The group moved silently across the street, keeping close to the buildings as they advanced. They stopped at a convenience store and gathered inside.
"The radio's working. We can use it now," Max said, pointing to the device.
The radio had been dead for nearly three weeks. Whatever jammer had been installed was powerful, but it wasn't strong enough to reach this far.
The news immediately lifted everyone's spirits, especially Maggie's.
"That's perfect. It'll make coordinating a lot easier."
She glanced over her shoulder at the undead roaming only a few feet away in the nearby food aisle. It seemed the man in the tunnel had been telling the truth. The walkers weren't detecting them, even at close range.
Maggie unfolded the tunnel map and pointed to a section of it.
"This is the area we're targeting. Daryl and I will blow up this tunnel, and you two will take care of this one."
She pointed to another marked location.
Max and Carol nodded, understanding the assignment.
The priest had been sent to the roof of a nearby building to keep watch.
After collecting the dynamite, Carol and Max split up and headed toward their assigned positions. Everyone moved carefully, staying alert as they advanced through the city.
"There's nothing overhead. You can keep moving, but be careful near the supermarket. Don't go too close to it."
The warning came over the radio from the priest on the rooftop.
"Understood," Carol replied, adjusting her route to avoid the supermarket.
"Max, do you have any idea why so many of the undead are fused together?" Carol asked.
He was the only one who hadn't seemed surprised by the sight of the new walkers. Or maybe Max was simply very hard to surprise—or scare.
Whatever the reason, Carol believed he knew something. He always did.
"They're bodies that were fused together by extreme heat or pressure, most likely during the napalm bombings that hit the city," Max answered calmly, looking at the undead ahead of them.
"Some of them probably tried to hide together inside buildings. When they died, the heat was intense enough to melt and fuse the bodies into a single mass."
His expression remained unchanged as he spoke, as though he were discussing the weather rather than a pile of merged corpses.
Carol was surprised by the explanation, but she quickly nodded. She believed him.
There was, however, another question that had been bothering her ever since they left the tunnel.
"Max, how did you know there were people inside the tunnel? And how did you know those women were hiding behind the bus?"
At last, she asked it.
"I heard the women crying. That's how I knew they were behind the bus," Max replied calmly. "As for the people in the tunnel, my eyesight is good enough to see long distances, even in the dark. That's all."
That's all.
The casual way he said it irritated her for a moment.
If taken at face value, his explanation sounded almost ordinary.
It was anything but.
Carol had looked through binoculars and still struggled to see details that Max could make out with his naked eyes. And he was calling that nothing special.
If that was nothing special, then she didn't know what she was.
Or what anyone else was.
"Max, if you don't mind me asking..." Carol hesitated for a moment. "Are you human, or did something happen to you?"
She knew it was a ridiculous question.
At least, it would have been before the world ended.
But Max couldn't possibly be normal.
Not after everything she had seen.
He could throw a car as if it weighed nothing.
He had ripped an entire window frame out with his bare hands.
He could run faster than anyone she had ever seen.
Every time she thought he had reached the limit of what he could do, he proved her wrong.
In many ways, Max felt less like a person and more like a force of nature wearing human skin.
The thought should have frightened her.
Instead, it left her conflicted.
She lived in a world where the dead walked the earth, where impossible things happened every day.
And yet, looking at Max sometimes felt no less strange than the first time she had seen a walker.
"I can't explain it, so you'd be better off asking the priest. His explanation is more logical than mine."
Carol, who had been expecting almost anything, was completely thrown off by that answer.
More logical.
Those two words echoed in her mind.
"So you're telling me that the ridiculous story about you being a Death Angel sent here to save the world is more logical than your explanation?" she asked, just to make sure she had heard him correctly.
Max nodded and smiled.
"Yep. That's right."
Carol stared at him.
How could his explanation possibly be more unbelievable than the priest's?
The priest claimed Max was some kind of divine messenger sent to save humanity. It was the sort of story most people would laugh at.
And yet Max had just told her, with complete confidence, that his own explanation made even less sense.
That shouldn't have been possible.
Nothing about the conversation made sense to her.
What kind of explanation could there be for his strength, speed, eyesight, and hearing that was somehow more absurd than being a Death Angel?
She couldn't even imagine it.
Part of her wanted to keep asking questions.
But after spending enough time around Max, she knew when she wasn't going to get an answer.
So she stayed quiet and kept walking, her mind turning over possibilities that only seemed to become more ridiculous the longer she thought about them.
They finally arrived at their destination.
There were far more undead near the tunnel than they had originally expected.
Most occupied the rooftops of the surrounding buildings, but plenty still wandered the streets below.
The bloodstained clothes they were wearing concealed them from the walkers to some extent, but more than a hundred undead stood between them and the tunnel entrance.
If they tried to move straight through, they would almost certainly attract attention. One mistake could trigger a chain reaction, drawing walkers from every direction and making escape nearly impossible.
After a brief discussion, Max and Carol decided to quietly eliminate the walkers closest to their route. Reducing their numbers would lower the risk of being noticed as they approached.
Once they finished, they moved forward.
"Okay, we're at the subway tunnel entrance. What about all of you?" Carol radioed.
"Hi, Carol. We're in position as well," Maggie replied.
"I've also finished placing a few TNT charges near the building. As soon as I detonate them, all the walkers will be drawn here. During that time, do whatever you need to do. I'll be waiting at the Humvee at the designated rendezvous point," the priest's voice came through the radio.
"Okay then, thank you. We'll start laying the dynamite. Good luck, everyone," Maggie said.
"Good luck to you too," Carol replied.
She switched off the radio.
The plan was simple but effective.
Carol looked at Max, who was staring at the ground with intense focus.
"What is it? Did you notice something?" Carol asked, concerned.
Max looked at her.
"There's a lot of noise beneath the ground. There are probably thousands of walkers in the tunnels or sewer system...more than there are up here. So I'll be the one going inside the tunnel to retrieve the medical supplies."
Carol hesitated.
She knew Max was more than capable of handling a dozen walkers or even far more than that but sending him alone into the tunnels still didn't sit well with her.
Unfortunately, it was also the best option they had.
In the end, she kept her concerns to herself and waited.
"Okay, we're done placing the dynamite. What about you?" Maggie asked over the radio.
"We're good over here too," Carol replied.
"Okay then, let's start this," Daryl said.
"Priest, as soon as you begin, we'll move," Max said into the radio.
"Okay, my Lord. I'm on it," the priest answered immediately.
Everyone was ready.
Now all they could do was wait for the signal.