Chapter 56 The Gas Station!

Magnus Vane immediately understood what Michonne meant. If she had heard the church bell from a distance, then she must have reached the area sometime while he was unconscious and chosen to remain outside instead of walking blindly into a building surrounded by corpses. Considering the mountain of dead walkers filling the church, that was probably exactly why she had kept her distance in the first place. “So you were already around here,” Magnus said, studying her. “You saw what was inside and decided not to come in.”

“Yes.” Michonne gave a simple nod, offering nothing more than necessary. That caution was probably one of the main reasons she had managed to survive alone this long; rushing into unknown buildings was how people ended up dead before they ever understood what had happened. What she clearly hadn’t expected was to find the man responsible for the massacre still alive, much less standing in front of her with a splinted arm and enough strength left to stop her katana one-handed. After witnessing that, she had no interest in continuing a pointless fight.

Magnus, meanwhile, understood that the exchange hadn’t been quite as one-sided as it probably looked from Michonne’s perspective. The bonuses from his newly equipped gear had sharpened his movement enough for him to react to the ambush, while Michonne’s speed and precision were exactly the kind of traits that could trouble someone whose build revolved heavily around raw Strength. In a drawn-out fight, though, the difference remained brutal: Michonne might land several cuts before Magnus touched her, but he only needed one clean hit from the Stone Sledgehammer to end the battle. That confidence let the last trace of hostility leave his expression as he smiled. “Relax. It’s just me here.”

Michonne glanced past him toward the church again. “You killed all of them?” Her eyes briefly dropped to the crude splint securing Magnus’s right arm before returning to the blood covering his body. By the time she finished asking, her expression suggested she already knew the answer. Magnus simply spread his left hand. “You can see the evidence.”

For a moment, the scene silenced even Michonne. Magnus stood at the entrance drenched in dried walker blood, his injured arm splinted against his side and his massive hammer resting in the other hand, while behind him corpses filled the church almost wall to wall. It wasn’t the kind of sight a survivor expected to find attached to one living person. Magnus let her absorb it before his attention shifted toward the two chained walkers standing behind her.

He walked around slightly, studying the mutilated corpses with open interest rather than disgust. Both had their arms removed and lower jaws cut away, leaving them incapable of grabbing or biting while the chains allowed Michonne to keep them under control. “Take away the arms and jaw, and they stop being much of a threat,” Magnus said. “They’re quieter too. That’s only the second time I’ve seen a walker this harmless.”

Michonne watched him closely but didn’t answer.

“Smart idea,” Magnus continued. “Takes nerve to figure it out and actually keep them around.” He thought briefly of Rick’s group using walker guts to disguise themselves back in Atlanta; compared with smearing rotting blood and organs across clothing, dragging two harmless walkers behind you was certainly cleaner. For an instant Magnus even considered making his own pair someday, then immediately abandoned the thought. With his system rewarding every walker kill, keeping two of them alive as permanent pets sounded like throwing away free experience.

Michonne gathered the chains again and turned away. “If we’re even about what happened, I’m leaving.”

Magnus didn’t try to stop her.

“It looks like you’re traveling alone,” he called after her. “If you ever want somewhere safer to stay, there’s a prison south of here. That’s where my people are headed.”

Michonne didn’t turn around.

She simply raised one hand in acknowledgment and kept walking, the surviving chained walker following behind her.

Magnus watched until the trees swallowed her from sight, then rested the Stone Sledgehammer across one shoulder. “Yeah, that tracks.” Michonne wasn’t the type to join a group because some stranger offered her a bed and a fence; she would watch first, judge the people for herself, and only then decide whether they were worth trusting. Trying to pressure her would accomplish nothing, and she had clearly survived long enough on her own that Magnus didn’t need to worry about her immediately.

“Later problem.”

Right now, Daryl and Merle mattered more.

