The others looked at him quizzically. Well, everyone except Charlie who asked the pertinent question.

  “I’m guessing you found something that the System can do to help?”

  “Yes, we’ll need to use one of our big rewards for this, but purification of land is one of the things which can be accomplished.”

  The team looked at each other.

  “What are you thinking?”

  Mark’s deep voice gave the question a gravitas that David unconsciously responded to.

  “We need a proper base of operations, if we want to build the raiders into something meaningful. We need to keep control of supplies, have a safe place to operate out of, and it needs to be at or next to the safe zone.”

  Everyone nodded.

  Then David got a sad expression on his face. “We also need to make arrangements for our fallen. I think we can keep the Nath from infecting them and that means we can bury them. Which means we need space for that too.”

  “We need to take over the land Camila was talking about, all of it. Even if it seems like a lot. Let’s face it. We don’t want to stop helping, and we don’t want to be beholden to some council.

  This is how we do it…”

  David laid out his plans, and the others made suggestions, argued and joked as the group continued to sweep through the airport and surrounding buildings.

  The fighting wasn’t frequent or hard enough to really interrupt, and everyone had time to talk about what they wanted. This led to a chaotic list of ideas, and of course what they would need to make them happen.

  The raid group had quickly picked up on the fact that David and his team had some big plans.

  Discussion widened and the degree of buy-in surprised them all, where they expected to have to convince people to do this or that people just got behind it.

  A few conversations stood out.

  “Look, man. I’d have to be deaf not to realize what you are planning. It’s pretty ambitious and you want people to help you right?”

  Harrison was walking beside David as they looked for the keys to access the forklift trucks for the freight warehouse.

  “Sure, we need reliable people to get involved. The raid team has been through fire and blood together, but we will need to expand at some point.”

  “So, you can count on me, on most the folks who you saved I expect.”

  “Are you sure? We need people who are going to commit to working on this, protecting it and not running off and doing their own thing… Haven’t you got other priorities?”

  “Look at me man, I’m in my thirties, my ma passed a couple of years ago and my dad lives down in Florida. I barely speak to him, and he only sometimes remembers to send me a Christmas card. I want to be part of something…”

  David nodded then gave what would be his final warning.

  “Look, part of the reason we are doing this is because we don’t agree with the remnants of the old authorities, we don’t believe they can move fast enough to stay in front of this…”

  “Yeah, I get that. I got that. Government is all about the status quo, not about change.”

  David spoke with a soft intensity.

  “It’s not just that, there are people involved who we don’t trust. People who threatened to kill us and might take a run at someone for being our ally.”

  Harrison suddenly looked serious.

  “You make it sound like there is something rotten in this safe zone you keep talking about going back to. So, care to spill man?”

  David told him about the council and the army and their concerns with both.

  At the end he just nodded. Then gave David his answer.

  “Look Man, I am no kind of leader. Most folks aren’t. We want to pick a good direction and have a nice life. As long as you don’t lose sight of that I’m your man. You.” He paused to emphasize pointing at David. “Showed up when I was sneaking through secure areas and trying to find enough food for some people and between you and me, I had no fucking clue what I was going to do next, which is why we were waiting for the national guard…”

  “I’m with you man, I owe you.

  Then there was the conversation they had when they got back to the passenger terminal.

  “David, sir!”

  David turned to the man who he vaguely recognized as one of the ones they had rescued from the airport who had been looking for someone.

  There was a woman, about his age beside him, looking disheveled.

  “This is my Jennifer. Your people helped me to find her.”

  It was clear that he was getting choked up.

  “I thought I had lost her! You gave my heart back to me…”

  As he stopped clearly unable to continue so the woman did.

  “We talked about it. We are from out of town and until we can get home, we want help. So tell us what we can do. I’m an accountant and Marcus is a carpenter. We were here for a vacation, were going to hire a car and drive down to New York…”

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  She trailed off, despite having come to terms with the changes at some level still struggling not to consider plans that she had made before it all happened.

  Other discussions were more practical.

  Camila was talking gesturing at the fenced area and the storage silos.

  "We can secure the fuel farm, post guards. Make sure we can come back when we need it."

  "The airport is defensible too," Harrison replied.

  "Fencing, limited access points, solid buildings. Could be a good secondary base, or even primary base..."

  "One problem at a time," Carl cautioned. "First we get these people and supplies back to the park. Then we decide if we can afford to split the group and then we can talk about secondary bases."

  The group probably would have continued to debate but David intervened.

  “Look, I get the idea that we want bases. Fuel caches and everything. That can wait. Right now, we can take a lot of stuff that can really help us. We can’t reasonably take all the useful stuff and rather than trying to secure it we should be working on the basis that anyone who gets here with the need and the knowhow is on our side.”

  Everyone was looking at him now, some quizzical, some with dawning understanding, so he continued.

  “So far humans are the only ones who have shown any notable mastery of human technology. If someone needs diesel to keep a generator going, or aviation fuel for a plane, it’s going to be a person. Sight unseen I’m going to assume they are, if not an ally, at least on our side in the broadest sense. We will fight to protect the things we have and get the stuff we truly need but no hoarding. There will be a lot of desperate people who need things to survive.”

  Seeing the grumbling, notably Carl getting ready to weigh in David continued.

  “I don’t want to come back and find someone took all the fuel. I also don’t want to ever find out that people died because something I -might- need was locked up nice and safe. Until things stabilize, we take what we and those depending on us need and leave the rest with the hope that it saves someone else.”

