The convoy pushed its way through the streets of Atlanta with difficulty.
Since they needed Merle to guide them, Jenson and Wells took the lead in the pickup.
"Left! Turn left! Hurry up! That main road's packed with abandoned school buses—jammed worse than a damn mall on Christmas!"
Merle curled up in the pickup bed. His voice came out in broken bursts from the jolting ride and his own weakness, but that reckless attitude of his hadn't faded in the slightest.
"Right! Take the alley on the right! What the hell kind of driving is that!?"
Merle kept shouting directions while cursing nonstop.
Every bump sent tearing pain through his severed arm, making cold sweat run down his face. The worse it hurt, the louder he swore.
Jenson gripped the steering wheel tightly, guiding the convoy along the route Merle called out.
Right now he wanted nothing more than to drag that one-armed bastard out of the back of the truck and punch him a few times.
Damn it. He hated people who wouldn't stop yapping while someone else was driving.
Jenson knew the bastard was doing it on purpose. Most of the time Merle only yelled about a turn when they were already about to miss it.
Still, he had to admit Merle knew Atlanta's current situation far better than their outdated map.
The routes he pointed out did help them avoid several main roads and intersections that looked unusually clogged with walkers.
Wells, sitting in the passenger seat, watched his teammate getting more and more irritated—like he might smash the steering wheel any second. His face carried a clear "yeah, I get it" expression.
"Hey, man. You can beat the crap out of him when we get there. Getting road rage right now isn't a good idea."
Jenson slammed his fist on the dashboard and cursed.
"Damn one-armed bastard!"
From the truck bed behind them came a lazy voice.
"I heard you cussing me out. Gave me a headache. Now I suddenly can't remember which way to go."
Jenson felt like he might explode.
"Shit! This damn city is completely screwed!"
Finally, after three hours of twisting through the city, they reached the vicinity of their destination—a trip that should have taken only one hour.
The Atlanta CDC complex appeared at the far end of their view.
Unlike the surrounding buildings, it wasn't badly damaged. The overall structure still looked mostly intact, but the lifeless silence around it contrasted sharply with the rest of the ruined city.
The wide lawn was now overgrown with weeds. The parking lot sat empty and deserted.
A few abandoned military vehicles and a burned-out armored vehicle were parked crookedly nearby, their doors hanging open.
Scattered beside them were black, unidentifiable remnants and rusted shell casings.
Farther away stood makeshift defenses built from sandbags and barbed wire, but they had long since been breached by walkers.
The sandbags were torn apart, the wire ripped into tangled pieces, with a couple of tattered clothes still hanging from it.
No soldiers. No living people.
Only a few walkers wandered aimlessly outside the defenses, wearing torn military uniforms or civilian clothes.
A dead, desolate silence—the aftermath of a fallen city.
"That's the place," Merle panted, pointing with his chin.
"Hell, last month this place sounded like a damn battlefield. Now it's a ghost town. If anyone's still alive in there, they're hiding like a turtle in its shell."
Calista's heart sank.
Seeing the scene with her own eyes was far more shocking than watching it on TV.
It was worse than she had imagined.
Dr. Jenner… was he really still alive?
According to the plot he should be, but would her arrival have already changed reality?
The convoy stopped at a street corner about two hundred meters from the CDC main building, using a half-collapsed café as cover.
"What do we do now, Calista?" Mike asked quietly. "Just run over and knock on the door?"
Calista didn't answer right away.
She stared at the main CDC building.
All the windows were pitch black. Heavy metal shutters surrounded the building, making the entire place look eerily lifeless.
A rotting corpse hung from the barricade at the entrance, its face green with decay.
She knew that, if nothing had changed, Dr. Jenner was inside watching.
He had seen their convoy through the cameras. Seen all of them.
But would he actually open the door?
Would the experimental Wildfire vaccine even matter to someone who seemed determined to die?
And she didn't have Rick's way with words. She had no confidence she could persuade Dr. Jenner to open the door.
Leah seemed to guess what she was thinking.
"We've already come this far," she said firmly. "Even if this so-called doctor is hiding in a turtle shell, we'll drag him out."
Calista took a deep breath.
"Let's go."
"You all stay here and keep watch. Mike, Carver—you two come with us."
Leah pushed open the door and jumped out first.
She left the rifle behind, only sticking a pistol behind her waist and carrying a knife on her body.
"You guys carry less too. Don't scare the people inside so badly they refuse to open the door."
Everyone left their heavier weapons behind, taking only pistols and melee weapons.
"Leah, are you crazy? Look at those things!" Turner pointed nervously at the walkers in the distance.
"We're taking a gamble," Leah said.
"If the person inside doesn't want us dead, he won't just sit there and watch us get bitten."
She glanced at Merle, whose face had turned pale from blood loss.
"If he doesn't care, we pull back. You guys stay here and cover us with fire."
The four of them carefully crossed the street, using abandoned vehicles and broken walls as cover as they slowly approached the CDC's main entrance.
Their movement quickly caught the attention of several walkers.
They turned stiffly, excited rasping sounds coming from their throats as they staggered toward them.
"They're coming!" Calista looked around nervously.
Slash, slash, slash!
Mike and Carver rushed out from two directions, cutting down the approaching walkers with a few swift strikes.
In seconds they cleared a ten-meter safe zone.
…Alright.
Looks like there's no need to panic.
Calista remembered how, in the story, Rick and the others had struggled desperately to reach the CDC.
Compared to that, the Reapers cutting down walkers like "little kids" one by one made this checkpoint seem almost too easy.
Especially with Leah following closely beside her, knife in hand.
Calista relaxed. Protected by two Reaper vanguards and the future leader of the Reapers, she ran straight to the building's main entrance without any obstacles.
Since her teammates were handling everything so smoothly, Calista shifted her attention to the cameras mounted above the gate.
She knew Dr. Jenner was watching.
But which one?
Suddenly, an inconspicuous camera under the eaves moved slightly.
Found you.
Calista smiled.
"Dr. Edwin Jenner! We know you're inside! Don't worry—we're not here looking for shelter!"
She paused for a moment.
"We're here for Project Wildfire!"
Her clear voice echoed across the empty plaza.
For a moment, time seemed to freeze.
The walkers in the square were stirred by the sudden sound and began rushing toward them faster.
Jenson and the others in the corner were already preparing to open fire.
Suddenly—
"Bzzz—whirr—"
A dull mechanical sound filled the air.
The CDC's rolling shutter door—which had seemed like it would never open for Rick and the others—slowly began to rise.