Chapter 35: The Escape - Part 2
Saturday Evening - Quarry Camp
Madison found me setting up our tent area, away from the main camp but not so far as to seem isolated. "That went well."
"Define well."
"We're alive. We're integrated. Nobody shot us. I'm calling it a win."
"Shane wants to," I said, hammering a tent stake. "Shoot us, I mean. He sees us as competition. More people means his resources get diluted."
"Rick won't let him."
"Rick's busy being reunited with his family. Shane's going to use that distraction."
"So what do we do?"
"We make ourselves valuable. Offer skills he can't refuse. Medical knowledge, combat training, extra hands for supply runs. Make him need us more than he hates us."
Alicia appeared with Nick, both carrying supplies from the trucks. "Camp tour," Nick announced. "Dale showed us around. It's... organized. More than I expected."
"Shane's former police," I said. "He knows structure, discipline. It's keeping people alive."
"For now," Alicia added. "But I saw how he looked at Rick. That's not going to last."
"No. It's not."
We finished setting up camp—three tents for our people, communal area for cooking and planning. Dale had offered us space near the RV, but I'd declined. Better to have our own territory, our own defensible position.
[ TIMER: 58:33:47 ]
Two days, ten hours. Still comfortable. But I'd need another target soon. Ideally before we left for the farm, before the group dynamics shifted again.
Ed Peletier. Still a wife-beater. Still a valid target. Wait for the right moment, then handle it quietly.
Rick called a camp meeting at sundown. Everyone gathered around the fire—quarry residents and our group, nearly forty people total. More than I'd expected. More mouths to feed, more personalities to manage.
"I know you all have questions," Rick started. "About where I've been, about these new people, about what happens next. So let's talk."
"Where have you been?" someone asked. Woman's voice, scared.
"King County Hospital. I was shot in the line of duty, went into a coma. Woke up last week to find the world had ended. Took me this long to find my way here."
"And them?" Shane gestured at our group. "The California people. You vouch for them?"
"I do. They saved my life in Atlanta. They're well-armed, well-trained, and they're looking for the same thing we are—survival and community."
"We don't have enough food for forty people," Shane said. "Don't have enough weapons, enough medicine. Adding ten more mouths means rationing everything tighter."
"Then we ration," Rick said simply. "Or we find more supplies. There's a city full of resources twenty miles from here."
"A city full of the dead."
"Which we already went into today. And came out alive. We can do it again."
Shane's hands clenched. "You've been back six hours, Rick. You don't know how things work here. You don't know the routines, the systems, the dangers."
"Then teach me. We're on the same side."
"Are we?"
The question hung in the air. Rick held Shane's gaze, neither man backing down.
Dale intervened, climbing down from the RV. "Gentlemen. We're all tired, all on edge. Let's table this discussion until morning. Give everyone time to process."
Rick nodded slowly. "Good idea. We'll talk tomorrow. Plan supply runs, organize rotations, figure out how to make this work."
The group dispersed. I watched Shane storm off toward his tent, Lori following at a distance. Rick stayed by the fire with Carl, telling his son about the hospital, about waking up alone, about the journey here.
Leaving out the parts that would give nightmares. The bodies, the blood, the sounds of the dying. Just the survival story, the hope, the reunion.
Good instinct. Keep the boy innocent as long as possible. It won't last, but every day counts.
Glenn found me at our camp, looking nervous. "Can we talk?"
"Sure."
"Privately?"
We walked to the edge of the quarry, away from listening ears. Glenn fidgeted with his cap, building courage.
"In Atlanta. When we were walking through the walkers. They ignored you. I mean really ignored you. Like you weren't there."
"The disguise worked."
"You barely had any gore on you. I saw. You had maybe a tenth of what Rick and I had. But the walkers, they didn't just ignore you. They avoided you. Actively. Like you were pushing them away somehow."
I said nothing.
"And when you drew them off at the end, when you were shooting. They went after you, but not like they went after us. They hesitated. Like they didn't want to, but the gunfire forced them."
"Glenn—"
"I'm not accusing you of anything. I'm trying to understand. Because if there's something about you that keeps walkers away, that's—that's huge. That's survival."
"There's nothing about me. I just got lucky."
"You're lying." He said it matter-of-factly, no anger. "But that's okay. Everyone's got secrets. I just... I wanted you to know I noticed. And if you ever want to tell someone, I'm good at keeping secrets."
He walked away before I could respond.
