Rick

June 23, Atlanta, King County.

Two weeks later, Leon returned to this small town.

Last time, he'd come to Atlanta alone; this time, he brought his team back with him.

"Boss, where should we start looting?"

Merle hefted a machete in his right hand, a shield strapped to his left arm. The thick Black Bear Armor made his not-so-burly frame look unusually imposing.

Behind him, nine combatants formed three squads, chatting idly while scanning the nearby buildings for movement.

He'd brought a sizable crew this time—besides the ten fighters, there were five drivers and five heavy trucks with a capacity of over twenty tons each.

Since they were already here to rescue Rick, they might as well sweep King County for key supplies.

"Let's hit the hospital first. I used to work there—the medical equipment and supplies should still be decent."

"Got it, boss. We'll follow you."

Leon drove a modified military heavy jeep, leading his convoy not straight through the town center but around the outskirts to the county hospital.

Along the way, they encountered a dozen or so zombies wandering the main road, all mercilessly crushed under the jeep's reinforced tires.

When numbers weren't in their favor, a lone zombie facing a large vehicle was little different from a ragdoll.

After about ten minutes, the convoy reached the county hospital—a large four-story building with front and back yards. Aside from the hundreds of corpses neatly laid out on the ground and the smoke-blackened exterior walls, it looked much the same as Leon remembered.

Hefting a long-bladed machete in one hand, Leon took point at the front of the group, leading them through the hospital's glass main entrance.

"Form a defensive formation. Clear out all the zombies inside."

"Yes, sir, boss."

Merle acknowledged the order and gestured to his men. The fighters split into groups of three, with Daryl, Aji, and T-Dog as anchors—one shield, two spears each—advancing from three directions to eliminate every zombie they saw.

Merle, the squad leader, cradled an assault rifle and stood behind Leon, ready both to protect the boss and to support any team at a moment's notice.

Ten minutes later, everyone regrouped around Leon, their faces tinged with embarrassment.

They'd made a big show of searching, but in the end, they'd only found two or three zombies on the first floor, plus a few corpses with bullet holes in their heads—likely strays that had wandered in from the streets outside.

Leon thought back and hazarded a guess. He remembered that when Shane last visited Rick, the U.S. soldiers had massacred the entire hospital, executing anyone infected without mercy.

That was probably when all the zombies inside had been wiped out.

He didn't bother explaining and simply issued another order.

"Upstairs. Clear the second floor."

An hour later, the first three floors of the county hospital had been swept clean by the Umbrella Corporation fighters. The zombie count was low—no more than twenty in total.

When Leon led his men to the top floor, the fourth, a chain-link lock barred their way.

Merle scratched his chin, looking annoyed.

"Fourth floor's locked up, boss."

"Should we bust it open?"

Leon shot Merle a look like he was an idiot and said, "Do you even need to ask?"

With that, he grabbed a shotgun from one of his men's backs.

"Never mind. Everyone step back."

Aiming the muzzle at the lock, Leon waited until his men were clear, then pulled the trigger.

Boom!

The blast echoed down the hallway, thick with gunpowder smoke. The lock snapped and flew off, smashing a gaping hole in the wooden door.

As Leon pushed the door open, he spotted an old woman poking her head out from a doorframe down the corridor. She wore a nurse's cap, her hair disheveled, her face haggard.

Her expression was complicated—dazed, a mix of fear and hope twisting the usually stern, responsible features into something almost distorted.

Leon frowned. He recognized her.

"Mrs. Moretti?"

The old woman seemed to snap out of a daze after a dozen seconds, staring blankly at Leon and the armed men behind him. Her voice rasped like sandpaper.

"Dr. Leon Castor? Is that you?"

Leon nodded, glancing around in surprise. The fourth floor housed the inpatient wards for serious cases. Mrs. Moriarty was the head nurse, over fifty years old.

It was hard to imagine someone her age surviving here for over a month.

"It's me, Mrs. Moriarty. Are you the only one here?"

"How did you manage to survive alone?"

The old woman seemed to accept reality, letting out a sigh as the fear slowly faded from her face. She stepped out of the room and into the hallway.

Her complexion was pale, her nurse's uniform rumpled, giving her the look of a refugee short on food and clothing.

"Monsters like those showed up near my house too. I couldn't stay there alone, so I came back to the hospital."

"After the army left, there were far fewer people here, and some of the severely ill patients were left unattended."

"I've been collecting the fruit baskets and gifts from the wards as food while taking care of the surviving patients, and I've stayed on until now."

Saying this, the old woman's face twisted into a bitter smile.

"But all that food is gone now. I've been starving for days and was just planning to head out and scrounge for supplies."

Leon nodded calmly, walked over to her, and pulled some high-energy chocolate, jerky, and candy from his waist pouch, handing them over as he spoke.

"It's alright, Mrs. Moretti. You can come back with us. We have a safe shelter that takes in all kind-hearted survivors."

"By the way, which patients are still alive? Can they move?"

The old woman nodded gratefully at Leon, accepted the food, and refrained from eating it immediately with restrained dignity. She thought for a moment before replying.

"I noticed that some patients turned into monsters after they died, so I locked them in their wards. Without proper medicine, only relying on IV drips, there are just four left alive now. You might remember them."

"Miss Kevira, who broke every bone in her body in a car accident; Mr. Hongke, who's been in a vegetative state and hasn't woken up; Mr. Rick, who's unconscious from a gunshot wound; and Mr. Claude, who became simple-minded from brain damage after a brawl."

All of them were disabled—unable to move or escape. Of course, anyone who could move wouldn't still be here.

Hearing that Rick was unchanged and still alive, Leon felt a wave of relief. He patted the old woman on the shoulder and said, "Don't be sad, Mrs. Moretti. Things are what they are, and we can't change them."

"We're planning to move the hospital's medical equipment and supplies. Could you take my men and help them pick out the valuable gear?"

The old woman eyed the fully armed, burly men behind Leon for a few moments, then nodded and said, "Alright, Dr. Castor. What medicines and equipment do you need?"

Leon replied matter-of-factly, "As long as it's valuable, we'll take it all. We brought several heavy trucks this time. If one trip isn't enough, we can make another."

"First, take them to the pharmacy to move the medicine. I'll go check on the patients. In an hour, we'll have lunch together."