Chapter 172

On the path heading south from the lake.

Logan shuddered as a chilly sensation fell on the bridge of his nose – raindrops.

His eyes turned towards the sky.

The weather, which had been clear just a moment ago, had suddenly become overcast.

“Of all times…”

Watching the daytime sky turn gloomy, Logan muttered.

The place they were walking through was a vast pine forest.

Unlike the area around the lake densely packed with all sorts of trees, here were tall trees over 15 meters high standing at spacious intervals across the flat terrain.

Thanks to this, the forest had an open view like a well-made campground, but there was no shelter from the rain.

“…”

The raindrops falling on Logan gradually increased in number.

Fortunately, it didn’t turn into a downpour, but it was too heavy to be called a drizzle.

The rain soon soaked through Logan’s clothes, and the encroaching chill made his eyes fill with concern.

Even without relying on his medical knowledge, pouring rain in the chilly autumn weather would bode ill for those wandering in the forest.

“Sadie, here.”

At that moment, one of the girls ahead was seen handing something to the other child.

It was a neatly folded, palm-sized piece of plastic.

But when unfolded, it became a child-sized plastic raincoat.

Although a bit large for the child’s frame, it wasn’t a major issue.

To think they had brought something like that all the way here.

Logan was inwardly surprised at their preparedness.

When preparing for the journey to LA, he and his wife had focused solely on food and water supplies.

Considering the limited weight they could carry, just those provisions alone had filled their entire load.

But a small raincoat like that could have easily been brought along.

The person who packed their supplies must have had quite some experience.

With that thought, Logan looked towards the man leading the group.

The man who had kept his face hidden behind that strange helmet this entire time.

Though it seemed they only had the one raincoat.

The girl who had given the raincoat to the child resumed walking, undeterred by the falling rain.

And so, Aiden’s group and the Millers silently pressed on through the rainy forest.

At a glance, it seemed like a peaceful woodland perfect for a stroll. But as Logan passed through the pine forest, he frowned upon discovering something.

It was a human skull half-buried in the dirt.

Scattered across the forest floor were pine needles and cones. And amidst them, the pale horror revealed its hollow, black eye sockets.

“Hah…”

Logan let out a heavy sigh.

This was the fifth old skeleton he had passed by in this forest.

A testament to how many people, or zombies, had fallen here.

Naturally, his thoughts turned to the beasts prowling these woods.

Logan anxiously surveyed his surroundings.

Between the countless pine trees, nothing could be seen yet.

For now, only the sound of raindrops hitting pine cones echoed from all around.

That sound alone made him feel uneasy, prompting Logan to speak up intentionally.

“Hmm, by the way, where are we?”

At his voice, Aiden turned back towards him, as if asking why he was asking such a thing.

In response, Logan continued speaking as if making an excuse.

“We got lost while fleeing from the campsite. Just want to keep track of our location in case the same thing happens again.”

Aiden stopped his advance and approached Logan.

He unfolded a map and indicated their current position.

It was the central area of the national forest and mountain range between Phoenix and the desert.

“Whew… still quite a way to go.”

On the map, it was merely a few centimeters, but covering that distance would take several days of walking.

Add to that the uncertainty of when this rain would stop, and the potential danger of lurking Beasts. It was a situation compounded by multiple adversities.

As the burden weighed heavier on Logan’s mind, suddenly…

“Hmm…?”

A familiar stench wafted into his nostrils.

That smell was unmistakable. The stench of zombies.

Startled, he tore his gaze from the map and looked around.

But there were no visible zombies anywhere.

A light breeze blew.

The rainy forest wind dispersed the faint stench, leaving no trace.

Logan tilted his head in puzzlement.

Had it been his imagination?

Or was there perhaps a buried corpse like the skeleton he had just seen?

With that thought, he tried to check the map again.

But the map was no longer before his eyes.

Aiden, who had been holding it, had already distanced himself from Logan.

