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Chapter 77 - New Plans
Texas Coast
Forward Base
"Unless we manage to take full control of this place, I think the infected will be drawn to us again—and believe me, I'm sick of burning corpses," Claire said weakly, with no real emotion on her face.
Not knowing anything more about her brother, she never stopped searching for him. But she couldn't devote all her time and attention to a single search—she knew that sooner or later, she would find him.
She did what she had always known how to do: take care of others and hope that things would get better with time.
"It's been over five months, and the world's gone to hell. It's a shame we can't trust outsiders the way we used to. These days, you can run into all kinds of evil people," Alan said, sitting atop the building of the military base, which was in constant expansion.
The objective was clear: to control Texas—and for that, they needed more than patience, given how vast the territory was. Reclaiming the streets from the infected was tedious work, even after helicopters had flown over, clearing out the largest hordes of the undead.
The place they were in now was Laredo. They had reclaimed all the beaches, and that area was now a point for gathering supplies from the sea.
All the work Alan was doing wasn't much; he focused mostly on selecting elite soldiers and delivering long speeches to motivate them.
Crimes were now punished by death, regardless of the offense. If there were no rules, then no one should belong to the new world Alan was creating.
Perhaps many had changed so much they could never go back to who they once were. Alan didn't demand that—but he did want everyone to understand the rules.
Without rules, they would be no different from the infected—maybe even worse.
To address this, communities had been established along the reclaimed beaches, where people were taught survival techniques and how to stay quiet around the infected.
As for whether or not people adapted—those who were with them now were useful, and those who weren't... there was no need to mention them.
"Tobías did well downloading all those movies. Thanks to him, thousands of people don't die of boredom during breaks," Claire said, watching a movie on a monitor while they rested.
"More movie storage than you could ever imagine. It's insane," Alan recalled that Tobías hadn't just downloaded movies and series, but also thousands of survival videos, technical guides, and tutorials on skills people would need ten years down the road.
With no internet, there's no data—and that was something Tobías understood very well. He was one of the few who truly grasped the needs Alan had overlooked.
At that moment, Alan—now in better shape than before—heard a soft alarm.
"Are we under attack?"
Alan stood up, grabbed his rifle, and aimed toward the entrance, where the soldiers were stationed in their respective watchtowers.
"Look, in that direction."
Claire, who had spotted the approaching horde of infected, couldn't express her emotions in words—but her eyes revealed fear as she took in the sight.
Alan looked in the same direction and furrowed his brow when he saw the massive number of infected approaching. Just last night, the military had cleared out large groups of them—there shouldn't have been so many left. But what they were seeing now was thousands of infected, some faster than others.
"Commander, we have a drone in that direction."
Alan turned his head and soon spotted a drone flying not far from the infected.
"Damn bastards—someone's luring the infected toward our base."
"Shoot that drone down. Ready the spears to take them out one by one, and don't forget to use the flamethrowers," Alan ordered, instantly grasping the situation. Though the distance wasn't close, he could clearly see that the drone had a speaker attached. It was the sound that had drawn the nearby infected.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
"Get ready." Alan put on a mask to protect himself from the smoke and immediately walked to the front lines, where at least two hundred people were eliminating infected behind the fences.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
In the distance, several snipers were handling the infected trying to climb the metal fences, so the people below didn't have to fear the dead breaching the barriers.