TWD - Chapter 489: Why Not Shoot Him in the Head? (Patreon)

The two young men sent by the farm group had barely arrived at Blackberry Ranch and were still reeling from its enormous scale and thriving vitality when the public trial began.

Members of the Blackberry Ranch Defense Force stood in formation, joined by residents who had come to watch on their own. Altogether, more than three hundred people were present.

The two young men from the farm family were also “invited” by Oak and stood near the front of the crowd.

They had no idea what they were about to see. They only noticed that most of the people around them looked unusually serious.

When they asked Oak about it, he simply smiled. “You picked a good time to visit. You happened to arrive just in time. We don’t hold events like this very often!”

So they assumed there would be some kind of performance or perhaps a speech from one of the leaders, and they found themselves looking forward to it.

Before long, as the two waited expectantly, the raider responsible for the most serious crimes was escorted into the center of the open area by two soldiers.

His hands were bound, and he stumbled slightly as he walked, but his eyes remained vicious as he glared at the surrounding crowd.

Calista stepped in front of everyone. She wore an ordinary jacket today without any unnecessary decoration, yet there was a natural authority about her. The two young men from the farm could tell at a glance that she was the leader of the base.

“Everyone, the man standing before you personally took part in the murder of at least fifteen innocent survivors over the past eight months. Several of those victims were tortured.

“The gang he belonged to controlled the roads running from Chattanooga toward southwest Knoxville. They attacked anyone who tried to pass through and left no survivors.”

She paused, sweeping her gaze across the crowd.

“Three days ago, our mop-up squad eliminated this cancer. Now, under the laws of Rock Fortress, a life must be paid for with a life.”

Calista turned toward the raider.

“Do you have anything to say?”

The man spat on the ground and grinned, exposing teeth stained black and yellow from tobacco.

“This is the fucking apocalypse, you bitch!

“If I hadn’t killed those people, the walkers would’ve eaten them anyway. Today it’s me, tomorrow it’ll be you. That’s just how this world works...”

Words like these no longer angered Calista. She simply gave the executioner a slight nod.

Maya was responsible for carrying out the sentence.

She walked forward and stopped three meters behind the man, then calmly drew the pistol from the holster at her waist, raised it, and aimed at his heart.

“Bang!”

The gunshot cracked through the air.

Blood sprayed across the ground as the man pitched forward. He twitched several times, then stopped moving.

“Clean him up,” Calista said.

Then she turned back to the crowd.

“The order of Rock Fortress rests on two foundations: protection within and deterrence without.

“We welcome any survivor willing to follow the rules and contribute. But those who live by plunder and murder...”

She glanced at the corpse on the ground.

“This is their only outcome!”

The crowd was silent.

Then, no one knew who started it, but scattered applause began to sound. Little by little, it spread until the entire crowd was clapping.

The two young men from the farm family had witnessed everything from beginning to end.

When the execution took place, the younger one turned his head away. The older one stared without looking away.

Afterward, the older young man finally couldn't hold back and asked the two little girls standing nearby, “You’re both so young. Are you really required to watch something this bloody? Why...?”

One of the girls was Sophia.

The other was Mika, who had moved with her father from the prison to Blackberry Ranch after her older sister Lizzie died.

Sophia and Mika exchanged a glance.

Neither of them looked frightened or disturbed. In fact, both were remarkably calm.

Sophia asked curiously, “Why didn’t they shoot him in the head? Didn’t you see that when you came into Blackberry Ranch?”

The two men froze and looked at each other.

Uh...

What they had actually wanted to ask was why children were allowed to watch something as bloody as a public execution.

When Mika saw that neither of them answered, she kindly explained it to the two adults.

“You probably don’t know. If you shoot the head, they die. If you shoot the heart, they turn into walkers. That way, he can still be used as extra material for our outer walker wall and help protect the base.”

Sophia nodded seriously.

“Exactly. You shouldn’t waste anything in the apocalypse!”

The younger man stammered, “Y-you do this to all raiders?”

Mika shook her head.

“Only the ones who’ve done really terrible things. Most of them become prisoners. They work hard, and once they earn enough points, they can get their freedom back.”

That was a relief.

At least Rock Fortress still had a humane side.

During the rest of their tour of Blackberry Ranch and the industrial park, the two representatives from the farm became unusually quiet.

They even walked the entire way with their hands tucked awkwardly together, looking somewhat restrained. They were nothing like the lively pair who had first arrived.

“We... need to discuss this with our families,” the older young man told Oak, who had been responsible for receiving them, as they prepared to leave. “But I think we’ll come back with everyone.”

Oak pushed up his glasses and smiled faintly.

“Rock Fortress welcomes all of you anytime.”

The execution was like a stone dropped into still water, sending ripples spreading outward.

The first response came from the Riverbank Guerrillas.

After Captain Jack learned the details of the mop-up operation over the radio, he was silent for a full ten seconds before bursting into laughter.

“God damn it! Using walkers as weapons! You people are really... ruthless. I like it!”

There was good news from his side as well.

Captain Jack was very interested in his role as a “Rock Fortress Recruitment Agent,” and he had already identified two potential targets.

The first was a group of more than a dozen families who lived along the river and survived by fishing.

The second was a hydroelectric plant worker upstream who was guarding a small hydroelectric station and knew his way around electric motors.

Captain Jack then provided more detailed information.

“There are a little over thirty people among those fishing families. They’re scattered along about five kilometers of riverbank and survive by fishing and setting traps.

“A small group of raiders upstream has harassed them a few times. They lost some of their catch, but nobody was hurt or killed.

“If we can deal with that raider group, those fishing families might be a lot more willing to work with us.”

He continued.

“The technician at the hydroelectric plant is in his fifties. He used to be a longtime employee of the Knoxville Municipal Power Company.

“He happened to be on duty when the walker outbreak started. He survived behind the plant’s walls using the canned food they had stored there.

“He’s been living there alone for years. It was only a few months ago that he started occasionally trading with the fishermen downstream for some of their catch.

“That small hydroelectric plant is still producing power intermittently, so the guy definitely knows what he’s doing.”

Rickson kept expanding the records with the new information before reporting everything to Calista.

Calista was pleased with the efficiency of the Riverbank Guerrillas.

“Tell Jack that if he can arrange for those fishermen and that technician to relocate, Rock Fortress will give him an additional reward based on the number of people he brings in.”

Meanwhile, Mike’s “Reserves Intensive Training Camp” welcomed a new group of members.

Aside from ordinary Reserves, anyone with more combat experience than the average person, along with those who showed particular potential, was sent into the Reserves Intensive Training Camp.

The standard three-month Reserves training program was compressed into a single month there.

To accelerate the expansion of their fighting forces, Dawn and the others from the police gang, along with several young and strong raiders who had previously been captured, were all persuaded to join.

Their performance in each assessment could be used to make up the remaining difference in the redemption points they needed to regain their freedom.

Anyone who failed to meet the standard several times would have their points reset to zero and be sent back to start earning them all over again.

In other words, all their previous work would have been for nothing.

Mike had set the assessment standards extremely high, and Carver, with his twisted sense of humor, would occasionally step in personally.

As a result, none of them wanted all their hard labor during this period to go to waste.

Every last one of them trained as if their lives depended on it.