Chapter 82 83

Tomas finally recovered from the blow Shane had given him, but the moment he heard Magnus Vane’s words, cold sweat broke across his face. “Leave the prison?” His expression twisted as he stared up at Magnus, blood still running from his nose. “You were actually planning to take us outside?” In only a few words, Tomas had managed to pull Oscar and Big Tiny into the situation with him, turning his own failed attack into a question of whether all three inmates were being deceived.

Magnus almost admired the attempt. Tomas clearly understood how to use fear, and that explained how he had become the leader of the cafeteria survivors despite not being physically impressive. Oscar’s expression changed slightly, while Big Tiny took two cautious steps backward as if hoping nobody would notice. Tomas saw their hesitation immediately and pushed harder. “Or maybe the real question is whether the United States government ever intended to let people like us leave at all.”

Magnus gave a short laugh.

The conspiracy theory was almost funny considering how little remained of the government Tomas was worried about.

Magnus crouched in front of him without answering and reached for the hand Tomas had been trying to hide near his side. The compact pistol was still there. The moment Magnus saw it, Tomas’s expression hardened and he pulled the trigger repeatedly at point-blank range.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Nothing happened.

Magnus smiled and slowly opened his other hand.

Three cartridges rested in his palm.

“Looking for these?”

Tomas’s face drained of color.

Magnus casually took the revolver away from him. “Little trick. You’ve seen enough cop movies to know people get stupid when they think they’re armed.” He loaded a single round into the cylinder, spun it, and snapped it shut while Tomas stared at him in growing panic. “You wanted a chance to gamble with my life. Seems fair you get one with yours.”

“No—wait.”

Magnus raised the revolver.

Tomas immediately started pleading.

Magnus ignored him.

Click.

Then—

BANG!

Tomas jerked violently as the bullet tore through his throat. He collapsed onto the floor clutching the wound, blood pouring between his fingers while he struggled for several more seconds before finally going still. Magnus lowered the revolver and glanced briefly at the cylinder; the remaining chambers were now loaded again after a quiet system-inventory trick Tomas never had a chance to understand.

System backpack still has uses I haven’t even thought of yet.

Magnus put the thought aside and looked toward Oscar and Big Tiny.

Neither man moved.

“Still wondering what happened outside?”

He picked up the Stone Sledgehammer and rested it against one shoulder.

Shane immediately took a small step farther away.

Oscar and Big Tiny noticed the movement but didn’t understand why until something behind Magnus shifted.

Tomas sat up.

Both inmates froze.

Blood continued leaking from the wound in his throat, but his eyes had already clouded and darkened. Veins stood out beneath the pale skin of his face as his jaw began working uselessly, followed by a low, wet growl that sounded wrong even compared with the walkers outside. Oscar and Big Tiny backed away together without needing anyone to tell them something had changed.

Magnus pointed toward Tomas with the hammer.

“Walkers. That’s what we call them.”

Tomas dragged himself upright.

Magnus continued as calmly as if giving a classroom lecture. “Every living person is carrying whatever causes this. When somebody dies and the brain is still intact, they come back like that.” He looked toward Oscar and Big Tiny. “That thing isn’t Tomas anymore. It doesn’t remember friendship, loyalty, prison, or anything else that matters. All it wants is living flesh.”

Oscar stared at the reanimated prisoner.

“The bodies we passed…”

“Same thing,” Magnus said. “Some were walkers. Others had already been put down before they could get back up.”

Oscar swallowed.

“And outside the prison?”

Magnus nodded once. “Same everywhere. Atlanta, Georgia, the rest of the country. Whatever government response was left collapsed a long time ago, and the military got torn apart with everyone else.” He glanced toward the dark prison corridor. “Right now, walkers outnumber living people badly enough that this world belongs more to them than it does to us.”

A broken hiss came from Tomas’s ruined throat.

Magnus walked forward and caught the reanimated man by the head before slamming him against the wall. Strength Lv10 made holding him there almost effortless despite Tomas clawing uselessly at his arm. Oscar and Big Tiny watched with a mixture of fear and disbelief.

“First rule,” Magnus said. “Don’t get close unless you have to. A bite usually means a lethal infection, and once you die, you come back unless the brain is destroyed.”

Both inmates immediately moved another step away.

Magnus noticed and almost smiled.

“The second rule is simpler.”

He tightened his grip on Tomas’s head.

“Kill the brain.”

Oscar looked from the struggling walker to Magnus.

Then at the hand holding Tomas against the wall.

His expression became strange.

Big Tiny looked equally confused.

Magnus had just told them not to get close.

Yet he was holding a walker in place with one hand like it was nothing.

“Under normal circumstances, sure,” Magnus Vane said with a grin. “But I’m not exactly normal, so don’t copy me.” His smile vanished as movement appeared behind Oscar and Big Tiny. “Down!” Magnus grabbed the reanimated Tomas with one hand and hurled him upward, then swung the Stone Sledgehammer with the other. The hammer smashed into Tomas’s skull in midair and sent the corpse flying backward into two walkers that had just rounded the corner.

Oscar flinched at the impact and turned to see Tomas lying motionless across the other corpses, his head completely destroyed. Magnus rested the hammer against one shoulder and continued the lesson as though nothing unusual had happened. “That’s the important part. Destroy the brain and a walker stops for good, no matter how you do it.” Only then did he look past the fallen bodies toward the rest of the dead entering the corridor.

