Jesup had fallen.
Luke Li confirmed it the moment the pickup entered the outskirts of town.
The streetlights were all dead.
The traffic lights were dark.
The shops along the street had their doors and windows hanging open, shattered glass scattered across the ground.
A police car sat crooked by the roadside, its doors open.
The light bar was still spinning, but the siren had gone silent.
That circle of red and blue light looked like a dying heartbeat.
All kinds of debris littered the main street.
Shopping bags, shoes, an overturned stroller.
No living people.
No walkers either, at least none within sight.
But Luke Li knew they were inside the buildings, in the alleys, in every shadowed corner.
The moment they made too much noise, the walkers would follow the sound.
The sky was already dark.
The last trace of twilight hung on the horizon and would be gone completely in another twenty minutes.
They had to move fast.
“Danny,” Luke Li said in a low voice.
Danny, in the passenger seat, snapped back to himself and looked at him.
“I need somewhere we can spend the night.
Not too big, few windows, preferably only one entrance.
Do you know this town?”
“I’ve been here a few times.” Danny thought for a moment.
“Turn right two intersections ahead.
There’s a fire station.
Brick walls.”
A fire station.
Brick structure.
Metal roll-up garage doors.
Usually only a front and back entrance.
Perfect.
“Let’s go.”
The pickup turned into a side street.
Less than two minutes later, they saw the building.
The parking apron was empty.
The fire engine was gone, probably called out and never returned.
Luke Li backed the pickup into the parking area with the front facing outward.
“Everyone stay in the truck.
I’ll go in first and clear it.”
He took the fire axe and flashlight, then got out.
Danny opened his door too.
“I’m coming with you.”
Luke Li glanced at him.
Danny’s buffs: [Tension], [Determination].
“Stay close, keep quiet, and if you see anything moving, don’t shoot.
Tap my shoulder first.”
Danny nodded and tightened his grip on the shotgun.
The two of them entered through the side door.
The flashlight beam swept across the pitch-black hallway.
There were muddy footprints on the floor and leftover handprints on the wall, but thankfully, no bloodstains.
The air smelled of diesel.
The first-floor garage was empty.
The fire engine really was gone.
Several lockers stood in the corner.
Luke Li opened them and found a few spare firefighter suits, two fire axes, and a roll of fire hose.
Fire axes.
He picked one up and weighed it in his hand.
It was a little heavier than his own fire axe, but the blade was wider.
“Use this.
It’s quieter than the shotgun.”
Danny hesitated, then slung the shotgun behind his back and took the axe.
The duty room was empty, with only an old radio sitting in the corner.
The kitchen was deserted.
They searched the fridge and found a few bottles of water and some sandwiches.
The food had already gone bad, but the water was still clean.
The bathroom.
Luke Li pushed the door open and shone the flashlight inside.
A walker was crouched in the corner.
It was a man in a firefighter uniform, back to the door, head hanging low as if dozing.
The instant the light hit it, it moved.
Its head snapped around, and it let out that wet, gurgling groan.
The angle of its neck was wrong, as if it had been broken before.
Luke Li was already used to this kind of scene.
He stepped forward and swept the axe sideways.
The blade cut into its temple.
The force drove the walker into the wall, and it slid down to the floor, motionless.
[Walker Killed ×1.
Bladed Weapons Skill EXP +12]
Behind him came Danny’s heavy breathing.
“Fuck…”
“Come on.
Let’s check upstairs.”
The second floor had a lounge and storage room.
They cleared both and found no more walkers.
Safe.
Luke Li returned to the first floor, locked the side door, manually lowered the roll-up door all the way, and secured it from the inside with a chain he found in the garage.
Then he went out and brought the others in.
Karen came last, holding a wrench she had apparently dug out of the pickup’s toolbox at some point.
Luke Li noticed it but said nothing.
Having the sense to arm herself was a good thing.
He settled everyone in the second-floor lounge.
The room was not large, with only three cots and a few folding chairs.
Both windows were small.
Luke Li used planks and nails found in the storage room to seal one of them, leaving the other as a lookout point.
Then he began assigning tasks.
“Danny, guard the stairwell.
If anything comes up, call me right away.
