The convoy ran like a heartbeat for five straight days, back and forth from the farm to the railyard, and from the railyard to the farm.
Again and again and again.
Under normal circumstances, hauling two hundred and thirty-four shipping containers across Georgia roads with our setup would've taken at least a week and a half, maybe more.
But normal circumstances died with the world.
So, we pushed twenty-four hours a day, minimal sleep, running on coffee and adrenaline and the constant fear that every extra hour sitting on that mountain of sealed containers increased the odds of somebody else finding it—or finding us.
By day five, the men looked like ghosts.
Rick's beard had grown rough and uneven, dark circles dug deep under his eyes.
Daryl smelled like sweat, old and bow wax, twenty-four seven now.
Merle had stopped talking as much, which honestly worried me more than his usual bullshit.
Morgan's smile was nowhere to be seen, and Morales was looking dead on his feet.
The only reason I was still standing straight was because of the ROB's gifts and the little extra "perks" that kept my body functioning long after a normal man would've folded.
It didn't stop the exhaustion, though.
My whole body ached, my shoulders still burned, my hands still cramped around steering wheels and control levers, and mentally?
I was running on fumes.
The final convoy rolled out of Inman sometime after midnight, four armored trucks hauling the last batch of marked containers through the darkness while the Reach Stacker sat chained to the trailer behind my truck.
The yard looked somewhat different now.
Emptier.
Rick leaned from the window of his truck while I checked the final manifests one more time under the beam of a flashlight.
"You coming?" he asked tiredly.
"In a bit."
He frowned slightly.
I held up the shipping manifests. "Final inspection. Wanna make sure we didn't miss anything useful."
Normally, Rick would've argued.
Normally, he would've insisted nobody stayed behind alone, especially this late in the night.
But after five days of nonstop hauling?
The man just looked too tired to argue.
Besides… he knew my habits by now.
They all knew I checked things, double-checked them, planned for worst-case scenarios.
It was part of why they trusted me.
Rick finally nodded once. "Don't stay too long."
"No promises."
Rick just let out a sigh, then climbed into the driver's seat, turned the engine on as well as the headlights, then rolled out slowly down the access road, taillights disappearing into the Georgia night.
And just like that—I was alone again.
The silence hit hard after that many days around engines and people.
No voices, no radios.
Just distant insects, the faint groan of walkers in the distance, and the smell.
God, the smell.
Old diesel and rot.
We had taken some time days ago and dragged out the corpses of the walkers we killed and burned them to prevent any disease that might pop up, but the scent still clung to the place like a stain.
I exhaled slowly and looked down at the Norfolk Southern manifests in my hands.
The important stuff was already safe at the farm—medical stuff, food stuff, and tools.
But now?
Now I had time to dig deeper.
And deeper usually meant jackpots.
I flipped through pages under the flashlight beam, scanning container IDs and cargo descriptions.
Then, my eyes narrowed slightly.
"Well," I muttered quietly, "would you look at that."
Pet and livestock feed.
Bulk cleaning supplies.
Industrial hygiene products.
My flashlight moved further down the manifest.
Hardware staples.
Generators.
Heavy-duty flashlights.
Axes.
Tens of thousands of batteries.
My tired brain immediately started calculating value.
Not the modern value—post-collapse value.
Batteries alone would become worth their weight in gold inside a few years.
Then came textile shipments.
Massive industrial rolls of fabric, denim, leather, garment materials.
Containers full of clothes, boots, jackets, winter wear.
Men's clothes, women's clothes, children's sizes.
Enough to outfit entire communities.
A cold laugh escaped me.
Civilization really had died overnight.
All this stuff, all this wealth, just sitting abandoned in here because humanity collapsed too fast to reclaim it.
Then I saw the final category and stopped walking entirely.
Alcohol imports.
I stared at the manifest for a few seconds longer before flipping the page again to make sure I was reading it right.
European beer, french wine, imported whiskey, high-end tequila, local spirits.
Thousands upon thousands of cases.
I let out a disbelieving laugh.
Now that was a damn jackpot.
Not because I planned on getting drunk—hell no.
Alcohol in the apocalypse was liquid currency.
Trade goods, medical disinfectant, morale booster.
Hell, a single bottle of quality whiskey could probably buy livestock a few years from now.
And unlike canned food?
People would kill for comfort.
Kill for a pint of beer, for a bottle of wine, for a bar of chocolate.
And now?
I had these things in the tons, and I was gonna make goddamn sure I use every last bit of it.
(To be continued...)