Florida, in a town far from the cities.
A man and a woman supported the injured man as they staggered forward. The injured man also walked with his eyes tightly shut, but it was obvious that he was on the verge of losing consciousness.
The group of walkers behind them kept growing larger and larger, while the two extra men traveling on both sides, machetes in hand, tried to clear out the walkers appearing in front of the group from both directions.
Suddenly, the injured man's legs gave out, his eyes closed completely, and he fell straight toward the ground. Fortunately, the people holding him on both sides sensed this and supported him with all their strength, preventing the three of them from collapsing.
"Alex! What's wrong with you? Damn it, goddammit!" The man shook his head and quickly said to the woman beside him, "Hurry, help me so I can carry him on my back."
Just as he frantically tried to lift Alex, he realized that the woman beside him was not responding.
"Emilia?"
The man nervously looked back, and what he saw was the shocked expression on the faces of several people in his group.
"What's happening?"
Just as the man was about to fully raise his head, he heard several engine sounds, and he immediately knew they belonged to survivors. He quickly turned his head to look in another direction, and sure enough, he saw two military vehicles advancing toward them.
Carefully placing Alex on the ground, he pulled out the gun from his waist. This was the only firearm left in their group. It was not that he did not want to use it, but those bullets were meant for humans, not walkers.
In the small town, their group had discovered that every weapon they found had no ammunition, and now some were only used for intimidation. For them and any survivor, a gun held a unique symbolic value that could get them out of many problems with other humans.
The man holding a machete was named Leo, and he kept waving his arms and shouting loudly, but this only caused the walkers in the surrounding area to emerge from several directions, and now the group chasing them was less than ten meters away.
"Leo, shut up! Do you want to attract every fucking walker wandering within ten kilometers?" growled the man in front, named Adam.
This time, Adam tried waving his hand toward the Humvees, but he saw that they were not slowing down, so he moved farther away from the walkers so they could see there were people here.
With a bad feeling in his heart, Adam secretly thought that the other party might not be planning to help them, so he quickly signaled Leo and the other man, intending to continue escaping with Alex before the walkers got any closer.
Chkrrrr!
But just when they saw that the Humvees were not slowing down, the lead vehicle suddenly slammed on the brakes, and then a group of people wearing strange-looking uniforms hurriedly got out.
Adam tightened his grip on the gun in his hand, and his eyes stayed fixed on these strangers who had suddenly appeared. If the other side made any suspicious move, he would raise his weapon and fight back without hesitation.
But these people did not even look at them after getting out of the vehicles. All of them raised their weapons and began killing the undead surrounding them.
Adam noticed that all of their weapons were equipped with suppressors, bayonets mounted at the front, and the magazines looked much larger than usual.
Along with those uniforms that still carried the flag of the United States, Adam's group immediately assumed they had encountered some branch of the military.
The little girl in Adam's group grabbed her father's clothes and pointed at Jason and the others with a bright smile, shouting excitedly.
This small horde of walkers was absolutely nothing to Jason's group. If it were not for the limited time they had, they definitely would not have wasted ammunition dealing with these walkers.
After a burst of gunfire, Adam watched these strangers destroy the group of walkers that had been giving them such a headache, his gaze filled with doubt.
Adam knew that his aim was not bad at all, and that he could shoot accurately. But these soldiers had not missed a single shot even while firing dozens of bullets per second.
And now, seeing how things had developed, Adam was not stupid and put away his weapon, since this would show the group of soldiers that they were not hostile at all.
When the last walker fell to the ground, the man with messy hair and a cold expression standing at the front slowly approached them.
"Are there any infected?"
Seeing that these soldiers were asking about injuries, Adam nodded, then quickly tried to explain, "He wasn't injured by a walker, he was hurt by the explosion from earlier!"
Following the slight movement of Jason's hand, the people behind him approached with their weapons raised, while Glenn kept his P90 aimed as he evaluated these people.
"I'm afraid that if you want help, you'll have to hand over your weapon."
Adam looked as though he had realized this long ago. His gun was on his right side, but at that moment he stretched out his left hand to hold its grip. Then, with his hand open and his fingers away from the trigger, he extended it and handed over the weapon.
"Are you a cop?"
"Yes, I was a long time ago…"
Jason nodded, then gestured toward the soldiers waiting behind him with first aid kits. "I'm Jason, commander of the remaining military forces in Atlanta…"
"Oh, I'm Adam…"
After the others approached, they lifted the injured man and carried him toward a Humvee together with some of the survivors from the group.
Emilia, who was still protecting Alex, had an expression of disbelief on her face when she heard those words, but after seeing Adam look at her, she reluctantly stepped aside.
Glenn and T-boy quickly brought over a stretcher and loaded Alex into a Humvee.
Emilia, who was still suspicious at that moment, relaxed slightly. She thought that no one would go as far as using a stretcher just to deceive people. After calming down, she turned her attention toward Jason, who was speaking with Adam.
While Jason asked for information about the group, he continued observing these people. Adam was the leader. The man was heavily built and obviously the strongest in the group, and he had even discovered that he was a police officer.
The girl named Emilia was probably only around twenty years old. She was good-looking, but her clothing style was somewhat conservative, and her personality was probably not very gentle.
The little girl's name was Daniela, a very common name. She was Adam's daughter, and the two of them lived nearby and had recently met Emilia's group.
There were also two more men, one named Leo, while the other only introduced himself as Mandarin.
"Judging by the situation, this place isn't suitable for a long conversation. Let me get you somewhere safe."
...
That night, Jason's convoy returned to a quiet town, and after choosing a random house with a large yard where they parked the Humvees, they established a temporary shelter.
After quickly eating something, Jason gathered the group they had recently met. "Listen, you should know that we're not from around here, so I need you to provide me with information about this place."
Adam hugged his daughter, and the way he did it was natural for someone who only wanted to provide for his family. "If you want our information, it all depends on who you people are and what you're trying to achieve."