“Get the flashlights!
Anything that gives us light!
Stay back-to-back and grab your weapons!” Rick shouted as the quarry camp erupted into chaos.
He pushed his handgun into Lori’s hands and moved Carl behind her before raising the Remington shotgun.
A walker stumbled into the firelight, and Rick immediately fired, blowing apart its head and dropping it beside the tents.
As he worked the action, his eyes briefly shifted toward Magnus Vane.
If everyone had been asleep instead of gathered around the fire, the walkers might have reached the tents before anyone even realized they were there.
Rick didn’t know how many people would have died in that situation, and he didn’t want to think about it.
The thought alone sent a cold sensation down his back and wiped away every trace of exhaustion.
Whatever Magnus’s reasons had been for gathering everyone together, it had given the camp a chance to react.
Magnus moved toward the darker edge of camp with the Horse-Bone Sledgehammer in both hands, while Merle and Daryl followed close behind.
Several survivors stared at his back with nervous expressions, but remembering how he had crushed the first walker’s skull gave them some confidence.
Magnus normally seemed calmer than Merle, yet once a fight started, his methods were far more brutal.
More than one person silently thought the same thing: they were lucky he was fighting on their side.
“Don’t go too far!” Daryl shouted as Magnus moved between the trees.
He raised his crossbow and fired, the bolt driving straight through a walker’s skull before the corpse collapsed into the brush.
“I can’t watch your back if you disappear into the damn woods!” Daryl quickly reached for another bolt while tracking movement beyond the campfire.
Merle laughed from several yards away.
“Quit worrying about him and worry about me, baby brother!” His rifle barked repeatedly as walkers dropped one after another in front of him.
Despite the joke, his barrel kept drifting toward Magnus’s side of the fight, knocking down anything trying to close in from behind.
Merle clearly had no intention of admitting that he was covering Magnus.
Magnus, meanwhile, had only one complaint.
“Slow down, you assholes.
Leave some for me.”
He stepped forward and swung the Horse-Bone Sledgehammer, triggering another powerful head strike.
The walker’s skull burst beneath the impact, and golden light flashed across Magnus’s vision.
[Level Increased: Lv.3 → Lv.4]
Magnus barely looked at the notification before rushing toward another section of camp.
He had originally hoped the walker attack would provide enough experience to push him several levels higher, but the survivors were killing them far too quickly.
With Rick, Shane, Daryl, Merle, and the others all armed, the number of walkers around the quarry was dropping much faster than Magnus expected.
Bang!
A bullet struck the dirt only a short distance in front of him.
Magnus stopped and turned toward Andrea, who stood with a pistol gripped tightly in both hands.
Her face was pale, and she immediately pointed toward Dale’s RV.
“She’s inside!”
Magnus followed her gaze.
Several walkers were circling the RV entrance.
Amy was still inside.
Magnus immediately headed toward them.
The first swing of his sledgehammer smashed one walker sideways, while the second knocked another off its feet.
Thanks to the weapon’s reach and his increased Strength, he was able to keep the dead outside biting distance while knocking several of them to the ground.
Once they were down, Magnus stepped forward and finished them one by one with heavy strikes to the skull.
“Easy,” Magnus muttered as another walker tried to rise.
“I spent years breaking down livestock.
I know exactly how this part works.” He brought the hammer down again, crushing the skull beneath it, then moved to the next corpse before it could regain its footing.
His voice remained unusually calm compared with the violence of every swing.
After finishing the last walker near the RV, Magnus didn’t immediately open the door.
Instead, he knocked several times against the side hard enough to make the vehicle shake.
A frightened gasp came from inside, followed by movement.
“Stay inside,” Magnus called.
“Don’t come out until we tell you it’s clear.
I’ll keep anything away from the door.”
The frightened sounds inside quieted noticeably.
Magnus turned and raised one hand toward Andrea, giving her an okay signal.
She visibly relaxed before returning her attention to the rest of the camp.
With the RV temporarily secure, Magnus rested the Horse-Bone Sledgehammer against his shoulder and watched the battle spread around him.
The first few minutes had been messy, but Rick and Shane were already organizing the defense, while Daryl and the others covered the weaker parts of the camp.
