The Temple City of The Green Goddess, Where Every Street Has a Name
A Pink Necromancer Fiction Short 🌸🦄🌸

The Temple City of The Green Goddess, Where Every Street Has a Name

The ruins of the dead city loomed around them, jagged silhouettes against the pale glow of the fractured moon. The caravan had settled for the night beneath the collapsed skeleton of a skyscraper.

Vardos, wagons, and rusting RVs formed a tight barricade against the night’s horrors. The stench of salt and decay clung to the air.

Somewhere in the distance, the mournful wail of a lone ghoul echoed through the canyons of broken glass and twisted steel.

Most of the caravan slept, huddled beneath the shattered overhang, wrapped in thick handwoven blankets. The handmaids and children lay in a tangled heap of wool and silk, their quiet breathing the only sign of life in this forsaken place.

A cluster of goblins whispered among themselves in hushed, guttural voices, careful not to wake the others.

This was the largest city GhoulSpawn had seen since becoming trapped here in the 40th century future. But he could not place it. The ruins were too decimated. Massive skyscrapers, lay on top of each other in collapsed rumble of concrete and twisted steel, with centuries old pine trees growing on top of them. This city had fallen two thousand years ago, and inspired of its tarmac streets and concrete sidewalks covering miles after mile of massive metropolis, nature had found a way to take root and reclaim it.

“Where are we?” GhoulSpawn asked.

“Too close to the hive for comfort,” Quaraun answered.

“The hive?”

“Aye,” BoomFuzzy said. “Massive zombie horde. One the biggest on the entire planet. We usually avoid this area. Ain’t safe. We keep to more remote regions usually. That's why ya ain't never seen many zombs.”

“Yes. I had noticed that,” GhoulSpawn muttered. “You’re always telling me there are twenty one billion zombies on the planet, but I don't think I've ever seen more than a few dozen.”

“But ya also ain't seen the big cities.”

“True.”

“We keep to the forests. Stay away from the cities. Most o’ the zombies are confined to cities. Living built walls over roads, chain link fencing around perimeters, sos the largest herds are imprisoned in cities.”

“And we're near one of those?”

“Aye. It why we ain't no settings up the tents. We rest just as long as we needs and then we skedaddle. Children need rest. If we had only adults in our group, I'd say keep going, march through here fast as we can. This the last safe resting location before we reach the hive. We need the children rested so's they can run if they have to. I ain't having none of me group left behind or getting turned.”

GhoulSpawn stared out at the heavily armed Kelpies marching around the camp. The Faerie King's bodyguards patrolled the perimeter, rifles slung over their shoulders, eyes scanning the dark. They usually rested with the rest of the group, but tonight they were on high alert.

Quaraun sat by the dying embers of the campfire, legs folded beneath him, his luminous tentacle hair pooled around him like liquid silver. He exhaled a slow stream of absinthe-laced smoke from his hookah, watching it curl into the frigid air. His delicate fingers, encased in gold-plated prosthetics, traced elegant lines across a battered parchment. His crystalline blue eyes gleamed as he worked, painstakingly sketching a map of the ruins, labelling each street name with meticulous care.

Beside him, BoomFuzzy crouched near the fire, using a hunting knife to sift through the ashes, ensuring every ember was smothered. His thick dreadlocks, threaded with purple ribbons, swayed as he moved. The light glinted off the gold rings in his ears, the heavy chains draped across his chest. He muttered under his breath, half in Scots, half in the guttural language of the Unseelie Court, cursing the cold, the city, and whatever foolish Humans had built it in the first place.

GhoulSpawn, hunched nearby, polished his cloven hooves with the absent-minded precision of someone lost in thought. His golden fleece shimmered in the firelight, his massive horns casting jagged shadows against the broken walls. He glanced at Quaraun’s map, eyes narrowing.

“Map of The Green Goddess Temple City,” GhoulSpawn read the map title out loud. “Where’s that?”

“It is where we are. We do not use this route often, but the survivors in this area need supplies we have and we need materials that can only be gotten from these survivors. Every time we come through here i try to expand my map.”