“Hmm…”

Didn’t seem like a very sociable character.

Still, wanting to engage Aiden in conversation, Logan soon came up with a topic he might be interested in.

“By the way, you guys. Have you heard any rumors about Phoenix?”

“Rumors?”

As Logan expected, Aiden reacted to that.

Suppressing a satisfied smile, Logan continued speaking.

“There’s a rumor that there’s a camp in Phoenix.”

Aiden shook his head.

The Phoenix he knew was just an empty metropolis. A city with no residents, merely passed through by wanderers heading for LA. That was the extent of Aiden’s knowledge about Phoenix.

However, Logan began sharing information that was similar yet slightly different.

“I heard it from a fellow who came with us to the campsite. Apparently, there’s a camp in Phoenix where wanderers like us gather.”

Logan said with a tone of revelation as he shared information about Phoenix.

Somewhere in that city, there was an abandoned base left behind by some survivor group.

Centered around that base, a camp had been established to attract wanderers.

“Then who is the owner of this camp?”

“There’s no actual owner. If anything, whoever stays there the longest becomes the camp’s owner, so to speak.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Exactly what it sounds like. It’s a place for regrouping. After coming all this way, no one would think of settling down in Phoenix, right? They’d just stay there temporarily, and whenever anyone is ready, they’d move on again.”

Logan then went into more detail about the Phoenix camp he had heard of.

In simple terms, this so-called camp was a temporary cooperative of wanderers.

You could stay at the camp without any compensation, or newly encountered wanderers could join forces to conduct scavenging operations together.

The reason this was possible was that all wanderers arriving in Phoenix shared the same goal. To reach LA.

So those who had arrived earlier could abandon the base they had established without hesitation.

And those currently staying there could cooperate with others without coveting any surplus supplies they couldn’t take with them.

“That’s rather fortunate, then.”

It was very good news for Aiden’s group.

While the camp was only a temporary one people could leave anytime, the mere fact that there were people there was enough.

With luck, they might even be able to take on requests from those staying there and receive rewards.

Of course, being individual transactions, the level of trust wouldn’t be as high as with regular gangs, but it was still far more promising than an empty, deserted city.

“But where did you hear this information from?”

“Ah, this was something my comrade who died at the campsite told me. He was a good guy…”

Logan clicked his tongue regretfully.

After a momentary silence, he continued speaking.

“Anyway, he had encountered someone from LA before, and that’s where he heard it from.”

“Someone from LA?”

“Yeah, you know that radio broadcast telling people to come to LA, right? Of course, there must be someone broadcasting that. He happened to meet one of those people by chance.”

At Logan’s words, Aiden’s eyes narrowed silently.

He was well aware of the existence of such people too.

He hadn’t met them directly, but he had investigated the traces they had left when targeted by raiders.

Come to think of it, wasn’t it precisely those people that had allowed Aiden and his companions to reach Albuquerque using the junk car they had abandoned?

Aiden posed to Logan a question he had wanted to ask those people.

“Then did you hear any information about LA itself?”

“Of course. According to what that guy heard, it’s supposed to be an extraordinary place, as impressive as the broadcast makes it sound. Apparently, it’s like the pre-apocalypse world has been perfectly preserved there.”

In the end, it meant the radio broadcast was not a lie.

Of course, coming from someone who had emerged to broadcast that message, it couldn’t be taken at face value.

But that testimony directly from an LA native carried far more weight than some dubious recorded broadcast.

“So that’s why I’m headed for LA like this. That’s why… huh?”

Logan trailed off mid-sentence and blinked his eyes.

In the scenery of the pine forest he had been absentmindedly looking at, he seemed to have glimpsed something moving like a shadow.

But before he could focus his eyes for a better look, Arian’s voice came.

“They’re coming. Beasts.”

At the word ‘Beasts,’ Logan’s eyes shot wide open.

Though the distance made it difficult to see clearly, something was charging towards them.

