A Night Without Sleep

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"Do you already have a plan?" Rick asked in a low voice.

He did not look at Evan. He stared into the fire.

Flames leapt in his eyes, bright and hot, as if he were already thinking through how to take the Prison.

"I found a target," Evan said. "No other survivors have occupied it. Walkers are roaming throughout the place."

"The good news is the fences and the interior are still intact. It's waiting for someone to take over."

"As for the plan... I think once we're there, we'll all know what needs doing. Right?"

Evan swept his gaze over the group.

Smiles appeared. Heads nodded almost on instinct.

Find the problem. Solve the problem.

That had always been how the Quarry Camp survived.

Nothing got to stand in the way forever.

Only then did Evan nod to himself.

Even with the 7 Days to Die system, he could not do everything. He could not be a caretaker responsible for every breath the group took.

His presence had not changed what this world was.

People who could not adapt would eventually be swallowed by it.

That tragedy had played out too many times already.

Every leader who built a survivor camp carried private grief and exhaustion behind them. They had all lost people.

Was it because they were weak?

No.

Sometimes it was because the leader became strong, the camp became strong, and everyone overlooked something small enough to seem harmless until it mattered.

Evan wanted to avoid that mistake.

Everyone in camp needed responsibility. Everyone needed to grow.

Instead of letting loss forge people into something harder, Evan wanted Rick and the others to grow strong because they had learned to protect one another.

So he would push them forward one step at a time.

He would make them fight for themselves and for each other.

Ten years from now, he wanted to be sitting beside a fire and seeing these same people around him.

By then, they would be unstoppable.

For now, the fire burned low and sleep crept in.

The informal campfire meeting broke apart.

People drifted back to their tents in twos and threes, smiling, teasing one another, their voices livelier than they had been in days.

The word Prison slipped into conversation again and again.

Each time it did, someone smiled.

The future felt possible.

Just as Evan had said, the old world had collapsed and everything had turned backward.

Before the outbreak, the word prison made people uneasy.

Now it had become the thing keeping this camp's spirit alive.

"Rick, Lori, you and Carl can use my tent tonight," Evan said, yawning with one hand at the back of his neck. "I'll make do in the truck."

Sleeping drunk in the barn had not done his body any favors. His muscles still ached.

"Thanks," Rick said, walking past with Lori and Carl.

After two steps, he stopped and looked back.

He stood there in profile, sincerity plain in his eyes.

"Soldier, anyone ever tell you you're actually a good man?"

"In any group, there's always someone who doesn't make much noise, but still carries more than his share for the rest."

Rick left the words there and went into the tent with his family, leaving Evan staring after him.

"A few days apart, and the first thing you do is get sentimental," Evan muttered, lifting the Stone Sledgehammer and heading toward the fire truck. "Something wrong with your head."

No one saw the small smile he failed to hide.

Some time later, knocking woke him.

Evan lifted his head and looked through the truck window. The sky was still black.

He guessed he had slept maybe forty minutes.

With a helpless sigh, he opened the rear crew door.

"Jim. What is it?"

It was Jim, the man who should have been bitten and dead back at the Quarry Camp.

Tall, thin, pale, he stood with the darkness behind him and expectation written all over his face.

"Sorry for waking you. I just wanted to ask... is that place real? The place you talked about?"

He was so humble about it that Evan's irritation faded by half.

Jim seemed afraid of being misunderstood, so he quickly added, "I'm not saying you're lying. I just... if you can tell me for sure, I might actually sleep tonight."

He stared at Evan without blinking. Hope practically spilled out of him.

Evan yawned and answered sleepily.

"Yeah. It's real. Somewhere south of here. Not especially close, but not impossibly far either."

His tone was perfunctory. He was exhausted.

But to Jim, those words brought color back into his pale face. He looked like someone had poured coffee straight into his veins.

"Thanks, Evan. Hope you have a good night."

Jim left more awake than before. Evan thought he saw the man grab one of Hershel's axes and go split firewood just to burn off the energy.

"Whatever. Let him."

Evan was too tired to care. His eyelids felt heavy enough to fall off.

He closed his eyes and dropped back down.

When he opened them again, the sky was still pitch-black.

"For fuck's-" Evan shot upright, then saw Beth and swallowed the rest. "Beth. What's wrong?"

The difference between the way he spoke to Jim and the way he spoke to Beth was so obvious it almost seemed like someone else had taken over his body.

Beth stepped onto the rear step of the fire truck with a folded blanket in her arms, her blond hair loose over her shoulders.

"Father asked me to bring you a blanket," she said. "It gets cold on the farm at night."

Her voice was clear and sweet. She held out the folded blanket with both hands.

"I'm tough. Cold doesn't bother me much," Evan said, taking it anyway. "But thank you."

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