The sun climbed until it hit its peak, and the temperature climbed right along with it.

Maggie and Patricia headed back to the cabin to start on lunch.

Tending the charring stakes fell naturally to Hershel Greene. The old man's cheeks were flushed red from the heat, but those hands never stopped turning the wood for a single second.

Merle finished the last haul with Otis and Jimmy. After gulping down a few mouthfuls of water, Merle dropped straight onto the dirt and sat there panting hard.

Staring down at a palm covered in bloody blisters, Merle let out a string of curses. "Holy hell. This ain't work fit for a human being."

Beside Merle, Jimmy had gone completely quiet, slumped on the ground, eyes half-shut, face a little pale.

Then there was Otis, who seemed to be running on a perpetual motion machine. One sip of water and Otis was back on the shovel, hammering away at the foundation pit like nothing had happened.

Breathing rough but steady. Every movement methodical. Every stroke even.

Lin Feng was bracing a perimeter board when he glanced across the work site and couldn't help it, he just shook his head in quiet amazement. The guy was practically Superman.

The bushes off to one side rustled. Daryl pushed through and emerged from the thicket with a half-grown wild boar slung over one shoulder, forty pounds, give or take.

There wasn't much satisfaction on Daryl's face, though. More like someone who'd stumbled into something they didn't want to find. The expression was tight and a little dark.

Lin Feng looked away from the work site, shook the barricade board to test it, and once he was satisfied it held, spoke up. "What happened? You run into trouble?"

Daryl set the boar down and looked at Lin Feng. "Out in those woods," Daryl said, voice low. "I think there are walkers that can run. The tracks weren't old — maybe two days."

Lin Feng's pupils tightened. "You sure?!"

"I'm sure. My tracking doesn't lie." A beat. "Those prints... no normal human left them."

"How many? Which direction?"

"Two. Headed north. The tracks ran deep into the forest. I didn't follow."

Lin Feng nodded. "All right. This stays between the few of us. No reason to start a panic."

Daryl understood and said nothing more. Then, in what had to be a first, Daryl walked over to where Merle was sitting, bummed a cigarette, and lit up.

Lin Feng stared at the tree line. A thread of unease worked its way through him before he could stop it.

Daryl's search range for a single morning couldn't have been that large, and that was at walking pace. Yet those two walkers had been running through the woods, and hadn't come anywhere near the people. That was too deliberate to be coincidence.

Controlled? Or had something else out there drawn them away, something more appealing than a camp full of survivors?

Lin Feng cast back through what he remembered of the source material. In one of the spin-off stories, someone had been experimenting with walkers as biological weapons, but that was years into the collapse.

Was it starting now?

His gaze drifted toward Marcus without him quite meaning it to. And suddenly, the idea didn't feel so far-fetched.

After all, this doctor and this daughter had never shown up in the original show.

Marcus caught Lin Feng's odd look and frowned. "Lin? Something wrong?"

Lin Feng shook his head. "Nothing. Pick up the pace, everyone. Noon — no break. Let's get the rest of the sections finished as fast as we can."

The urgency in Lin Feng's voice was something no one had heard from him before. The group exchanged glances, and without another word, hands moved faster.

"Lin." Hershel Greene's voice came from nearby. "What's going on? You look like you've got a lot on your mind."

Lin Feng looked at the concern on the old man's face and took a moment. "Things aren't quiet out there right now, Mr. Greene. We need more preparation. More of the security risks dealt with."

Hershel went still. Eyes moved to Daryl, then back. "Does this have something to do with what he brought back?"

"Yes."

Hershel's lips moved. Something tried to come out and didn't make it.

A quiet desolation settled over the old man's face.

"Lin." The voice was careful, hesitant. "This unknown virus — there'll be a cure for it, won't there?"

Lin Feng knew what Hershel Greene was looking for. Comfort. Even a thread of hope. Even something vague, something diplomatic, something that didn't close the door all the way.

He shook his head anyway. Steady. No softening.

"Mr. Greene, whether a cure exists, I don't know. But I believe that even if one does, it won't work on someone who has already fully turned."

"By the most basic logic of biology, every living organism needs to eat and drink. It needs energy and water to function. It has an instinct to seek what helps it and avoid what harms it."

"Those things feel no pain. They don't need water. They know nothing except opening their mouths for flesh. They stopped belonging to that category a long time ago."

Lin Feng's voice didn't waver.

"Because even reduced to just a head, they still hunt. They still snap those jaws. Whatever that is, it isn't human anymore."

