Late at night, in an abandoned residential district of Atlanta.

Crane was on the radio with Rick, walking through the progress on Lin Feng's end and letting Rick's group know everyone was safe so they wouldn't worry.

Marcus stepped out of the room and pulled the door quietly shut behind him. "Ate something. Asleep now."

Sitting on the sofa, Lin Feng nodded and let out a slow breath.

The person who'd tried to rob them while half-trying to die was named Sunil, a technically-skilled deadbeat who'd been cornered by hunger and walkers until there was nowhere left to go.

Lin Feng felt some sympathy. Not much. Mostly what he felt was that Sunil was a rare kind of useful, the kind a camp could actually put to work.

As for blaming Merle, that was never on the table. Merle was the victim here.

"We've got the guns. Tomorrow we hit gun shops and shooting ranges, look for reloading materials and equipment. Glenn, you know this area. Anywhere you'd recommend?"

Glenn paused mid-bite on a can of food, thought it over, and said, "There's a big outdoor shooting range out in the East District. Good size, well-run back in the day — should still have what you're looking for."

Lin Feng took that in with a grunt. "You know the way?"

"Yeah. Delivered takeout there twice."

"Good. That's our stop. Casings, bullets, powder, reloading press, case trimmer, rotary tumbler, precision scale, primers, primer seating tools, tsk, this handwriting is absolutely awful. Next time I'm making someone else take notes."

Lin Feng stared down at the pulled-out notepad and shook his head.

Jade smiled slightly and said nothing.

To be fair, you couldn't expect people who made a mess of daily life to have decent handwriting.

"Glenn, think it through and sketch a proper map. Don't skip the gun shops either, the more tools we pull, the better. Once the camp fills out, women who can't do outside runs can work the reloading side."

Glenn nodded and went back to dinner.

After Lin Feng sorted out the night watch rotation, everyone settled in to rest.

The night passed without incident.

The next morning, Lin Feng's internal clock pulled him awake. He opened his eyes to find Orion and Abraham already up. Both gave him a silent nod, greeting done.

He stretched out his back, then picked up the notes and rough map Glenn had written out the night before. The precision was questionable, but as long as Glenn could read it, that was enough.

Six locations. The shooting range from last night, one shooting club, and four gun shops.

Lin Feng wasn't counting on much from the weapons side. Back when he'd swept Atlanta for firearms himself, the best he'd turned up was a Glock 19 tucked under someone's counter.

But the reloading materials and assembly tools in the storerooms should still be there. At this point in time, nobody was thinking about reloading rounds, everyone was still hunting for factory-finished product. That worked in their favor.

Marcus ducked inside to exchange a few words with Sunil, left a handgun for self-defense, and settled Sunil in for the time being.

Dragging someone still sick on a scavenging run was pretty much murder. Of course, Crane didn't count.

After Lin Feng and the others stepped out, Sunil lay back on the bed, expression hard to read, staring at the food and the weapon left on the table. Tears ran quietly from the corners of Sunil's eyes.

Lin Feng's group stashed the M2 and its mount in the room, started up with nothing loaded in, and drove east.

Glenn navigated from memory, calling out directions until the vehicle reached the city's edge and pulled to a stop near the outskirts.

Glenn pointed toward an old signpost. "Right here."

Lin Feng looked up. The dark green camouflage paint had started to peel and fade, smeared with grime and old bloodstains, but the text was still readable:

[Handley Outdoor Shooting Range, 200 meters ahead]

Abraham drove a knife into a walker's skull, shoved the body aside, and glanced over. "Let's go. No point standing around."

Lin Feng pulled his attention back and led the group into the cluster of abandoned vehicles. The street was dead quiet, broken only by the occasional low, wet snarl of walkers trapped inside cars they'd never get out of.

Two hundred meters, maybe a few minutes of walking. When they reached the entrance, the main gate was wide open, spent casings scattered across the ground.

Merle made a sound in the back of the throat. "Tsk. Looks like someone beat us here."

Orion crouched and picked up a casing, turned it over, brought it close and sniffed. "Powder scent is almost gone. This was at least two months ago."

Lin Feng walked through the gate. "Doesn't matter. We're not here for those anyway. Same rules as always, once you're inside, lock the gate, then get to work."

