The brush shifted again, and then a figure pushed through carrying a white-tailed deer across his shoulders.

Merle.

He glanced down at the walkers on the ground, then over at Lin Feng standing to the side, and let out a laugh that was bigger than it needed to be. "Oh, holy shit — has our Butcher Boy opened for business again today?"

Daryl stepped out from behind, took a quick look at the cut marks on the downed walkers, and gave Lin Feng a slight nod.

The older Dixon was a reckless bastard. But the eye was still sharp.

Lin Feng rolled his eyes at Merle.

"You should be thanking me for clearing the path home. Otherwise you'd have had to drop that deer and run. If you were lucky enough to make it back in one piece, you'd spend the rest of the night huddled under your blanket in the dark, crying into your pillow."

"Hahaha! So shouldn't your Uncle Merle reward you with a big thick hind leg?"

Lin Feng flipped him off, rolled his eyes, and left it at that.

"Well, well, well." Merle turned and pointed lazily at the walkers scattered across the clearing. "Little bro — our officer over there doesn't look like much either, does he?"

Shane had just dropped the last walker and buried an axe in its skull. Shane turned to look at Merle still lugging that deer, and there was nothing friendly in the look.

Shane had worked hard to clear every threat from this camp. And for that, sarcasm. It landed on resentment that had been building for a long time.

Shane hated that Rick hadn't died in that hospital bed.

Shane hated that Lori hadn't spared a single glance since Rick came back.

Shane hated watching the whole camp orbit around Rick like he was the sun.

Why?

Shane was the one who had kept them alive. Shane cleared the threats, day after day, while Rick was lying unconscious somewhere. So why did Rick get to walk back in and take all of it without even trying?

Rick picked up on the shift in the air and moved forward immediately, turning to Merle.

"Hey. You got grievances, bring them to me. Like I said, I'll answer for leaving you on that rooftop. That's on me. But that's not a reason to stand here throwing shade when people are out here working."

Merle snorted and didn't bother looking at Rick. Attention had drifted to Shane, and something like anticipation flickered in the look.

The way Merle saw it, if Shane actually made a move, that would answer one question fast, whether Lin Feng was really in Merle's corner, or just saying the words.

Silence settled over the clearing. A standoff without a word spoken.

Lin Feng glanced around, then said, "Daryl, can you teach me how to skin a deer?"

Rick looked over at Lin Feng, something unreadable in the expression, and gave a small nod.

That was enough. Merle had nothing left to push against. Without a word, Merle dropped the deer in the center of the camp and walked off toward the tent alone.

Daryl moved over to Lin Feng's side. One quick look to confirm no injuries, then: "Good knife work."

Lin Feng blinked, then smiled. "It gets the job done. More than enough for things that don't think."

Daryl nodded and headed toward the deer in the middle of camp to start breaking it down.

Shane came around to the side, axe hanging from one hand, blood and filth coating both arms, voice rougher than usual. "Not bad. But I don't want trouble stirred up in this camp. I'll be watching you."

Lin Feng laughed, short, sharp. "Officer, in a world like this, you'd do better watching yourself."

A beat of silence. Then, with just enough weight behind it:

"After all, not everyone needs you keeping an eye out for them. Do they?"

Go ahead. Who's afraid of getting called out?

Come on, let's see who blinks first.

Shane's eyes shifted. Just slightly, just for a second. But it happened. Something about this Asian kid made the hair stand up, like he could see straight down to what Shane had buried and never said out loud.

Still, Shane held the ground. "Maybe you want to test that. But before you do, I'll put a hole in your head."

Rick stood there watching the two of them square off and didn't quite follow what was happening. Instinct kicked in and a hand came up to push back the hat and scratch at the head, but the hand landed on nothing. No hat.

Lin Feng smiled and turned away, not giving Shane's threat a second thought.

Arguing with someone like that was pointless. Shane wasn't the type to be talked into anything. Shane would have to see it, confirm it personally. Anything else and it would just look like running your mouth to shut someone up.