  There was a round of nods at that. Even Carl reluctantly nodded his head when confronted by that logic. With fuel and vehicles in hand it was time to actually do what they had been asked to tackle and help with the food situation back at the safe zone.

  The warehouse had several entry options including a loading dock.

  Other than that it looked totally nondescript with even the grey logo on the side giving little away.

  Cato Services inc.

  Inside was a bonanza. Harrison was explaining to the rest of them.

  “This is the biggest provider of airline meals, shipping thousands a day to load the planes. They also supply a bunch of the executive lounges and even supply local catering. Lots of prepackaged, long life stuff.”

  Clearing the building was becoming routine. First, David listened for zombies, then they moved in by the numbers, eliminated the threat and swept the area.

  This time David reached out, then paused. Nothing, no droning murmur, what was going on? They usually found several zombies stuck in each building or enclosure and it had become something of a routine.

  There were two teams going in. His hitting the entrance and office area, while Camila was going to break in through the runway side loading dock.

  As he and the radio team accompanying him popped the secure doors the smell hit him. There were others hanging back, ready to pull a newly acquired truck up to the dock to load but for now it was just a small group going in.

  They were assaulted by scents. Decay, death. Rot. The inside was warm, he guessed in the high seventies or low eighties.

  The first body wasn’t a shock, not with that smell. Not just dead but torn apart. Head missing.

  Little to no blood.

  David held his hand up and despite his instincts took a deep breath. It was there, masked by the putrid scent of more normal decay and opened bowels. The rotting vegetal smell of mutants.

  Immediately he poured intent and spirits into weaving a tighter net searching not for Nath but the buzzing presence he associated with mutants.

  He also reached for the Radio but was interrupted by Camila speaking from their second entry point.

  “Oh, Dios mio. We have a problem. I have bits of several people here. It smells awful but I think I smell that mutant stench under all the rot.”

  He replied quickly.

  “Here too, only one body, definitely used to be a zombie. I’m doing a scan with more juice to see if I can find them.”

  Then he felt it. Towards the back of the building, up high a soft dual buzzing noise. Muted, quiet, almost like it was hiding.

  “Got it. Might be two of them. Up off the ground at the back.”

  Camila’s voice came back tense and focused.

  “Pincer move? We are in some sort of outer staging area for cargo, we can see the kitchen floor area through swing doors. If you give us the call, we can come through here when you go in.”

  David nodded, then realized that wasn’t helpful and spoke again.

  “Yes, stay in contact. We can scout and once we know where they are we hit them hard. Everyone needs to be ready. Carl, Charlie not sure if we are going to need it but bring up a couple more radio teams.”

  Scanning who he had with him David moved quickly forward waving to two raiders with shotguns.

  “On me. Be ready to blast them. They’re fast. So don’t hesitate. I’ll try to pin them down with Halt if I can. Everyone else, watch your field of fire and try to use guns. If, when they close fight to keep them at arm’s length they are deadly with their claws.”

  Then the group moved forward.

  Each step was cautious and each new sight and smell revealed how ugly the situation was. There were bodies, or body parts at least, in several of the offices. The lightweight interior doors had been torn off their hinges or smashed through and the bodies within savaged.

  In one office there were signs of a particularly vigorous struggle, and the door was burst outwards. The crumbled remains of a chrysalis came as no surprise.

  “Confirm, we have mutants. One open chrysalis found.”

  David checked the room carefully while the others continued to move, he didn’t think they were there yet, as his senses showed they still had twenty or thirty yards to go before reaching the area where he heard the buzzing. He wanted to be sure, no risk of anything behind them.

  Grimly the team continued everyone moving in pairs weapons raised, the warmth and the smell making their advance extremely unpleasant, someone gagged and with a soft cry broke the silence.

  “Oh God, I just stepped on, oh god is that a finger?”

  Then David was there, they were getting close and he noticed with a sick feeling that not only was it a finger but there were stains, brownish stains, on the carpet in this area.

  Grimly they continued until they reached the door at the end of the office corridor which hung open into a larger wider space.

  David could hear something, not just with his spiritual hearing but with his regular ears.

  There was a soft sppft sound then a second later a metallic ting as something fell and bounced.

  Everyone froze.

  David spoke softly into the radio, the stillness somehow shifting.

  “Ready, we are going to move from the office area in three, two, one.”

  Then he was leading the rush out into the warehouse location even as he saw Camila and her radio team moving up rapidly from the direction of the loading dock.

  The scene was branded into David’s head.

  Natural light came in pools, the afternoon sun cast by diffuser sky lights designed to scatter ambient light over a wide area. He could see polished concrete floors and multiple lines of stainless steel prep tables, ovens, walk in fridges and freezers and various prep gear some pristine and others splattered with something.

  One prep line even had those trolleys of trays you see on a plane at the end of it. He focused on that because there were lumps of flesh, covered in fabric scattered nearby.

  His gorge rising he turned to where his hearing told him the real threat lay.

  There at the back of the warehouse there was what he presumed was a supervisors area, built on top of what looked like some kind of storage was another office space with a simple desk, visible through the metal safety railing.

  Two mutants crouched on that desk with a third lumpy form.

  David felt his bile rise as he saw both mutants were rising up, rearing with their fluid flexibility to better see the advancing invaders into their space.

  One was clutching something clublike in the twin claws at the end of one limb. It wasn’t until it moved and he saw the dangling digits, partially stripped of flesh that he knew it was a human arm.

  Both their faces were stained red the oddly elongated proto snouts clearly having got quite messy from tearing at the lump on the desk.

  A lump that David now saw had a mostly intact face.

  Then everything started moving very fast.