The words landed like a blade. Clean. No hesitation.

They cut straight through the mirage Hershel Greene had spent all this time building around himself, and what fell away in their wake made the dignity the old man had worked so hard to hold onto look like something pitiable.

Hershel's shoulders trembled faintly, holding against something. "You... already knew. Didn't you."

It wasn't really a question.

Lin Feng nodded. "To be honest, if I could, I'd want to give this more time. Approach it more gently. Walk through it with you properly."

"But I can't look away from this anymore. There are millions upon millions of walkers out there. With numbers like that, it's not surprising that some of them change, mutate in ways we don't fully understand yet."

"I don't know whether any of those mutated individuals might be something more. Something with intelligence. Something capable of directing ordinary walkers through pheromones, or some other means we haven't accounted for." A pause. "I don't know. And I'm not willing to bet our lives on the answer."

"What I do know is that home has to be safe."

Lin Feng stopped. He didn't look at Hershel Greene again, turned instead toward Beth and Cathy, and when he spoke, his voice had dropped to something quieter.

"Mr. Greene. There are two kinds of pain in this world. One is called an accident. The other is called regret."

"Don't let tomorrow's regret be the price for today's accident."

He patted Hershel's shoulder once, then turned and walked back into the work.

A long time passed.

Eventually, Hershel Greene looked up.

The old man's gaze traveled out across the distance, settling on the barn.

Something sat in those eyes that wouldn't dissolve, a grief and a remembrance wound together so tightly they couldn't be separated. Lips moved without sound, shaping words no one else could hear.

One tear slipped free. Then another.

They fell, hit the ground, and soaked quietly into the earth.

➤ Next: Close the Doors, Leave None Alive!

Chapter 24 - Close the Doors, Leave None Alive!

That afternoon, the group finished repairing the farm fence and drifted back to their own lodgings. Only Lin Feng and Hershel Greene lagged behind, walking at no particular pace.

The old man looked dazed. Out in the field, the corners of Hershel's mouth had lifted once or twice — a brief, private smile, as though some pleasant memory had surfaced.

It never lasted more than three seconds before sinking again, leaving Hershel's face blank and still.

Lin Feng understood Hershel's fixation on family. Understood it, and it changed nothing. The safety of the people in this camp came first.

When Lin Feng's gaze settled on Hershel again, that was all it took. The old man deflated like a punctured balloon, the dignity, the composure, the sheer effort of holding it all together, gone at once.

"Lin... I know. I know." Hershel's voice dropped to something close to pleading. "Just give me a little more time. I need to say a proper goodbye to them. Can I do that? Please, Lin."

The tone hit Lin Feng somewhere uncomfortable. He nodded. "I'm sorry, old man."

"Don't apologize, child." Hershel's voice was low. "You were right. We can't pay for today's mistakes with tomorrow's regret."

A pause.

"I just hope God is still willing to take in these lost believers of His."

Hershel spoke those last words quietly, expression hollowing out, and walked toward the barn alone.

Lin Feng didn't follow. Didn't try to stop it either. This was the last bit of dignity the old man had left to keep, and it wasn't Lin Feng's to take.

---

Back at camp, Merle had pried open several cans of beef with a hunting knife and was wolfing them down alongside a tin of fried beans.

Daryl looked up when Lin Feng walked in. "Settled?"

"Settled. Tomorrow, barring anything unexpected."

Daryl nodded and left it at that. After eating quickly, Daryl moved off to the side and got to work smoking the wild boar meat.

Roasting it or throwing it in a stew would've done fine, but among the men here, if you were being honest about who actually cooked it well, it still came down to Daryl's barbecue.

Lin Feng ate his canned beef without tasting much of it.

Day three of missing Carol Peletier.

Merle hauled up some well water, wiped down, then hunted down Marcus to get the burst blisters on both hands wrapped. After that, it was straight to the tent to sleep.

A full day of logging. The irritable man hadn't thrown a single tantrum, hadn't cut a single corner. Merle had worked steady and solid the whole way through, which was, frankly, nothing like Merle.

Merle was trying to change. Maybe for Merle's own sake. Maybe for Daryl's.

It didn't matter which. The fact that Merle was doing it was enough.

The night passed without incident.

---

Early the next morning, Hershel came to camp alone and led Lin Feng and the others toward the barn.

"Lin." Hershel's voice was quiet. "I hope you can make it quick. Let them suffer as little as possible. Please."

Lin Feng understood. He nodded. "I will."

