Sergeant Whitaker led the patrol through one of Atlanta's streets, with Private Tanner and Private Kyle walking ahead while Specialist Diego, Corporal Mason, Private Caleb, Specialist Dawson, and Private Donnelly followed behind.
Although most of the city was under military control, the cleanup was far from complete. Buildings still needed to be searched, streets cleared, and any remaining walkers dealt with before the area could be considered safe.
Dawson glanced toward a row of buildings as they continued down the street.
"And you'd think some of the people in the safe zone actually want to leave and go back to their homes."
He shook his head.
"Those fucking walkers are like roaches. No matter how many we kill, there's always more of them. You find them in locked rooms, in wardrobes, or crawling from under the damn sink. Why the hell would anyone even hide there?"
Caleb glanced at him.
"Because they were afraid, Dawson. I don't think they put to much thought into it."
Dawson gave him an unimpressed look but said nothing.
Caleb looked around at the surrounding buildings.
"Besides, people think that just because we've got things under control here, the city's safe. They hear we've secured Atlanta, and suddenly they think they can leave the safe zone and go home and carry on like nothing happened."
"Yeah, well, they're welcome to come out here and help us clear the place," Dawson muttered.
Corporal Mason gave a short laugh.
"Something tells me most of them would change their minds pretty quickly."
Sergeant Whitaker glanced back at them.
"Save the complaints for when we're back at the base. Keep your eyes on the buildings. We're not done here yet."
The conversation died down as the patrol continued along the street, the soldiers keeping watch on the abandoned buildings around them.
A cold breeze swept down the street, making Tanner pull his jacket closer around himself.
"Christ, it's getting cold."
Kyle glanced at him.
"Winter's coming."
"Yeah, no shit," Tanner replied, rubbing his hands together. "Just didn't expect it to get this cold already."
"It's actually come pretty late this year," Diego commented. "I'd have thought we'd be dealing with this a few weeks ago."
Dawson looked up at the grey sky.
"Great. Just what we need. Freezing our asses off while chasing dead people through abandoned buildings."
"Could be worse," Donnelly remarked.
Dawson turned toward him.
"How?"
"We could be doing it in the snow."
"Thanks. That's very reassuring."
Whitaker shook her head slightly but allowed the conversation to continue as the squad moved along the street.
A short distance ahead, Kyle noticed a shop on the opposite side of the road. Its large front windows displayed faded advertisements, and a sign above the entrance indicated that it sold sporting goods.
He slowed slightly, looking toward the storefront.
"Sergeant, there's a sports shop up ahead."
Whitaker followed his gaze.
"Alright. Keep moving, but keep an eye on the windows and the entrance. We can check it out once we've secured the street."
The patrol continued down the street, stepping around rubbish scattered across the pavement and weaving between abandoned vehicles left wherever their drivers had managed to stop.
The city had become a graveyard of cars. Some had collided with one another, while others sat abandoned in the middle of the road, their doors hanging open and their interiors stripped of anything useful.
The soldiers didn't simply walk past them. Whenever they came across a vehicle, a couple of them would glance through the windows, checking the seats and footwells for any sign of movement. If nothing was immediately visible, one of the soldiers would give the bodywork a light tap with the end of his weapon, producing a brief metallic knock.
It wasn't loud enough to carry far down the street, but anyone or anything hiding beneath the vehicle would hear it.
They waited a moment before moving on.
Nothing emerged from beneath the cars.
"Still hate doing that," Tanner muttered as he stepped around a battered sedan.
Kyle glanced at him. "Rather find one under a car now than have it grab your ankle when you're walking past."
"Didn't say I wanted to skip it."
"Sounded like you were complaining."
"I'm allowed to complain."
"Not if you keep doing it every five minutes," Dawson remarked from behind them.
Tanner turned his head to glare at him, but Dawson was already looking elsewhere.
Eventually, they reached the sports shop Kyle had spotted earlier. A faded sign above the entrance read **Summit Sporting Goods**, and several posters advertising outdoor equipment remained stuck to the inside of the display windows.
Or what was left of them.
The front windows had been shattered, leaving jagged pieces of glass clinging to their frames. The remaining shards were stained with dark, dried blood, while broad smears marked the pavement immediately outside the storefront.
Whitaker slowed, raising a hand to signal the others to stop.
The squad spread out slightly as they examined the entrance.
"Looks like someone had a bad day," Dawson remarked.
Diego studied the bloodied glass.
"Or several someones."
