Chapter 4, Change in the Space.

At the dairy farm, Kristy put her phone in her back pocket. And looked around. 'Don't dairy farmers wake up early to milk the cows? If I don't milk them regularly the milk will dry up.'

She paused what she was doing with burying Bill, Karen, and Lilly and jumped in her space.

Kristy instantly felt overwhelmed when she saw the state of her space. There was a big pile of cow dung in front of her; the cows were everywhere stretched out on the five acers of grassland.

Not just the cows but the chickens, piglets and rabbits were all running free together.

Kristy thought of moving all the cow dung to a different area and the pile in front of her disappeared. Then she thought of all the feces moving to that area. She got a little dizzy for a second but knew the space had accomplished her task.

She wished there was some interface to manage her space. Since thoughts move things like a video game here.

A blue screen popped up in front of her. "Ask and you shall receive." Kristy smiled. "I love my space."

The blue screen showed two commands saved on it one to freeze time for perishable items, that showed it was set to auto. Then the other to move all waste to one spot. It had a blinking option list that she could change from Auto or on request.

Kristy obviously pressed auto who wants to think about moving shit all the time.

"Can I set daily tasks to auto to?" Kristy asked her space out loud. A new blue tab screen popped up like on the internet to switch screens. Labeled daily tasks.

How convenient I didn't need a farmer. My space has everything. she pushed the tab; nothing was there yet. She looked at the first tab and noted that it was labeled constant.

"Ok the cows need to be milked in the morning and evening of each day. Let's set it this time every morning and six pm every night. Except the cow feeding the calf. Actually, they will still need a vet for a while and I don't know if I can drink all this milk before it fills my space."

"Can the animals be frozen in time without killing them like a box in the video games?" In response another tab opened in the blue screens labeled stored animals. Kristy started laughing and smacked her thighs. Yes, she has 87 piglets that will all grow up together she is not telling everyone she has a space how is she supposed to eat that many pigs and with the space to roam there is no room to farm crops if the animals are all kept here.

After all, five acres of land is only the size of four football fields.

Kristy sat down on the grass and looked at the tabs. "Ok first thing first. Milk all the cows except the momma cow with the calf." Kristy watched as milk poured out of the cow close to her and floated into a ball above the cow. It was almost a full bucket worth of milk. "Ok process the milk then store it as perishable." Kristy got light headed but she watched the milk start to boil and could feel the fire energy the space was using now that she was a fire user too it was novel for her.

The milk disappeared after boiling; she could only guess it moved to storage. "Ok store the momma cow and the calf." Kristy looked at the stored animal tab and watched as the two were placed and marked as a pair since the baby cannot live without the momma at the moment.

Kristy was very happy with this function. "Ok move 36 cows and the one bull to storage." Kristy got very dizzy and almost passed out.

The tab for stored animals turned red. There was a yellow print on top of it that said "time magic is very low please meditate before continuing this function."

"Well, that is very convenient. The space uses my energy before pulling from the crystal cores. Not that I have another time crystal core."

"Well maybe I should use this time to upgrade my fire before the space needs to use it then the space can pull from me. I can always meditate to maintain my level or sleep but I need to use the cores to get my level higher. There are no more space or time cores but there is fire. That is dangerous though if I'm fighting and the space is using my manna though the usage is low running out of manna in a fight is dangerous so I need to change the functions. The space can pull from space and time from me constantly but not fire when in combat pull from the crystal cores."

Kristy switched to the consistent tab and noticed that the instructions for combat were there, also there were the instructions for the boiling and storing of the cow milk which Kristy set to auto.

Kristy switched to the daily tab and noticed the tasks for milking were set to the time frame and even showed the one cow that was left in the field.

"I need to meditate to do more with time but there are animals to feed first. The piglets are everywhere but they can't find their mommies to eat. But before they eat the momma needs to eat. Place a pig trough in front of each momma pig." Kristy watched as her thoughts were being carried out.

"Ok, fill with a mix of half pig feed half water and mix it together." Kristy watched as the momma pigs started to eat from the trough. "Set this as a pig feeding routine three times a day." Kristy looked at her daily tab and noticed that the instructions were there and there were tabs to pick the feeding times. Kristy does not know how often pigs really eat so she sets it like a human for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

"Set piglets to transfer to momma pig every two hours daily." Kristy started laughing as she saw the little pigs floating to their mommas. She pulled out her phone and took a picture.

