Marcus wiped the dagger on the dead man's clothes, slid it back into its sheath, and turned to find Merle and Lin Feng staring at him. He paused.

"...What are you two looking at?"

No, this was just genuinely weird.

Lin's confusion and shock, that he got. But Merle, what the hell was that look of admiration about?

What Marcus didn't know was that the last of Lin Feng's illusions had just shattered on the floor. He had now fully confirmed it: there was not a single non-combatant in this entire crew.

Day-who-knows-what of missing Rick. Whatever. Daryl was still up ahead keeping watch, so it didn't matter.

Lin Feng kicked the other man lying on the ground. Forced reboot.

"Mmph — gah!"

The man's eyes snapped open, a ragged cry tearing out of him, then Merle drove a rifle butt straight into his mouth, and that was that.

Well. Out cold again.

Lin Feng glanced over. "Merle... are you here to help or just to make my life harder?"

"Come on, little bro. This bastard doesn't go down easy. You didn't actually think your kick woke him up, did you?"

Merle shrugged, delivered another kick for good measure, and growled low:

"Quit playing dead, asshole. I don't want your name, and I don't care what you came here for. Right now you're going to tell me one thing: where's your camp?!"

The man drifted back to consciousness, eyes glassy, and breathed through what had to be unbearable pain. "Down below... the grass... by the creek..."

That was enough. Merle stopped dragging it out and gave him a quick end.

"So — not counting the guy who drove off — there are twelve left in the camp." Merle looked up. "Do we wait, or move now?"

"No rush. We can sit a little longer." Lin Feng kept his voice easy. "We're good people. We keep our word. Said we'd send every last one of them off, so we're not leaving anyone behind."

"Besides, these guys have no real discipline, and they're not running walkie-talkies for real-time contact. No reason to worry about them figuring out we dropped their sentries."

As he spoke, he drew the dagger from his belt and put a blade through each man's skull, eliminating any chance of them turning into walkers.

"Lin, what are you,"

Lin Feng wiped the dagger on the nearer corpse and said, offhand, "Long story. Short version: I once watched someone get shot dead, and inside half an hour the body turned into a walker and climbed right back up off the ground."

"Not just once. Anyone who dies without the brain being destroyed, they all get back up."

"Which means we've all been carrying this thing for a long time. Bitten or not. The moment you die, you become one of them."

His voice was quiet. But the words hit like a needle punching through something thin, the thin belief that surviving meant being safe.

Marcus's hand gave a sudden tremor. The grin on Merle's face went rigid.

"Hold on. Lin. You're not joking."

Lin Feng raised an eyebrow. "Messed up as it is, it's the truth. Don't believe me? We can stick around and watch. For now, though, let's go find where their nest is actually sitting."

He clapped them both on the shoulder, left the two of them standing there in stunned silence, and walked ahead into the treeline on the far side of the highway.

He didn't have to go far. He found Daryl crouched behind a tree, slowly working through an energy bar.

"Done?"

"Done. Creek-side clearing, twelve people in camp, decent firepower, pistols and rifles both. One more guy drove out to scavenge."

"One guy, solo?"

"Heh. Probably casing some farm nearby. Looking for someone easier to push around than us."

Daryl paused, let out a short snort, and nodded. "Lucky for him."

Lin Feng didn't push it. Just dropped down beside Daryl, dug an energy bar out of the pack, and chewed at the same unhurried pace, waiting for the other two to pull themselves together and catch up.

They didn't take long. Merle and Marcus came through the trees practically on his heels, both of them quieter now, a weight sitting behind their eyes that hadn't been there before.

"Alright. Everyone's here. Let's move, boys."

Lin Feng shoved the last of the energy bar into his mouth, chewed it down, and took a pull from his water.

Daryl said nothing and followed the ground tracks forward.

Nobody talked. The easy mood from earlier was gone, replaced by something heavier that none of them named.

They crested the small hollow, and Daryl stopped at the tree line.