He nodded toward the broken windows. Blood covered the sharp edges, and streaks continued down the outside of the storefront onto the pavement. Whatever had happened here, it hadn't been a clean break. Something had forced its way through the shattered glass, leaving traces of blood behind as it went.
"Walkers probably pushed their way inside," Mason said. "Glass would've cut them up pretty badly."
"Wouldn't stop them, though," Caleb replied.
"No. Guess not."
Whitaker looked through the broken window, keeping her distance from the jagged edges.
The shop appeared dark inside, and the scattered merchandise near the entrance suggested it had been ransacked at some point. She couldn't immediately tell whether anything was still moving farther inside.
Tanner, meanwhile, was examining the sign.
"Bet there's some decent cold-weather gear in there."
Dawson looked at him. "You thinking about shopping?"
"I'm thinking about not freezing my balls off when winter gets here."
"Fair enough."
"Thermal layers, gloves, sleeping bags," Tanner continued. "Maybe some of those little hand warmers. HotHands, I think they're called."
"Those would be useful," Diego agreed. "Especially for the people at the safe zone who don't have proper winter clothing."
Kyle peered through one of the broken windows.
"If any of it's still there."
"Won't know until we check," Mason replied.
Whitaker looked through the broken window, then glanced at the blood smeared across the remaining shards.
"HotHands wouldn't be bad," she admitted. "I'd take a few packs myself. My fingers are already freezing out here."
"See?" Tanner said, gesturing toward the shop. "Finally, someone appreciates the importance of a little comfort."
"Don't get carried away," Whitaker replied with a faint smile. "We still have to get inside and see what's left."
Dawson looked through the window.
"Same drill as usual?"
"Pretty much," she answered. "Four shields up front. The rest of us cover the sides and keep an eye on the aisles. We clear it section by section, and nobody gets separated."
Four members of the squad carried small, round shields fashioned from damaged riot shields. They weren't large enough to cover a soldier completely, but they were sturdy enough to keep a walker from grabbing someone or getting close enough to bite.
During the cleanup operations, the shields had proved particularly useful when paired with melee weapons.
Mason adjusted the shield hanging from his arm.
"Let's hope we don't have a dozen of the bastards waiting inside."
"Then we'll have a dozen of the bastards to deal with," Dawson replied, checking the grip on his melee weapon.
Whitaker gave him an amused look.
"Always a pleasure to have you around, Dawson."
"Just trying to keep morale up, Sergeant."
"Sure you are."
She turned back toward the storefront, her expression becoming more focused as she studied the broken entrance.
"Alright, let's do this. Watch those glass shards on the way in, and keep your eyes open. We don't know what's waiting inside."
The four shield-bearers entered first, moving carefully through the broken entrance while the rest of the squad followed close behind.
Bloodied shards of glass crunched beneath their boots, the sound seeming unusually loud in the otherwise quiet store. They slowed their steps, taking care not to slip on the debris scattered across the floor.
"Watch your footing," Mason muttered, glancing down at the glass near his shield.
"Wouldn't want to ruin our new winter boots," Dawson whispered from behind him.
"Keep talking and I'll let you go first next time," Mason replied.
Dawson gave a quiet chuckle but fell silent as they moved farther inside.
They stopped just past the entrance, allowing their eyes to adjust to the dim interior while they took in the damage.
The shop had been thoroughly ransacked. Shelves stood crooked or had been knocked over, merchandise lay scattered across the floor, and racks of sporting clothes had been overturned. A display tent near the front of the store had been torn apart, its fabric ripped and tangled around the collapsed poles.
Dark smears of blood marked the floor nearby, with smaller stains leading farther into the shop. Clothing lay strewn across the tiles, some of it trampled beneath footprints and others caught beneath fallen displays.
Tanner glanced at the ruined tent.
"Guess someone didn't like the camping section."
"Maybe they were looking for a place to sleep," Kyle whispered.
"Yeah, well, they could've at least put the tent back afterward."
Whitaker gave them both a brief look, though the corners of her mouth lifted slightly. She then turned her attention toward the entrance, where a pair of anti-theft security gates stood on either side of the passage.
She raised her handgun and lightly tapped the side of one gate with its frame.
The sound was faint, little more than a dull knock, but it carried through the store, reverberating between the high ceiling and the rows of shelves.
The squad fell silent.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
They listened carefully while holding their positions. Watching the aisles and the gaps between the shelves, waiting to see whether anything would respond to the noise.
