Never The End (Sequel to 'What Keeps You Alive')

Chapter 28: Clearing the Way

--------Chapter 28: Clearing the Way----

"Everyone just be careful; we don't know if there're any walkers still around here or not. Best guess is that we're gonna have to clear out an area and hold up for a bit until everyone else manages to get here."

Matt turned back to face everyone, the seven remaining people in the group looking at him and awaiting his further instruction.

"Alright here's the plan," he continued on, everyone listening. "We don't need to go too far into the town; we also don't know which way everyone else will be coming from. There's more than one way to get into town, so I say we split and cover each entrance, just in case they come from a different direction. We don't know which way they'll be coming from, seeing as they should all be trying to get as much distance between them and the Compound as possible. It's possible that someone could come through one of the other entrances into town."

"Who'd you want where?" Shawn asked, knowing that Matt was always thinking about what to do, so he'd have a plan.

Matt looked around at them as he decided who would work best together.

"There're eight of us and we dunno how many entrances," he said, Shawn giving a nod. "We'll go with four groups of two. Cameron and Mike, you guys go as a group, Shawn and Valentina, you go as another, Layton and Rich go together and Ashley and I will cover the front here."

Everyone gave a nod, Matt continuing.

"So here's the deal," he continued. "We're gonna have to cover each entrance as I pointed out just before. Shawn, you guys go off to the left and skirt around the main part of town. See what you can find that we could use. Cameron, you and Mike take the right and do the same. Rich, you two head into town as far as you can go before you get cut off; don't risk anything. Ashley and I will stay around here and we'll see what we can find; keep it quiet and keep it careful. I want everyone finding entrances into this place and get back here to where we are now when it gets dark. Clear?"

Everyone gave a nod, Matt nodding back.

"Alright let's move out; be careful," Matt said. "Leave the supplies here with us and bring back whatever you can get; find the other entrances. Let's go."

Everyone left the supplies and split, going in the directions that they'd been ordered to go in. Matt looked to Ashley as the others started disappearing into the town the two different ways.

"We're gonna start with the houses around here," he said, Ashley nodding. Matt looked up at the sky for a few seconds. "We still have a lot of daylight left so we should be ok. We're gonna clear out a house and leave our stuff in it because we can't afford to lug it around while we scout the other houses. We'll barricade the house so no-one can get in in case something happens."

"Will we be able to get back in?" Ashley asked with a bit of a sceptical look on his face, Matt looking to him.

"When we need to," was the response. He indicated to begin moving into the town. "We need to get as much stuff as possible; we're running low on pretty well everything. Anything we can use as weapons as well, grab it because we can't risk anything."

Ashley gave a nod to indicate that he understood, Matt not saying another word and beginning to make his way into the town.

"You ever been here before?" Ashley asked as he followed Matt, a pace behind him.

Matt shook his head.

"No," he said. "Makes me wonder if Brian even knows where he's going; if he knows that this' the next town or if he knows of any others that we don't. I'm sure he knows what he's doing, but there's always that slight bit of concern that maybe he doesn't know."