I folded the manifests carefully and slid them into my jacket pocket, then I got to work.
The routine felt familiar now—too familiar.
Padre Shipyard, Inman Rail Yard... different graveyard, same method.
Rows upon rows of steel containers stretched through the darkness like the bones of some dead metallic giant.
My boots echoed softly against cracked asphalt as I moved between them with a flashlight in one hand and a pry bar on the other.
The first container groaned when I cracked the seal. Heavy steel doors swung open inch by inch.
Inside sat pallet after pallet of pet and livestock feed, stacked almost to the ceiling.
The air smelled dry and dusty—cornmeal, processed grain, hay pellets, kibble and wet food.
Enough feed to keep the farm's livestock and Ghost going for years if used right.
"Guess Ghost won't be lacking for food anymore," I muttered to myself.
I stepped inside.
Then the inventory took over.
My hand brushed against the first pallet.
Gone.
No flash, no dramatic effect—just gone.
One second it was there, the next it didn't.
The air inside the container shifted slightly every time it happened; tiny pressure changes, faint drafts against my skin as thousands of pounds of mass vanished into the impossible void attached to my soul.
Pallet after pallet, crate after crate, bag after bag—all gone, disappeared silently.
The deeper I emptied the container, the colder it seemed to become inside the steel walls, the trapped heat bleeding out into empty space.
I paused every few minutes to listen.
Nothing.
Just the distant hum of insects and the occasional metallic groan from the rail yard cooling in the night air.
Safe for now.
I moved to the next container, then the next, and the next.
Hours blurred together after that.
Cleaning supplies vanished into the void by the pallet-load: bleach, soap, industrial disinfectants, toilet paper.
God, the old world really had worshipped toilet paper.
Hardware containers came next: axes, generators, power tools, floodlights, kitchen appliances, mountains of batteries.
Enough spare parts to keep machinery running for decades if maintained correctly.
I worked steadily, methodically.
No wasted movement, no noise—just a tired old soul robbing the corpse of civilization one container at a time.
By hour three, my shoulders felt tight, even with the Peak Human enhancements.
Even with the extra healing boon.
By hour four, my eyes burned from staring at manifests and flashlight beams.
By hour five, exhaustion settled into my bones like wet concrete.
That didn't stop me.
Couldn't stop me.
Not when this kind of haul could secure the farm's future for years, maybe decades.
The clothing containers hit harder than I expected.
Rows of boxed winter coats, children's shoes, denim jeans still wrapped in factory plastic, tiny gloves, school backpacks featuring superheroes and Barbie dolls.
I stood there for a moment, looking at one small pair of winter boots.
The world ended so damn fast and took so much with it.
Factories were still making clothes, people were still planning for winter sales, parents were probably buying school supplies while civilization quietly bled out behind the curtain.
I exhaled slowly and kept moving.
Rolls of fabrics—denim, leather, jean—all quietly disappeared inside my inventory.
The booze containers came last, and they were absurd.
Entire steel boxes packed floor to ceiling with all assortments of alcohol: imported beer, French wine, whiskey crates, premium tequila, vodka, rum, luxury brands mixed beside local distributors.
Enough liquor to stock bars for years.
A tired chuckle escaped me as another pallet vanished into the inventory.
"Hell," I muttered quietly, "Merle's gonna think he died and went to heaven if he were to ever see all this booze."
Still… I treated those containers seriously.
Alcohol wasn't just drinking; it was antiseptic when true antiseptic was gone, it was trade currency, it was morale in liquid form, it was the soul celebrations, and a sort of painkiller when pills are hard to come by in the apocalypse.
Booze meant a lot of things.
Comfort was one of the prevalent thing, and comfort is a lot harder to come by in the apocalypse than some would think.
By the time I reached the final container, dawn threatened faintly at the horizon.
Six straight hours.
Two hundred and thirty containers emptied into the impossible void hanging behind reality.
And when I finished?
The rail yard looked untouched at first glance.
That was the eerie part.
The containers still stood there, towering steel giants beneath the dark Georgia sky.
But inside?
Nothing.
Empty iron ghosts.
Any survivor stumbling onto Inman someday would think they'd hit the jackpot, right up until they cracked open the doors and found hollow steel shells echoing back at them.
I chuckled a little despite my exhaustion at that mental image, feeling a rare streak of mischievousness raring it's head.
Shaking my head slightly, I stepped out of the last container and pulled the heavy doors shut.
BOOM.
The sound rolled through the quiet yard, then I locked it again—one final ghost among hundreds.
I stood there for a moment afterward, staring across the massive rail yard.
Thousands of walkers killed here, burnt here.
Hundreds of containers stripped clean.
Enough supplies to support a growing community for years to come, and nobody besides me would ever know the true scale of what disappeared from this place.
I climbed into the armored truck cab slowly, my muscles protesting with every move.
The seat creaked beneath me.
I tossed the manifests onto the glove box and started the engine.
The diesel roared to life.
Headlights cut through the darkness.
Then I pulled out of Inman Rail Yard for the final time.
Behind me, the yard remained standing beneath the fading night sky—a hollow shell picked clean, dead like the rest of the old world.
(To be continued...)