Haddleston Elementary School.
In one of the classrooms, the student desks had been pushed together on the left side to form a large makeshift table, piled with assorted supplies. Several thin women sorted through the materials, organizing them into categories.
On the right side of the room, more than a dozen men and women huddled in the corner, faces etched with sorrow and worry. Even the children among them wore expressions far too old for their years—grief borrowed from the adults around them.
When Andrea and Hannah walked in, the atmosphere was exactly this bleak. The sisters exchanged a look. Andrea sighed wearily. Hannah kept her face carefully blank, but her eyes burned with barely concealed disgust.
Their group had come from Manchester—not the one in England, but a small city where a local hero had rallied survivors and established a safe haven. The community had grown, absorbing scattered survivors into a formidable group.
But as their numbers swelled and resources dwindled, the cracks appeared. The group fractured into two factions. One advocated raiding other survivor groups and ambushing travelers to ease the strain. The other was vehemently opposed, calling it suicide dressed as strategy.
The moderates thought maintaining the stalemate would be enough to prevent atrocities. They were wrong. The first target the aggressive faction chose was them.
On a pitch-black night, most of the moderates were murdered in their sleep—throats slit silently. The smell of blood woke the rest, and chaos erupted. But the outcome was never in doubt.
Only a few dozen escaped, Andrea's group among them. With nowhere left to run inside the compound, they'd done the only thing left: opened the gates and let the Infected flood in.
What happened afterward, they never learned. By the time they looked back, the compound was engulfed in flame, and the distant crackle of gunfire showed no signs of stopping.
After fleeing, they'd learned about the Atlanta Quarantine Zone from other survivors on the road. With no other options, they'd unanimously agreed to head there.
But with every vehicle on the roads long since dead, they'd walked. Three months on foot, losing people to Infected, exposure, and exhaustion the entire way. When they finally reached Peachtree City, they'd planned to rest briefly before the final push to Atlanta.
They hadn't counted on finding an established survivor group already here—one that was openly hostile to outsiders. Several of Andrea's people had been captured. Even Ed—Andrea's boyfriend—and his companion Barren had vanished without a trace.
They stayed because they refused to leave without their people.
"Any luck?"
The moment Andrea sat down, she seized Hannah's hand, hope naked on her face.
Since Ed's disappearance, she'd been consumed with worry. At first, she'd assumed the locals had captured him. But after catching and interrogating one of them, she'd learned that Ed and Barren weren't among the prisoners.
That had sent a chill through her. She'd immediately organized search parties to comb Ed's last known area. Three days of searching turned up nothing—and meanwhile, the rescue of their captured companions stalled. Some in the group even whispered that Ed had found a supply cache and abandoned them, heading to Atlanta alone with Barren.
Andrea refused to believe it. But she couldn't keep diverting people from the main effort, either. In the end, she'd asked Hannah to search alone—one person, slipping through the Infected-heavy southern district, covering ground daily.
Hannah saw the hope in her sister's eyes and felt her heart ache. But she shook her head.
"Nothing."
Andrea's face fell. But she'd heard this answer enough times to recover quickly. A deep breath, and she pressed on. "Did you find anything else?"
Her mind was already shifting—too many people were growing restless, and she needed to smooth things over before resentment boiled into something worse.
"Yes."
"Alright, go tell Hall and—wait, what?"
Andrea had already been standing to leave when Hannah's answer registered. She froze, looked down at her sister, and sat back down.
Hannah glanced around the room, then pulled Andrea close. "I saw soldiers today. In the northern part of town. Inside the department store."
"What?"
Andrea went rigid. Her expression cycled through shock, elation, and then immediate concern. "Where exactly?"
"The big shopping center, north side of town."
Hannah's eyes drifted upward as she replayed the scene. "I was going to keep watching, but he looked in my direction. I don't know if he actually spotted me—Uncle Corbin was calling for help nearby, and I didn't want to risk the soldier tracking me. So I left."
"I see..."
Andrea sat quietly, processing. The initial surge of excitement had been firmly leashed. With this little information, she couldn't be sure of anything.
She glanced at the fading light outside. The others would be back soon. Whatever came next needed group consensus.
But then another thought struck her. "Did anyone else see him? The... locals?"
Hannah knew exactly who her sister meant—the group that had taken their people. Her jaw tightened, teeth grinding. If not for those bastards attacking them unprovoked, they'd have been long gone from this hellhole. People she'd cared about wouldn't be dead or imprisoned. Ed wouldn't be missing.
They'd even been forced into the southern district—Infected territory—just to hide from the locals. The only reason they hadn't been found was that no sane person would venture into this death trap voluntarily.
"I'm not sure... but he was shooting inside the shopping center. Made a lot of noise. They probably noticed."
Andrea frowned. That wasn't the answer she wanted, but she also knew Hannah was only fourteen. The girl had already accomplished more than anyone could reasonably ask.
What mattered now was the soldier's status. This close to Atlanta, he was almost certainly from the QZ—probably part of a supply retrieval squad. If she could make contact, there was a chance they could help rescue the captured members of her group. Maybe even escort them all to the QZ.
The more she thought about it, the more urgent it felt. Her worst fear was that the locals would ambush the soldiers before she could reach them.
She was growing increasingly restless when the classroom door opened.
Hall walked in, his considerable belly preceding him, and scanned the room until he found Andrea. "They're all back. Asking for you upstairs. Something important."
"Perfect."
Andrea's eyes lit up. She rose quickly and headed for the second floor. This couldn't wait—they needed a plan, and they needed one now.
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