maw. Scanning the fox's face, Amanda found her nervous. As she peered around uncertain. The fox held her tail close to her own chest. Which Amanda noted to be nothing near the size of their first encounter.

She had hardly noticeable breasts and a relatively slim figure. She also found the fox to be around 150cm in height. She's smaller. She watched the fox reluctantly enter the town hall. None of the zombies appeared to take an interest in her. She approached one of the corpses and stared at it. Amanda had only one guess, what the fox could want. Soon, it was confirmed as the fox slowly let go of her tail and watched it swallow the corpse whole.

So this isn't a new ability. Was the thought which raced across her mind.