Kingsmouth arrival

Solomon Island, the north end of nowhere.  I'd been out here once before, my team had been hired to escort a set of twins to Innsmouth Academy about six years ago.  The place hasn't changed.

Scratch that.  Everything has changed, but the place is still rotten to the core.

I ran into an old friend outside the portal to Agartha named Jack Boone.  He is, or should I say WAS, like me, an independent Troubleshooter on the outskirts of the Secret World.  As in, when there's trouble, we shoot it.  I met him and his partner John Wolf in Afghanistan when a Djinn was causing trouble for coalition troops in 2008(? I think?) and again when I was hunting vampires in France with the Silver Wolves in 2012.

An old friend

Now he's protecting Agartha from zombies.  That's right, I just used the "Z" word, and after five minutes in Kingsmouth anybody who says they're not zombies is delusional.  Now I only joined the Templars a few days ago, but somehow he knew all ready.  I don't know how the two of them do that.  I hadn't actually told anybody, and  he doesn't have a computer or phone so he's not reading this.  Jack and John just know things.  Like when the darkness is going to hit the fan.  They got here before the fog, they just knew it was coming.  Like the vampire infestation.  Like the Djinn.  Whatever their source of information, I'm sure the talking heads in London and New York are green with envy, because they are ALWAYS in the center of what's going down.

The two of them usually go everywhere together, but he was pretty mum about where Wolf was.  He told me there were more important things at the moment.  Such as making sure the dead rest.  Everyone deserves their six feet, he said.  He's right.

I found survivors in Kingsmouth.  Most of the sheriff's deputies were still alive, a bunch of citizens, and the sheriff herself, Helen Bannerman.

The Sheriff of (what's left of) Kingsmouth

No questions about where I came from, what I was doing there, anything like that.  She just seemed relieved to have another gun available, on the condition I remember I'm not a deputy.  Easy enough.  Then she asked me to pitch in and help her people out against the dead.  Even offered a small reward for anything I could do.  Nothing like the checks I used to get with the Silver Wolves, but what the hey it's a poor town out in the boondocks and at the end of the day Temple Hall can cover the difference.

I know Dick wants me to forget the "case by case basis," but these people are screwed without at least some help.  I've got the skills and the time, and nobody's going to care about the pockets of the dead, so what's the harm?  I can pitch in.

I also know you read this, Dick.  That's why I'm calling you that.  And your annoyance at me helping can take a flying leap.  You sent me to clean up the mess out here and I'll do it, but I'll do it my way.