The black helicopter touched down on a remote airfield miles from Lakewood.
Floodlights bathed the landing zone in stark white as the Crows disembarked.
Unloading the crates of fuel, food, and medical supplies with practiced efficiency.
No words were exchanged beyond short, efficient callouts.
"Crate 4 secured."
"Fuel containers to Bay 2."
"Inventory complete."
Crow One, had a tall figure with a shaved head and unreadable expression.
He strode across the tarmac toward a nondescript hangar.
Inside, rows of similar crates lined the walls, tagged with locations.
Ashville. Oak Ridge. Greenville. Now, Lakewood.
A man in a clean, pressed uniform waited for him at a steel table. He wasn't dressed for combat... no, he was the kind who gave orders and never got his hands dirty.
"Status?" the man asked, not looking up from his clipboard.
"Lakewood cleared," Crow One replied evenly. "No resistance encountered. Supplies added to stockpile."
The man finally glanced up, lips curling into a thin, satisfied smile. "Good. Every town we strip pushes the rest closer to collapse. Scattered survivors don't rebuild if they can't feed themselves."
Crow One nodded, no emotion flickering across his face. "Orders?"
"Next target's further north. Another farming hub," the man said, sliding over a dossier marked, PRIORITY: SUSTAINED OPERATIONS.
"Same objective. Loot everything. Leave nothing behind. Burn fields if necessary."
Crow One accepted the file without hesitation. "Understood."
As he turned to leave, the man called after him, voice almost casual. "Oh, and if you encounter organized survivor groups? Remove them. Quietly."
Crow One didn't answer... he simply walked out, signaling his unit to prepare for departure.
Minutes later, the helicopter was airborne again, disappearing into the night.
Back inside the hangar, the officer marked another line on a long list of "neutralized" settlements.
The map behind him was dotted with red X's.
Whole towns wiped out, one by one.
...
The night was pitch-black, broken only by the faint glow of a small farming community nestled in the valley below.
A dozen survivors lived there... men, women, and children.
They were quiet, self-sufficient, unaware that death was descending from the sky.
The Crows' helicopter circled silently, its rotors engineered to mask sound at distance.
It set down in an open field beyond the perimeter of the settlement.
Crow One motioned with two fingers.
His unit fanned out, black-clad shapes blending seamlessly into the darkness.
They moved with the precision of predators, night-vision goggles casting eerie green reflections as they approached the first house.
...
A family of four sat around a table, finishing a meager dinner of canned beans and bread. The father glanced out the window, sensing movement in the dark. "Stay here," he murmured, picking up his rifle and stepping outside.
He didn't make it three paces before a suppressed round punched through his skull, dropping him silently into the dirt.
The door burst open seconds later. Two Crows stormed inside, weapons raised.
The mother barely had time to scream before another round silenced her.
The children were pulled from their chairs, sobbing, and dragged outside without a word.
House by house, the settlement fell. Suppressed weapons coughed in the night, cutting down anyone who resisted.
Barns were torched, livestock slaughtered and left to rot.
The stored food... months of hard work, was packed into crates and ferried to the waiting helicopter.
By dawn, nothing remained but smoldering ruins and corpses cooling in the morning air.
The Crows loaded the last of the supplies, the two orphaned children among them, hooded and bound.
Crow One stood at the edge of the destruction, speaking into his radio. "Target neutralized. Proceeding to next assignment."
The helicopter lifted off, leaving behind a dead settlement and a warning to no one... because no one was alive to hear it.
...
The black helicopter touched down on the same remote airfield, but this time there was no quick unloading of supplies.
Four small figures were escorted down the ramp.
All children, wrists bound, cloth bags removed from their heads under the harsh glare of floodlights.
They blinked against the brightness, trembling, tear-streaked faces turned toward the masked operatives around them.
Crow One handed them over to a pair of waiting medical personnel in sterile white coats. "Subjects delivered," he said flatly.
The doctors didn't ask about the parents, the settlement, or how the children were taken.
They simply ushered the captives toward a secure building at the far end of the complex.
The children were seated on metal stools under bright lights as a small team of doctors prepared syringes and vials.
"Begin screening," one of them ordered.
Blood was drawn, labeled, and run through advanced testing machines. Moments later, results began scrolling across monitors.
"Negative," a technician murmured. "No active infection markers. No trace of reactivation potential, either."
A senior doctor peered at the data, his expression clinical. "Another pair. Clean. Their immune systems carry adaptive antibodies capable of neutralizing the pathogen completely."
