Early the next morning, after breakfast.

Rick stared at Lin Feng like he'd seen a ghost. "What the fuck? You're running out alone again? To Atlanta?!"

Seeing Rick swear — an actual rarity — Lin Feng felt a little sheepish. But he nodded anyway. "I need to swing by the gun store. We've got enough brass and bullets right now, but gunpowder, primers, and reloading equipment are running low. Got to make a run."

Rick's expression didn't change. Because honestly, Rick had never seen a leader quite like Lin Feng, one who loved disappearing outside for a day or two at a stretch. Leader. Sure. More like a recurring missing-person report.

"Can't you... take a couple people with you?"

"Alone I move faster. Fewer things to worry about. Higher efficiency."

Lin Feng glanced toward the scavenging team and patrol team in the distance, tilting his chin up slightly. "Besides — you really think we can pull anyone right now?"

They'd already slotted Andrea into the patrol rotation despite being half-trained, paired up with Michonne. The people who actually had the combat skills and the steady, ruthless mindset to handle this kind of work? Not exactly sitting around with nothing to do.

Rick's brow stayed knotted, eyes fixed on Lin Feng.

Rick had seen responsible people. Rick had seen irresponsible people. But this, someone being slightly irresponsible precisely because they were responsible, that was a first.

A camp leader heading out alone to scavenge supplies. What kind of operation was that?

Anyone who didn't know better would think their camp had no capable people left.

But things were what they were. Rick couldn't say much more. Just nodded. "Fine. Stay safe out there. Radio if anything comes up."

Yeah. Getting Lin Feng to take Crane's lightweight long-range communicator, that was already Rick's maximum concession.

The camp had basically been built around Lin Feng. Nothing could happen to this guy.

Lin Feng nodded and clapped Rick on the shoulder. "Camp's in your hands. I trust you."

Rick shrugged the hand off, not quite managing to hide the smile. "Cut it out. That doesn't work on me."

Lin Feng grinned, gave a small nod to Carol by the cook fire, hauled a crate of gasoline into the truck bed, and drove straight out of camp.

Beth stood up on the watchtower, eyes tracking the pickup's retreating shape until it shrank to nothing at the edge of the horizon.

Beth had known Lin Feng's plan before Rick did. Last night.

This trip was a single vehicle, no high-risk cargo in tow, so Lin Feng drove fast, foot barely off the gas the whole way. He made it inside Atlanta before noon.

He found a tucked-away spot to park, ate a couple of cans in the cab for lunch, then climbed out and pulled the gasoline crates off the truck bed into the storage space.

If he came back from a scavenging run to find the gas gone, walked off by someone, that would be a spectacular kind of humiliating.

Lin Feng's mind conjured the image with zero effort: Merle rolling up to collect him, not shutting up about it for the entire drive back.

He shook his head and pushed the thought out. Pulled out the rough hand-drawn map Glenn had sketched, made a quick comparison against his surroundings, got his bearings from the landmarks, and started making his way toward the nearest gun store on foot.

Atlanta was exactly as it always was. Dead and desolate. Abandoned vehicles jammed the streets, trash cans tipped over, billboards standing crooked, paper drifting, and walkers everywhere, moving through it all like they owned the place.

Because they did now, apparently. What a world.

He jogged at a steady pace, eyes never stopping, scanning ahead, sweeping side streets, picking routes with the thinnest walker presence. Sneaking along like something was following him.

Hard to help it. This wasn't some edge-of-town backwater. Get surrounded in here and the local residents' enthusiasm would be a very real problem.

He was passing an abandoned gun store when he stopped.

Through the thick, grime-fogged glass, he could make out two figures inside. Still upright. Still pacing. Like elite mobs set to guard a loot chest.

What else was there to think about? Go in. Small shops in this state usually still had something worth taking.

He pushed open the wooden door. The creak cut through the silence, and both wandering shapes turned almost in unison and started toward him.

Lin Feng stepped in. He kicked one hard, sending it down, then drove the Bowie knife through the eye socket of the other and twisted.

Pulled the blade out. Walked to the next one. One more, done.

He turned and shut the door behind him, then began his sweep.

The shop was a mess. Toppled wooden shelving, empty display cases, brass casings scattered across the floor, dark dried bloodstains smeared on the walls. Tsk. Could have been ransacked by Goons, no real difference.

