The Humvee rolled past the faded welcome sign of King County, its paint chipped and weather-worn, standing like a forgotten monument to the old world.
Rick stared out the window, silent.
He recognized the cracked sidewalks, the rundown gas stations, the sagging rooftops. These streets—his streets—were etched into memory. And now, they were tomb-quiet. Lifeless, but not empty. Every corner seemed to hum with what had once been.
He caught a glimpse of the elementary school Carl used to attend. The playground was overgrown, and the swings groaned in the wind. He remembered standing outside that same building, leaning on the cruiser, waiting for the bell to ring while still in uniform. Carl would run to him, backpack bouncing. Lori would smile from the car.
That memory pressed on Rick's chest like a stone. He hoped they were alive but hope was a fragile thing these days.
As the Humvee cruised on at a steady pace, its engine the only sound for miles, Rick's mind drifted toward the walkers. Sluggish. Slow. Dangerous only in numbers or if they took you by surprise. He'd fought people tougher than them in his time as a sheriff.
And yet… the world had fallen.
He couldn't reconcile it. How did the U.S. military—one of the most powerful in the world—get overrun by shambling corpses?
The question gnawed at him until he finally voiced it.
"How did the government and military fail to contain them?" Rick asked, his voice low but urgent. "They're slow. Sluggish. Unless you're surrounded, they're not that dangerous. It doesn't add up."
Jack, sitting in the front passenger seat, glanced back at him and sighed.
"Same question we've all been asking, Rick," he said. "I was in uniform when it all started. The problem wasn't the firepower, we had that. It was the chaos. No clear orders. Command got overwhelmed. By the time decisions were made, it was already too late."
Grant, his expression serious, joined in.
"It wasn't just one thing," he said.
He counted off the reasons on his fingers:
"Panic and misinformation, the people fled infected areas without knowing they were carriers.
Delayed response, the people from above hesitated, waiting for confirmation or fearing public backlash.
Breakdown in communication, radio silence, confused orders, command centers overrun.
Lack of unified protocol, each state, each base, handled the outbreak differently.
Infiltration from within, one walker inside a secured facility was all it took.
And the worst of it: The virus spread too quickly. Too quietly."
"By the time anyone realized how bad it was, it had already hit the inner ranks. One infected slips past a checkpoint. One base falls. Then another. It's a domino effect. Suddenly your line of defense collapses, just like that."
He snapped his fingers for emphasis.
Jack nodded solemnly.
"He's right. And when the chain of command broke, desperation set in. They tried one last thing, bombing the major cities. The logic was brutal: contain the infection zones, deny the walkers any more human hosts."
Rick's face drained of color.
"Wait—what? Atlanta… Was Atlanta bombed?" he demanded, panic rising in his voice. "Carl and Lori were heading to Atlanta! That's where they were supposed to go!"
Jack eased off the gas, and the Humvee slowly came to a stop on the quiet road.
Grant turned in his seat and met Rick's eyes.
"Rick… calm down. The traffic into Atlanta was hell. If they didn't make it into the city center, there's a good chance they were diverted to one of the refugee camps outside the blast radius. We have reports—there's a survivor camp outside Atlanta. They might be there."
Rick took a shaky breath, trying to steady himself.
"Thank you," he said finally. "Thank you, Grant."
Jack restarted the engine, and the Humvee began to move again. He steered carefully, weaving between abandoned cars that littered the highway like skeletons of an exodus.
"Truth is," Jack muttered, "the government never had a real plan. No cure. No countermeasure. Just reactions. And the reactions came too slow."
The road narrowed as they drove deeper into the outskirts.
Windows of nearby houses were smashed, their front doors left swinging open. A few corpses littered the porches and sidewalks—some old, dried-out husks; others fresher, a sign that not all walkers stayed down.
They passed a burned-out gas station. A delivery truck was still parked beside the pumps, half melted from fire. Trash and luggage lay scattered in the parking lot—evidence of people who tried to flee and never made it.
As the Humvee crested a hill, the skyline of Atlanta came into view.
The once-proud towers were now charred and crumbling. Several buildings bore the scars of fire and impact—blackened facades, gaping holes from detonations. A few had collapsed entirely, leaving steel skeletons jutting into the sky like broken bones. Smoke still lingered faintly in the air, long since faded but never truly gone.
Rick stared.
Atlanta was a shadow of itself.
As they reached the main road leading into the city, the cause of the exodus became obvious.
The traffic jam was miles long—abandoned cars bumper to bumper, doors hanging open, some windshields shattered. On the opposite side, the outbound lane was almost empty, just a few scattered vehicles turned in the wrong direction, many of them picked clean or rusting.