One of the junior researchers frowned. "If we can replicate this..."
The senior doctor cut him off with a sharp glance. "We're not replicating this for everyone. This is for controlled dissemination. Selective application only. You know the directive."
He tapped a locked file marked PRIORITY – EXECUTIVE ACCESS ONLY.
The younger man hesitated, lowering his voice. "But, if this got out..."
"It won't," the doctor snapped. "The higher-ups want a population dependent on their protection, not a world cured of this. Immunity is leverage, not salvation."
Behind the glass, the two children huddled together, fear etching across their faces. They had seen the two other children be brutally killed and thrown into an incinerator.
They were oblivious to the cold conversation deciding their fates. A nurse approached them with a tray of vials, preparing to take more samples.
"Schedule transport to Facility Three," the senior doctor ordered. "Full trials begin tomorrow."
Outside, the Crows loaded up again, ready for their next mission.
Deep in the heart of the facility, the hope of a future without infection was being twisted into a tool for power.
...
By the time Joe's convoy rolled back through the gates, the sun was low on the horizon.
The day's heat had begun to fade, but the tension in the air was thick enough to choke on.
Hershel, Maggie, and Tyreese were waiting for them in the yard.
As soon as Joe stepped out of the truck, they could see the grim look on his face.
One that spoke volumes even before he opened his mouth.
"Everyone inside," Joe ordered, voice cold and clipped. "Mess hall. Now."
Within minutes, the entire community had gathered... veterans of the prison's early days, the newer arrivals from Woodbury, and even Tyreese's group.
Mothers held their children close, faces wary as they waited for Joe to speak.
He stood at the front with Rick and Daryl flanking him, his rifle still slung across his chest, eyes hard as stone.
"In Lakewood, we found a group," Joe began, voice low but carrying clearly.
"Not like the Governor's people. Not scavengers. They were organized, moved with tactical precision."
Daryl stepped forward. "They called each other 'Crow'... Crow One, Crow Two, Crow Three. Didn't say nothin' else. Didn't need to."
Rick picked up from there, his tone grim. "They stripped that town bare in a few hours. Moved like a damn military unit. And they had air support. A black helicopter, silent as a ghost. We couldn't track them."
A ripple of unease moved through the room.
Joe's gaze swept over every face present, pinning each person in place. "Listen carefully. These people aren't looking for friends. They aren't looking to trade. They're out there to take what they want and leave nothing behind. If you see them... do not engage. Avoid contact if at all possible."
He paused, letting that sink in before his tone sharpened to steel.
"But if they come here…" His voice dropped lower, colder. "…we don't take prisoners. We don't negotiate. We wipe them out. Completely. Not one walks away. You leave survivors, you leave a threat that'll come back for our kids."
His words landed like a hammer blow. No one argued. Not a single person doubted the necessity.
Hershel nodded solemnly. "I'll double up medical stocks. Just in case."
Tyreese's jaw tightened. "We'll reinforce the walls again. No gaps."
Rick's eyes met Joe's. "And we'll be ready."
Joe gave a single nod. "Good. Because these Crows? They're coming sooner or later. And when they do, we end them."
The meeting broke up slowly, the weight of Joe's warning settling over the prison like a storm cloud.
Outside, the sky darkened to twilight, and far beyond their walls, somewhere in the night.
The Crows were already on the move.
...
The following months were a blur of relentless preparation.
Joe oversaw every inch of it personally, turning the prison from a safe haven into a fortress.
The outer fence had been strengthened even more with salvaged steel plating and thick support beams.
The materials scavenged from junkyards and abandoned construction sites.
Now, the inner fence was reinforced with wood and scrap metal, reinforced with barbed wire.
Outside the outer fence lay a killing field lined with sharpened wooden stakes and oil drums rigged for ignition.
Joe stood on the catwalk one morning, surveying the progress.
Below, Tyreese's crew hammered beams into place while Daryl tested the triggers on new tripwire-based alarms.
Rick approached, boots crunching on gravel. "Outer ring's complete. We've got fallback positions inside, too." Joe nodded.
He continued, "The guard towers are stocked with ammo, sandbag walls behind every gate."
Joe smiled, arms crossed. "Good. When they come, I want this place to bleed them dry before they even reach the yard."
...
Inside the prison, the once-quiet courtyards now echoed with the sounds of gunfire and shouted orders.
Under Joe's strict regime, every able-bodied adult learned how to handle a firearm, reload under pressure, and fight hand-to-hand if it came to that.