She looked around as the cow was eating the grass and so were the rabbits. The chickens looked hungry though there was still food for them in the feeders that she got from the feed store, maybe they were just too far away.

"Set chickens to be moved to the feeder twice a day" Kristy watched all the little chicks move to the feeders except one. "Is this baby chick a rooster instead of a chicken? I know the two are hard to tell apart as babies. Move the rooster to the feed on the same schedule as the chickens." sure enough the last little chick floated to the food.

"Set chicken feed to be refilled twice a day." that does it. they can all drink from the river as they were placed close to it in the beginning. All the animals should know where the water is.

Now they will all be fed on schedule. Ok planting seeds should wait till I can read some instructions on farming. "Set hay bale to have two constantly out at a time for the cow if they choose to eat that instead of the grass that is using my wood element crystals." two hay bales landed close to the cow.

'Ok I'm done here.' Kristy thought and popped out of the space.

Kristy pulled out her phone to call her cousins and noticed the time. It was less than a minute since she had hung up the phone. It was more than a half hour she had spent in the space and she had to get out of the hole before she went into the space meaning no time had passed outside the space for her.

Kristy was shocked and surprised this was both a good thing and bad thing. 'If I go in my space to hide from a horde of zombies till, they pass it won't work as I go right back to the same time. But if I'm fighting and need to absorb energy from a crystal this is perfect. But I cannot meditate as there is no manna in the space that is not crystal cores or part of the space itself which would be bad to downgrade my space. I love its functions and space crystal cores are hard to find. I have to be in the real world to meditate.'

Kristy decided to not call her cousins right now as it would be weird as she just got off the phone with them. She needs to stop to meditate or sleep. Who knows what would happen in her space if she ran out of time manna.

'Speaking of sleep, I guess being unconscious does not count as restful sleep for me to have run out of time energy. That should have been refilled when I slept and going back in time would take a shit ton of manna. Does freezing time take more?'

Kristy went into the house and sat on the carpet to meditate. Meditation fills manna twice as fast as sleeping but is not restful. Stronger power users need less time to sleep but tend to sleep anyway to refill their manna.

Kristy felt for her detain and the power in there. she found the time magic and the small trickle of it being pulled to her space magic. The time was almost empty.

She had absorbed a level six core but she had been level zero when she did that so her time manna was only at level four.

She wondered when she had acquired time magic. She might have had it for years and not known. She did not need to meditate as space was not a good thing to show off Kristy had not used hers openly much, so sleeping to refill her manna worked fine.

How long was the time magic there that she didn't know it? It had to have been a while because there is no way she got fire powers so soon after getting time.

Her space manna core was at level seven! That is amazingly hard to do. It must be from absorbing so many cores at one time. Then she turned to the small almost unnoticeable level zero fire core. I will absorb fire cores after fixing time.

After all, time was her back up to save her life and she might need to go back to last night to save her uncle so she needs the strength.

Kristy focused in on her almost empty time core and began to pull manna from the air to it. 'The manna is so little this must be because this is the beginning of the apocalypse.'

It took her an hour and a half to top off all three of her manna cores. Most of the time was only on the time core as the other two had not used much manna. Imagine needing an hour-long break in the middle of a zombie infested city not good.

Kristy pulled out her phone now to call her cousins. Before she forgets to do it.

"Hey Kristy what's up?" Matty answered the phone. "We're about to eat breakfast."

"I was wondering if you could download a bunch of books on your tablet before the internet goes down." Kristy got to the point.

"The internet goes down?" Matty was shocked at the thought.

"Well, all the power and phone towers stop working in two weeks. Power relays need to be made closer together to work as the manna grows so there is power, but they can't reach the end of the cords at the spacing we have now. they will find this out later." Kristy told him. "I'm not a scientist but it was something like the density of manna in the air meddled with the flow like making the electricity heaver. It is already increasing density like the Radar in the planes are already out. the radio and satellite signal's will get harder for your phone to connect so since everything is shortened our current power plans don't support the changes in the air and will have to be redone."

