Three Roads South

New chapter is live.

Settle in, take your time, and let's see what waits in the dark 🖤

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Evan stood beside the dead campfire, holding the food Andrea had brought him.

Carol sat quietly across from him. Aside from the redness around her eyes, there was almost no trace of the grief from earlier.

The camp ate in silence. Only spoons tapping metal mess tins broke the quiet.

"What the hell is everybody sulking for?" Merle snapped. "We won."

He gave a mean little laugh. "A few hours ago, we were helping shove walker heads up their own asses."

As he spoke, he looked toward T-Dog with clear malice and shifted his feet like he wanted another round.

They had already fought once that morning. Merle had gotten T-Dog on the ground and started pounding him. If the camp had not pulled him off, T-Dog might not have survived it.

"Merle," Shane said, frowning. "Can you shut up for five minutes?"

Shane already had enough weighing on him.

His girlfriend was gone. The boy he had started thinking of as his own was gone. His best friend was back from the dead.

If Merle mouthed off now, Shane looked ready to beat him until he forgot how to stand.

Assuming Daryl did not get involved.

"What do we do now?" Amy asked suddenly.

The question was for everyone, but her eyes drifted toward Evan.

"Maybe we should hear everybody out," Dale said.

As the oldest man there, Dale was good at giving people room to think. He did not like making enemies, but he also would not casually let someone else decide whether everyone lived or died.

When he finished, he looked pointedly at Shane, Rick, and Evan.

As for Daryl and Merle, anyone with eyes could tell neither brother was in the mood to offer a useful plan for the whole group.

"Okay, listen," Shane said, stepping forward. "Maybe we should go to Fort Benning. I heard it hasn't fallen. It's about a hundred miles from here."

"We pack up now, keep moving through the day, and we can make it in three days, tops."

"There, we'd have the Army watching our backs. That's a hell of a lot better than scraping by on our own."

He spoke like the answer was obvious, but he watched people's faces as he said it.

When he looked at Rick, then at Evan beside him, his tone softened a little, turning almost into a question.

With Rick back and Evan now in camp, Shane seemed to understand that his position had shifted.

More than that, though, he cared about his old friend.

Rick.

And Rick's wife and son.

Rick pressed his lips together, thinking. "The CDC might be a better choice."

"Nobody's talking about it, but who knows? Maybe they found a way to fight the virus."

"We've got people who can fight, and we've got weapons and ammo."

"But not everyone here can defend themselves. We have children and older folks counting on us."

"If the CDC has any kind of cure, we'd find protection there too."

"Maybe that's where this starts to end. Maybe they've figured out what this is. Maybe they know how to stop it."

Rick looked each person in the eye as he spoke.

By the time he finished, hope had taken hold of more than a few faces. Even Dale's pale eyes brightened beneath the brim of his fishing hat.

Rick had sold them exactly what they needed most.

Safety for the women.

Rest for the old.

A place for the children to sleep without waking up to teeth in the dark.

Glenn adjusted the brim of his cap and drifted a little closer to Rick's side.

Compared with Shane, Glenn trusted Rick more. He would rather put his life in Rick's hands.

At least when it came to rescuing people, Rick had never backed down.

Shane had been much more willing to leave people behind.

When Shane and Rick finished, the eyes of the camp shifted toward Evan, Merle's included.

They had known him only since the day before, but he had shown a level of force few survivors could match. More importantly, he had been thinking about the group from the start.

Without Evan's suggestion and the bag of weapons from Atlanta, a lot of people standing here might have died.

At the Quarry, Evan's opinion already carried weight.

"Hmm." Evan was quiet for a moment, weighing it.

He had the advantage of knowing what came next. Naturally, he knew the safest place nearby.

But he did not have the authority to overrule everyone in the camp.

When a group had three competing voices, the result was usually division and resentment.

Even if Evan made his case, he would probably only be able to take part of the camp with him.

And a split group taking the Prison was one problem.

Holding it was another.

The number of walkers inside the Prison was uncertain. Outside the fences, more would arrive every day, tireless and hungry.

To face that, Evan needed the entire Quarry Camp behind him.

Maybe more than that.

Would Rick change his mind because Evan suggested something else?

Probably not.

Rick had only just found his wife and son. He would choose the option that looked safest on the surface.

After a moment, Evan spoke.

"When I was moving with an Army convoy, I saw a farm not far south of here."

"It's well off the road. Out in the country. Almost hidden, like a pocket the world forgot."

"We could go there. The woods would give us natural cover. The farmer knows medicine and farming. Food would be easier to secure."

Evan let the idea sit.

He knew the farm was not as convincing as the Prison, but the Prison could wait.

He needed time to grow stronger.

Besides, Rick's group would end up at the farm sooner or later.

The farm.

The CDC.

Fort Benning.

With three choices laid out, the camp looked from one person to another. The thought of changing their lives all at once left them uncertain.

Fortunately, the camp was not short on leaders.

There was Shane, cold and decisive.

Rick, kind and rational.

And Evan, ruthless toward the dead.

The decision came faster than expected.

Rick's group consisted of Lori, Carl, Dale, Shane, Glenn, Carol, T-Dog, Jim, and Jacqui.

At first, Shane fought the decision hard.

Rick held his ground. Then Lori made her choice.

She was going to the CDC with Rick.

Carl was going with her.

Shane folded almost immediately.

"Then I'll go too..."

"You'd better mean you're going to the CDC," Evan muttered.

Then he turned toward his own small team.

Daryl and Merle sat on their motorcycles and twisted the throttles, impatience written all over them.

The custom Honda CB750 and the second modified cruiser were more than enough for a medium-distance move.

Andrea sat behind the wheel of a seven-seat minivan. Amy leaned forward from the row behind her, smiling brightly as she waved at Evan.

"All right," Evan said. "Four people. That's enough. Any more and I couldn't look after all of you properly."

He studied the first members of his own group and nodded, satisfied.

Then his gaze moved to the two small red cars off to the side.

A man in shorts and a light vest stood beside his wife and children.

The Morales family.

Evan shook his head to himself.

'You couldn't save people from choices they were determined to make.'

The family stood there like a final photograph waiting to be taken.

Evan or Rick could have kept them alive.

Instead, they were still set on chasing the hope of relatives who might not even be alive, as if the road would be kinder than the people already beside them.

Did they even understand what they were running toward?

Later, that family would fight hard to survive.

It still would not save them.

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