In the dark (1)

In a part of Texas. 

In a spacious room were numerous people with faces hidden, kneeling around a man in a neatly white suit. 

Boom!

"Teddy, I can assure you that the resources gained in that operation will be enough to balance the losses." One man was kneeling in front of a circle of candles, imploring almost clemency for what was about to happen. 

An old man named Teddy had long graying hair, an equally large beard covering most of his face along with round glasses that made him look like a very intelligent yet kindly old man. 

"It is curious that the Vultures, my yard dogs can't resolve a situation like this and now the area where we move, specifically where we have the resource transport channels are flooded with walkers. You let me down Ennis, you can't handle a wounded soldier, what happened to the thirty plus people in the group that shot the helicopter?"

The hand of the man named Teddy slid across a table, and Ennis saw an outside team enter the place, and all the men in the room saluted. 

As he spoke, Teddy turned his head to look at his helping hand to the side and said, "Derek, inform our dear Ennis what happened." 

"Yes." 

The black skinned, thick bearded man whose name is Derek nodded, in front of Ennis' cold but still calm eyes, he informed Teddy, "Yesterday afternoon, the Vultures attacked a helicopter that was going down, the shots were multiple which alerted the walkers hiding in a building, it was curious, but that helicopter was military and the one wounded and weak man killed most of the Vultures in that place, they were all taken out by the hail of bullets or by the walkers." 

"I sent other people to check the place where he last disappeared. The walkers, though multiple still around, were able to get various things out of the helicopter and I think you should check this out. Most of them are military and the ones that don't have this on their shoulder."

Derek reached into his bag and pulled out a handkerchief with the syllables S.C.T. on it, he handed it to Teddy to look at. 

"He seems to belong to an organization like ours, maybe a group of mercenaries who deserted the army or something else but it was a mistake to shoot them. The man who fought the Vultures was quick and decisive. None of them were able to kill him and I'm even pretty sure he was able to escape the horde of walkers." 

Hearing the report, Teddy narrowed his eyes slightly and said, "It seems that these people wandering the moor really can't be underestimated. They appear to be tough stubble.... Can we still find them?" 

"It's hard to tell if they're still alive and there's very little chance of knowing who it was." 

Ennis shook his head and said, "I'm sure it will be difficult and they may have disappeared, but my people will figure it out and we'll bring you the heads of those people." 

"Hmmph, then they're very lucky!" 

Teddy frowned slightly, apparently dissatisfied with the outcome, but still accepted it calmly and continued, "We've gathered many communities, we're closer to complete cleanup so I don't want any more surprises like we had just now." 

"Soon we will have the cleansing weapon, all those no matter what they are will die so that life can be born again." 

"A life threatening weapon?" 

Hearing this, Ennis couldn't help but be surprised and then unconsciously replied, "What do you mean by that?" 

"Oh, my dear Ennis, you were a very bad dog, you know that? Right now I need your people to prepare a batch to offer to the cult, many had to mobilize and die for the out of control walkers." 

Ennis was also a bit puzzled by this, but this was Teddy's order, and he could only choose to obey, saying, "We'll have a batch ready for the cult Teddy.." 

Seeing that the matter is a foregone conclusion, although there is always an uneasy feeling in Teddy's heart, he ignored this and approached Derek: "I want you to find them even if you must look under rocks, this handkerchief should belong to those people." 

Derek nodded and said, "Okay, then I'll get ready now." 

After saying that, Derek left the room with his men without another word. 

"Death. Destruction. Decomposition. What is happening is not new. The world has been decaying since its creation. Everything is coming to an end... even us. Death is inevitable...but out of this death, new life emerges." 

As people listened to Teddy's words, they all closed their eyes and repeated a specific prayer. "Death is inevitable, but from this death, new life follows." 

"Death is inevitable, but from this follows new life." 

"Death is inevitable, but from this follows new life.

The place that Airon chose to escape was good, you could say it was the only option without having a car to get around. Considering the agitated walkers due to the recent riots, if they wanted to get to Alicia's community it was the best way they could take. 

The location of the metro station is not too far from the bridge, so they walked very carefully along the road, wary of being spotted by people or walkers. 

When they arrived at the entrance to the subway station, all was quiet and no walkers were visible at the entrance or even on the train tracks. 

So seeing that there were no enemies, they soon arrived at a room to prepare. It's just that Airon didn't know that a group of survivors who had escaped the walkers a few hours ago when he was in the building had also had the same decision as Airon to go down through the train station. 

These had the same primal thoughts as Airon. There are no people or walkers here, offsetting the darkness with safety. 

...

"Is there really no one here?" 

One of the group of survivors walking in the opposite direction than Airon muttered under his breath. A woman opened her eyes wide and with her flashlight on said, "This place is empty, there are no walkers."  

"There should be, but not in large numbers." 　

The man looked around, checked some artificially constructed spaces and found many leftover daily necessities and damaged weapons on the ground. 

"Wait, there's a dead body here!" 

Feeling that these things should not be in this place, the group of survivors froze and pointed, "Look around." 

Although wondering why this person died here for no reason, the group leader didn't care too much, turned around the checkpoint and walked deeper. 

But he soon found something new: just before the stairs leading to the waiting room below, he saw a piece of paper on the floor. 

Reaching down to remove the paper, the man looked at what was written on it and read it carefully, "Hank, I don't know if you can see this notice, we don't have enough food, we need to get out of here to find a way out." 

After reading the contents of the paper, the man looked at the crumpled corpse lying on the bed in the distance and knew that the other party should be the person mentioned above. 

It just seemed that he did not carry out his purpose. Handing the note to another person, who was walking beside him, the man looked down into the dark tunnel and said, "It looks like it was a shelter that was escaping, I hope at least everyone was dead or escaped, otherwise we'll have a lot of trouble down here." 

The woman carefully read what was written on the paper, listened to what the group leader said and understood what the other party meant. 

If these people get out successfully, it means the subway tunnel is clear, but if they die inside, it means they must deal with them and kill the infected people in a dark environment. 

"Let's keep." 

After looking around and confirming that there were no other problems here, the group leader turned on the flashlight mounted on his shoulder and walked down the stairs. 

The woman, who was watching the subway route, noticed that the group leader was constantly moving from left to right, and saw that the other side was hard to pick out at a glance, and joked, "We can still go back, are you really sure you're going to keep going?" 

Hearing this, the man refused without even thinking about it. He moved the flashlight closer to a red arrow on the wall next to the passage to the left and said with a smile, "These people have already found the way for us, so why bother?" 

But at that moment, from deep inside the tunnel a group of figures slowly rose from the ground. Unmoving, they looked at that group of survivors and let out a terrifying roar, 

ROAR!!! 

"What are those things?" 

"Shoot!"