Don’t go anywhere without a gun. Or an axe. Or something with a sharp blade. I kept my baseball bat tucked between the bed and nightstand and a steak knife under my pillow. Mom had given up trying to take it back. As if she could argue with my logic—What if the apocalypse hits and I get killed by a zombie because I only have a pillow to defend myself? It should be noted I’d never been attacked, but I would be ready if and when it happened.

As I settled into my pillow, my mind still whirling with the story, I stared at my window, the drapes open so I could see outside. Only rather than a night sky with twinkling stars, it erupted with gold and silver light.

Cool. Even more fascinating, the light appeared to originate from the ground and not the heavens above.

I didn’t think twice. I jammed my feet into my running shoes and grabbed a sweater before climbing out my window. Not the first time I’d slipped out.

The explosion of lights wasn’t on my parents’ farm, but I could tell where they came from. I rode my bike up the road to the property adjoining ours, about a mile away. The illumination brightened, and I’d have sworn I heard singing, beautiful and haunting, no actual words just a melody.

As I reached the driveway for the Samsons’ property, I braked in the gravel and listened, eyes half closed. What was making that beautiful sound and light?

It abruptly ceased.

Darkness fell harshly, as did the silence. Tears filled my eyes at the loss.

What happened? I put my feet on the pedals, ready to head down that driveway to find out, when a figure strode from the shadows.

“Where da fuck you goin’, girl?”

I knew that voice. Leroy Samson. Son of Earl Samson, owner of the land beside our farm. “Hello, Mr. Samson.” He looked a lot like his dad if younger. Always scowling and cradling a gun. Neither liked people.

“Go away.”

“Sorry to bug you. I saw a light.”

“No light.”

I frowned at the obvious lie. “There was, from over there.” I pointed past him. “And I heard singing, too.”

“No, you didn’t. You heard nothing. Do you hear me? Nothing,” he enunciated before glancing behind him. “Git before my father sees you and gets pissed.”

Why would he get mad? I’d done nothing wrong.

Still, it was late, dark, and I’d come alone. Perhaps I should leave before Mr. Samson lived up to his reputation among the kids of being a killer who dropped the bodies of his victims down a well. Whose body, the rumors didn’t say. We just knew there was something off about the Samsons.

I pedaled home, keeping an eye on the sky, listening for music. It was almost thirty years before I heard it again.

Chapter One

The flame on my lighter danced in the gentle afternoon breeze. The old Zippo— passed down to me by my grandfather, who used to smoke cigars, puffing hard on them while he verbally replayed his youth—remained lit despite the wind. Quality design at work.

I lit the end of the long fuse and ran for the grassy knoll. I ducked behind its solid girth and wrapped my arms over my head as I counted down.

Ten, nine, eight…

Technically, I had no idea how long it would take for the spark to light the –

Kaboom!

The ground underfoot trembled as the dynamite I’d planted exploded. The end result? A shower of rocks and dirt.

Once the intentional apocalypse ended, I stood. Dust hung in the air, making me glad I’d remembered to wear my goggles. The last time I’d forgotten and ended up in the emergency department with a doctor chiding me as he removed debris from my eye. Very unpleasant, although I did enjoy wearing the eye patch as it healed and shouting, “Arrr, matey,” at anyone who stared in my direction. I really didn’t give a rat’s ass what people thought of me.

Some women waited to hit their forties to ooze confidence. I wrangled mine at an earlier age. No shame. No filter. No fucks to give.

As I trudged in my yellow galoshes, decorated with red devil duckies, toward the pile of boulders I’d decimated, I noted the recently created stumps spread out over the acre I’d been clearing for the last two weeks as part of my farm expansion.

You were looking at a bona fide farmer. Me, Annie Jenner, sole owner of the farm I’d inherited before the age of twenty. A property and business I chose to keep despite the naysayers—also known as that asshole at the bank—trying to convince me to sell it to developers.

“You’re only nineteen. You don’t really want to tie yourself to a farm. You should go to school in another state. See the world.”

I could see the world on television. I refused to give up the farm that had been passed down in my family for several generations. I did leave for a while to attend college the next state over. I wanted an education. Running a successful farm was more than feeding animals and planting seeds. Just ask my daddy. It was hard work and the reason he chose to ditch farming for a job in town. Daddy told me he wasn’t a farmer, despite the fact his dad and his dad’s dad were.