Before leaving the settlement, Magnus headed into the nearby woods and collected what he needed from trees, loose stone, and plant fiber. Hammering the World Lv10 had dramatically improved his sledgehammer crafting, and although his right arm was still healing, he could manage the work through the system without relying on normal two-handed construction. Rather than make another Quality 2 version, he used the materials to upgrade his primary weapon as far as his available components allowed.

A new system entry appeared.

[Stone Sledgehammer — Quality 5]

[Melee Damage: 25.1]

[Power Attack Damage: 47.1]

[Stamina Cost: 22]

[Description: Built for one purpose—breaking whatever stands in front of you.]

Magnus compared the numbers to the old Quality 2 hammer and smiled. The previous version’s basic melee damage had only been around eighteen, so Quality 5 represented a significant jump even before Strength Lv8, Skull Crusher Lv4, and the Barbed Wire Mod were considered. Quality 6 was currently out of reach because the final upgrade required a special Legendary Part that he didn’t possess. Even so, the new hammer was already a major improvement.

“Good enough.”

Magnus returned to the abandoned settlement, found an old motorcycle that could still run, and managed to get it started. He rode out alone, one hand controlling the handlebars while his splinted right arm remained supported against his body. Based on the regional map and the direction he had traveled before the Blood Moon, his current position should be west of where the convoy had been stranded.

Rick had almost certainly moved everyone by now.

Magnus had failed to return before dawn, and judging from how long he had been unconscious, more than a full day had already passed. Rick had explicitly warned that he wouldn’t leave the entire convoy waiting indefinitely, and Magnus had trusted him to keep that promise. If everything had gone reasonably well, Rick was already moving the others toward the prison.

That simplified Magnus’s own plan.

Daryl and Merle had originally ridden north while scouting ahead of the convoy. If they were still alive and mobile, they wouldn’t spend days wandering without direction; sooner or later, both would realize the prison was the group’s rendezvous point and head there. Magnus could search north along their likely route, and if he found no trace of them, he would abandon the hunt and go directly to the prison. If the Dixon brothers had already escaped whatever delayed them, there was a good chance they would be waiting there before he arrived.

The motorcycle carried him across open grassland and stretches of rural countryside until Magnus finally reached a straight paved road. By then, the healing countdown on his fractured right arm had dropped to roughly two hours. Once those two hours passed, he should finally be close to full physical condition again, and then he could consider spending the seven skill points still sitting untouched in the system. For now, he kept riding north.

He made it only another mile or so before the engine sputtered.

Magnus twisted the throttle.

The motorcycle coughed twice and slowed dramatically.

“Come on.”

Another twist produced nothing except a weak mechanical groan.

Magnus sighed. “Out of gas.”

Considering he had taken the bike from an abandoned rural settlement, he couldn’t exactly complain. He had managed less than five miles before the remaining fuel disappeared, but fortune hadn’t completely abandoned him; when Magnus looked farther along the road, a large gas-station sign rose above the trees. Even from nearly half a mile away, the pumps and roadside buildings were easy to recognize.

Magnus climbed off and pushed the motorcycle toward it.

A public restroom sat beneath the tall sign near the edge of the station property. Magnus wheeled the bike around the restroom wall, intending to check the pumps first, but after less than two seconds he silently backed up again. His expression stiffened as he pressed himself against the wall.

His heartbeat picked up.

There were walkers everywhere.

Not ten.

Not twenty.

Hundreds.

The entire gas-station lot was packed with a dense herd standing between the pumps, abandoned cars, and convenience-store entrance. They weren’t actively moving anywhere, just swaying together in a restless mass as though something near the station had drawn them in and kept them there. Magnus cautiously leaned far enough around the wall to look again, then withdrew before any of them noticed him.

He rubbed his forehead with his left hand.

“A hundred, maybe eighty, I can work with.”

Magnus glanced toward the enormous herd again.

“But hundreds?”

For the first time since leaving the church, his good mood disappeared.

“How the hell am I supposed to clear that?”