“Oh. Who's The Green Goddess?”

“I do not know. Her statue fell two thousand years ago. It used to be just back there.” Quaraun gestured towards the city ruins behind them. “This entire city was built around her statue. They worshipped her. Humans lived in these tall buildings all around her just so they could worship her all day.”

Quaraun frowned, his quill hovering over the map. He studied the crumbling ruins around them—monuments to Human excess. The skeletal remains of skyscrapers jutted toward the sky, their fractured bones silhouetted against the fractured moon. Broken streets sprawled in labyrinthine chaos.

And yet, for all this disorder, the Humans had named them.

Every street.

Every path.

A meticulous madness.

"Humans are most peculiar," Quaraun said, his voice smooth and measured. "This is one of those odd places where they have seen fit to give every street a name. Even now, long after their civilization has crumbled into dust, the names persist, etched in rusted signs and shattered stone." He shook his head. "It is… bewildering."

BoomFuzzy scoffed.

"Aye. That be Humans fer ye. Dinnae do nothin' wi'out makin' a grand spectacle o' it. Streets need names? Why? Roads is roads."

GhoulSpawn blinked, looking between them.

"Wait. You guys don’t get why streets have names?"

BoomFuzzy shrugged, tossing a handful of ash aside.

"Why would we?”

GhoulSpawn frowned.

“You’re seriously telling me you’ve never heard of named streets? That’s basic infrastructure. Addresses. Navigation. If you tell me Elves didn’t name streets, I’ll buy it. You guys were all about tiny villages in the middle of nowhere. But BoomFuzzy, you are King Gwallmaiic, last ruling monarch on the planet, you ran a criminal empire. How the hell did your people get around?”

BoomFuzzy shrugged, sheathing his knife with a flick of his wrist.

“Didn’t need no bloody names. We moved. Caravans don’t stay put. Ain’t got no need for roads, an’ ain’t got no need fer callin’ ‘em anythin’ fancy. Jus’ followed th’ stars, th’ wind, th’ scent o’ blood ‘n’ gold. No Unseelie worth his salt’s ever put a name on dirt. Why would we?"

GhoulSpawn let out a baffled laugh.

"So people know where they’re going?"

Quaraun looked at him, genuinely perplexed.

"But why would one require a name for a street in order to navigate it?"

GhoulSpawn’s brows furrowed.

"How else would you give directions?"

Quaraun returned to his map.

"Elves had villages we called cities, but they were nothing near as vast as these Human monstrosities. We never named the streets. There was no need." He tapped the parchment. "A city had a centre. A village had a heart. One did not require arbitrary names to discern one’s location."

BoomFuzzy grunted in agreement.

"Faeries dinnae build cities a’tall. We keep movin’. Caravan stops here today, another place tomorrow. No settlements. No streets. No nonsense names for paths. We remember where we been. No need for bleedin’ signs tellin’ us where we is."

GhoulSpawn shook his head, clearly flabbergasted.

“You guys are insane. You never had an address? A city grid? Postal service?”

“Postal service?” Quaraun asked.

“You don't know what a post office is, do you?”

“No. Should I?”

GhoulSpawn ran a hand through his wild golden curls.

“It's a delivery service. When you write to someone and they deliver the letter for you. They have to know the street name in order to deliver it.”

Quaraun made a disgusted noise.

“What use have I for that? Who, pray tell, would I write to? And why, in the name of all that is sacred, would I desire communication with anyone outside of my esteemed and unparalleled presence?”

GhoulSpawn rolled his eyes.

“So what’d you do if you needed to find a place? Just wander until you tripped over it?”

“Aye,” BoomFuzzy said. “Or kill some poor bastard what knew.”

"Okay, but, see, when cities get big, like really big, people need a way to—"

BoomFuzzy waved a dismissive hand.

"That be a Human problem."

Quaraun nodded.

"Indeed. A problem created by their own inability to live harmoniously with the land."

“Yeah, well, it worked,” GhoulSpawn muttered. “Back in my time, you could give an address, and someone would know where to go.”

