I spent the next few hours cutting through roads and side trails, marking usable places on the map: a farm with dairy cattle still alive, another with a chicken coop salvageable, a property with a working windmill and solar panels. Each one is a resource point for survival, each one marked for later.
By late afternoon, I came across a fenced farmhouse where a couple and their teenage son were hauling supplies from a shed. They hesitated when they saw me, but I waved at them. "Name's Zephyr," I called. "I'm not here to steal or hurt anyone."
The man lowered his shotgun after a long pause. "What do you want?"
"Nothing forced. Just offering something better than dying alone. My group's got food, shelter, a doctor. You come with me, you get to survive."
The man's eyes brightened considerably when he heard I had a doctor. The woman looked at her husband, then their son. Finally, the man nodded. "Lead the way."
Luckily, I found a box trailer hooked up to a four-seat pickup truck earlier. I went ahead and brought it back. It was in need of some maintenance, but it would do until I hand it over to Jim for a checkup. We loaded what we could, and I took the driver seat while the man jumped into the passenger seats alongside his wife and son.
It wasn't until evening that we rolled to the farmstead. Dale squinted his eyes as I stepped out. "Looks like you brought residents."
"Three survivors," I said. "Hard working farmers."
The man introduced himself as Tom, his wife Lydia, and their son Eli. Gale immediately started checking them. Jenny and Andrea brought blankets, water, and clean clothes.
I turned to Jim. "Could you do a check up on the truck, please? I'll need it by tomorrow morning," I said.
"Alright, you got it," Jim replied as he went to work.
Nodding once, I stood back near the fence, watching the others. Maggie Greene's hand on the porch still lingered in my mind. Ghost rubbed on my leg, snapping me out of my thoughts. I crouched, giving his neck a rub. "Yeah," I whispered. "We'll see them again."
The morning's arrival announcement came: the crow of roosters. Ghost's barking came next. I was already up, doing morning drills and inspecting the perimeter.
"Morning's checks done," Morgan said, stepping up with a cup of steaming coffee. "Fences are holding up and Jim said he finished doing maintenance on the truck."
I nodded, scanning the early light breaking over the tree line. "Good. I marked a couple of farms yesterday. You and I will grab the trucks and head out to grab the livestock I found there and whatever's still usable."
Morgan raised a brow. "You sure? Could use more hands."
I tightened the strap of my rifle. "No. More people means more noise. This isn't a milk run. We're bringing in more animals. They'll draw walkers. We move fast and quiet."
I gave a quick whistle. Ghost trotted over, tail wagging, tongue out. I knelt to scratch behind his ears before heading to the hauler pickup truck while Morgan jumped into the box truck behind us.
The farmstead stirred to life. Jenny was already boiling water for breakfast with Amy and Andrea helping her while Dale was up the RV on lookout duty.
The drive was quiet except the occasional bark from Ghost. Soon we reached the first stop, a dairy farm I'd marked. The smell hit us before the view: faint rot mixed with hay. Inside the barn, we found what we hoped for: a few surviving cows, weak but alive. Nearby, a small pen still held a handful of chicken and geese.
"Guess luck's still on our side," Morgan muttered, opening the pen gate.
"Luck had nothing to do with it," I said, moving efficiently to check the feed levels. "People left fast. These animals were left behind."
We worked quick. Morgan and I guided the cows to the trailer box while Ghost herded the chicken and geese toward improvised crates we'd brought. By dusk, we had finished looting the marked places, with me storing what we didn't have room for in my Inventory when Morgan wasn't looking.
As we drove back, Morgan asked, "You think this will be enough to keep us through winter?"
My jaw tightened. "It's a start. But we're planning for winter. We're planning to rebuild."
Greenes' POV
"Daddy, you're still thinking about that man, aren't you?" Maggie's voice broke the silence in the Greene kitchen.
Hershel looked up from his bible, closing it with a sigh. "A man comes onto our land talking about the world ending and offers to take us in? I'll be a fool not to think on it."
Beth, setting nearby, hugged her knees. "He seemed… different. Not mean. Just… sure of himself."
Maggie nodded. "He's seen things. The way he looked around, like he already knew what's coming."
Hershel rubbed his temple. "I've lived long enough to see people loose their faith over fear. But that man… he's planning like he knows something we don't. And that scares me more than any sickness out there."
Silence lingered between them. Outside, the night moved close, too quiet, too still. Then a distant echo broke it: the moaning of a walker carried on the wind.
Zephyr's POV
The night was cool, quiet. Most of the group has turned in. I remained awake by the dying fire, jotting notes in my battered note pad: Inventory, patrol schedules, and a rough sketch of the surrounding region. Ghost suddenly lifted his head, ears twitching. Far to the north, a faint column of smoke curled into the night sky. Not from a wild fire. Too deliberate. Too controlled. Someone else was there. I exhaled through my nose, my expression turning unreadable. "Guess it's time we found out who." Ghost gave a growl in response, and my hand rested on the dog's head. "Soon," I muttered. "We'll move soon." The fire popped, sending a single spark upward, swallowed by the vast, silent dark.
(To be continued...)