What Evan Built

New chapter is live.

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

✦

After Rick finished recounting what had happened over the last few days, he looked at Evan and Daryl and finally asked the question he had been holding back.

"What about you?"

Rick studied the people who had split from the old Quarry Camp.

They looked shockingly well, and not just because they had food and clean clothes.

It felt as if they had found something to look forward to again.

Hope.

'If Jacqui had followed Evan back then, would she still have chosen to die?'

"Us?"

Evan and Daryl exchanged a look.

Daryl fought down a smile and kept poking the campfire with a twig.

Evan turned back with an open, honest expression.

"Nothing special, really."

"Enough food. Enough water. A stable camp. Friendly neighbors. That's about it."

When he said friendly neighbors, he deliberately glanced at Hershel and his family.

In a world like this, Hershel was one of the few genuinely decent people left. Kind. Merciful. Old-fashioned in ways that still mattered.

But the basic conditions Evan described as nothing special sounded very different to everyone else.

Lori held Carl close and looked at Sophia. A flicker of envy crossed her face.

Sophia had only spent one day at the farm, but she already looked healthier.

Poor Carl had been dragged through dirt and fear for days before finally getting one hot meal.

Worry tightened Lori's expression.

Dale, sitting nearby, adjusted his fishing hat and stared at Evan with widening eyes.

"You have that much food and water?"

They had fled the CDC in a hurry, chased by walkers with barely time to breathe. Without Daryl and Merle, their two best hunters, they had almost run dry.

Even the RV, their old reliable shelter on wheels, had nearly given out and had been left temporarily on the road.

A snort came from behind them.

Merle could not help himself.

He drew everyone's gaze toward the fire truck and jabbed a finger at it.

"Ward searched that town east of here by himself for two days and nights. Damn near filled the whole truck. Brought back enough food to feed us for half a year."

"Now that y'all are here, I'd give it two months tops before we need another run."

It was rude.

It was also true.

For once, even Shane stayed quiet under Merle's jab.

It was becoming clear that Evan was the reason they were doing so well. Everyone reassessed his value to the group.

Food. Water. A place to sleep without waking up to teeth at your throat.

For survivors beaten bloody by the end of the world, that was already a kind of happiness.

Daryl tossed the twig into the fire and decided to speak.

"Me and Merle's bikes got stolen on the road."

"Evan took us to the camp that stole 'em. Got the bikes back. Taught those people a lesson while he was at it."

"What survivor camp?" Glenn asked before he could stop himself.

He had always been the team's living map. Quick feet, good memory, and a talent for going places most people could not.

They had crossed over from the highway while searching for Sophia, met Daryl midway, and followed him to the farm.

But in Glenn's memory, there had been no survivor camp. Only aimless walkers.

"Near the town center," Daryl said, chewing a strip of meat as he remembered. "Two-story square building. Boxy place."

Glenn's heart lurched.

'That place?'

He could not forget the survivor camp packed with bodies. Everything useful had been stripped clean. Nothing remained except corpses with their skulls smashed open.

Hearing Daryl describe it sent cold sweat down Glenn's back.

'There were almost twenty people there. Bullet holes everywhere. Evan took two men and wiped that place out?'

It was almost beyond Glenn's understanding.

He was certain that in the first twenty-some years of his life, he had never seen anyone that dangerous.

When he looked at Evan again, there was a new thread of fear in his eyes.

If Glenn knew the camp had originally held closer to thirty people, and that Evan had used Berserkers to break almost half of them himself, he would have been even more shaken.

'They did all that in just a few days... while we were running for our lives.'

That thought moved through almost everyone who had come with Rick.

Even Shane became more careful when he looked at Evan.

Evan still carried the same intimidating presence.

In the apocalypse, people could survive without many things.

But they could not survive without someone dangerous enough to make others think twice.

A man like Evan did not even have to act. His presence alone was a warning.

"It wasn't much," Evan said with a faint smile. Evan noticed every reaction, no matter how small. "They left us alone, we left them alone. They didn't."

'If they knew I still had half an inventory full of guns and a mountain of stacked food, they'd really lose their minds.'

He did not bring those supplies out.

First, the group was not ready. Evan had only been with the Quarry Camp for a few days before they split, and they still needed time to become one team.

Second, it was not the right moment.

They were not starving, and no major enemy stood at the gate. The important supplies in his inventory were better kept as an emergency reserve.

Aid that arrived in a crisis was different from generosity no one had learned to value.

Evan had let Daryl talk because he wanted his influence in the group to keep growing.

Important, then indispensable.

Until, eventually, the group could no longer imagine itself without him.

Rick, Dale, and the others nodded slowly at Evan's answer.

"That's right," Dale said. "If they don't come after us, we don't come after them. That's a good rule."

Then he leaned forward.

"Do you have any other plans? Any suggestions?"

It was the same question as before, asked more directly this time.

Only this time, Dale did not call for a vote. He asked Evan directly what he thought.

By now, the facts were difficult to deny. Evan had shown better judgment and more capability than anyone else in the group.

✦

✦

✦

Want to keep going?

You can read ahead on my Patreon, with early access, previews, and extra story updates 🔑

https://www.patreon.com/c/EliasVane