The extra firearms Magnus had brought back from Atlanta were making a huge difference.
Instead of panicking and running, more survivors were able to stand their ground and shoot anything that broke through.
The quarry camp still looked rough and temporary, but for the first time Magnus could see the beginning of something stronger.
“Not bad,” he murmured.
“This place might actually have a future.”
A stray walker reached for him from the side.
Magnus didn’t even fully turn.
He swung the sledgehammer one-handed and knocked it to the ground.
Before he could finish it, a crossbow bolt flew past and buried itself in the walker’s temple.
Magnus looked toward Daryl, who simply lifted his chin once before turning back toward the fight.
No words were necessary.
Magnus smiled faintly.
He had already told Daryl that Merle owed him nothing, but the younger Dixon clearly had his own opinion about that.
Saving Merle from the rooftop had earned Magnus something from Daryl whether he wanted it or not.
That single bolt had been Daryl’s way of settling part of the debt.
The last few gunshots gradually faded.
Smoke from gunpowder mixed with the campfire haze as the darkness began giving way to the first light of dawn.
Bodies covered the ground around the quarry, but no more walkers were moving between the tents.
The camp’s first real large-scale attack was finally over.
“Everybody okay?” Rick called as he immediately checked Lori and Carl.
After confirming they were unharmed, he looked around at the rest of the survivors and finally allowed himself to breathe again.
People slowly emerged from behind vehicles and tents, checking one another for wounds.
Nobody wanted to say it aloud yet, but they had survived.
The RV door opened.
Amy hurried outside and ran straight into Andrea’s arms.
Andrea wrapped both arms around her sister and held on tightly, while Amy buried her face against her shoulder with a pale expression.
After several seconds, Amy looked past Andrea toward Magnus, but she didn’t say anything.
Andrea did.
“Thanks,” she said quietly, her eyes still red.
“I owe you one.”
Magnus shook his head.
“We’re in the same camp.
No reason to keep score.”
Merle immediately ruined the quiet moment by shouting from behind them.
“Holy shit!
Did you people see that hammer?” He mimicked Magnus’s swing like a golfer taking a shot and laughed loudly.
“One hit and their damn heads just explode!”
Lori’s expression tightened.
Without saying anything, she reached over and covered Carl’s ears with both hands.
Between Merle’s language and Magnus walking around with a blood-covered bone hammer, Lori was beginning to wonder what kind of people her son was going to grow up around.
She rubbed her lower abdomen absentmindedly, irritation still written across her face.
Magnus noticed but wisely said nothing.
By noon, the survivors had dragged most of the walker bodies away from the center of camp and begun preparing food.
Magnus left the others and walked toward a small rise on the eastern side of the quarry.
Carol stood there alone with a shovel clutched tightly in both hands.
Ed’s body lay on the ground beside her.
The walkers had torn apart his throat and lower jaw before someone finally put a bullet through his head.
In death, Ed somehow looked less threatening than he ever had while alive.
Magnus stopped several steps behind Carol and watched her struggle with the ground.
“I heard you wouldn’t let anyone help you bury him.”
Carol didn’t respond.
Magnus glanced back toward camp.
Several people were quietly watching from a distance, clearly worried about her.
Lori stood with Carl and Sophia nearby, while Rick watched with his hands resting against his hips, his attention still moving constantly after the attack.
Nobody seemed sure whether they should approach.
Magnus looked back at Carol and stepped forward.
He gently took the shovel from her hands.
“Let me.”
Carol immediately reached for it.
“No, I can do it.”
Magnus ignored the protest and drove the shovel into the ground.
He didn’t say anything else.
He simply kept digging, turning over the loose soil again and again while Carol stood beside him.
With his increased Strength, the work moved quickly, and before long the grave was deep enough.
Magnus finally stopped and wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve.
He handed the shovel back to Carol without another word, then turned toward the camp.
He had done enough.
The rest belonged to her.
Carol needed to bury Ed herself.
Not because she owed him anything, but because she needed to close that part of her life with her own hands.
Magnus knew what Carol would eventually become if she was given the chance to stand on her own.
For years, Ed had kept her frightened and trapped.
Now that chain was gone.
She only needed a little help taking the first step forward.