Finding Simon Petrikov

Chapter 6

Marceline's POV

I woke up the next to the rough hands of Marshal shaking me awake. He had a tone of urgency in his voice. "Marcy, wake up. This is something you have to see."

I groaned and yanked the covers over my head so the light flooding in from the hallway wouldn't hurt my eyes. "What?" I grumbled, still half asleep.

"It's hard to explain. Just come see." He said, vaguely.

He yanked the covers off the bed. "Stop!" I hissed.

"You're cute when you get grumpy." He smirked.

I slowly dragged myself out of bed. I hated it when people woke me up early. "Yeah well, you'd be cuter if you let me sleep in a little."

Marshal laughed and grabbed my hand, leading me downstairs, into the kitchen and out the front door. I shivered. It was freezing out and all I had on was a tee shirt that was a few sizes too big that I borrowed from Marshal to sleep in. "Do you wanna borrow my jacket?"

Before I could refuse he took it off and draped it over my shoulders. "Thanks." I mumbled.

"Okay, get ready." He said, a mischievous smile forming on his lips.

"What are--" before I could finish he grabbed me by the waist and pulled me closer to him.

Suddenly, I felt my feet leave the ground as we floated up into the air. I screamed real loudly and started thrashing to get out of his grip. "Marshal, let me down!" I pleaded.

He smiled and held fast to me. "It's okay. I won't drop you."

I relaxed a little. "Hey, why don't I get all these freaky vampire powers?" I asked, feeling a tad jealous.

"They develop after about a hundred years or so. But it's different with every person. I once knew this guy who developed within his first year of being bitten."

When we were up high enough, he hovered over the roof of the house and gently set me down. I planted his feet on the roof next to me and slowly extended his arm towards the east to one of the more hazardous parts of the ruins when the radiation hasn't quite cleared out yet. Huge, dense clouds of fallout hovered over and around the broken down shops and houses, making it harder for me to see what Marshal was pointing at.

That's when I spotted the small flickering lights of a torches burning and the faint shuffle of feet moving around rubble and large fallen objects in the street. "I can't see anything."

Marshal pressed a pair of toy binoculars into my hand. One of the lenses was cracked. They still worked so I put them up to my eyes and looked towards the direction of the torch light. I gasped. Hundreds of humanoid creatures were slowly walking through the streets in a very disorganized line. Some looked almost human except for the fact that they had multiple heads or arms. Others looked like gigantic, angry ogres made of grass, almost four feet bigger than me. There were multiple groups of fish people all clustered together. They wore odd looking animal hats on their heads and raggy looking loincloths. "Mutations?" I asked, pulling the binoculars away from my eyes. Another species looked like they were made entirely out of fire and hot magma. Even their clothing.

"Yeah. I see them lurking around the grasslands over yonder all the time." He said, his eyes scanning over the huge crowds of beasts.

"Why are they here?" I asked, my eyes fixated on one of the grass ogres trying to move a fallen street lamp out of the way.

"The grass lands are getting too over populated. I think they want to invade the ruins for more space. I was watching them when you were asleep. They've been attacking every living thing in sight and are heading in the direction of the human city. They were standing against a few rogue vampires out there and none of them made it. Do you know how tough it is to take down a fully developed vampire? Not to mention more than one?" He paused and looked at me with concern. "We have to get out of here soon, Marceline. Because I don't think they're here to make friends."