The journey back was easy, though most of the people were packed like sardines in a can. I led in the truck again while Catherine followed in the sedan. When we arrived back at my manor I lead the women to the multiple bathrooms and allowed them to shower. The men had to wait until all of the women finished, Catherine’s orders. We had the men unload the truck and bring all our new supplies into the mansion. Blake complained to the other men who edged away from him when my eyes landed on the troublemaker.

“I should kill him.” I said to Catherine, just loud enough so that they could hear me. “He’ll be trouble in the future, and he seems useless, likely a coward. He was prisoner like the other men, but unlike them he has almost no wounds from fighting back.”

Catherine sighed and shook her head. “You can’t kill him. We’ll need every hand if we are to survive.” It was my turn to sigh, she wasn’t wrong, but I did not agree. The future was bleak, and we would need many humans, but for now I wanted Blake dead. The man seemed like the kind that would attack someone from behind or in their sleep. A snake and a coward, I had met a few over the years.

Catherine put her hand on my shoulder and gave a wane smile. “I’m going to go check on the girls, keep an eye on Blake if you are worried.”

I nodded and looked back over to the group of men. A thought occurred to me and I went inside, grabbing a small notepad and a pen. I stopped each man as they passed and asked them questions about their skills and their names, writing it all down in the notebook so I could refer to it later. I couldn’t be bothered to remember everyone’s names, they would be dead in the next forty years, tops.

* Blake, hothead, coward, accountant (good with numbers), no combat training. Tall, blonde, Anglo man.

* Jacob, calm, cheerful, fireman, basic medical training. Tall, shaved, Nubian man.

The other three went in much the same, there was Thomas Smith, Patrick Murphy, the last man’s name was Matthew, he didn’t give a last name.

Thomas was a young man, he was a college student before the end, a little gangly and pale with dark hair. Patrick had a shock of red hair coming from his head and a beard, he was a mechanic and Irish. Mathew was an older man, middle aged at the earliest, balding a bit but he still showed signs of strength, he claimed to have been a priest for most of his life. Patrick was the only one with combative skills, he had spent eight years in the United States Army, he said he operated tanks. Not exactly something useful during the end of the world, but at least he had basic rifle and hand to hand skills.

Patrick also had the worst injuries of all the men, cracked ribs and bruises covering most of his body. Shame, a skilled man would be useful, but an injured man was a drain on resources.

Blake complained to the others as they worked. “Why doesn’t he have to carry things inside?”

“My son, this man released us from bondage, at significant risk to himself and you would become upset because of having to do labor?” Matthew asked, acting like the priest that he was, I sighed.

“Father Matthew it isn’t worth it, this man won’t live out the month.” I interrupted, giving what I hoped would be taken as a kind smile to the priest. I didn’t know how strong his faith was, but he could be a danger to myself and my plans. “As for you.” I rounded on Blake. “It’s because I know what I am doing, I am an asset while you are currently nothing but a drain on resources. Now get back to work before I leave you in a ditch somewhere bleeding to death.” A small lie, there wouldn’t be any blood left, but he didn’t need to know that.

“My son, there is no need for such threats, we must band together during such trying times.”

I didn’t reply instead I just shrugged and went to the kitchen where they had placed all the supplies and began to inventory it. A couple of weeks of food, just over one thousand rounds of assorted ammunition. Fourteen rifles, including the ones from the squad that had attempted to attack the mansion, twenty handguns, Catherine’s, mine, John’s, and the seventeen from the farmhouse. Perhaps a number of the pistols had belonged to the prisoners before they were captured.

“Wow, look at that. You are actually doing work.” Catherine came into the kitchen, drying her hair with a towel. Apparently checking on the women washing themselves meant also taking a shower herself.

“Inventory, need to keep an eye on this stuff else one of them might run off with important supplies that we need.” I muttered, finishing writing down all of the information, most of it was about the weapons. “Are the women alright? Or do you need more time to check on them?” I asked pointedly gazing at the towel in her hand.

“Oh… um… they seem to be fine right now.” Her face turned pink as she looked away. “The kids seem to be settling in fine as well. This is a wonderful place, why do you even have twelve bedrooms?”

“For now, I told you, we can’t stay here. Too secluded and not defended well enough. We need to find a location closer to the city or a town to set up, easier to gather supplies and find other survivors that way.”

“What do you suggest then?” Now she was glaring at me, annoyed at my suggestion even if it made sense. “We can’t just pack up and move without scouting first.”

“I know that.”

“You two alright?” Patrick entered the kitchen with the last box of supplies. He clearly had heard part of our conversation “We can’t stay here?”

“No, we need somewhere we can defend. A space large enough to expand our numbers but easy enough to defend.” I explained, looking at Catherine out of the corner of my eye. I was questioning her authority in front of others, this was not something I wanted to do often.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

“Hmmm… oh! The old Regalia Truck Depot, it has a chain-link fence around it with barbed wire, and we could use the empty semi-trailers to reinforce the walls, tip them on their sides. We could also use the tools in the depot itself to build… Sorry, I got excited.” Patrick had gotten rolling and only stopped when he noticed that Catherine and I were staring at him dumbfounded. This at least answered one question.

“Could you show me how to get there?” Catherine asked, stepping closer to him.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea boss, let me go. I’ll scout it out and come back, less of a danger that way.” I suggested, putting my hand on her shoulder.

Catherine looked over her shoulder at me and hesitated before giving a nod. “Fine, just be safe, don’t get killed, or get Patrick killed.”