He moved to the counter and reached under the lip. Pulled out a Glock 19.

He racked the slide. Clean, crisp click. Workable.

Tossed it into the storage space and kept searching.

Back corner: a few boxes of.22 LR, and half a box of standard 5.56mm NATO. He swept them in without hesitation. On the floor, several hunting knives, same deal, straight into the space.

Storage was big. And without a blacksmith back at camp, without proper industrial equipment, the rule was simple: take what you find and sort it out later.

Blacksmith. The thought snagged on something. A vague shape flickered through Lin Feng's mind, a face he couldn't quite pull into focus. He was pretty sure Rick's group had crossed paths with one at some point.

He turned it over for a while. Nothing surfaced. He let it go.

One more pass through the shop turned up two boxes of carbon-fiber crossbow bolts, tucked away under something. Short bolts, looked like crossbow-specific. Not bad. A gift for Daryl Dixon on the way back.

He checked deeper inside for a back room or storage area. Nothing. He pushed out the door and kept moving.

Half an hour later, Lin Feng had ticked off Glenn's landmarks one by one and finally had eyes on the target.

He crouched behind an abandoned car, dragged his sleeve across his forehead, and studied the gun store entrance.

Walkers. A lot of them, packed around the front of the shop, faces gray-white, pupils flat and dead, low snarls and rattling hisses bleeding from their throats. Other walkers drifting past kept getting pulled in by the noise, like a magnet. A miniature horde, right there on the block.

He let his gaze drop. Brass casings covered the ground around their feet.

Sunlight slipped through gaps in the mass and caught the scattered brass, throwing short flashes of gold.

Someone had been here recently. Things had gotten loud. Based on the shell count, not a small group.

Lin Feng was still counting the walkers when something through the dirty glass stopped him.

Two walkers inside the store. Both flat on their backs, on the floor. Arms and legs moving, but not going anywhere. Like turtles flipped upside down, limbs working helplessly at the air.

Wait.

Turtles?

He raised his binoculars. One small adjustment, and the picture sharpened.

Those two couldn't get up because they were wearing backpacks. Massive ones. Stuffed absolutely to capacity.

Lin Feng's breath caught.

Those packs were visibly straining at the seams. He didn't need to think hard, there was definitely something inside. Weight alone was the tell. Without the coordination to manage that kind of load, these walkers couldn't even roll over. They were pinned by their own cargo.

And this was a weapons shop.

Large packs. Extreme weight. Gun store.

The odds that those bags were full of weapons and ammunition were very, very good.

Packed that full meant one of two things: whoever loaded them was greedy as hell, or there had been enough supplies in there to fill them honestly.

Either way, he was going in today.

Shame he hadn't brought the recurve bow. Cruder methods it was.

➤ Next: A Mysterious Entity Not to Be Provoked

Chapter 114 - A Mysterious Entity Not to Be Provoked

"Clang~ Clang~ Clang~"

At the entrance of an alley not far from the gun store, a rhythmic metallic tapping against stone rang out, steady, measured, just loud enough to carry to the storefront.

Lin Feng worked the Bowie knife unhurriedly, eyes locked on the horde of walkers shuffling toward him.

He'd already counted them. Thirty-seven, between the storefront and the small shops scattered along the alley.

The walkers heard the sound and turned, drifting toward the alley in that slow, lurching way they moved, gargling low and meaningless in their throats.

Lin Feng slid the knife back into his waist sheath, turned, and walked deeper into the alley.

He'd already swept it clean. He'd even found an iron chain to lock the wire mesh gate on his way through.

Not exactly airtight security. Better than nothing.

He reached his spot, chambered a round into the suppressed M4, and settled into his aim.

Seconds later, the walkers stumbled in. One shambling step after another, they filed into the killing ground he'd picked for them.

When the range felt right, he started pulling the trigger. The M4 thumped steadily, each shot a muffled thud swallowed by the alley walls.

The sound didn't carry far. Acceptable.

Spent casings kicked out and clattered across the ground. Heads burst one after another. Every shot dropped something. Bodies folded and hit the pavement like grain going down before a scythe.

If he somehow missed at this range, Lin Feng thought, he might as well go experience what it felt like to leave a building the fast way, three seconds, straight down.

Ten seconds. He hadn't even burned through a full magazine, and it was already over.