An action type at the core. Just, on the surface, a few degrees less volatile than Merle.

Lin Feng did a full sweep of the clearing, checked that every walker was down and done, then knocked on the RV door.

Dale's head appeared at the window, rifle cradled in both arms, a sheepish smile on the face, the look of someone who knew they hadn't been much help. "Lin, all sorted?"

Lin Feng nodded with a smile. "All clear, Dale. Safe to come out. Watch your step, though."

"Oh — thank you. For everything you do for this camp. I believe they will."

Dale pushed the door open and climbed down.

Standing there looking at this kid, young enough to be a grandchild, there was something that needed to be said. "You work hard, son. I hope God keeps looking after you."

"Thank you. I hope He does the same for you."

They shared a brief hug, and Lin Feng carried the knife over to where Daryl was working.

The skill was something else. Watching Daryl process that deer was like watching someone who had done it ten thousand times, every motion deliberate, nothing wasted. The blade ran clean and even, and the whole hide came free in one unbroken piece. Then the gutting, the offal cleared out, the knife finding each joint and parting it without force. One complete white-tailed deer, broken down before the impression of it had fully settled.

As Lin Feng came over, Daryl didn't look up. "Took long enough. Faster next time. And bury that pile, leave it out and you'll draw things in."

Lin Feng raised an eyebrow. The corner of his mouth came up slightly.

Good sign. That was Daryl making room for him. Treating him like he belonged here.

He looked down at the discarded offal. "None of this is edible?"

He could have sworn deer heart and liver were perfectly fine to eat.

Daryl's knife paused. The look that came back was genuinely strange. "You'd eat organ meat?"

Lin Feng scratched his head. He'd forgotten, Westerners didn't really do that. Not even a hunter like Daryl, born and raised in these woods. Not when there was other food around.

Now, when things got lean enough, freshly dug earthworms counted as real protein.

He gave the pile one last regretful look, then dug a hole and buried it.

After all the noise, most of the camp had lost its appetite anyway. Which only meant more for the handful of men who sat down and ate like they'd earned it, because they had.

➤ Next: Each Has a Choice

Chapter 6 - Each Has a Choice

Lin Feng bit into a strip of roasted venison and gave Daryl a thumbs-up. "Whoa — good. This is easily the best roasted venison I've ever had."

Daryl's hands paused. No reply, but the corners of the mouth tugged up just a little.

Merle sat off to the side, grabbed the whiskey bottle, and tilted a swig into the mouth. Let out a belch, then said without any ceremony:

"Come off it, little bro. You've never even eaten roasted venison before. What, you think you're gonna play my dumb little brother for a fool?"

The upward curl of Daryl's mouth dropped flat again. "Shut up, Merle. Don't want to eat, then get the hell out. Nobody's gonna think you're a mute if you keep quiet."

Merle didn't care in the slightest. Reached over and grabbed a half-raw piece of venison, chewed it with loud relish, then flashed a mouthful of big yellow teeth and said with a smirk: "You telling me what to do? Come on — I'm the older brother."

Daryl held back the urge to fling the skewer straight into Merle's face. Instead, pulled the fully cooked skewer off the fire and passed it over to Lin Feng. The look said everything: eat up, don't bother with the drunk.

Rick and Shane didn't get that kind of service. Both were working their own skewers, the meat smudged with ash and looking a little charred around the edges.

Whatever else could be said, Carl, at least, looked mildly unimpressed with the cooking.

Lin Feng took the skewer and asked, keeping the tone casual, "So where are we headed next?"

Shane's hand stilled slightly over the fire. "What? You're not satisfied here?"

Lin Feng looked up and met Shane's eyes directly. "Are we supposed to stay here long-term? Then why don't we have even the most basic defensive structures? Any kind of early-warning system?"

Shane's face went a little red in the firelight. It was a fair point, and a real oversight.

Walkers had never come this far before, so nighttime security had been loose. During the day, it was basically Dale up on the RV with a hunting rifle, keeping watch.