It must have skipped a generation because I loved the land. While I didn’t have a magical green thumb like my best friend, I knew how to get things to flourish. Plants or animals. It took me a while—working full-time in town and then part-time as I got the farm going—before I could make the switch. Even then, I worked on a small scale.

A recent zombie invasion—which I’d helped prevent along with my BFF Mindy, a goblin named Mungo, and some dude working for the Cryptid Authority—had left me with empty barns and paddocks. A necromancer had zombified all my livestock as part of her devious plot to take over the world, which failed, in part due to me.

After the fact, it was a fight to get the insurance company to pay out. Good thing social media had recorded video evidence to prove my claim. Nothing like showing the adjustor one of my zombie cows rampaging down the street, chasing school children, to get him to admit maybe I was telling the truth. As if I’d lie about something like that. The vindication of winning almost offset my annoyance that my previous claim—when aliens beamed up my stud bull—failed to pay out. Apparently, the tiny burned circle left behind wasn’t proof of little green men.

Anyhow, back to the farming. Given my success, it was time to expand, which gave me a good excuse to blow shit up.

I tromped through the newly created field, noting all the hunks of rocks strewn from one end to the other. Others might have been daunted by all the stone. I saw what it would become: the rocky liner for the new pond I’d been meaning to put in. Tomorrow, I’d hook up the landscape rake to my tractor and drag the debris into a pile.

As the dust settled, I got a clearer look at the remains of the mound I’d blown up using the dynamite bought off the back of a truck from a guy who also dealt in fireworks. Technically, illegal, but the legit places couldn’t beat his price. Add in the fact I didn’t have to apply for a permit and I could explode shit to my heart’s content. The advantage of living in the boonies. The one time someone came asking if I’d heard or felt anything strange, I’d managed wide-eyed awe about the savage storm that blew through. The bylaw idiot bought it, although that might have had something to do with the jar of moonshine I sent him off with.

The spot I’d exploded still showed a layer of rocks that would require removal. Some were small enough I could toss them by hand, exposing the larger chunks remaining. One more blast would have cleared it, but then I’d have a crater in the ground that I’d have to fill. Less work to yank them free with my tractor.

Thinking of work had me wondering about the odd pile of rocks hidden in the previously gnarly forest. A possibly manmade tower of stone, perhaps some kind of totem or marker or a cairn. Would I find some skeletons?

I should be so lucky. What I wouldn’t give for something exciting to happen to me. I mean, yeah, my animals being turned into zombies to panic the populace was kind of cool, and helping my BFF track down a necromancer to end her reign of evil was epic. However, I was only a sidekick to her illustrious battle. Mindy was the one to save the day and get the guy. Lucky bitch. Good thing we were best friends or I’d have totally made a play for her boyfriend, Reiver. I did have a thing for bad boys, even though it got me into trouble.

Ask anyone, they’d tell you I had bad taste in men. Always had. But none as horrible as the first to break my heart. If that bastard ever showed his face, I’d smash it in. But he’d left, a coward in the night, with no care to the damage he’d wrought to me: mind and body.

As I walked around the remaining rocks I’d have to yank and move, a bleat from behind had me turning to see Jilly, a recently adopted pygmy goat with a short but sharp horn between her eyes, floppy ears, and no nipples despite being female. I couldn’t have even said why I took her in given she’d never produce milk or ever give me edible or sellable meat. And before you act shocked, keep in mind, I was a farmer. Everything on my farm served a purpose. Crops for food. Animals, too. I didn’t do pets. The cats in my barn? They were for mice. The dogs? Herding my sheep.

But Jilly, the oddball goat? She’d been part of the assets of an estate auction. The guy beside me started bidding on her, joking to his companion she’d make an excellent circus freak. It bothered me enough that I overpaid for her clumsy butt.

You know how goats are usually agile climbers? Not my Jilly. She tripped over her own legs. Got her single horn stuck in everything. And, yes, despite that bony protrusion and lack of boobies, she was most definitely female. A mishmash of parts that didn’t fit in anywhere.

Like me.

I’d grown up with people making fun of my appearance. My hair was a wild, curly mess that, when brushed, poofed out into a massive halo. I didn’t have the patience to braid it and rather liked it au natural. My skin color wasn’t dark enough for some, too light for others. Adding in freckles and the way I dressed for comfort rather than style had led to me being teased and bullied. The only people who accepted me for me were my parents and Mindy.