The newer members of the group weren't sure what that meant. Then they watched Marcus turn around, shut the gate, throw the lock, and give it two firm test-pulls to confirm it held. The whole sequence was clean and automatic, like muscle memory worn smooth.

Jade stopped. "Wait — you all weren't... robbers before all this, were you?"

Silence.

Orion glanced over, expression caught somewhere between skeptical and genuinely curious. He couldn't help it. That routine looked too practiced. Too much like the real thing.

Lin Feng's stride broke. He turned with a flat look. "When you were scavenging supplies, weren't you worried about someone walking in and shooting you in the back?"

The heat rose in Jade's face. "...Fair point."

Jade reached over and pinched Crane, who was right there poorly suppressing a grin. The look that followed was sharp enough to cut.

I can't touch him, but I can sure as hell touch you.

Crane skipped back, hands raised in immediate surrender, rubbing the waist with an expression of exaggerated innocence.

Lin Feng gave a quiet tsk and left it there.

"Split up. Merle, Daryl, Glenn, warehouse. Anything touching ammo or guns, you bag it and bring it."

"Crane, Jade, gun storage room. Any leftover firearms, maintenance kits, cleaning supplies, all of it."

"Orion, Abraham, sweep the personal lockers on the range floor. Find where they dump the spent brass while you're at it."

"Marcus and I will track down the reloading workshop."

"One more thing. If we run into other survivors, we deal with them as they come. If they come at you with hostile intent, old rules apply. Can't bring yourself to do it? Find Merle. That's it."

Crane looked up. "Hey — Lin, what are the old rules, exactly?"

Merle answered first, grinning. "What do you think? Put them down for good."

"...Put them down for good?"

"What, you'd rather let them walk out and come back with friends?"

Crane considered that, closed his mouth, and nodded.

As for not being able to bring yourself to do it, heh. Don't forget what Crane was before all this. An operative. It wasn't like those hands were clean.

➤ Next: The Club's Big Haul 1

Chapter 108 - The Club's Big Haul 1

The group walked toward the training ground together. Halfway there, Merle, Daryl, and Glenn split off, heading toward what looked like a warehouse.

The rest continued forward until they reached the chaotic front-desk lobby, where a floor plan hung on the wall. They took one look and went their separate ways.

Lin Feng memorized the map, then led Marcus toward the area marked as the workshop.

Corpses were stacked haphazardly the length of the corridor. Peak midsummer. Severely decomposed. The doors were sealed shut with no ventilation, and walking through it was sheer misery for Lin Feng and Marcus both.

Waves of indescribable stench drilled into their skulls, churning through their heads like an iron pestle grinding away at the inside.

Lin Feng kept the nausea down through sheer will. His grip on the knife hilt had gone white at the knuckles, hand faintly trembling. He pushed through the enclosed corridor fast, shoved the door open, and several walkers inside lunged forward like animals catching the scent of fresh meat.

"Fuck!"

Already irritated, Lin Feng exploded into a kick against the nearest walker, sending almost the entire cluster crashing to the ground.

The one at the far edge only staggered. It swung its arms and kept coming.

Lin Feng raised his hand and drove the blade up through its jaw, the tip grinding through the brain inside. The walker stopped moving, eyes fading completely to dull gray.

He shoved it off with his right hand, drew the blade clean, took two steps, and kicked the one that had just hauled itself back up, flat on its back again.

Then he stepped forward and finished them one thrust at a time until they were all down.

Done. He cursed under his breath, wiped the blade on the nearest walker, and slid it back into the sheath.

Marcus closed the door, watched the whole thing with a perfectly calm expression, then walked over to help search for supplies.

On a metal workbench throwing off a cold gleam sat several beakers, a precision balance scale, a pile of opened boxes, and a metal can.

The boxes held 9mm casings, bullets, and primers, the primers already moisture-damaged.

The can held granular gunpowder. The outer layer had visibly clumped from dampness and was useless as propellant. The material deeper inside might still be viable, but that would only be known after taking it back and loading it up.

Lin Feng stepped forward, opened his pack, and carefully transferred the beakers inside.

The precision balance scale was a different matter. Its whole value was in its accuracy, measuring exact weights down to the fraction. That same precision made it awkward to pack. Too delicate, too bulky.