"No hesitation!" Joe barked during one session as a recruit fumbled with a jammed rifle.
He snatched it from their hands, cleared the malfunction in seconds, and handed it back.
"You freeze in the field, you're dead. Worse, you get someone else killed. Do it again."
Andrea and Sasha ran the ranged training alongside him, while Tyreese handled melee combat.
Even the teenagers, like Carl and a few others, were drilled to defend themselves if the walls were breached.
...
Scavenging runs went out nearly every day... armed, organized, and cautious.
They brought back supplies and, increasingly, reports of Crow involvement.
"Black SUV spotted near Ashville," Glenn reported one evening over the mess hall table. Laying down a crude map marked with pins.
"Another in Kingsport," Daryl added. "Tracks led west. Disappeared."
Joe leaned over the map, his eyes narrowing at the growing cluster of sightings across the state.
"They're not just passing through. They're operating out of here... somewhere close. This is their hunting ground."
Rick nodded grimly. "Question is, do we find them first, or wait for them to find us?"
Joe's answer was immediate, voice low and unyielding. "We find them. We end them."
...
By late summer, the prison stood ready in ways it never had before.
The gardens thrived, the walls stood unyielding, and the people within were harder, stronger, and more united than ever.
But with every report, the Crows were sighted closer to them. Another abandoned town stripped bare, another convoy vanished.
Joe knew the day of reckoning was approaching.
He stood on the roof of the guard tower one evening, watching the sun set over the forested horizon.
Somewhere out there, the Crows were waiting.
And when they came, they'd find a prison prepared not just to survive. But to kill.
...
The scavenging run had been routine.
Glenn leading with Sasha, and two new recruits, Sammy and Cleo.
They'd filled their truck with fuel cans and non-perishables they scavenged from an abandoned distribution center.
The day had been quiet. Too quiet.
They were heading back down an old service road when the silence shattered.
CRACK!
A suppressed round tore through the windshield, narrowly missing Glenn's head.
"Ambush!" Sasha yelled, diving for cover as bullets stitched across the truck's hood.
Black figures emerged from the tree line on both sides—Crows, moving with lethal precision. At least eight of them, closing in like predators.
Glenn yanked his rifle up, firing through the driver's side window. "Out! Flank!"
The group spilled from the truck, taking cover behind a collapsed billboard.
Sasha fired controlled bursts, dropping one Crow who exposed himself too long.
"Crow Three down," a distorted voice crackled over the enemy's comms.
Another volley came in response, forcing them lower.
"We can't run," Glenn hissed. "They'll hunt us down. We end this here."
Sasha's eyes hardened. "Then let's finish this."
The Crows advanced, their formation tight, communication clipped and constant.
But Glenn's group fought back with ferocity born of desperation.
Cleo lobbed a Molotov from their pack, engulfing a pair of Crows in flame.
Sasha used the distraction to flank left, circling through the underbrush.
She crept up behind one of the shooters and buried her knife in his neck, dragging him into the brush silently.
Glenn, pinned behind the billboard, spotted another Crow moving to flank him. He timed his shot perfectly, dropping the man with a single round to the head.
The fight turned bloody and close. When the last Crow lunged from the trees, his knife raised.
Sasha met him head-on, jamming the barrel of her rifle into his chest and firing point-blank.
Silence fell, broken only by the hiss of burning bodies.
...
Glenn and Sasha stood amid the carnage, breathing hard.
They quickly swept the field, collecting every weapon, comm device, and crate of supplies the Crows had stolen from the town.
The arsenal was unlike anything they'd seen before. Suppressed rifles, night-vision goggles, encrypted radios.
"Look at this," Sasha muttered, holding up a device with a GPS display. "They've been mapping everything. Towns, roads, maybe even us."
Glenn's face hardened. "Not anymore."
They loaded everything into their truck, leaving nothing behind but corpses.
...
Hours later, in the Crows' hidden command center, an operator studied a blank signal feed.
A team had gone dark. No comms. No return.
A superior officer frowned at the data. "What happened to Team Delta?"
"Unknown, sir. Last known location, Kingsport sector. They were hunting a small group of survivors."
The officer's expression tightened. "And now?"
"Gone, sir. All of them."
A murmur rippled through the room. The officer turned toward a wall-sized map of the state, marking Kingsport with a red X.
"Someone out there is fighting back," he said grimly. "And they're good enough to kill a murder of Crows."
He turned to his staff, voice cold. "Find them. Whoever they are... They die next."