Not that I cared what people thought. I took pride in my unique style. All that to say I looked at Jilly and saw myself. Awkward, not fitting in anywhere, but going about blithely confident and happy because I wasn’t about to let anyone make me believe I wasn’t worthy.

“What are you doing here, fuzz butt?” I chided.

She took that as an invitation and came trotting as fast as her four legs could carry her, which involved a sway to the left, a wobble to the right, and an almost face plant.

“Careful,” I warned as she only barely missed stepping in a rut that might have hurt her leg.

The squeak uttered by Jilly had me snorting. “Don’t give me attitude. I’ve seen you in action, fuzz butt.”

As if to prove me wrong, she danced atop the pile of rocks left behind, and almost managed to look graceful until she slid off a stone and crashed, muzzle first. As if that stopped her. She popped right back up, tongue lolling in a smile.

I shook my head. “Such an idiot.” But a cute one. “Come on, oh four-legged accident waiting to happen. Let’s go get the tractor.” Because the ATV I rode out on didn’t have the right attachments to do the work needed.

Jilly hopped on the back, shaking with excitement. She loved going for rides, usually with her tongue hanging and ears flopping around, because those suckers refused to stand up straight.

Once we reached the farm, she ran lopsided back for the barn.  I followed her pink-pajama butt, because, in my world, pet goats belonged in pajamas.

At Christmas, she’d worn a set with flashing Christmas lights along with a matching strand around her tiny horn. It should be noted I’d worn something of the same fabric to a Christmas party at my best friend’s, which caused Mindy’s boyfriend, Reiver, to exclaim, “What the ever-loving fuck are you wearing?” Whereas Mindy just nodded and said, “At least it’s not as bad as the year she came dressed as a roasted turkey.” Replete with a gravy-scented perfume. To get me back, Mindy made me healthy muffins for a week. Her cruelty knew no bounds.

As I strode past a paddock, I waved to Benji, one of the new farmhands, who was dumping some vegetable scraps and barley into a trough for the pigs. The scrawny suckers would need fattening before they’d turn into bacon and pork chops.

Mmm.

Don’t act shocked. Remember what I said about judging? Food was a necessity. And while veganism might be fine for some folks, I would always be a girl who loved her protein, unlike my vegetarian BFF who would only eat plants and ethically sourced eggs and dairy.

It wasn’t long before I rumbled the tractor back to my newly created field. The previous week I’d removed the trees I’d felled, the copse I’d taken down old and gnarly. The trunks twisted and stunted, the branches barely producing leaves. It made me question the quality of the soil, only analysis of it by a lab I trusted indicated the perfect balance. Despite the appearance of the trees, this dirt was made for growing stuff.

Before I’d bought the acres of land bordering mine, I’d often imagined those woods were haunted. The previous owner, Leroy Samson, had reinforced that belief with his barbed wire fence and no trespassing signs. He’d often been seen, shotgun cradled in his arms, guarding his borders. Against what, no one ever knew.

Poor Samson got eaten by zombies the night my animals were kidnapped by the necromancer. When his property went up for auction a few months later, not only did I buy Jilly at the estate part of the sale but I snatched up the property, too. I had dreams of my farm expanding enough to eventually allow for me to raise alpacas and ostriches. The latter’s eggs were worth a fortune to chefs.

The moment the adjoining property became mine, the first thing I did was tear down the fence separating the land. I followed up by taking a chain saw to those useless trees, so dry and rotted they wouldn’t even make decent firewood. As I exposed the land long hidden from the sun, I discovered the tall mound of lichen-covered boulders, too big to easily move.

Okay, not entirely true. I could have hired a crane to relocate them, but personally, I preferred blowing shit up.

Jilly sat in a lined metal basket welded to the back of my seat on the tractor. She bleated in excitement as we rumbled our way onto the field. As I reached the blast zone, I lowered the bucket to scoop the remaining chunks of rock. One by one, I removed them, trundling across the field to the edge of a ravine that led to a creek—more like a raging river this time of the year, just after the winter melt.

The rocks went tumbling over the edge, a no-no that would get me in trouble if the town inspectors ever found out. They wouldn’t because then I might stop giving them deals on farm-fresh produce.

The rubble diminished until only one massive slab remained. It was almost square in shape and flat to the ground. And me without any more dynamite.

I improvised and slammed the bucket down on it. The rock cracked, but before I could think of scooping the pieces, the chunks fell into the chasm that opened beneath it!