In a dense stretch of woods a dozen or so kilometers from Rock Fortress, the reconnaissance squad led by Hank was moving silently through the trees.
Hank took point, constantly watching for movement around them.
Bossie and Jenson followed just behind and to the side, barely making a sound, their eyes picking out every unusual detail.
Snapped branches, faint tracks in the dirt, even the slightest scent on the wind.
"Fifty meters ahead to the left. Movement," Bossie suddenly stopped and said in a low voice.
Hank immediately raised a hand, signaling the whole team to take cover.
He crouched and moved closer. "What is it?"
"Not walkers. Looks like deer. Do we go after them?" Bossie narrowed his eyes, watching.
Hank thought for a moment, then shook his head. "The mission comes first. Keep moving. Bossie, scout ahead. Keep your distance."
The team continued on for a while.
Suddenly, Bossie snapped his hand up, clenched his fist, and signaled for them to stop.
The entire squad froze at once, blending into the forest.
"Up ahead," Bossie breathed, his voice so low it was almost nothing but air, "walkers. More than one. And... human voices. Very faint."
Hank immediately gave a hand signal. The squad spread out in a fan formation, using the trees and brush as cover as they slowly advanced.
After pushing through a dense thicket, the sight ahead made everyone's chest tighten.
A small group of walkers, seven or eight of them, had surrounded a thick old oak tree. Their rotting arms clawed upward as they let out rasping growls that set the teeth on edge.
Up in the tree, two people clung tightly to the branches, one man and one woman, both seemingly in their thirties.
The man gripped a sharpened wooden stick and tried to jab at the walkers below, but it was not doing much.
The woman's face was deathly pale, her eyes full of despair. Her arm seemed to be injured, and blood kept dripping from it, only driving the walkers beneath the tree into an even worse frenzy.
"H-help!" The man saw Hank's squad appear from the woods and shouted with all the strength he had left, his voice hoarse.
Hank quickly assessed the situation.
There were not many walkers, but they were packed beneath the tree. A direct rush might put the people above in even greater danger.
"Jenson," Hank whispered. "Can you drop a few? Pull some of them away."
Jenson said nothing. He simply took down his sniper rifle, attached the suppressor, and aimed.
"Pfft!"
A bullet buried itself neatly in the eye socket of the outermost walker, and it dropped without a sound.
Then came the second shot, and the third.
In the blink of an eye, Jenson had taken down three walkers without stirring up the whole group.
But the remaining walkers seemed to be enraged by their companions falling one after another, or perhaps drawn even harder by the blood dripping from above. They began slamming against the trunk more violently.
The branches shook hard. The woman in the tree let out a scream and nearly lost her grip.
"No good. We can't draw them off," Hank decided at once. "Prepare to storm them! Jenson, take the high ground. Prioritize the ones posing the biggest threat to the people in the tree. Everyone else, with me. End it fast!"
Jenson quickly climbed a nearby tree and set up his rifle.
Hank let out a low growl, drew his machete, and charged out first.
The other team members followed close behind. Blades flashed, and the muffled shots of suppressed weapons sounded in quick bursts.
Seeing help arrive, the man in the tree rallied as well, stabbing downward with the wooden stick as hard as he could.
The fight was short but intense.
Under Jenson's precise shots and the team's close-quarters assault, the remaining walkers were quickly cleared out.
Bossie carefully checked the area and confirmed nothing had been missed before looking up at the tree. "It's safe. You can come down."
The man in the tree sagged with relief, almost collapsing from exhaustion.
He carefully supported the injured woman, helping her climb down with great difficulty.
The moment he reached the ground, the man slumped down and gasped for breath. The woman clutched her bleeding arm, her face turning bluish-white from the pain.
"Thank you... thank you!" The man looked at Hank and the others, his voice choking. "We thought we were dead..."
Hank did not lower his guard. He signaled for one team member to step forward and check whether the woman's injury had been caused by walkers. "Who are you? Where did you come from? Why are you here?"
His sharp gaze swept over their torn but relatively clean clothes, as well as the backpack they carried that looked all but empty.
The man steadied himself and answered, "My name is John. This is my wife, Sarah. We... we were hiding in a small town north of Knoxville. We survived by scavenging convenience stores.
But a few days ago, a group of raiders hit the place and cleaned it out. We barely got away. We were trying to head into the mountains, thinking it might be safer. Then we ran into a walker herd..."
Sarah endured the pain and added, "My wound came from barbed wire while we were running. It's not a bite..."
She was clearly afraid of being misunderstood.
The team member checking her wound nodded to Hank, confirming that it was indeed a cut.
Hank continued questioning them. Beyond the three basic intake questions, he also asked about their former jobs, survival skills, and how they viewed the apocalypse.
John and Sarah were still shaken from nearly dying, but their answers were clear and logical, with no obvious holes.
More importantly, John was a mechanic, and Sarah had been a clinic nurse. Their professional skills immediately caught Hank's interest.
"You're coming back to the base with us," Hank finally decided. "But you'll have to go through quarantine and assessment. If you pass, you can stay. If you don't, or if you try anything..."
He did not finish the sentence, but the warning in his eyes was clear enough.
John and Sarah looked at each other, both seeing hope in the other's eyes.
John quickly nodded. "We understand! We'll accept any assessment. As long as there's a safe place..."
Hank had Bossie give Sarah's wound a simple dressing to stop the bleeding. Then, with the two newly found survivors and the terrain map they had surveyed that day, the team set off back toward Rock Fortress.
By evening, when Hank's team returned to the base with John and Sarah, standard procedure began.
The two were taken to the quarantine area, where Dr. Evans's medical team carried out a more detailed examination and questioning.
Rickson and Leah also took part in the initial evaluation.
"A mechanic and a clinic nurse..." Rickson looked at the preliminary report and said to Calista, "If their backgrounds are clean and their skills are real, they're exactly the kind of people we need."
Calista stood by the command room window, looking down at the two figures in the quarantine area below, and gave a faint nod. "Follow the rules.
If they pass the assessment, assign them work. Tell Hank that his team gets credit for this rescue and for finding survivors."
Inside a room in the quarantine area, John was carefully changing Sarah's bandage.
"John, do you think... we can stay?" Sarah asked softly, her voice carrying hope and a trace of unease.
John held her hand tightly. Looking out the window at the base still lit in the darkness, he said firmly, "We will, Sarah. This place... it feels different. We can start over here. I know we can."