Great. Glenn's suspicious. Eventually others will be too. Need to be more careful with the Pheromone Cloak. Use it sparingly. Only when absolutely necessary.
Back at camp, Andrea was showing Alicia how to clean her rifle. "You keep it oiled, especially the firing mechanism. Dust and humidity will jam you up faster than anything."
"How long have you been shooting?" Alicia asked.
"Six months. Before that, I was a civil rights lawyer. Never touched a gun. Now I can't imagine not having one."
"Funny how things change."
"Not funny. Necessary."
Madison was helping Carol organize food supplies, both women cataloging cans and dried goods. Carol moved with the nervous energy of someone always watching for threats. Her husband Ed sat by their tent, drinking from a flask, watching his wife with proprietary suspicion.
Soon. Handle him soon. Before he hurts someone.
That night, I took first watch. Sat on a rock outcropping overlooking the camp, Glock in my lap, watching for threats that probably wouldn't come.
Below, people settled into routine. Campfires flickered. Conversations murmured. Children played in tents. Normal life, apocalypse edition.
Rick's tent was lit from within—I could see silhouettes. Three figures: Rick, Lori, Carl. Family reunion, interrupted by the end of the world. What do you say to your spouse when you thought they were dead? When they thought you were dead? When a month of grief and adaptation has to be unpacked in hours?
Shane's tent was dark. But I could see him sitting outside it, staring at Rick's tent, hands fisted, jaw tight.
The affair. Lori slept with Shane, thinking Rick was dead. Now Rick's back, and she's trapped between two men. Classic love triangle, except with zombies.
I'd watched this play out on TV. Watched Shane descend into paranoia and violence. Watched him try to kill Rick, fail, become a walker himself. Watched the whole tragedy unfold.
Can I stop it? Should I stop it? Or is Shane's corruption inevitable?
No answer. Just the darkness and the stars and the weight of knowing too much.
Alicia climbed up to join me around midnight. "Can't sleep?"
"Someone needs to keep watch."
"Dale's on the RV. He's got binoculars and everything."
"Extra sets of eyes don't hurt."
She sat beside me, pulled her jacket tighter against the cold. "This place is weird. Organized, but tense. Like everyone's waiting for something to break."
"They are. Leadership conflict, resource scarcity, constant threat from the dead. It's all breaking points waiting to happen."
"And we just walked into it."
"We walked into a functioning community. That's more than we had before."
"Is it? We had the cabin. Had Strand's boat. We were mobile, independent. Here we're dependent on people we don't know."
"Interdependence is survival. Solo living means solo dying."
"That's cold."
"That's realistic."
We sat in silence, watching the camp. After a while, she asked, "What Glenn said about Atlanta. About the walkers avoiding you. Is it true?"
"You were there?"
"I heard him talking to Nick about it. Nick told him to let it go. But he noticed too. Said you moved through the horde like it wasn't there."
"Glenn sees patterns that aren't there."
"Or he sees patterns you're hiding."
"Same thing."
"Jax—"
"Alicia, please. Some things are better left alone."
She studied me for a long moment. "You're keeping secrets. Big ones. And eventually, they're going to come out."
"Maybe. But not tonight."
"When?"
"When it won't get me killed."
She accepted that. Or pretended to. Hard to tell in the darkness.
Below, Shane emerged from his tent, walked to Lori's. Knocked quietly. She came out, and they talked—too distant to hear words, but body language clear. Argument. Accusation. Lori's hands defensive, Shane's aggressive. Then Lori went back inside, and Shane stood alone.
"That's going to explode," Alicia observed.
"Yeah."
"Should we do something?"
"Like what? Relationship counseling? They're adults. They'll figure it out or they won't."
"And if they don't? If Shane does something stupid?"
"Then we handle it. One crisis at a time."
She left around two AM. I stayed until dawn, watching the camp sleep, counting down the hours until the next disaster.
[ TIMER: 54:17:22 ]
Reviews and Power Stones keep the heat on!
Want to see what happens before the "heroes" do?
Secure your spot in the inner circle on Patreon. Skip the weekly wait and read ahead:
💵 Hustler [$7]: 10 Chapters ahead.
⚖️ Enforcer [$11]: 15 Chapters ahead.
👑 Kingpin [$16]: 20 Chapters ahead.
Periodic drops. Check on Patreon for the full release list.
👉 Join the Syndicate: patreon.com/Anti_hero_fanfic