Richard nodded and kept walking, visibly arranging the place in his mind into sectors, paths, and pressure points. It was almost comforting, in a way, that one man in this gathering still looked at a town and saw structure before danger or softness or scent.
They met the traveling settlement near what had once been a church hall and a public reserve. Fifty beast's, maybe a little more, spread across temporary camp lines and patched vehicles, beast-kin of different types, armed enough to be cautious but not organized enough to be threatening at first glance. Their setup had the messy functionality of people who had kept moving because staying still had stopped feeling possible. Children. Elderly. Two men on a roofline lookout. Smoke from a cookfire. Enough life to feel almost civilized, which in the current world usually meant danger was hiding somewhere close.
They saw each other at the same time.