“An’ where’d that get ‘em?” BoomFuzzy gestured to the ruins around them. “All that order, all them maps, all them names. An’ still, th’ world burned.”

Quaraun sighed, his delicate features etched with distaste.

"They carve their cities into the bones of the earth, suffocating the soil beneath their stone and steel. And then they lose themselves within the very labyrinths they have built, requiring names to remind them of their way. It is most inefficient."

GhoulSpawn gave an exasperated groan.

"It’s not inefficient, it’s just... logical. If you tell someone to meet you on, I don’t know, Elm Street, they know where that is."

BoomFuzzy snorted.

"Or ye could jus’ tell ‘em tae meet ye at tha big tree next tae the bakery, like a normal person."

Quaraun nodded sagely.

"A far superior system."

GhoulSpawn stared at them both, utterly flummoxed.

"You guys are impossible."

Quaraun returned to his map, meticulously marking the names, even if he found them absurd.

Silence fell between them.

The fire was nothing but cold embers now, and the wind whistled through the ruins like the mournful wail of a forgotten god.

Quaraun studied his map, tracing the lines with a gloved fingertip.

The street names meant nothing now.

The city was gone, its people dead.

The roads, cracked and broken, led nowhere.

Yet still, he wrote them.

Because names mattered.

Even when no one remained to speak them.

The night passed uneventfully. At sunrise the caravan was again awake, eating breakfast, checking their weapons and supplies, and getting ready to head back out on the road again, to continue their journey back to Maine.

The morning air carried the briny scent of the ocean, mingling with the damp earth and crumbling concrete.

Seagulls wheeled overhead, their cries echoing between the skeletal remains of the once-great city. The ruins stretched endlessly, skyscrapers leaning in jagged silhouettes against the pale sky, their shattered bones entwined with creeping vines and towering pines.

Nature had reclaimed what mankind had abandoned.

While the rest of the caravan got ready for the long road ahead, Quaraun, BoomFuzzy, and GhoulSpawn headed out into the city ruins to look for survivors or undead or anything they could salvage.

Quaraun moved cautiously, his long robes whispering over the debris-strewn ground, every step deliberate. BoomFuzzy followed close behind, his heavy boots crunching against broken glass and brittle stone.

GhoulSpawn, by contrast, pranced ahead, his golden fleece flashing in the morning light as he bounded over fallen beams and twisted metal.

They had been scavenging for hours, searching the ruins for anything salvageable—books, metal, preserved food—anything that could be of use to their caravan. It was a ritual by now, an act of survival.

The great cities of the old world held secrets in their decay, and sometimes, those secrets proved valuable.

Quaraun and BoomFuzzy had been to this city many times. They knew these ruins well. But GhoulSpawn had never travelled with them to this city before and so everything was a wonder for him.

GhoulSpawn suddenly froze, his long floppy lamb's ears twitching. He turned sharply, pleco eyes widening as he spotted a massive structure looming in the distance.

The skeletal remains of its once-proud towers rose from the earth, their suspension cables draping like the web of some long-dead titan.

“The Brooklyn Bridge!” GhoulSpawn gasped. “We’re in New York!”

Without another word, he took off at a gallop, his hooves striking against the cracked pavement.

“I lived in Brooklyn!” he shouted over his shoulder. “Back in the seventies! Holy crap, I can’t believe this!”

His voice faded as he raced toward the bridge, his excitement palpable.

Quaraun and BoomFuzzy exchanged a glance.

“Should we be concerned?” Quaraun asked, arching a delicate brow.

“Aye.” BoomFuzzy snorted. “Ye know how he gets.”

With a resigned sigh, Quaraun adjusted the shimmering pink veil over his face and strode after the Satyr, BoomFuzzy ambling beside him.

By the time they reached the bridge, GhoulSpawn was already standing near its entrance, his breathless excitement faltering into a stunned sort of awe. He turned, gesturing wildly.

“This is Brooklyn Heights! We're in Brooklyn Heights. I used to live here! Lower Manhattan’s right across the bridge!”