For Lin Feng, though, that was nothing. The moment Marcus turned around, he made a show of tucking it into his backpack while quietly dropping it straight into his dimensional storage.

[Storage Space: After so many chapters, yours truly finally gets to make an appearance again.]

The casings and bullets went into the pack. The primers had taken on moisture and carried a misfire risk, so he left them behind.

Finally, Lin Feng looked over the remaining equipment on the workbench: a rotary tumbler, a reloading press, a case trimmer.

The trimmer could squeeze into the pack. The other two needed to be hauled separately. That would take some time.

Meanwhile, Marcus pulled several more boxes of casings and bullets from the workshop cabinets, plus an unopened five-pound container of smokeless powder and three foil-sealed hundred-count boxes of primers.

The first two were easy to handle. The last two required care. A hard knock could trigger an accidental ignition, and that kind of accident had a way of ruining everyone's day.

The two of them worked methodically, gathering and moving with attention. Across the facility, Merle's side had been equally busy, though not as smoothly.

The first warehouse they opened was stacked floor to ceiling with dust-coated junk. Not a single thing worth taking.

Merle left cursing, slamming the door hard enough to rattle it on its hinges and shake loose a curtain of floating dust.

Four more warehouses followed. Scrapped wooden planks. A dead lawnmower. Crates of paper targets. An employee break room someone had thrown together. Every kind of useless thing imaginable, and not one scrap of ammunition components.

Then they reached the fifth warehouse.

Merle jammed the scavenged crowbar into the latch and heaved. The lock snapped open.

This one was different. More than a dozen large iron cabinets stood in rows inside. The floor wasn't bare dirt, it was concrete.

Merle's eyes lit up. "Holy shit! I've got a feeling — this is it. This is what we've been looking for!"

Daryl and Glenn didn't answer. They just walked deeper into the warehouse.

The iron cabinets were secured with rusted padlocks. Merle wedged the crowbar in and pried hard; the latch gave with a crack. The cabinet door swung open, and a dry metallic smell rolled out, brass and old steel, unmistakable.

Inside sat a single large cardboard box. Heavy-duty reinforced type, by the look of it.

Merle shook it. A faint, dense rattle came from inside.

"Fuck! Finally!"

Merle dragged the box out, sliced through the sealing tape with the hunting knife at the hip, and opened it. Inside, a moisture-proof lining bag.

"Hahaha!" Merle laughed, slid the knife back into its sheath, and closed the box back up.

No need to dig further. That packaging style was its own calling card: factory-manufactured casings and bullets.

Glenn pulled a document pouch from a smaller cabinet, drew out a paper ledger, and flipped to the most recent date. Pupils tightening slightly.

"My god. If we bring this haul back — that's enough to keep us shooting for years."

Merle snatched the ledger over and stared at the figures, baring a mouthful of yellow teeth.

"Well, well, well. Little bro — say I take this whole haul and go kick Lin Feng's hide with it. Think he'd be pissed?"

Daryl frowned. "You been drinking?"

Merle's expression darkened. The ledger got shoved at Daryl. "Read it yourself."

[9mm Casing Balance: 43,963]

[9mm Bullet Balance: 43,965]

[5.56×45mm Casing Balance: 23,655]

[5.56×45mm Bullet Balance: 23,655]

Daryl read it through. A brief silence followed.

"What exactly are you celebrating? These aren't finished rounds. You can't fire a casing."

"And kicking Lin's ass, you forgot the last time he put a boot into you and sent you flying three meters?"

"Fuck! Bullshit! Two meters, tops. Not three."

"Fuck! What's the difference? A few dozen centimeters?"

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! You're no different, little bro!"

"I took an extra punch! That's the difference between us!"

Merle glared. Merle went red. Merle went quiet. Then descended into a sustained, mechanical, hysterical loop of a single word, fuck, fuck, fuck, on repeat.

Glenn bit down a laugh and took two steps back.

"Shouldn't we start moving this? An inventory this size is going to take a while."

Both heads swung around at once. "Shut up!"

Glenn hesitated one beat, then spread both hands in a shrug. "Alright. Carry on. I'll go report to Lin."

The two turned back. Three seconds of silence each. Then they started hauling.

That was the Dixon brothers' standard mode of communication: open with mockery, run it through a gauntlet of fucks, close in silence.

➤ Next: A Massive Haul at the Club, Part 2