 "Therefore, the power goes out for a very long time. The zombies need cleared to fix the relays. And the density of the manna had not stopped growing in the five years I was in the apocalypse so having power extend to different bases when you don't know how long before it will need to be redone was a waste of resources." Kristy explained there was power at the bases but the satellites were useless the signal won't reach. "I'm going to be moving to you so I won't have a good connection to download info."

"Ok, what should I look for?" Matty asked as he grabbed a pen and paper.

"Gardening and growing crops. everything you can find. Then care books for cows, pigs, chickens and rabbits. You know what they eat, how to notice if they are sick, stuff like that." Kristy said thinking of what else.

"Electrical info on how to get electricity from scratch different things to build harvesting and processing of flour, cooking oil, maybe car oil and gas. Just what is needed so we can look for them later." Kristy explained.

"I'll download all the music and movies on the computer since Matty is downloading on the tablet." Brenda piped in her wish for entertainment.

"Ok I'll leave this stuff to you.'' Kristy felt relieved to have one less thing to worry about. "I'll get back to burying my friends now I had to stop to feed the animals in my space." Kristy told them she didn't want to worry them about her running low on time magic.

They got off the phone again and Kristy wrapped Karen in a bedsheet to bury her. She heaved her up and carried her out of the house to the hole.

When she carried out little Lilly, she was crying again she placed the little girl in the middle on top of her parents and started shoveling the dirt on top.

When they were buried, she looked around for flowers. All she could find were dandelions but better than nothing so she placed them on the new grave.

Animals don't tend to dig for zombie flesh so the grave was only three feet deep but she had done her best.

Kristy stretched, her whole body was covered in dirt, sweat, and a bit of black blood that seeped through the sheets.

Kristy went back into the house, found the list Karen made last night and put it in her space. She looked at the time it was 12:32 Dan and Jim were not here yet?

"I should take the weapons with me. I might need them." Kristy went into the bedroom and picked up the double barrel hand shotgun that Karen had loaded last night and the four extra slugs that were next to it.

The hand shotgun might be less painful than the regular shotgun. Kristy rubbed her shoulder again thinking of when she had used the regular shotgun that Bill handed her.

"At least I braced myself but if I fired that too much, I still might get a bruise." Kristy was talking to herself. As she walked to the study to get the hunting rifle that Bill had.

 "Not that I can aim to use it." muttered Kristy as she picked it up and put it in her space. It was leaning on the door of the gun safe which was cracked open with a paper sticking out of it.

It was a note from Bill.

"Kristy,"

"If you are reading this both myself and my wife didn't make it. Please take what you need to protect yourself and our Lilly. Jim and Dan and Samantha are also good people. And they're great with a gun."

"Good luck."

There was a second hunting rifle in the safe and four boxes of ammo. Two boxes were for the shotguns and the other had a longer brass bullet that must go to the hunting rifles. Kristy put them all in her space.

"I still have no skills in this area. All I could do with it was spray and pray. Maybe if I find more ammo I can practice."

Kristy thought of the letter Bill left her. 'Dan was told noon but he is not here yet, maybe he had to bury some people too. Or Jim and Samantha survived but Dan didn't so he couldn't relay the message. I should head over there before leaving this area. I do owe them a favor for the pig.'

"There were a lot of people there when we left. I should bring out the machete I picked up from the feed store. Was it made for cutting grass? They had it with the rakes and shovels that I don't need in my space anymore now that I can auto do stuff."

"I might need a shovel if I bury more bodies though'' Kristy talked to herself in the kitchen to find something to cut the zip tie off of her new machete.

She wound up using a knife then picked everything from the kitchen into her space. "No point in leaving it here, there is no one to eat it." She took dishes too since she never went home. She didn't have any in her space.

Finally, she picked up the keys to the Toyota Tacoma. Kristy threw the Kia in her space and hopped into the truck to drive to Jim's house. Good thing she has a good memory and just went there last night.

Kristy pulled into the driveway of the ugly yellow house again and pulled out her machete.

She walked into the house prepared for the worst but the zombies were dead on the floor. Kristy stepped over some and kept her guard up. She had heard stories from the fighters who left the base how they messed up from getting comfortable.

Moving cautiously through the house she could see the back door that was ripped down from the zombies tearing their way in from the backyard BBQ. They look like they made a beeline to a little girl she appeared around twelve years old and was almost entirely ripped apart by the zombies.

