Jason drove the black van down the secondary road carefully, keeping a moderate speed to avoid drawing unnecessary attention.
He wasn't going to take all of that straight to the farm.
At least, not yet...
The reason had nothing to do with transportation difficulties or fear of being followed. In fact, logistically speaking, it would be easy to simply arrive at the farm and unload the supplies. The property had enough space to store food, weapons, and ammunition, and that kind of resource would be extremely valuable to any surviving group in that devastated world.
The real problem was something else.....
He had been at the Greene Farm for just over a week.
During that short period, he had earned a certain level of trust among the residents, mainly by helping with tasks and by the calm way he behaved. He was seen as someone useful, relatively calm, and reliable.
But that trust was still too recent for him to risk showing up with an entire van loaded with military weapons, thousands of rounds of ammunition, and various supplies, all stolen from another group. That would inevitably raise questions....
Questions that would lead to... uncomfortable answers.
It would be extremely difficult for anyone to believe that he had simply found all those supplies scattered around the city in just a single day... Not to mention that he didn't want to lie to Maggie, and adding to that fact, he would probably be forced to tell the truth.
And if he told the truth, that he had killed an entire group, the situation wouldn't be much better. Regardless of the type of people they were—raiders, killers, or predators—the fact remained the same. He had entered that building alone... and killed them all. One by one. Without showing any mercy.
Not everyone would handle that information well.
Especially Maggie's father.
Hershel was still a man who clung strongly to old values. Even in that new world, he believed in morality, in redemption, in humanity. For him, there was still a very clear line between surviving and becoming something worse than the monsters walking out there.
If he simply showed up with a military arsenal and explained that it all came from a group of survivors he had eliminated alone, Hershel would hardly see that as a pragmatic act of survival.
He would see a dangerous man.
A man capable of killing other humans without hesitation.
Even if he explained that the group was hostile or represented a threat, Hershel's first reaction would probably be simple: he wouldn't want someone with that kind of coldness near his family.
Much less near Maggie.
The situation with Maggie made everything even more delicate.
She would probably believe him.
She might even stand by him if the situation turned into a conflict.
But that would create a direct division between her and her own father.
...Well, the rest he could imagine.
That's why he decided to keep everything secret. When he went to the city to fetch Duke, he would hide the supplies before returning, avoiding any unnecessary questions.
It was much smarter to keep it hidden for now, observe the dynamics within the farm better, and wait for the right moment to introduce some of those resources gradually.
Because true trust wasn't built in a week.
It was built over time.
Setting that aside, he stepped on the accelerator and increased the van's speed....
The small city where he had hidden Duke appeared on the horizon....
After entering the city, Jason slowed down the van. The vehicle he was driving was too valuable to simply leave it parked anywhere in plain sight.
He needed to hide it.
With that in mind, he began driving slowly through the city's secondary streets, avoiding main avenues, until he found a suitable place.
It didn't take long.
It was an old mechanical depot, probably a workshop specialized in trucks. The metal gate was partially open, and a fallen sign on the ground still showed, in faded letters, something like "Diesel Service."
The inner yard was full of abandoned vehicles: two old trucks covered in rust, a school bus practically rotting, and several disassembled cars scattered around.
Jason entered with the van slowly and, after crossing the gate, got out of the vehicle to close it carefully behind him, avoiding any loud metallic noise.
Inside the grounds, there was a large shed with sliding doors.
He opened it just enough to get the van through and entered.
Inside, the environment was dark and heavy, permeated by the smell of old oil, rust, and accumulated dust. Rusted tools were scattered on benches, hydraulic lifts remained locked in place, and forgotten mechanical parts covered the floor.
Jason drove to the back of the shed and parked the Transit behind a disassembled truck.
After that, he started working.
In the corner of the workshop, he found a thick, dusty tarp. He dragged it to the vehicle and covered the van completely. Then, he piled some old boxes of parts, worn tires, and scrap in front of it, breaking any silhouette that might reveal the vehicle's presence.
Even if someone entered there by chance, they would hardly notice.
But he still wasn't satisfied.
He took old oil from a rusted drum and spread it on the ground in some spots near the van, creating the appearance of some ancient leak, as if that vehicle had been there for a long time and didn't even work anymore.
Finally, he used a dirty piece of cloth to erase the footprints he had left on the dusty floor.
When he finished, he took a step back and observed the result.
The van had practically disappeared amid that scene of scrap and abandonment. Even someone searching carefully would probably pass right by without noticing anything strange.
In fact, even he himself might end up ignoring the vehicle at first glance, and that said a lot. His senses and perception were at the peak of what a human could achieve. If even he had difficulty noticing something out of place there, then the van was, without a doubt, completely safe.....
When he was finally satisfied with the van's hiding spot, Jason opened the rear door once more and began to prepare.
He decided to take only the essentials.
After removing everything he was carrying and placing it in the back of the van, he carefully observed everything he had gathered before starting to separate just a few things to take with him.
In fact, there was no need at all to take everything out first, since he would take most of the things he was carrying. But that was one of his strange organization habits; he preferred to see everything in front of him before deciding what was really worth taking.
First, he fastened to his waist the double holster that carried his two chrome Beretta 92FS with gold details again. Then, he adjusted the Damascus steel knife in the sheath strapped to the side of his leg.