The silence lasted several more seconds before a series of guttural groans came from somewhere deeper inside the store.
Flashlights came on almost immediately, their beams sweeping across the aisles.
Several shelves cast long shadows over the scattered merchandise, but near the back of the shop, Whitaker caught a glimpse of movement.
"Contact, back of the store," she whispered.
The squad moved forward, keeping their weapons ready. They advanced past the overturned displays before splitting into two groups.
Four soldiers, two carrying shields and two covering them from behind, took the aisles on the left. Whitaker led the other three along the right, their flashlights illuminating the narrow passages between the shelves.
"Keep an eye on the gaps," she reminded them quietly. "Don't let anything get behind us."
They moved slowly, checking each aisle before advancing. The groans grew louder as they approached the rear of the store, and then one of the flashlight beams settled on a figure lying on the floor.
It was a walker, its lower half missing. It dragged itself forward with its hands, pulling its ruined torso across the tiles as it turned toward the approaching soldiers.
"Jesus," Tanner muttered.
"Still counts," Diego replied, keeping his shield raised.
The walker reached for them, its fingers scraping against the floor. Before it could get any closer, Caleb stepped forward with a short-handled hatchet in his right hand. He brought it down firmly into the walker's skull, ending its movement.
"That's one," he whispered, pulling the hatchet free.
The squad continued through the aisles, following the faint groans and listening for any other movement. They found two more walkers farther back, one trapped between a fallen shelf and a display rack, the other slumped beside a pile of discarded clothing. Neither posed much of a threat. The shield-bearers kept them from reaching the others while the soldiers with melee weapons finished them off quickly.
Afterward, the squad regrouped at the end of the aisle.
"Everyone good?" Whitaker asked, looking from one face to the next.
A series of quiet acknowledgements answered her.
"Good. Let's make another pass before we start searching. Check the stockroom, offices, and anywhere else something could be hiding. I don't want anyone getting surprised while they're digging through boxes."
They spread out again, this time more methodically, checking behind counters, looking beneath fallen displays, and inspecting the doors leading to the staff areas.
They found no further movement, and after a final sweep of the back rooms, Whitaker was satisfied that the store was clear.
"Looks like that's all of them," Mason said, lowering his shield.
"Let's hope the rest of the place is as quiet," Dawson replied.
With the immediate danger dealt with, the squad began assessing what remained intact.
They picked their way through the wreckage, checking shelves and storage boxes for supplies that hadn't been damaged or taken.
The sporting goods store had clearly been ransacked, but not everything had been destroyed.
Tanner stopped beside a rack of winter clothing and lifted a thick jacket from the floor, examining the fabric and seams with his flashlight.
"Could be worse," he said. "At least they didn't burn the place down."
"Don't tempt fate," Kyle answered, moving toward a row of camping equipment.
Whitaker allowed herself a brief smile before returning to the task at hand.
Caleb found the first box of hand warmers tucked beneath a fallen display, partly hidden by a pile of sleeping bags. He picked it up, brushed off the dust, and turned it over in his hands.
"Hey, look what we've got here. HotHands."
Dawson glanced over from the next aisle. "You're kidding."
Caleb held up the box. "Not kidding. And there's another one back here."
He pulled a second box from the shelf and checked the packaging. Both were still sealed.
"Well, that's something," Tanner said, walking over. "Might actually keep our fingers from falling off when we're out on patrol."
"Your fingers are fine," Kyle replied. "You just complain whenever the temperature drops below twenty degrees."
"That's because I have standards."
A few of the others chuckled as they continued sorting through the supplies. They found several pairs of gloves, a handful of thermal shirts, and a few sleeping bags that had escaped the worst of the damage.
Dawson picked up a pair of thick gloves and examined them. "You know, I heard command's working on something to make sure people don't freeze to death this winter."
Whitaker, who was checking a nearby shelf, glanced in his direction.
"Oh, yeah?" she asked. "What have you heard?"
"Not much. One of the guys at the last checkpoint mentioned it. Said they're working on getting the city's utilities sorted out before the weather gets worse." Dawson shrugged. "Figured you might've heard something from the other NCOs."
"I've heard a little," Whitaker replied, setting a bundle of thermal clothing aside. "Nothing official, though. From what I've been told, the engineers and utility crews, what's left of them, are looking at getting the gas network working properly again, at least in the areas where we actually need it."
"Meaning heating?" Tanner asked.