A look of pain and terror was on the dead child's face her skin had begun to change in a few hours she would become a new zombie.

"Your Kristy right" the voice came from nowhere and Kristy jumped from the noise. Jim laughed "sorry for scaring you."

Kristy looked at him. There were no less than three huge bite marks on his skin and his veins had started to turn black. He was leaning against the pantry door.

"I'm sorry." Kristy told him she knew the fight must have been horrible for him to be in this state. One bite you might survive but three that was not going to happen.

"Don't be it's not your fault." Jim told her. "Bill didn't make it ether?" he asked

"No, I just finished burying them." Kristy was crying again.

"I'm sorry you lost your sister." Jim consoled Kristy, she didn't correct him because Bill called her sister-in-law and Lilly called her auntie. Even if she only knew them for a few hours they had accepted her as family. "The zombies are gone now except for me. Come here" Jim motioned her to get closer he looked around him and found nothing but he lost too much blood to move he was dying.

Jim stuck his finger in his blood from the ground. "Give me your arm." Kristy could see he wanted to write something so she gave him her arm. He put six numbers on her arm 142206 "this is the pin for the weapon stash under the workbench in the shed. There is a small pile of weapons I gathered from the dead on the kitchen table. Weapons are for the living." Jim said. "I just have one request."

"What would you like me to do?" Kristy was willing to follow a last request.

"Burn the house down before you leave." Jim got out his request. "There are too many to ask you to bury us so just cremate us together please."

"You have my word, I promise." Kristy agreed to burn the house down.

Jim smiled "thank you!" Then he put his pistol in his mouth and fired.

"If I turn back time, could I get here to save you?" Kristy thought about it but there is a twenty-minute drive to get here even if she went back, she would not be able to save the little girl who was torn to pieces and as her dad he would not be happy without her.

Kristy picked up the pistol Jim just used and found the pile of weapons on the table. She put them in her space and left the house to walk to the Shead Dan had taken her to for the pig feed last night. The shed was far enough away from the house to not catch fire so she practiced throwing fireballs at the house.

Way better than digging a hole' Kristy thought as she threw more fire at the house. Her aim was getting better at the windows and the fire was spreading quickly.

When Kristy got to the weapons stash in the shed, she was shocked there was an entire basement full of weapons under that hatch. "Is this the weapons for the whole gang?" nevertheless she tossed everything in her space.

Kristy threw a few more fireballs at the house on her way back to the truck, got inside and watched it burn.

Kristy felt her fire manna was very low. She remembered that she hadn't upgraded her Fire core yet so she pulled three crystal cores from her space and absorbed them while watching the fire to ensure it burned enough to cremate the people in there.

Boom!

"Not sure but I think the alcohol or the gas line just took out half the house" Kristy didn't know what it was that exploded but that inferno is not going out for a long time now. So, she left still absorbing the crystal cores as she drove.

"I'm a pilot without a plane." Kristy said out loud as she navigated to her school there should be at least three planes that were not being used last night and a shit ton of jet fuel. That is just the ones from training.

 The flight school was closer to the city but still on the outskirts, so it was the road that made her more nervous than the air.

She had asked Jacob to take her by the school when they left the city last time on the way to the base but he refused. She felt it was ridiculous who would not want a pilot at the base? They could have arrived in style.

She had settled in an office filing paperwork for who had paid rent to the base. She missed the sky knowing there are a bunch of planes over there. There must be some that she knew how to fly that were not in the air. The school also serves as a private airport.

There were a few times she was commissioned to fly some private jets. Just twice but flying had never felt better. Of course, that was under the table because the pilot had gotten drunk so she used their license and was registered as copilot. But who cares it helped cover some of her flight classes. She had signed with the company to fly for them after she completed her training.

Kristy's random daydreaming of flying a plane again disappeared when she reached the main highway. The road was horrible, the number of crumpled cars. Many with twitching zombies that are missing limbs or half burnt from the fire. Some cars were still burning. It has been eight hours now since the pile up.

It is going on 3pm and everyone passed out at 7:45 yesterday. "I didn't know a car could burn for so long."

Some of the zombies that had freed themselves from the cars were walking towards her now. With the wreckage blocking the whole road there is no way through.