At daybreak, they set off again and continued north.
The road conditions were much worse than yesterday.
Abandoned vehicles, roadblocks, and groups of three to five walkers kept appearing.
Luke Li had to drive along the shoulder again and again, the pickup’s undercarriage scraping over gravel with a harsh grinding sound.
Halfway through, the group stopped at a gas station to refill their tanks and happened to pick up a plumber.
Marcus, a Black man in his forties, was traveling with his wife, children, and an old woman who had hitched a ride.
When he heard Luke Li was heading toward the northern suburbs of Atlanta, he joined them without a word.
Two vehicles, eleven people.
The group had grown a little more cumbersome, but Marcus was a plumber.
He could repair generators and pipes, making him one of the rarest kinds of skilled workers in the apocalypse.
Someone like him was worth more than a hundred freeloaders.
At two in the afternoon, the pickup crested a gentle slope, and Luke Li hit the brakes.
The road ahead was cut off by a military checkpoint.
Two Humvees were parked across the middle of the road, sandbags were stacked into a waist-high wall, and layer after layer of barbed wire had been stretched across the area.
But there were no sentries on guard.
Luke Li got out to check.
The Humvees’ fuel tanks had been shot through, diesel spilled across the ground, and all the equipment inside had been stripped clean.
Only a few boxes of MREs and two bulletproof vests were left.
Now this was good stuff.
Luke Li’s eyes lit up.
MREs were high in calories and had a long shelf life.
In the apocalypse, they were hard currency.
The bulletproof vests might not stop walkers, but if they ran into armed humans, those vests could save their lives at a critical moment.
Take it all.
They drove around the roadblock and continued on.
After another forty minutes, the terrain began to change.
The flat farmland on both sides of the highway turned into rolling hills.
The pine forest grew denser, and even the air felt a few degrees cooler.
The northern suburbs of Atlanta.
Luke Li began carefully observing the terrain.
According to his memory, the quarry was near a lake and sat on relatively high ground.
From the road, he should be able to see exposed rock walls.
He slowed down, scanning the hills on the right.
Then he saw smoke rising from the dense forest.
A thin wisp of cooking smoke.
It would have been easy to miss without looking carefully.
Someone was making a fire over there.
Luke Li pulled the truck to the side of the road and picked up the binoculars.
The trees blocked most of the view, but he found an angle.
Through the gap between two pine trees, he could faintly see a stretch of gray-white rock wall.
That was the quarry he was looking for.
Below the rock wall were several blurry patches of color.
Tents or vehicles, but they were too far away to make out.
He lowered the binoculars.
He had finally found it.
“What is it?” Danny leaned closer.
“There’s a camp up ahead.” Luke Li pointed at the wisp of smoke.
“I’ll go check it out first.
You all wait here.”
“You’re going alone?”
“One person makes a smaller target.
If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, drive everyone back the way we came.”
Danny looked like he wanted to say something, but Karen tugged him from the back seat.
“Just listen to him,” Karen said.
Luke Li took the crossbow and Glock, then walked up the slope through the woods.
A thick layer of pine needles covered the ground, making his steps almost silent.
The military boots gave him excellent grip on this kind of terrain.
Five minutes later, he reached a high point, and the entire quarry came into view.
It was much bigger than he had imagined.
Exposed white rock walls enclosed a natural semicircular clearing.
At the bottom was flat gravel ground, roughly half the size of a soccer field.
Seven or eight vehicles were parked in the hollow, including SUVs, pickup trucks, and RVs, arranged in a loose circle.
More than a dozen tents of different sizes were scattered around.
And there were people.
Luke Li counted about twenty visible people, men and women, old and young, each busy with their own tasks around the camp.
Some were making a fire to cook.
Some were hanging laundry.
Two children were running after each other.
An old man in a bucket hat sat on top of a modified RV, holding a rifle and keeping watch.
Dale.
Luke Li recognized him.
That distinctive RV, and Dale Horvath sitting on the roof as lookout.
Near the edge of the camp, a man in uniform was sorting through a pile of firewood.
He was sturdy, short-haired, with a pistol at his waist.
Shane Walsh.
Deputy sheriff of King County, Rick’s partner and close friend.
He had temporarily taken charge of Rick’s wife and child, and he was also the current leader of this camp.
Luke Li’s gaze continued sweeping over the camp.
A blonde woman sat in front of a tent, staring blankly into space.
Andrea.
Beside her, a younger blonde girl was rummaging through a backpack.
Amy, Andrea’s sister.
A young man in a baseball cap climbed out of a car with a map in his hand.
That was Glenn, the Asian guy.
Another sturdy man was chopping wood.
T-Dog.
And by the campfire, a woman sat with a boy of about ten.
Lori and Carl.
The whole group was here, neat and complete, though later some would die and some would run.
No, wait.
Two people were missing.
Daryl and Merle were not at the camp.
The Dixon brothers were probably out hunting right now.
They often left for several days at a time, so that was not surprising.
Luke Li crouched behind the bushes and observed for about three minutes.
The camp’s defenses were extremely weak.
No walls, no barbed wire, not even the most basic tripwire alarm.
They were relying entirely on Dale sitting on the RV roof and keeping watch with his bare eyes.
It was barely better than setting up a few token sentries and calling it a defense.
The quarry camp’s defenses had always been a huge problem.
Later on, a night attack by walkers would directly lead to multiple deaths.
But that was for later.
Right now, he needed to figure out how to make contact.
Walk straight up?
Too abrupt.
If a man carrying a crossbow and a handgun suddenly came out of the woods, anyone would get nervous.
The best way was to drive in from the road and approach openly.
A group of survivors looking for a camp was one of the most normal sights in the apocalypse.
Luke Li retreated back into the woods and returned the way he came.
Twelve minutes later, he was back beside the truck.
Danny visibly relaxed.
“How was it?”
“Found it.” Luke Li opened the door.
“A camp with more than twenty people.
They have vehicles and tents.
It looks fairly organized.
We’ll approach from the front.
Don’t do anything that could be seen as a threat.”
He turned to look at everyone.
“Put all guns away.
Back seat, under your feet, anywhere is fine, just don’t hold them in your hands.
Once we arrive, I get out first.
You wait for my signal.”
Everyone nodded.
Luke Li gestured to Marcus in the SUV behind them.
Marcus gave him a thumbs-up to show he understood.
The two vehicles started again, drove along the road for a short distance, and found the dirt road leading to the quarry.
The dirt road was narrow, only wide enough for one vehicle, with pine branches on both sides almost brushing the roof.
After about five hundred meters, the woods suddenly opened up, and the full view of the quarry appeared through the windshield.
The people in the camp heard the engines.
Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked in their direction.
Dale, on top of the RV, raised his rifle.
Shane stood up beside the firewood pile, one hand resting on the pistol at his waist, and strode quickly toward the approaching vehicles.
Luke Li stopped the pickup thirty meters from the edge of the camp, turned off the engine, took his hands off the steering wheel, and slowly pushed the door open.
When he got out, his hands were empty and raised to chest height, palms facing outward.
Shane stopped ten paces away.
Up close, the man was even stronger than he looked on TV.
His eyes were sharper too, his jaw tight, every muscle in his body on alert.
Luke Li looked above his head.
[Alert]
[Aggression – Restrained]
[Protectiveness – Strong]
A typical leader’s stance, wary of every outsider.
“Who are you people?” Shane’s voice was not loud, but it carried a natural pressure.
Luke Li spoke.
“We’re survivors.
Two vehicles, eleven people, including elderly and children.
We came north from Jacksonville.
I picked them up along the way.”
He paused.
“We’re looking for a safe place to stay.”