“Fine, fine…” I nodded with a smirk, she looked like she wanted to say more but walked out of the kitchen. “So, get some rest and we’ll head out in the morning?”

“Sure thing, boss.” Patrick said with a jovial smile. “Say… what’s with you two? Used to date or something?”

“I’m not the boss… but you could say that it’s something like that. Catherine’s in charge, and there are certain things I feel the need to argue with her about.” I corrected with a sly smirk, letting him believe whatever he wanted to.

“Aye, I could tell.” He said with a laugh as he clapped me on the shoulder. “Seems like a fiery woman. Can’t handle that kind meself, but to each their own, right?”

“Yeah. To each their own.”

“So, Max.” He said my name as if feeling it out. “Where can I find one of these showers that the women have been hogging this whole time we’ve been working.”

I laughed and showed him to the nearest bathroom. I decided he would be Catherine’s replacement if it ever came to that. A charismatic man probably could make friends very easily. I liked him well enough for a human, and I had to maintain the illusion that I was in fact one of them anyway, why not make a friend?

The next morning before sunrise I was redressed in clean clothes. Carrying the same AR-15 I had used the night before during the rescue I went to the room I had let Patrick use to wake him up. It was time for our scouting trip. I gripped his shoulder slightly and shook to wake him up, he woke up groggy and seemed to not know where he was.

“Get up Patrick, I got some gear for you, get dressed and meet me in the kitchen. After that we’ll go to this truck depot that you were talking about and see if it would be a good place to set up.

I got a ski mask and a pair of tinted goggles for myself, the sun may not kill me but it wasn’t comfortable to walk around in it without protection. These would protect my head while the rest of my body would be covered by my outfit. I waited for about ten minutes before Patrick arrived, he was wincing fiercely as he tightened the vest I had left him. The injuries would slow him down and make him a liability in a fight.

“Eat up, once you are ready we’ll head out.” I said, tossing him a power bar and pointing to a cup of steaming coffee. I didn’t want to be out and about for too long, revenants were difficult to deal with using only human level abilities.

“Thanks… and thanks for last night. If it wasn’t for you guys I’m pretty sure we would have been worked to death by those crazy bastards.”

“Probably.” I shrugged, those neo-Nazis were beating the men pretty badly and abusing the women, they probably would have died in a couple weeks at the rate they were going. “Luckily we found you when we did. However now that you guys are working with us you’ll have to pull your weight equally or else we’ll all die.”

“Understood sir.” He ate his power bar quickly and downed the coffee almost as fast, clearly he was in the military once upon a time. Though it was a waste of such fine coffee to be drank that quickly. I indicated a rifle for him to take and I picked up my own.

“I’ll be driving, you give directions and let me know if you see anything worth scavenging for.” I didn’t bring up survivors, as things were we weren’t looking for them, if we found them fine, if not so be it. We headed to the pickup and climbed in. Eventually we hit the main road and drove in near complete silence before Patrick began speaking.

“So, you CIA?”

“No.”

“FBI?”

“No.”

“NSA?”

“I’m not part of any organization you’ve ever heard of.”

“That deep huh? Alright, what about Miss O’Connor?”

“Local police detective. Met her right before… well the end. Her old partner was a friend of mine but he didn’t make it.”

“Okay, okay. So why is she in charge?”

“What?” I looked at him a little annoyed and shocked.

“Clearly you are more capable of leading and commanding, why is Miss O’Connor in charge?”

“She is better with people… I’m better at killing people though, so don’t push it.”

“Alright, so, where you from? Around here?”

“I was born in Rome, moved to the States a few decades ago.”

“As a kid? That must have been a shock.” After he paused for a second and looked at me suspiciously. “How old are you anyway?”

“Why does it matter? What’s with all the questions?” I shot him a look while pressing down on the accelerator, wanting to get this drive over and done with.

“I just like to know about the man watching my back. I’m hurt already and if you wanted to I could go missing on this scouting mission easily enough. A few more like that and you’ll be the ‘last man on Earth’ eh?”

“Not interested in that, I need you alive. Maybe not Blake, but the rest of you can stay alive for now.”

“Yeah, Blake is a piece of shit. He would snitch on people to those Nazi fucks… That’s how Brit and Raymond ended up dead, they beat them after they found out Raymond stole some food for Brit.”

“The two bodies in the barn?”

“Yeah, a married couple, turns out Brit was pregnant, just a couple months.”

“Well shit, maybe I should have tortured them all before I killed them all.” I needed more humans, these ones would only last another fifty years, give or take with the current situation.

“Take a left up here.” Patrick pointed towards an offramp. Luckily, we hadn’t run into any major roadblocks or pile ups, but I was sure there would be entire streets that were inaccessible due to the number of cars parked in them. “Another mile or two and then it’ll be a right. Then straight to the pier. The warehouse and trucks will be there.”

“Near the pier?” That would put us surrounded by the city. I slowed down the car. “Maybe this isn’t a good idea. If the rev-, zombies come in force they might overwhelm our defenses…” I looked at him and then shook my head.

“Yeah, but…”

“You don’t know how strong these things might be, and there will be at least a few hundred thousand of them in the city.” I put the car in reverse and drove back towards the turnoff. “We need to find something on the outskirts.” Patrick sighed softly like he was about to speak again. “What’s going on Patrick, you had to know this place was actually terrible.”

“I… can’t say.”

Sighing softly, I began to activate my glamour. “What’s at the warehouse and pier?”

Patrick twitched a couple times before he shook his head once or twice. “My brother and sisters are supposed to be there, I told them to go there when this all started. I even gave them instructions on what to do with the forklifts and trucks.”