At this range and density, a single round punching through two skulls in a row was practically routine.

He blew a low, flat whistle, swapped the magazine, and stepped out of the alley over the sprawl of bodies.

Blood-smell was already rising in the dimness behind him. The world outside was wide open.

Lin Feng crossed the street in a few long strides and pushed through the storefront door.

Six walkers inside snapped their heads around simultaneously. Meaningless snarls rolled from their throats like a dinner bell going off, and they all lurched forward at once.

He didn't flinch. Gun up, finger moving fast, four muffled thumps in quick succession. Casings rang off the floor. Then the dull, heavy sound of bodies going down.

Two were still moving, flopped on their backs, arms and legs working uselessly at the air. He looked at them for a moment with something close to amusement.

He turned and bolted the front door.

Then he pulled the Bowie knife and walked over.

He crouched, lined up on the eye socket, and pushed the blade down.

Pfft. Pfft.

Two strokes. The two walkers — bodies already partially ravaged, skin ridged with bite marks — stopped moving all at once. Like machines with the power cut. Total stillness.

He sheathed the knife and crouched over the nearest body. Unbuckled the straps, hauled the backpack free with a bit of effort. Something shifted and clinked inside.

He unzipped it. Handguns on top — several of them, along with two Remingtons. Underneath, box after box of ammunition: pistol, rifle, shotgun, all different calibers and mixed types.

Hard to count exactly. The pack weighed around forty pounds all in.

Lin Feng stared at it.

For a moment, his mind went blank.

Then the surprise hit him.

What the hell?! There was still a massive cache of factory-loaded ammunition sitting in this gun store?

He stored the first pack into his inventory and moved to the second body. Unbuckled it, pulled it open. Three AR-15s, one Remington, no handguns, every remaining inch packed with more ammunition.

Heavier than the first. At least fifty pounds.

Lin Feng frowned.

Neither of these loads made sense. A normal person carrying that much weight would be fighting their own body the whole way, slow, unstable, center of gravity all wrong. Easy pickings for any walker that got close enough to grab.

Unless these two hadn't been fighters. They were haulers. A vehicle waiting outside. That would track, same playbook as whoever had stripped that warehouse earlier. Sort the priority gear first, load everything onto the truck, drive it home.

So far, so good.

But this spot was maybe ten steps from the front entrance. Why had these two died in here?

And they'd had weapons in their hands. Why hadn't they used them? Why hadn't they finished the job and cleared the place out?

That made no sense at all. People don't walk away from a full gun store. Not voluntarily. Not when they're already inside.

Unless something outside was bad enough that they'd rather run and leave their own people behind.

Something they couldn't deal with.

The thought settled in Lin Feng's chest like cold water. His expression went flat.

He stood up and looked at the other four walkers. Hard to make out their faces, but male, all of them wearing work clothes. Probably store staff.

Muscle decay was severe. The filth and dried blood caked into their clothes looked months old. Early-outbreak, most likely.

He ran through it in his head, piecing the scene together.

A group finds the store. Rich in supplies. They organize a haul, start pulling the good stuff, loading up.

Then something shows up. Something they can't handle. Decision gets made fast: abandon the ones still inside, get to the vehicle, go.

The two unfortunates left behind never got targeted by whatever was outside. But they panicked. Instinct sent them deeper into the store, looking for cover. They didn't stop to think about what might already be in there.

The walkers got them before they could recover. Dragged down. Couldn't get back up. That was that.

Lin Feng drew the Bowie knife and pulled a high-powered flashlight from his inventory. He headed toward the back rooms.

Before the outbreak, the lights would have still worked. Now the grid was dead and the interior was pure dark.

The flashlight beam swept across the floor. Four or five walker corpses lay in scattered heaps. Around them: spent casings, and loose rounds that had rolled free during the haul.

He counted the casings. Over twenty. Close to a full magazine.

Whoever had been here before was either terrified or a bad shot. Probably both.

He moved the beam.

It landed on a door at the back of the room, swung wide open toward him.

Something cold moved through him.

"...Holy shit."

The door handle gleamed silver in the flashlight.

And ringing it, a circle of blackened, filth-caked handprints.

Those walkers outside hadn't been left out there. They'd walked out themselves. They'd opened the door and walked out on their own.

➤ Next: A Packrat's Scavenging Session