Jack swerved the Humvee over the divider and onto the emptier outbound lane, weaving cautiously between the debris.
In the backseat, Grant reached behind to the rear compartment and pulled out MRE packets and bottled water, handing them to each of the men.
"Replenish," he said simply. "We've got a long day ahead."
The men nodded and quietly ate and drank as the Humvee pressed forward into the ghost of a city that once pulsed with life.
Rick clutched the bottle tighter, eyes locked on the skyline, and whispered to himself,
"Hold on, Lori… Carl… I'm coming."
x
The Humvee rumbled off the main road, its tires crunching over brittle brush as Jack carefully steered it off-road and into the woods flanking Atlanta's outer edge.
None of them wanted to risk entering the city proper with the engine roaring, the sound would draw walkers for miles.
They pushed deeper into the forest until the dense canopy swallowed the skyline behind them. Jack cut the engine in a clearing shaded by tall oaks and overgrown dogwoods. The clearing was slightly elevated, giving them line-of-sight in multiple directions, ideal for surveillance. Thick foliage on three sides offered natural concealment, and the fourth side sloped toward a ravine, making it harder for anyone—or anything—to approach unnoticed.
This wasn't just chance. It was good terrain.
Rick stepped out first, his boots crunching on pine needles. The air here was still, heavy with the smell of damp earth and decay. He scanned the surroundings, and only now did he realize where they'd stopped.
"Looks like an old park," Rick muttered.
Indeed, the remnants of a public park stood before them. A rusted swing set creaked gently in the wind, and what was once a picnic shelter now sagged, half-collapsed and overtaken by vines. A shattered fountain sat dry and full of leaves. Graffiti was scrawled across the skeletal remains of a maintenance shed.
There were no signs of recent life—but no obvious signs of walkers either.
One by one, the men adjusted their gear.
Grant unslung his suppressed AR-15, checking the chamber. Jack followed, tugging at the strap of his rifle and tightening the Velcro on his gloves. Rick did the same, feeling the familiar weight of the weapon settle against his chest.
Ghost, standing slightly apart from the others, inspected his dual SIG Sauer P226s, one in each hand. His fingers moved with practiced precision—racking the slides, checking the sights, flicking the safeties. The weapons clicked softly, reliable, deadly.
Rick glanced back at the Humvee.
"Do we just leave it here?" he asked. "What if someone takes it?"
Ghost holstered his pistols and turned to him.
"I'll stay," he said simply. "We can't risk losing it. If there are looters nearby they'll see it as a goldmine."
Grant nodded, as if he'd anticipated the offer.
"Keep watch. Talk to us on the radio if anything happens," he said. "We'll do the same."
Ghost gave a single nod and moved toward the nearby treeline, already disappearing into the brush like a shadow.
With Ghost on overwatch, Rick, Jack, and Grant began their approach toward the city.
They didn't take the roads.
Instead, they cut through abandoned neighborhoods and wooded back lots, sticking close to the natural cover. When the trees thinned and the city loomed ahead, they slipped past the shattered fence of the park and onto the crumbling streets of Atlanta.
The city had become a mausoleum.
Glass glittered like shattered ice beneath their boots. Cars sat frozen in place, some with doors hanging open, others burned out or turned over. The smell of char and rot still clung to the wind.
Buildings loomed on both sides—once bustling with business, now broken and gutted. Windows were smashed. Some walls were scorched from fire. Vines crept up cracked facades, nature slowly reclaiming concrete and steel.
Every so often, they heard a distant groan. A slow shuffle of movement. The city wasn't empty—just waiting.
"Stick to the alleys," Grant said quietly, motioning with a hand. "Too many blind spots on the main roads. We don't want a horde pinning us down."
They darted between shadowed alleyways, stepping over trash bags, dislodged bricks, and old bloodstains baked into the concrete. Occasionally, they passed the husk of a walker—dry and motionless. Others… were not so dry.
The backs of buildings offered more cover—loading docks, broken staircases, alley fences that had to be climbed. They moved silently, each man covering the others with practiced awareness.
Rick's heart beat faster—not from fear, but from the unknown. His family might be out there, somewhere in this dead city.
Grant, leading the group, spoke quietly as they moved.
"We'll check for signs—graffiti tags, supply caches, signal markers. Some survivor camps send scouts into the city. If we find anything, it might lead us to them. If not…" he paused, "…then we'll head out. Focus on the outskirts. Camp locations will be far enough from city centers to avoid the dead."
Rick and Jack both nodded silently, understanding the stakes.
Every step into the city felt like a gamble.
But for Rick, it was a chance worth taking.