"That's the idea. Get gas service back to essential buildings and the residential areas we're planning to keep occupied. Hospitals, shelters, places where people are living. But they'll have to check the pipes and equipment first. No point restoring the gas if half the system is leaking."
"Wouldn't want to turn the whole city into a giant barbecue," Diego remarked.
"Exactly," Whitaker said, giving him a brief smile. "And it's not just gas. Apparently, they're also working on the water treatment plants and pumping stations. Making sure we can keep supplying clean water and that the sewage system doesn't fail when the weather gets bad."
Mason, who had been inspecting a stack of camping equipment, looked over.
"So they're fixing the whole city?"
"No," Whitaker answered. "Quite the opposite, from what I heard. They're talking about shutting off water and gas to most of the city, especially areas that aren't going to be occupied anytime soon. There's no point supplying thousands of empty buildings when we could use those resources to keep the important facilities and settlements running."
"Sounds sensible," Caleb said. "Less strain on the system."
"That's what I was told. If they can isolate whole sections safely, they'll have fewer pipes to maintain and fewer places where a leak or a burst pipe can cause problems. The same goes for heating. They'll concentrate on buildings where people actually live, instead of trying to keep every abandoned apartment block supplied."
"Wonder how long that'll take," Kyle said.
"Couldn't tell you. The engineers have a lot of work ahead of them, and they'll need to inspect everything before they can promise anything. Getting the utilities running is one thing. Keeping them running all winter is another."
For a moment, the squad continued sorting through the supplies in silence.
"Still," Dawson said, slipping the gloves into his pack, "it's good to know someone's thinking about it. I'd rather not spend the next few months sleeping in a building with broken windows and no heat."
"Then stop volunteering for overnight patrols," Tanner replied.
"Someone has to make sure you don't get lost."
Whitaker shook her head, amused, before returning to the shelves.
"Keep looking. Thermal layers, gloves, sleeping bags, anything that'll help. Even if command gets the utilities sorted out, we're still going to spend plenty of time outside."
Caleb tucked the two boxes of HotHands into his pack.
"I'm keeping these."
"Put them with the rest of the supplies," Whitaker told him. "We'll divide everything up when we're done."
He sighed but did as he was told, setting the boxes beside the growing pile of recovered equipment.
For once, the prospect of winter didn't seem quite as miserable. The city still had a long way to go before it could function normally again, but at least someone was making plans for what came next.
•••••••••••••••••••••••
Andrew stepped out of the Humvee and straightened his jacket against the cool air. A short distance away, around twenty soldiers had established a temporary position in a secured area, keeping out of sight of the base as much as the terrain allowed.
Several vehicles were parked nearby, their crews remaining close while others watched the surrounding area. The soldiers had chosen their positions carefully, with enough room to move if the situation changed, but they weren't taking any chances by approaching Robins Air Force Base before they understood what they were dealing with.
Andrew spotted the drone operators near the back of a military vehicle, their equipment laid out on a folding table. One sat in front of a controller with a screen displaying the aerial feed, while another stood beside him, watching the footage and keeping track of the base's buildings.
He walked over, drawing their attention.
"What's the situation?" Andrew asked.
The operator at the controls glanced up before returning his attention to the screen.
"We've been monitoring the base, sir. We're working our way through the buildings and surrounding areas, but there's still a lot to check."
Andrew moved beside him to get a better look at the footage.
Robins Air Force Base stretched across the screen, and it quickly became apparent why the earlier reports had raised concerns.
Thousands of walkers crowded the installation's grounds, wandering between buildings, abandoned vehicles and rows of torn tents. Some of the tents had collapsed entirely, while others had been ripped open, their canvas flapping loosely in the breeze. Whatever effort had been made to establish a safe zone here had ended in disaster.
Military vehicles stood abandoned throughout the base, many left haphazardly along the roads or near the buildings. One Humvee had crashed directly into the wall of a building, its front end crumpled against the concrete. Nothing around it suggested that anyone had managed to survive it.
Andrew studied the footage, his expression growing more serious as the drone operator adjusted the camera to show another section of the installation.
"Christ," someone muttered behind him.
Andrew barely heard the comment. He had seen the aftermath of the outbreak in Atlanta, but the sheer number of walkers gathered inside the base was still sobering. There had clearly been a substantial military presence here when the safe zone fell, along with enough personnel and civilians to account for the tents and equipment scattered across the grounds.
He folded his arms and leaned closer to the screen.
"Show me what you've found so far on the locations of possible survivors."