Keep the shotgun, but only fire if there’s no other choice.”
Danny nodded, moved a chair over, and sat at the top of the stairs.
“Karen, bring the water and food up from the truck.
Only enough for tonight.”
Karen glanced at him, then immediately got up to do it.
The buffs above her head were interesting.
[Alert] was still there, and so was [Anger – Suppressed], but a new marker had appeared beside them: [Assessing].
She was watching Luke Li, judging whether he was worth following.
Luke Li did not mind.
Leadership came from clear judgment and decisive action.
Sarah and Linda did not need orders.
One was taking care of the child, and the other was still grieving.
Both needed time to recover.
Once the supplies were moved in, Luke Li made one final inspection of the first floor.
The biggest advantage of the metal roll-up door was that walker nails and teeth could not bite through it.
The only weak point was the iron side door.
He braced it with a storage rack from the fire station, then added a chain lock.
It should hold.
Luke Li returned to the duty room and picked up the old radio.
He turned the dial.
Most frequencies were only static.
AM was slightly better than FM, picking up a few broken signals.
He tuned slowly, ignoring fragments of crying and prayer, and finally landed on a relatively clear frequency.
A military channel.
The voice was synthetic, looping the same message again and again.
“…This is the United States Emergency Broadcast System.
All civilians, please be advised.
The Atlanta Centers for Disease Control and Prevention remains operational.
As a federally designated emergency shelter, all civilians are advised to bring essential supplies and proceed to the CDC headquarters in Atlanta.
Repeat, the CDC headquarters in Atlanta remains operational…”
Luke Li lowered the volume and leaned back in his chair.
The CDC shelter.
He knew this part of the story.
Dr.
Jenner of the CDC was still inside that building, carrying out his final research alone.
The survivors would eventually reach it, only to discover that the so-called shelter was nothing more than a tomb on the verge of self-destruction.
But that came later.
What mattered now was that this broadcast meant the roads toward Atlanta had not been completely cut off.
The military was still maintaining basic communications in at least some areas.
It also meant a large number of survivors would head toward Atlanta.
Including Rick Grimes’ family.
Luke Li closed his eyes and sorted through the timeline in his head.
According to the plot, Rick should still be unconscious in a hospital bed at Harrison Memorial Hospital.
Shane had already taken Lori and Carl and fled, retreating toward Atlanta.
Eventually, they would set up camp at the quarry outside Atlanta.
From Jesup to Atlanta was roughly two hundred miles.
Under normal conditions, it was a three-hour drive.
But the roads were hell now.
Abandoned vehicles, roadblocks, walkers, panicked crowds.
Even with an optimistic estimate, it would take a full day.
Leave tomorrow, arrive the day after.
There was still time.
Emma’s crying came from upstairs, but Sarah’s gentle soothing soon covered it.
Danny sat at the stairwell, the fire axe across his knees, glancing down from time to time.
Karen sat in the corner with the wrench in her hand, wide awake.
Luke Li stood and walked to the boarded window on the first floor, looking out through the gaps between the planks.
Moonlight fell over the empty street.
There was movement in the distance.
Three shadows slowly shuffled out of an alley, bodies crooked, steps uneven and without rhythm.
Their emotion bars were completely blank.
They wandered aimlessly along the street.
When they passed the entrance of the fire station, they stopped for a few seconds.
One of them turned toward the roll-up door and raised a hand, tapping it twice.
The metal roll-up door gave a dull thud.
The other two turned as well.
The tapping became steady pounding.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
Luke Li did not move.
The roll-up door was steel.
They could not break it open.
As long as he did not make a louder noise or provoke them further, they would lose interest sooner or later and leave.
He took a step back and silently returned to the duty room.
The pounding continued for several minutes, then gradually became less frequent before finally stopping.
When he looked through the gap again, the three shadows had already wandered away, dragging their broken bodies with them until they vanished around the corner of another street.
The other walkers drawn by the sound also stopped in place, swaying without coming closer.
Luke Li exhaled.
On the radio, the military broadcast was still looping.
“…The CDC headquarters in Atlanta remains operational…
All civilians are advised to proceed…”
He watched the blinking indicator light on the radio and silently calculated the route.