Then he turned, gave a brief nod to his two demon guardians, and the three of them walked into Hershel's barn.

Hershel stood outside with head bowed, both hands clasped together, murmuring softly.

Marcus, standing guard with a gun, listened. A prayer. For Lin Feng and the others to come through safe. For the family inside to receive forgiveness. For God to accept them.

A flicker of pity and sympathy crossed Marcus's face.

It didn't stay long before it hardened back into vigilance.

Nothing was ever going to threaten Cathy's safety again. Nothing.

Inside the barn, bowstrings snapped. Bodies hit the ground with dull, heavy thuds, one after another.

Hershel's murmuring grew faster. The old man's shoulders trembled, and tears tracked down from the corners of both eyes.

It didn't take long before Lin Feng and the others walked back out, side by side.

---

An hour later, sparks caught in several dug pits, and gasoline and dry wood went up together. The flames climbed high and fast. A simple cremation, nothing more.

Lin Feng and the others didn't stay for what came after, the collecting of remains. That part was too painful to witness. It belonged to Hershel alone.

Cathy was left in Beth Greene's care. Then the group loaded up their weapons and drove out of camp toward town.

Marcus drove the pickup behind Merle's vehicle. Lin Feng was leaning against the window, somewhere inside his own head. Marcus didn't interrupt.

By now, the group had their footing on the farm. Firmly. Real influence, too, geographic advantage and the trust of the people already in place. They had favorable ground and the goodwill of those around them.

All they were missing was the right moment.

Lin Feng's eyes opened.

He grabbed the walkie-talkie. "Merle. Turn around. Forget the nearby town — we're going to King County."

"What? You sure?"

"I'm sure. You remember that gun bag Rick had? My bet is those weapons came from the police station there. There should be more left."

"...Alright, pal. That argument works for me."

Merle swung the vehicle around at the next fork and pointed them toward King County.

"How do you know there are enough weapons in the King County police station?" Marcus asked.

"I don't know for sure. But it's got to beat a farm supply town, doesn't it?"

Lin Feng wasn't about to explain that Rick had gone back there later, looking for exactly this, only to find Morgan Jones had already cleared the whole place out.

But that hadn't happened yet.

His now.

They kept to back county roads, same as always. A few roadblocks and abandoned vehicles forced them out of the car to clear the way, but luck was on their side. Three and a half hours later, they rolled into King County.

Thinking about the stretch when Morgan had been operating in full unhinged-survivalist mode, Lin Feng picked up the walkie-talkie. "Merle. If you spot any man-made traps or barricades up ahead, report it immediately."

Merle didn't know what Lin Feng was watching for, but the walkie-talkie clicked. "Copy that, pal."

The vehicles kept a good pace, and the police station wasn't hard to spot. The group pulled over two hundred meters out.

Stepping out of the vehicle, Daryl raised one arm and dropped a walker with a single arrow.

Lin Feng climbed out from the rear door.

No recurve bow this trip, just a handgun, a fire axe, and a short blade. For range, silent was covered by Daryl and loud was covered by Marcus and Merle. Firepower wasn't the issue.

What the situation needed was someone to put walkers down quietly, up close.

"Move, move, move. Time's short and the haul could be big, people." Lin Feng paused. "If luck holds, we might even drive two police cruisers back."

Merle's eyes lit up at that. Not the same warmth as talking about motorcycles, something more warped. A need to conquer something that had once had power over Merle.

Merle flashed a grin full of yellow teeth. "Then I'm definitely finding out how one of those feels to drive."

Lin Feng and Marcus both looked over.

"Don't give me that look, pal. You spend enough time riding in the back of police cars, you start wondering what the front feels like too."

"..."

Lin Feng rolled his eyes and moved out front. Fire axe in hand, clearing the path. Daryl fell in at the rear, watching Lin Feng's blind spots so no walker could get the jump on him.

Merle and Marcus covered the flanks, ready to return fire if any other survivors decided to make trouble.

After cutting through several buildings, Lin Feng spotted it: a small walker horde pooling in the street ahead.

And beyond them, their destination. The King County Police Department.

"We punching through?" Merle asked, already eager.

"If we punch through, how exactly do we drive the cruisers out?"

That landed. Merle dropped the idea.

Driving a police car home was, in fact, very appealing right now.

The group looped around, skirted the horde, and slipped in through the front entrance.

Lin Feng looked around.

"Usual rules. Close the doors. Leave none alive."

➤ Next: You Think This Place Is My House?