Next, he took the matte black compound bow. The weapon was equipped with a holographic sight, and the quiver with twenty arrows was attached to the bow before he slung it over his left shoulder.
Finally, he put on his back the backpack with the supplies he had found in the city.
Everything else stayed in the van.
Rifles, shotguns, grenades, explosives, and the large amount of food remained hidden under the tarp inside the shed.
He closed the van and stepped back a few paces. Then he locked the shed's gate from the inside with a piece of rusted chain he found there and exited through the workshop's side door, stepping back onto the silent city street.
Jason walked down the silent street calmly.
The city seemed even emptier than the last time he had passed through there. The store windows were covered in dust, some broken. Abandoned cars occupied parts of the street, and dry leaves accumulated in the corners of the sidewalks, moving slowly with the weak wind.....
The silence was heavy.
But he heard the first sound before even turning the corner.
Three walkers emerged from between the abandoned cars. Their clothes were torn and dirty with dried blood. The grayish skin seemed loose in some parts of the body, and their eyes wandered without focus. As soon as they noticed movement, they began dragging themselves toward him.
He said nothing and removed the bow from his left shoulder before drawing an arrow from the quiver.
The movement was smooth, almost automatic.
He raised the bow.
The holographic sight quickly aligned with the head of the first walker.
Twang.
The arrow cut through the air in a straight line and embedded directly into the creature's eye.
The walker fell immediately, its body collapsing lifeless in the middle of the street.
The other two continued advancing.
Twang.
The second arrow pierced the skull of the second walker before it could take two more steps.
The third let out a low groan.
Jason was already drawing the third arrow.
Twang.
The metal tip entered through the temple and exited the other side of the skull.
Silence.
The three bodies lay motionless on the asphalt.
Jason walked up to them without haste.
He crouched beside the first and pulled the arrow with a dry motion. He quickly cleaned the tip on the corpse's torn clothing before putting it back in the quiver. He repeated the process with the other two. After recovering everything, he continued walking...
In the following minutes, a few more walkers appeared.
One emerged from a destroyed convenience store.
Another was trapped between two cars.
Two more wandered slowly in the parking lot of a small market.
All met the same fate.
Each arrow found the skull with precision.
Jason recovered each one afterward.
It didn't take more than five minutes for him to find Duke exactly in the same place where he had left him. Fortunately, the dead hadn't come anywhere near the horse. After quickly checking that everything was fine, he mounted Duke and calmly led the animal out of the city, following the road toward the Greene Farm...
The way back to the Greene Farm was considerably slower than the trip there.
Unlike the van, which allowed crossing long distances with relative speed, riding Duke required constant caution. Jason needed to choose safer routes, avoid unstable terrain, and mainly keep attention on the surroundings so the horse wouldn't be surprised by walkers emerging from unexpected places.
Duke was a trained animal and relatively accustomed to the presence of the dead, but he was still a horse. Natural instincts could make him startle if a large group of walkers appeared suddenly too close. That's why Jason kept the pace controlled throughout the journey, alternating between stretches of road and more open rural paths.
For much of the trip, the route was peaceful.
The fields in the region were silent, with broken fences, abandoned pastures, and some rural houses scattered across the landscape. Vegetation was slowly starting to take over parts of the roads, and at some points, abandoned vehicles forced Jason to detour to side trails.
The walkers that appeared along the way were usually alone or in pairs.
These were easily avoided.
Jason simply guided Duke off the road or bypassed the area from a distance, without the need to expend energy or arrows. Maintaining discretion continued to be more efficient than engaging in unnecessary combat.
However, not all encounters could be avoided.
At a certain point on the road, near a small rural intersection surrounded by trees and destroyed wooden fences, a larger group of walkers appeared blocking the path. They were probably former residents of the region or travelers who had been drawn to that area over time.
There were about eight.
It wasn't a dangerous number for Jason, but it was enough to pose a problem for Duke.
He didn't try to cross through the middle.
Instead, he dismounted the horse at a safe distance and tied the reins to a fallen fence, keeping the animal a few meters behind him, out of the immediate line of sight of the dead.
From there, he handled the situation quickly and silently.
Using the compound bow, he began eliminating the walkers one by one before they could get too close. The arrows cut through the air with precision, hitting eyes, temples, and fragile parts of the skull. Each shot was calculated to drop the target immediately.
As the bodies fell, he advanced a few steps and recovered the arrows embedded in the skulls before continuing.
The process took only a few minutes.
When he finished, the eight bodies were scattered across the cracked asphalt of the road, and all the arrows had been recovered and placed back in the quiver.
After that, Jason returned to Duke, mounted again, and resumed the journey.
The rest of the way proceeded without major incidents.
As time passed, the sky slowly began to change color. The clear blue of the afternoon gave way to orange and golden tones that spread across the horizon. The shadows of the trees and fences along the road became increasingly long, and the temperature began to drop gradually with the arrival of night.
When Jason finally approached the rural area where the Greene Farm was located, it had already grown dark.
As soon as he arrived at the Greene Farm and led the horse to the smaller barn, he frowned... Something had happened!
There were new people at the farm!
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(A/N: Advanced chapters have been posted on my Patreon, and releases there will be more regular.
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