Retrieve the Motorcycles

New chapter is live.

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

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"Don't rush."

"I already told you. We came as friends."

Evan smiled, not offended by Hershel's attitude.

Then his eyes narrowed slightly. "If I'm not mistaken, more walkers have been showing up around the farm lately, haven't they?"

Hershel's fingers twitched.

Evan was right.

The barn was already nearly half full of walkers. Before long, there would not be room for more.

Recently, more and more of the dead had been wandering near Greene Farm, and Hershel had not been able to understand why.

Now he looked at Evan as if he was willing to listen.

Evan set his small cup on the coffee table and walked to the living room window. He parted a few slats in the blinds and looked out.

A walker was drifting in from the distance, gray-white eyes staring at nothing as it shuffled forward.

"The cities aren't quiet anymore," Evan said. "There's almost nothing left for them to feed on there. The walkers are starting to move toward the suburbs and the countryside."

"Millions of them, maybe tens of millions, are on the move."

'What?'

Hershel's heart lurched. Instinctively, he looked toward his family and saw the same worry in his daughters' eyes.

"Why should we believe you?" he asked.

Panic churned in his gut, but his face revealed almost nothing.

"Believe me or don't. I just walked out of Atlanta. I was surrounded by a horde there. I know exactly how terrifying these things are."

"Right now, it's only beginning. One walker here. Two there."

"Within half a year, a migrating horde will find this place. How long do you think your farm can hold?"

Evan turned back.

Hershel went still under Evan's stare.

The picture formed in his mind as Evan spoke.

Flat land in every direction.

One farmhouse standing exposed.

The dead did not tire. They did not feel pain. Given enough bodies, they could flatten every board of this place.

His family would become meat under their teeth.

"What do you suggest?" Hershel asked.

His face was still hard, but Evan knew he had yielded.

Hershel was a little like Rick.

And not like Rick at all.

Both men had families and burdens in a ruined world.

But Hershel did not have Rick's nerve or force of will.

He was too old.

This was not his era.

Evan let a friendly smile return to his face.

"We work together. You let us stay on the farm, and we help protect it. We'll clear the walkers that get too close."

"And these two friends of mine are good hunters," Evan added, pointing to Daryl and Merle. "If you put them to work instead of risking your own people, I think you'll like the results."

"Half the meat," Hershel said immediately. "You can camp beside the farm, but you don't bother my family or anyone else here."

He had already begun negotiating the meat.

"A third," Evan said calmly. "You get a third, and you trade food for it."

He met Hershel's eyes without blinking.

It was a lesson in how deals worked outside the farm.

Hershel ran a hand over the arm of the sofa.

Trading farm food for meat was not a loss. More importantly, Evan could handle walkers that came too close.

And if he relied only on Otis and Jimmy to hunt, who knew how long it would be before they ate fresh meat again?

The two men beside Evan, though...

Hershel looked Daryl and Merle over, then finally nodded.

"Deal."

He reached out and shook Evan's hand.

It almost looked like a civilized bargain.

Hershel prepared their first lunch in the farmhouse as a show of goodwill.

Afterward, Evan marked out a patch of open ground near the house, laid down a thin layer of boards, and set up tents and a butchering rack.

For a while, this would be their camp.

In the distance, two more walkers came wandering toward the farm.

Evan looked back at the farmhouse.

Hershel was watching through the window.

"Camp's settled," Evan said, stretching. "Time to get to work."

He picked up the Horse-Bone Sledgehammer and walked toward the dead.

He did not let Merle or Daryl handle it.

This was Evan's promise.

Of course, it was also experience.

Lone walkers were perfect opportunities.

After the fight at the Quarry, his Lv. 4 experience bar had been more than two-thirds full. If the next couple of days went well, Lv. 5 was within reach.

Evan reached the nearest walker, weighed the sledgehammer in his hands, and lifted the top-heavy weapon until it hovered beside the walker's skull.

He lined it up like a golfer taking a practice swing.

Then he swung hard through the target.

Thud.

The hit landed on the head. The headshot chance triggered, and the skull burst open.

Evan carried the sledgehammer through an arc over his head, using the momentum to smash the second walker in the chest and drive it to the ground.

Crack.

He turned and brought the hammer down again, snapping the shin of a third walker closing in from behind.

Then he finished the two fallen walkers with six or seven heavy blows to their skulls.

Three walkers down.

Inside the farmhouse, Hershel lowered the binoculars and stared at the others in disbelief.

The brief display left everyone inside staring.

Evan's movements were not light or elegant, but the violence in them was enough to make a person swallow hard.

Relief appeared on the faces inside the house.

The deal had been made.

The stronger Evan was, the safer they were.

That much was undeniable.

Back at camp, Evan nodded to the others.

"You're free to move around. Hunt, wash clothes, cook, look for the bikes, whatever needs doing. One rule: don't bother Hershel or his family. That's the deal I made."

Once the others agreed, Evan went to the farmhouse and knocked.

Beth opened the door.

She looked Evan over again, curious. "Did you need something else?" she asked quietly.

"Hershel, one more question," Evan said, lifting his chin toward the man behind her. "Besides your people, do you know of anyone else nearby?"

"Not really. We rarely leave the farm. There's no one else nearby. If there are people anywhere close, they'd be in the town east of us."

Hershel answered honestly.

Evan thanked him and left the house, nodding to himself.

If his guess was right, the people who took the motorcycles were probably that group.

The details would have to wait until he met them.

Evan took the keys from Andrea and drove back alone along the same route, returning to the place where they had slept the night before.

That was when a soft chime sounded near his ear.

An orange marker leaped into his vision.

[Apocalypse Quest: Retrieve the Motorcycles (Fetch Quest)]

Evan froze for half a second.

"Didn't expect quests you normally get from a trader to show up like this," he murmured. "Saves me some work, though."

A smile tugged at one corner of his mouth.

Far ahead, an orange exclamation mark hovered in the distance.

By the game's logic, that exclamation mark was the quest location.

Which meant it was where the motorcycles were.

[Quest Target Located]

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