Nightfall was well upon them.
They had driven far down highway 520, pulled from the safety of the city by a signal rising not far off, billowing heavily up into the early evening sky. It burned black for the longest time in thick, heavy plumes high into the air as dusk began to settle over the coastline... a dark omen to the denizens of the city not far from it.
It especially frightened the impoverished and desolate who crowded into the filthy streets of the outer-ring between shacks and makeshift camps. Like a hive of angry bees they swarmed, stalling in their productivity, entranced by the steam of black rising into the dusky sky. This in turn sent the overseers into full hostility as they blared harsh dictation over the loudspeakers for the crowds to disperse and the denizens to return to work. They would get no additional warning before the overseers utilized dogs, heavy riot shields and tear gas to push them back to their productive places.
The Hunters were frenzied, as well. The militiamen hurried to fortify the defenses around the wall as every able bodied soldier geared for a potential siege. Threat level orange, their radios would announce, heavy with anticipation. They needed to be ready for anything.
The outer-ring denizens who toiled the lands around the city claimed they had heard something like an explosion or a bomb going off, far out in the forest, strong enough that they had felt a tremor in the earth. They were absolutely convinced they were under attack. They flooded the long bridge between the land fitted for farming and livestock toward the city cradled by the sea in utter panic, forcing the officers to shutter the gate, trapping the lowly workers outside of the safety of the Hunters' protection.
The denizens would swear the time had finally come when they would be set upon by marauders... but the men of the militia knew better.
You would have to be well out of your fucking mind to attempt a siege on the city by the sea, and would need a sizable army to even think of trying to cross the Sidney Lanier Bridge into the Three Rings of Hell. A simple band of raiders would die on that bridge long before they made it through to the city without impressive numbers, and some serious artillery.
It was assumed by the higher ups that the signal burning into the sky either burned uncontrolled and accidentally, or that their missing party was sending a desperate call for aid. Bravo Team had gone silent almost four hours back after reporting themselves less than ten miles out and headed toward the coast, following up on a lead around an overrun, podunk town of little significance between here and Jekyll Island.
The details they offered were vague. Scout relayed the message via radio with delighted anticipation of possibly rounding up the first survivors through the area in nearly six months and salvaging much needed supplies. He was eager to prove himself. It was his first trip out as a Hunter, after all, he was desperate to contribute to the cause.
Alpha was visibly tense.
This wasn't a man who typically wore his heart on his sleeve, so it was honestly a little unsettling to the volunteer party he commissioned at the last minute to go out past curfew to bring them back. He had the authority and the pull with the Council to borrow a vehicle for the extraction--a very, very expensive flex, betraying his position as one of elite members of the Core party. It was also betraying his emotional connection to the situation. Nobody risked their lives or the lives of their men in the dark for shit that wasn't important to them. He wasn't really hopeful for the best of outcomes, when they set out into the early winter night.
As the old black Jeep sped down the barren, overgrown road, the men with him were silent, and still. They were Hunters all, and dressed as such in protective all-black attire with heavy munitions and lightweight armor that did wonders if you happened to get pinned down by the biters while you were out in the wilds. Their faces were concealed by masks that allowed for only their eyes to be seen. They would move like shadows in the night.
It had been nearly a year since anyone had been sent out to extract anyone.
The territory was claimed, it was known by the neighboring communities as far north as Virginia, and as far west as Arkansas. The settlements under their protection--the Farm at Sterling and the hold at Jesup to the north, and the commune at Kingsland to the south reported nearly nothing regarding any nomadic communities nor stray survivors... only the massive slow roaming herds which were significantly less intimidating than in earlier years, but still very viable threats to men on foot. They did not have fuel to waste on anything but tribute runs, these days. Fuel had become the most valuable asset in these waning days, since the fuel yard incident a few years back.
The glory of Three Rings was that there was little need to leave anymore. The tribute shipments came in every Monday, like clockwork. The communities in their territory did not rebel, and kept good on their part of providing livestock and goods in exchange for supplies that only a functioning city could provide and, of course, protection from raiders... as long as they were left in peace, things ran smoothly.
The situation was so much better under
her
command than they had ever been with Craven leading the Hunters...
The fact that she preferred
not
to cannibalize captive survivors but rather put them to work did wonders for her approval ratings, and the city's productivity as a whole. She did her best with the chaotic design the men who held the city before her had set into place here... and they had grown from paltry numbers, barely fifty, to nearly three hundred denizens.
The roads were rougher the closer they came to Hickory Bluff, cluttered with abandoned cars of those who had attempted to flee the area and became jammed behind accidents and the outbreak, so many years ago.Several times now they passed by gatherings of clothing and bones picked bare long ago, mass graves for those unfortunate enough to be caught in the madness of day one. They weaved through the chaotic remnants of the early days of the end of the world, as best as they could, until they could go no farther.
Coming from the north, they had to inevitably halt at the crowded overgrown military blockade, and avoided the clusters of the dead pushed away from the small town by the scent of smoke. Scent was all that the reanimates had to go by, and so in the face of heavy clouds of burning, they scattered like roaches beneath the light. The blockade however would allow them to drive no farther.
They weren't more than a mile perhaps from the still smoldering structure shooting heavy clouds of now white smoke up into the air, by the time of their arrival. Daylight had faded into nothing, now. Alpha didn't speak. He used hand signals the men were trained to identify to dispatch them in two teams to sweep and clear the area... and off they went.
Calculated gunfire, exceptional aim--the Hunters were swift and efficient. The three men razed over the old coastguard safe zone in soundless formation, with handguns suited with silencers. The semi-automatic rifles were reserved for hordes of more lively walking corpses, or human threats, but they had not seen such horrors for many years... there weren't enough survivors anymore to have to worry about freshly fallen reanimates.
It took maybe thirty minutes for the entire safezone to be deemed secure. It seemed someone had done a lot of the work for them much earlier on.