Below the slope ran a creek, and beside the creek sat a grassy clearing packed with tents, more than a dozen of them, bright colors scattered against the grass. At the camp entrance, seven vehicles had been parked nose-to-tail as a makeshift barrier, with two armed men posted on top running overwatch.

Daryl did a quiet count. Nineteen. That gave a rough shape to what they were dealing with.

Lin Feng raised the binoculars and started a slower headcount. Two on the barrier. Three working a campfire. Two with fishing rods at the water's edge. Two more doing absolutely nothing in particular.

Nine visible. It didn't match the twelve from the interrogation.

Hidden sentries?

He passed the binoculars to Merle. Let the old hand have a look.

Merle took them with a subdued expression and swept the camp below. "No women... no children. Just men." A short exhale. "Yeah. That's them."

Merle lowered the binoculars and handed them back, tilting his head as he spoke.

"Weapons are probably in that tent at the southeast corner, better moisture protection over there. The ones we're not seeing are either sleeping or out collecting firewood. No real way to tell."

"Doesn't matter." Lin Feng pocketed the binoculars. "We've got time. We can wait."

Merle let out a quiet tsk. Knowing full well what Lin Feng was actually waiting for, and not feeling much like joking about it, Merle found a spot with decent cover, sat down, and rested.

The other two were no different. One a Hunter, one a doctor, neither had any shortage of patience.

They waited through the afternoon.

The engine sound came late, rolling in from the distance, and as the vehicle neared the camp entrance it pressed the horn twice, short, deliberate.

Honk. Honk.

Too brief for a greeting. It had the shape of a signal.

The two men on the barrier didn't raise their weapons. But their faces showed nothing either, no relief, no warmth. None of the easy expression that came with watching a friend come home.

"Hey, boys, I'm back! And I brought new friends!"

➤ Next: The King Descends from the Sky

Chapter 34 - The King Descends from the Sky

Miska pulled open the vehicle door and waved twice. Two accomplices hurried over.

"On this run, not only did I find a supermarket warehouse — I also brought back new companions for everyone!"

On the word companions, the mockery and malice in Miska's eyes spilled out almost completely undisguised.

"Oh! Holy shit! Where'd you get them?"

"Hahahaha, three complete idiots. I told them our camp had people, guns, women, and children, that we were building a big survivor group and asked if they wanted in. They actually believed it!"

"Hahahahahaha!"

The vile, raucous laughter carried clearly all the way up the hillside to Lin Feng, churning a wave of nausea in his gut.

Inside the vehicle, the man and two women still had no idea what was happening. They shoved the doors open and tried to run.

The instant the others spotted the two young white women, they gave chase and kicked them down onto the ground.

The middle-aged white man fared worse. First kicked to the dirt, then smashed over the skull with a gunstock. He went out cold.

"Dad!"

"No!"

"Hahahaha, look at that — they're father and daughters."

A burly middle-aged white man swaggered out of a tent with a rifle over his shoulder. He seized one of the women by the hair, yanked her in close, sniffed her, and stretched into a deeply sick grin.

"I'll bet anything she's still a virgin."

The woman twisted and fought, slapping furiously at the hand gripping her hair, raking her nails across it and drawing beads of blood.

He let go instantly. A hard slap sent her sprawling to the ground. He stood over her, spitting curses and slang, screaming in fury.

Around him, the others roared with laughter. Someone had already circled the second woman and was starting to tear her clothes off.

Desperate screaming and mocking laughter rolled across the empty camp, driving a spike through nerves that had no business being this raw.

Lin Feng lowered the binoculars. His face showed nothing. "That's why I've always believed rapists should be physically castrated on the spot," he said quietly.

A vicious smirk spread across Merle's face. "I swear, first thing when we get down there, I'm snapping every last one of these bastards' third legs. Then they can taste the barrel before I blow their brains out, one by one."

