“Dude, don’t forget the Mentos, we can use those to make bombs.” I the elementary schooler in charge of rounding up the remaining candy at the Toy store. It was the first toy raid that Tommy allowed me to supervise. Tommy was a twenty something who said he had come back ‘from beyond the veil’, to save us once all the other adults had died. Most of the high schoolers, especially the high school girls, had died too.

“Board game section pillaged sir, they had the new settlers of catan expansion.” Another elementary schooler reported.

“Excellent, Tommy loves those games. He will be most pleased.” I tossed the kid a snickers bar as a reward.

“We need to make sure spirits are as high as possible tonight. We’re going to TP the girl’s camp tonight, and we lost three men to the spit wad catapults last time.” That reminded me. “Timothy!” I shouted to the kid who was pilfering costumes over in the toy section. “Be sure and get as much body armor as possible, and make it quick, we don’t want to get caught by the wizards.” I had never met the wizards, but Tommy assured me they existed.

They were men who hadn’t been taken. Men with long robes who kidnapped and ate little boys who took too long gathering supplies.

We heard a distant rumbling on the wind. “The wizards are coming!” I shouted. “Everybody drop what you’re doing and run for it!” Items clattered to the floor as the little vagrants dashed for the door. The little kid in charge of the candy foolishly decided to attempt to make off with all his ill gotten goods.

The rumbling grew louder as they reached the door, and the lad with the candy began to lag behind. The others didn’t notice until they were several blocks away. By then, it was too late.

“Oh look Brother Matt, it’s another group of wandering orphans. Shall we see if they need anything?” Brother Stephen asked me.

“No Brother Stephen, they look like they don’t particularly want to talk to us. On second thought, that slow one looks like he’s taken only candy from that store. I’ll bet he’s got frightfully bad cavities. We better bring him back to the abby and see to his teeth.”