Better than nothing. Not by much.

Dale finished salting a mostly-cooked skewer and passed it over to Carl, then spoke in an unhurried voice. "Maybe it's time we did shore up our defenses. We have children here, after all, don't we?"

Dale, the camp's resident peacemaker who never liked stepping on toes, had offered an opinion. And aimed it straight at the camp's other core concern: the kids.

Neither Carl nor Sophia had any ability to hold their own against a walker. Even running had its limits at their age.

Run into one, and it was probably a death sentence.

Merle suddenly let out a short, sharp laugh and glanced over at Daryl.

The original plan had been to spend the next couple of days robbing this camp blind with Daryl, then the two of them would move on somewhere else.

The reason was simple. After all this time, Merle saw no hope in this place.

Shane, who was supposed to be leading them, only had eyes for Lori and Carl. Everyone else might as well not exist.

The lookout was a gray-haired old man. And the meat they'd been eating had basically all been hunted by Merle and Daryl.

The fact that they'd survived this long came down to one thing: the location was remote, well off the beaten path.

In other words, pure luck.

Merle could even picture it. If Merle, Daryl, and Lin Feng hadn't been here tonight, how many more would have died in that quiet little raid just now?

Two? Three? Maybe more?

Rick looked up and turned toward Lin Feng. "So. Lin Feng, do you have any better ideas?"

"Short-term, this place isn't bad. But we need to build some basic defensive structures, fences, tripwires, tin cans on a line. Something that makes noise.

At the very least, we need to be able to sleep through the night without walkers strolling into camp."

"Long-term? This place won't hold. Forget stable food, industry, medical supplies, just talk about what's in Atlanta. The day that horde decides to move this way, we won't even have time to run."

A dozen-plus walkers had shown up out of nowhere tonight. Nobody around that fire doubted a word of it.

They'd found the Quarry Camp. Remote, off the map, far from the city, and they'd still found it.

Rick looked over at Shane. Shane didn't object. Rick turned back and gave a small nod, eyes locked on Lin Feng. "You're not wrong. So where do you think we should go?"

Lin Feng's eyes narrowed just slightly, and a small smile crossed the face.

A probe. Rick was testing him, checking whether he had some angle, some ulterior motive.

Not unreasonable. First day at camp, walkers hit in the night, and now the newcomer was already pushing for relocation. That kind of thing made people think.

But Lin Feng wasn't going to play coy and wave it off with some non-answer. Not when the future leadership of this camp was on the line.

Giving people something was always better than strong-arming them.

"I'm planning to spend the next couple of days collecting enough food and weapons, then head south. The climate's better down there. There should be somewhere worth staying long-term."

Dale blinked. "You mean — a farm?"

"Exactly. Open ground, fencing already in place to keep out intruders, a stable water source, crops, agricultural infrastructure already built."

The Prison had crossed Lin Feng's mind. Thought it over and set it aside. Clearing it out would cost too much. Holding it would cost more. Not with the people they had right now. So nothing was said about it.

Shane's eyes shifted. "I heard Fort Benning Military Base hasn't fallen. We've got enough people now. Get a little more fuel and firepower, push through a hundred miles, we'd be under military protection."

"The CDC might be worth considering too. If they're already working on a cure for this, then the first group to arrive would be the first to receive it."

The moment Shane said it, something moved across the faces around the fire. Dale, Glenn, T-Dog, all of them. Eyes lit up, sharp and sudden, as if those words had reached something buried deep.

Because the picture Shane painted was almost unbearably appealing.

It wasn't just a destination. It pointed straight at the thing everyone carried but rarely said out loud: the possibility of an actual end to this. A way back to the world they'd lost.

And right then, Lin Feng understood something clearly. Rick Grimes hadn't become this group's leader by accident. When it came to morale, to giving people a reason to keep going, Lin Feng knew there was no matching that.

Still.

➤ Next: Agreeing to Head into the City