Nearly twenty walkers were pushing out from deeper inside the prison, probably drawn by the earlier gunshots. Magnus exchanged a look with Shane and saw no hesitation in him, then pointed Oscar and Big Tiny toward the control room. “Get inside and lock the door. Shane and I still have work to do, and we’ll come back for you when we’re finished. As long as you stay in there and don’t open that door, you should be fine.”

Magnus closed the heavy door before either prisoner could argue. The walkers now filled most of the corridor, but compared with the mutated creatures they had already encountered, this was little more than an interruption. Shane immediately raised his shotgun and fired, dropping the lead walker and knocking another backward into the group behind it. He fired again, his expression focused as bodies began collapsing across the passage.

“Easy,” Magnus said, putting one hand on Shane’s arm before he could continue. “If you tear all of them apart, somebody has to clean this hallway later.” Shane looked at him, then watched Magnus step forward and crush a walker’s skull with one swing hard enough to spray dark blood across the wall. His mouth opened slightly, but after a moment he decided not to comment.

The two cleared the rest at close range, and when the final walker dropped, a familiar golden notification appeared in Magnus’s vision.

[Level Up: Lv23 → Lv24 (17%)]

[Skill Point Gained: +1]

[Skill point available]

Magnus stared at the display for a moment. If the rest of the prison is this packed, could clearing the whole place push me close to Level 40? The possibility was tempting, but the generator remained the priority. According to the prison layout, the utility area was somewhere beyond the cafeteria in Cell Block B, which also gave them a convenient fallback point if the deeper corridors became too dangerous.

Shane glanced toward the route ahead. “That cafeteria had a lot of food stored in the kitchen. Enough that those inmates lasted weeks in there.” His expression brightened slightly. “If we get the power back on and can preserve more of it, that could feed everyone for months.” What he didn’t say aloud was obvious enough to Magnus: Shane was already calculating how long the supplies could support Lori through the rest of her pregnancy.

“Let’s keep moving.”

Magnus swung the Stone Sledgehammer once and took the lead. Without the growling horde filling the corridor, the prison became eerily quiet again, and Shane gradually settled after the fight. They walked for a while before he suddenly asked, “Why did Tomas turn?”

Magnus glanced back.

“He wasn’t bitten,” Shane continued. “You shot him. If walkers come from an infection, why does somebody who dies another way get back up?”

Magnus understood immediately.

Rick already knew the truth Jenner had revealed at the CDC but had chosen not to tell the entire group yet. Magnus had never felt particularly committed to keeping it secret, but since Rick had his reasons, he hadn’t forced the issue either. Shane, however, was reaching the answer himself.

“Unless…” Shane slowed. “Everybody’s already carrying it.”

Magnus nodded.

“That’s right. It doesn’t matter how you die. Unless the brain is destroyed, you come back.”

Shane fell silent.

Then his face changed.

“Lori.”

Magnus looked at him.

“The baby,” Shane corrected quietly. “If something happened before it was born… would it turn too?”

Magnus didn’t give him a definitive answer. “Lori is carrying the same infection everyone else is carrying. Beyond that, none of us knows enough to make guarantees.”

Shane’s expression tightened.

Magnus continued before he could spiral into the thought. “What matters is making sure it never becomes a question. Lori’s pregnancy matters to the whole group, and once we restore power, we’ll have a lot more options. A safe delivery area, refrigeration, better lighting, whatever medical supplies we can recover.” He looked toward the corridor ahead. “Lori and the baby will get every chance we can give them.”

Shane gave a slow nod.

Magnus had already been thinking about building a real infirmary inside the prison. Medical equipment, clean rooms, stored medicine, and eventually a doctor who knew more than basic emergency treatment would solve problems that brute strength never could. But none of that mattered until the prison itself was secure, and Magnus wanted the entire complex fortified enough that people could sleep without wondering whether walkers or raiders would break through overnight.

Still a lot to do.

The two continued toward Cell Block B, talking quietly until a series of low growls began echoing from farther ahead. Their conversation stopped immediately. Shane unfolded the map and traced the route through the block toward the next officer station, recreation area, and the utility section where the generator room should be located.

They were already more than halfway through the prison.

Only the largest housing section, Cell Block A, remained beyond this area.

If Magnus’s theory about the outbreak was correct and officers had been moving inmates when everything collapsed, then most of the prison’s remaining dead were probably concentrated somewhere ahead. The scale of Cell Block B alone suggested that what they had encountered so far might only be the beginning.

Shane cautiously leaned around the next corner.

Then slowly pulled back.

“They’re blocking the whole passage.”

Magnus looked around the edge himself. A large group of walkers stood packed across the corridor ahead, almost completely motionless. Their heads hung slightly forward and their eyes remained half-closed, giving the disturbing impression that they were asleep until something woke them.

“We’re not getting through that without making a mess,” Shane whispered. “And the generator room is past them.”

Magnus thought for several seconds. “Then we don’t fight them here. We lure them into one of the recreation yards and lock them outside.”

“Like the yard beside the administration building?”

“Exactly. Once they’re contained, we circle back and re-enter through Cell Block C.”

Shane looked down at the hand-drawn map. “The recreation yards aren’t marked.”

“They don’t need to be.”

Magnus silently opened his system map. Nearly half the prison had now been uncovered through exploration, and the corridors leading toward exterior spaces were becoming easy to distinguish. The recreation yards sat along the outer edges of the complex, connected by passages running toward the lawns rather than deeper into the building.

Magnus studied the routes for a moment.

“I know where we need to go.”

Shane folded the paper.

“Then I’m following you.”