Marcus checked the AR-15's magazine, slapped it home, racked the charging handle, and clicked off the safety. "Lin," he said evenly. "They're all accounted for."

"So? What are we waiting for?"

"Then let's move. Stay safe, boys." Lin Feng grabbed the shotgun and started picking his way forward with Daryl.

Merle clapped Marcus on the shoulder and pointed out a large tree further down the slope, clean sight lines, good cover.

Marcus gave a nod, crouched low, and began moving down.

Merle lingered a moment. Hard to put a name to what was sitting in the chest right now, but the urge to use the gun in hand to absolutely destroy every last one of these men was about as strong as it got.

All four moved down the mountain fast. If anyone had still been keeping watch, they'd have spotted them closing in by now.

But these men, eyes gleaming with that sick, hungry light, had nothing in the world except the two girls in front of them. They were savoring every plea, every sob.

The snap of a dry branch underfoot vanished into the laughter. The dark shapes moving through the treeline disappeared into the lust clouding their eyes. Death's scythe had already settled quietly against their throats.

One of the bigger men roused the father, then turned back with a leer, stripping off his shirt as he sauntered toward the center of the circle.

In the very next instant, the noise swelled, louder shouting, louder pleas, louder wails, louder laughter,

Then a crossbow bolt punched straight through a man's temple.

He stiffened for half a second and dropped.

It was like a merciless iron hand closing around every throat in the camp. Every sound cut off at once.

The body lying in the dirt sent a cold wave rolling through them all.

"Ene—"

BANG. BANG. BANG.

Gunfire erupted from all sides. Marcus worked the outer perimeter with the AR-15, methodical and relentless, every shot dropped someone, hands clutching at wounds as they fell.

Merle was mid-stride when it kicked off. Stopped dead, raised the rifle, and started shooting. Every round connected.

The surviving thugs' eyes went wide with rage and terror. The quick-thinking ones abandoned the women on the ground without a second glance, sprinting for the vehicles, yanking out handguns, scanning frantically for the shooters.

The two men who'd been on long-gun sentry duty were already on the ground. Marcus had put them down before the dance even started.

"Fuck! Who are you?! What do you want?!"

The moment fear sank its teeth in, these wolves shed their pelts and came out shaking. They scrambled for any opening to negotiate, any chance to talk their way out.

Lin Feng and the others gave them nothing. With the exception of the man and two women on the ground, everyone else was getting put down.

Someone poked half a head out from the side of a vehicle. A buckshot round caved it in the next instant, brains painting the dirt.

Someone tried to blind-fire, gun out, body hidden. A crossbow bolt came from an angle that had no business existing and nailed them to the sheet metal.

Then the shooting stopped.

From Daryl's first bolt to the last shot: under thirty seconds.

Lin Feng took point with the shotgun. Merle on the left, Daryl on the right, a tight wedge pressing forward through the camp.

What none of them expected was the white man with blood sheeting down his forehead. He pushed himself off the ground, scooped up a handgun from the dirt, and started putting extra rounds into the bodies already lying there.

Lin Feng said nothing. But the shotgun was already tracking him.

The moment that muzzle swung their direction, even a hint of it, he wouldn't hesitate.

People needed saving. That was never a reason to put his own team in someone else's sights.

Fortunately, the man was just venting. When the magazine ran dry, he kept squeezing the trigger anyway, click, click, click, empty and not stopping.

"Hey. Buddy." Merle's muzzle drifted toward him as Merle spoke. "If I were you, I'd drop the gun and get flat on the ground."

The rage in the man's chest was too loud to hear anything else. He shook off the daze and started pawing at the ground, looking for another weapon.

The muzzle's angle tightened.

The older sister had her arms around the younger one. Her pupils snapped narrow. "No! Dad! We're safe! Stop!"

That cry cut through everything.

The father froze. Two, three seconds, just standing there.

Then he turned and ran to his daughters and pulled them both in, and broke down completely.

➤ Next: Andrew's Family — The Turning Point