Quaraun tilted his head, surveying the ruins beyond.

“This city was once a temple,” he murmured.

GhoulSpawn blinked at him.

“What?”

“The statue of the Green Goddess is nearby,” Quaraun continued, his voice thoughtful. “Or, rather, there was. It collapsed into the ocean centuries ago. It lies at the bottom now.”

“Wait? What?” GhoulSpawn stared at him, incredulous. The conversation of the Green Goddess from last night, only just now sinking in. “Are you talking about the Statue of Liberty?”

Quaraun shrugged.

“If that is what she was called. A massive green woman standing in the harbour. A goddess, surely, worshipped by the Humans of this place. The goddess statue collapsed two thousand years ago.”

GhoulSpawn let out a strangled, nervous laugh.

“She wasn’t a goddess! She was a symbol of—”

He faltered, suddenly aware of just how much time had passed since his own era. How far into the future he really was. The world he had known was gone, buried beneath ice and rot.

“That’s New York City ahead of us,” GhoulSpawn started to say. “It was full of stores. We could get so many supplies in–”

BoomFuzzy cleared his throat, his expression turned very grave.

“We ain’t goin’ no further.”

GhoulSpawn frowned.

“Why not?”

BoomFuzzy’s usual mischievous demeanour had vanished, replaced by something grim. He nodded toward the crumbling skyline on the other side of the bridge.

“That city be off-limits. I won’t take me UnSeelie Court in there.”

GhoulSpawn’s tail flicked nervously.

“Why?”

BoomFuzzy exhaled through his nose, scanning the ruins with a wary gaze.

“That place holds the biggest concentrations o’ zombies I’ve ever encountered.”

GhoulSpawn swallowed hard.

BoomFuzzy continued, his voice low.

“Near as I can figure, there be at least ten million o’ the zomb bastards in there.”

The weight of the revelation settled over GhoulSpawn like a stone. He turned slowly, staring at the broken cityscape with new eyes. The thought of New York City fallen to the zombie apocalypse sent a cold chill through him. He had always known the world had changed, but this… this was something else.

Quaraun shifted uncomfortably, glancing back the way they had come.

“We should return to camp.”

GhoulSpawn barely heard him.

“This was one of the greatest cities in the world,” he muttered. “How did it fall?”

BoomFuzzy shrugged.

“Same way they all did. Humans ain’t as strong as they like tae think. They built their towers so high they thought they’d never fall. Thought their numbers’d keep ‘em safe.” He snorted. “Numbers dinnae mean nothin’ when the dead outnumber the livin’.”

GhoulSpawn swallowed, his mind reeling. He had always known things were bad, but standing here, staring at the bridge that once connected two of the most powerful boroughs of the greatest city on Earth, it felt… final.

Quaraun placed a hand on GhoulSpawn’s arm, his touch light.

“I do not like being away from my children for this long,” he said softly. “Not when we are this close to the zombie hive.”

GhoulSpawn turned to him, still shaken.

“Right. Yeah. We should go.”

BoomFuzzy clapped him on the back, his grip firm.

“Come on, Goat. No sense lingerin’ where we ain’t welcome.”

They turned from the bridge, leaving the ruins behind, the echoes of a lost world whispering in the wind.

Today’s story was brought to you by the letter T. More stories sponsored by the letter T, can be found here:

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Quaraun and BoomFuzzy

The Pink Necromancer, Moon Elf silk weaver & merchant: Quaraun on Noodle Beach. His master chef Phooka turned Lich husband: BoomFuzzy with his 1968 VW Bus Beach Noodle Food Truck. And their on again/off again mad scientist Sheep Demon lover: GhoulSpawn with his 1974 AMC Gremlin time machine. Time Travel setting swings back and forth between 40th century Maine after a comet hit the moon decimating the planet, and the 1970s, Maine. Quaraun in the main character, he and BoomFuzzy are a married gay couple. GhoulSpawn is their shared live-in lover. Art by Wendy Christine Allen.

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