Blood Moon Rising

New chapter is live.

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

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That night, Evan sat beside the campfire with a roasted chunk of meat in his hand, eating in large, steady bites.

The day's exertion rivaled what Atlanta had taken out of him, when the horde had nearly swallowed him.

Only after three large pieces of meat and a bowl of thin leaf broth did he start to feel human again.

When he finished, he noticed everyone in camp looking at him strangely.

"What?" Evan asked.

Amy sat beside him. "Do you always eat this much?"

The three pieces of meat he had just finished were nearly three days of food for her.

"Looks like we'll need to bring down bigger game," Merle said loudly, grinning at Evan in the worst possible way.

Daryl said nothing. After dinner, he quietly maintained his crossbow, making sure the old thing would not fail him tomorrow.

Andrea ate in silence and watched the small camp with a faint, private smile.

Once the seventeen Wood Spike Traps had been placed, she had felt something she had not felt in a long time.

Safety.

A small taste of home.

After the split at the Quarry Camp, they were down to only four or five people.

For reasons she could not quite explain, Andrea thought that might be all right.

After dinner, Hershel invited Evan into the farmhouse for tea. They talked about Greene Farm's situation for almost two hours before Evan returned to his tent.

Inside, he lay on his back with one hand behind his head and the other raised toward the canvas roof.

"Two skill points," he murmured. "Not a lot. Not nothing either. Put them both into Strength."

He tapped twice.

Warmth spread through his whole body, as if he had sunk into hot water.

Strength was a core attribute. It did not just make his arms swing the sledgehammer harder.

Evan felt his entire body improve. Things that had been difficult before now seemed almost easy.

Like the three walkers he had cleared for the farm earlier.

Chaining those swings and turns while staying balanced had required several muscle groups to work together at once.

If he had to name the difference, it was core strength.

[Strength Lv. 4/10]

[Rank: Softie]

[Strength and headshot bonus slightly increased.]

[Your spare tire might keep you from starving, but it does not help you swing a sledgehammer.]

[Strength Lv. 5/10]

[Rank: Fit]

[Strength and headshot bonus slightly increased.]

[Your body is healthy now.]

The next day, Evan slept until noon.

When he pushed himself upright, he almost felt weightless. He was on his feet before he had fully meant to stand.

The sudden improvement still took getting used to.

"Even happiness comes with problems," he said, humming under his breath as he put on his shoes and stepped out of the tent.

He had not even greeted Andrea before he froze like lightning had struck him.

Andrea came over, frowning.

Since meeting Evan, she had never seen that look on the man's face. It made him seem unlike himself.

Evan barely heard her. He lifted his head toward the sky and asked in a low voice, "Do you see the sky? What color is it?"

"Blue," Andrea said, looking up. "What's strange about that? The weather's nice."

It was nice enough that she had washed Evan's clothes from the day before and hung them out to dry.

"Right," Evan said.

His smile looked almost pained.

In his eyes, the endless sky was not blue.

He walked away from camp, rubbing at his forehead.

"Everything happened so fast after I woke up here that I actually forgot," he muttered. "Seven Days to Die. Every seven days, killing stopped being optional."

Today was the Blood Moon.

He looked up again.

It was broad daylight, yet there was no sun in the sky. Instead, a full red moon hung overhead, soaked in blood-dark light.

Evan could see the craters across its face with terrible clarity.

The Blood Moon waited in silence.

Even Evan had only fully understood it the instant he saw the sky.

"If the timing hasn't changed, the attack starts at midnight."

"This is only the first Blood Moon. The scale shouldn't be too large. The walkers shouldn't be too strong."

He sat in the grass with both hands on his thighs, thinking through it.

He had forgotten about the Blood Moon entirely, which was why the realization had hit him so hard.

And Blood Moon walkers would not be the same as the usual stumbling dead.

Even sitting under that red moon in daylight, Evan felt a restlessness pushing up from inside him.

It was not only driving the walkers.

It was driving him too, sharpening him, pushing his body into a heightened state for the fight ahead.

"I want to break something," he whispered.

His fingers itched against his thigh.

If anyone had looked closely, they might have seen a faint red gleam flicker at the bottom of his eyes.

For a moment, he looked like a man slipping into a battle frenzy.

Evan came back to himself and stood.

"No," he said. "I can't face the Blood Moon in camp."

The first Blood Moon's size and strength were unknown. If he let it descend on the camp, he could get the others killed.

Evan could suppress the infection with antibiotics.

For everyone else, those pills were only medicine. They would not save a person who had been bitten.

After a moment, Evan took the car keys from Andrea.

"I'm going out," he said. "Don't save any food for me."

He got into the car and drove east toward the nearby town.

By the time he arrived, it was about 3:40 in the afternoon. No matter where he stood, the Blood Moon seemed to face him directly.

The red haze in his vision had thickened. The moon overhead now felt unmistakably ominous.

He stepped out of the car and pressed a hand to his chest.

"Not my imagination. Even my heart's beating faster."

The Blood Moon was changing him bit by bit.

It made walkers violent.

It was doing something to Evan too.

He moved faster. The town was not small, and the raiders could not have stripped everything clean.

Before midnight, he needed one last round of preparation.

At 11:50 p.m., Evan sat behind the wheel and tugged his collar open, revealing crude wooden armor beneath the bulletproof vest.

[Wood Armor Set: Plant Fibers x5, Wood Planks x5]

It was rough, but it would provide some defense.

A cigar burned slowly from a slot in the wooden face guard. It was the mod he had earned from the motorcycle quest, and it gave him Strength +1.

His inventory was packed with food, medicine, and water.

He had found some ammunition, but no firearm. Only one smoke grenade.

Everything was ready.

Evan was not.

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