The highway leading to the fuel depot felt unnaturally quiet—the kind of silence that made even Ghost lower his head and growl under his breath.
I slowed the truck several hundreds of meters before the landmark Glenn described—a collapsed billboard with half its metal frame jutting across the ditch. Ghost's ears perked, his nose twitched rapidly; my knuckles whitened on the steering wheel.
"Yeah," I murmured, "I smell trouble too."
I killed the engine and hopped off with Ghost by my heel. We continued on foot, Ghost taking point with me checking the perimeter as we go. It wasn't until we reached an intersection with a somewhat overgrown direction sign that the sprawling fuel depot's chain-link perimeter was visible.
For a moment, I thought the place was scorched. I raised my binoculars and took a look. My breath hitched. A mass of walkers were blanketing the perimeter, making it look like the place has been scorched black.
My jaw tightened. "…Shit".
Glenn had been right, but the reality was worse—much worse. Walkers covered the depot like a living blanket—hundreds upon hundreds, shoulder to shoulder, swaying, bumping into each other. They pressed against the chain-link fencing, weighting it inward, creating buckles and collapse points. A few already tore through gaps, forming clogged piles half in, half out of the facility.
And worse, the horde had grown since Glenn's scouting run. Where Glenn saw a couple hundred last week, now it's more like a couple of thousands, and I could see a couple of walkers pulled in from side roads as if pulled by gravity of the mass.
I whispered, "…We're not fighting that."
Ghost remained silent—but tense. I rubbed the dog's head. "Stay close, boy. We're doing this slow."
We started the perimeter sweep with a slow crawl around the depot's outer boundaries, Ghost shadowing my every step, using wrecked vehicles, tall grass, and fallen metal debris as cover. Advancing one pocket at a time, every so often a walker would stray too close to my path. Every time I eliminated it cleanly—silent and efficient.
Slow, deliberate, exhausting work. Ghost helped too—herding, distracting, positioning—never making noise.
The sweep took hours, but I documented everything that mattered: horde density, fence collapse points, gate integrity, walker drift directions and clustering patterns, possible dead zones for sound traps, routes we could lure the horde through, and access points we could exploit.
The depot was massive—fenced on all sides with razor wire topping the chain-link. Effective against humans, yes; not so much against dead, unfeeling walking corpses.
By the time the sun began to fall behind the fuel silos, I had a clear picture. Fighting the horde? Impossible. Clearing it? Laughable. But leading it away in a controlled direction? Very doable.
Finally, we looped back to the pickup truck. Ghost jumped into the passenger seat the moment I opened the door—clearly done with the dead for the day. But before we head home… I had time. A couple hours at least before sundown, and I wasn't leaving empty-handed.
I circled around a nearby commercial strip. Ghost walked with me, senses sharp. Most storefronts had already been picked clean weeks ago, but I wasn't looking for the obvious. I knew places scavengers often ignored.
A small repair garage had one side burned down, but the tool cabinet on the far side remained intact. I found a couple mechanic-grade ratchet kits, a full box of heavy-duty zip ties, a partially intact engine hoist chain, several unopened oil filters, three heavy pry bars, a crate of industrial gloves, and a new alternator still sealed in packaging.
I stored everything in my inventory except one pry bar that I strapped to the truck bed for immediate use.
Second was a pharmacy store behind the grocery store. Most doors had been bashed in, but the pharmacy's back receiving entrance was metal—still locked. I cracked it open with my lock-picking tools. Inside was dusty but intact.
That netted me three first aid kits, multiple rolls of gauze and compression bandages, two large bottles of rubbing alcohol, several packs of antibiotics, a dozen sealed painkiller bottles, and a stash of multivitamins dumped into an employee cubby. These I arranged into boxes and stored them in my inventory for later.
Next was an intact pet store, mostly overlooked by scavengers. I found crates of different pet food, large rolls of thick rope, leashes, climbing-grade carabiners mislabeled as dog tie-outs, several thermal blankets from a camping display, a massive stock of bags and carry crates that I could break down for materials, and a pallet in the back holding six sealed ten-liter water jugs. All disappeared into my inventory.
Finally, the destination was a small electronics shop. I slid through a side window that had been cracked but not shattered. Inside I found two heavy-duty battery packs, six long-life rechargeable flashlights, a box of radio components, several sealed power inverters, and a portable solar charger. Everything I tossed into my inventory.
By the time I finished, the last orange light of sunset clung to the horizon.
I took the boxes of meds I sorted earlier and hauled them into the pickup truck bed along with the gains of the pet store, aside from the massive stock of bags and carry crates I left aside for materials. The garage loot, aside from the engine hoist chain and the electronics shop loot, along with a couple of boxes of canned food, spices, and cooking essentials, I secured them tightly with straps I fished out of my inventory and covered it with a tarp.
I secured Ghost in the passenger seat, started the engine, and drove back to the farmstead. Ghost curled against the door, exhausted but content.
I exhaled deeply. "Good work today," I said softly. "Tomorrow we deal with that mess."
I turned my attention to the road ahead. One way or the other, we will have that fuel.
(To be continued...)