Moreover, there was more than one.

The black shadows that had started as mere specks began slowly spreading left and right.

Clank!

Shortly after, the harsh sound of metal rang out.

Beside him, Aiden was loading his rifle.

“Stop gawking around.”

Snapping back to his senses a beat late at Aiden’s curt remark, Logan too readied his own gun.

Three fully loaded magazines, their solid weight reassuring.

Feeling that heft, Logan stood beside his wife, Madeline.

He blinked his eyes as the steadily mounting tension gripped him.

Ever since discovering the scattered bones, he had been prepared for combat. But to demand that he and his wife remain unfazed in a fight against Beasts was too much to ask.

“Phew…”

Logan aimed his gun muzzle forward.

The black dots visible beyond the sights gradually approached and took shape.

Soon, their gray fur came into view.

Following that were the torn, flayed hides and the festering, rotten flesh underneath.

The decayed, hideously exposed sharp fangs added to the chilling sight.

A tense sigh escaped Logan’s lips.

And then…

Awoooooo-

As the wolf pack drew near, a hair-raising, eerie howl rang out.

It was a sound Logan was already familiar with. The howl of zombie wolves.

But that sound was far more dreadful than any normal wolf howl he knew.

Rougher, yet also grating to human ears like jarring noise.

The decayed, twisted vocal cords of the zombified wolves produced such a mangled, distorted sound.

“Phew… ph…”

Logan’s rising tension peaked at this.

His hands began to tremble.

He tried taking deep breaths to calm himself, but it wasn’t easy.

The scene of the campsite, torn apart by those same fangs, seemed to replay vividly before his eyes.

“Damn…”

His body continued shaking uncontrollably, prompting Logan to bite his lip.

Trembling hands meant an unsteady gun muzzle.

And he would soon need to fire at the swiftly charging wolves, making it an extremely troubling situation.

But his tension refused to subside easily.

The howls of the undead filling his ears obstructed any chance of calming down.

At that moment.

Bang!

Like a crack shattering through that eerie screech, a chillingly sharp gunshot reverberated through the pine forest.

Logan flinched in surprise.

The wolves were still quite far away.

It was only now that their forms were starting to become visible, and they seemed to be intentionally weaving between the trees in the distance, making them difficult targets.

It was too early to open fire.

Could it be that, noticing Logan’s agitation, Aiden had wasted a bullet just to help him regain his composure?

Such a thought crossed Logan’s mind.

But that wasn’t the case.

Aiden’s bullet had cleanly pierced the head of a wolf that had just emerged from behind a pine tree.

Before Logan could even react to that marksmanship, Aiden’s voice followed.

“Don’t let them surround us. It’ll be dangerous if we’re encircled from all sides.”

Aiden’s tone was so flat that it was almost unsettling.

Not a shred different from when he had been exchanging information with Logan just moments ago.

“Got it. Then what about Sadie…”

“Yeah, I’ll take care of her.”

In the meantime, Arian, who had been conversing with Aiden, dashed towards the wolves carrying only a small machete.

Her unexpected charge left Logan dumbfounded.

But he had no chance to stop her.

The speed at which Arian burst forward was unnaturally fast.

Faster than the wolves charging at them.

However, Logan had no leisure to gape at Arian’s retreating figure.

“Grrraaaahh!”

The maddened howls of the wolves assaulted his ears.

The wolves had swiftly closed the distance and were now charging through the forest.

They entered what Logan considered firing range without hesitation.

“Shoot!”

Whether he was telling himself or his wife, Logan shouted.

Bang!

The gun in his hands spat fire.

He barely managed to brace against the heavy recoil that nearly pushed him back.

“Awoooooo!”

With the gunfight kicking off in earnest, the wolves went into a frenzy.

The beasts that had been eyeing their prey from a distance came swarming out all at once.

Filling up the area beyond his sights, Logan pulled the trigger frantically at the onslaught of undead bodies.