TWD - Chapter 497: The Rules of the Game Are Changing (Patreon)

On the fifth day after the summit was cleared, the first people to “find their own way here” appeared.

They didn’t come by the main road. They made their way up the nearly forgotten narrow trail on the back side of the mountain.

There were three of them, dressed in rags and thin as rails, but their eyes were like those of wolves that had gone hungry for too long, wary and sharp.

Joe knew someone was coming the moment they triggered the first warning trap halfway up the mountain.

He didn’t bring anyone with him.

Carrying his red-handled machete, he appeared like a ghost atop a boulder ahead of them.

The three stopped dead.

The tall man in front gripped a sharpened length of rebar, its point aimed at Joe.

“This mountain belongs to someone now,” Joe said. “You crossed my line.”

The three men’s eyes moved between Joe’s face and the machete in his hand.

“We’re just passing through. Looking for food. We don’t want trouble. Who are you?”

“Joe. This mountain belongs to Rock Fortress now, but up here, I call the shots.”

Joe slid the machete back into his belt.

“I can give you food and a place to stay. But there’s a price. From now on, half your lives belong to this mountain, and the other half belongs to Rock Fortress.”

The three stared hard at him, as if trying to judge whether the stranger meant what he said.

“There are... five of us,” the tall man finally said, his voice dry and hoarse. “Two are farther back. They can’t move very fast.”

“Bring them up.”

Joe turned and pointed toward the path leading up the mountain.

“We’ve got medicine up there. But don’t try anything stupid. If I could find you, I can deal with you too.”

After a round of intimidation and warnings, Black Rock Mountain’s population grew from four to nine.

It was still small, but the framework was beginning to take shape.

These people weren’t elite fighters, but they were survivors who had been filtered by the laws of the wilderness.

For Joe, that was enough.

He didn’t need soldiers.

He needed hunters.

“Still not enough,” Joe said, taking a drink from his canteen. “This mountain’s too big. I need more eyes.”

“You’ve got an unusual way of picking people,” said the half-deaf ranger. “You keep going after... lone wolves.”

“Lone wolves understand lone wolves.”

Joe wiped his mouth.

“People who’ve gotten too comfortable living in groups won’t last long up here.

“I want someone who can survive ten days alone in these mountains and still come back carrying game. Give someone like that a little fire, and he’ll give you an entire camp.”

He looked north, toward Rock Fortress.

“Calista pulls people into the base with leashes and treats. I use a hunter’s way. I show them my territory, my rules, and what I can do.

“If they want to come, they cross the mountains themselves. Once they’re here, they’re wolves from the same pack. We share the meat, and we bite outsiders together.”

The ranger was quiet for a moment.

“You’re not worried they’ll turn around and bite you someday?”

Joe laughed, this time out loud.

“Worried? In this world, I’d rather get killed by a wolf from my own pack than torn apart by a horde outside.

“At least when you die that way, you know why you died and who did it.”

He patted the man on the shoulder and headed toward the observation tower, looking like an alpha wolf making the rounds of its territory.

At the same time, at the prison in Georgia, Rick was holding a recruitment list sent by Rock Fortress.

They wanted the prison to find more suitable survivors, and the document also mentioned that Rock Fortress had successfully established the “Black Rock Mountain Outpost” in the mountains of northern Georgia and had begun “integrating nearby survivor resources to strengthen regional security and stability.”

Rick knew Joe had been scouting locations and had taken his findings back to Rock Fortress to report to Calista.

He just hadn’t expected Joe to move this fast.

Now the Black Rock Mountain Outpost had Reserves sent by Rock Fortress, along with a small team Joe had recruited himself.

Rick folded the two sheets of paper together and looked out over the lush fields beyond the prison walls and the distant line of forest.

Under the setting sun, the prison was peaceful and orderly.

The greenhouse crops were thriving.

Carl and Jacqui were teaching several newly arrived children how to use knives and guns.

Tyreese’s girlfriend, Karen, came out of the greenhouse carrying a basket full of vegetables.

They had built all of this little by little, pouring enormous effort into every part of it.

But now Rick could feel the pressure.

Calista’s recent moves had been fast, decisive, and openly expansionist.

They made Rick realize that the rules of the game in this wasteland were changing.

“Rick, you want to speed up recruitment?” T-Dog asked.

“We’ve been too passive, T-Dog.”

Rick turned and leaned against the railing of the watchtower.

“We keep waiting for survivors to find us, or hoping we’ll get lucky while we’re out scavenging. But Calista... she casts the net herself and knows exactly where to throw it.”

He headed down from the watchtower, with T-Dog following behind.

Rick called together the core members currently at the prison: T-Dog, Jacqui, Oscar, Axel, and Big Tiny.

He told them what Rock Fortress wanted without hiding anything.

“Her method is certainly direct,” Oscar said after listening, folding his arms and nodding. “Show your strength, offer supplies, set the rules. It’s efficient, but... it only works for a large base like Calista’s.”

“We’re too small as an outpost,” Jacqui agreed. “There’s no way we can move that fast.”

“Dad, we can’t force people to join,” Carl suddenly said. “But we can let more people know we’re here, and let them know this place is different.”

Rick looked at his son, a trace of approval in his eyes.

He walked over to the map hanging on the wall of the prison command room.

Known water sources, dangerous areas, and the few places where they had encountered other survivors were all marked on it.

“Carl’s right.”

Rick circled the prison’s location with one finger.

“We need to get the word out. Not by showing off our weapons, but by giving people directions.”

He remembered Calista once suggesting that they leave markings on road signs.

The prison had already added new directions beneath any Terminus signs they could find, but hardly anyone had shown up.

Maybe there simply weren’t enough Terminus signs.

“We need a lot more markers,” Rick said clearly. “At intersections along major roads, abandoned gas stations, near water sources...

“We leave directional signs pointing toward a few relatively safe towns nearby. The marks need to be simple, durable, and understandable even to people who can’t read.”

He looked at T-Dog and Jacqui.

“You two take a few sharp people and start putting up more of them. For now, cover everything within a hundred kilometers of the prison.”

“Then, in those towns,” Rick continued, his plan becoming clearer as he spoke, “we leave supply caches at regular intervals.

“Medicine, food, clean water, and letters telling people what we have and what kind of people we’re willing to take in.

“Most importantly, we leave simple maps and identification codes. That way, when someone comes looking for us, we’ll have some idea beforehand whether they mean well.”

“It’s a screening process,” Carl realized. “Anyone willing to put in the effort to find us probably really does want shelter. Raiders looking for something to steal probably won’t have that kind of patience.”

“It protects us too, Carl,” Rick added. “We don’t reveal the prison’s exact location. We only guide them to the nearby towns.

“We make contact there first, assess them, find suitable survivors, then report them to Calista.”

Calista was very pleased with the plan.

Recently, good news had been coming in from every direction.

Toward Knoxville, Rock Fortress had taken another outpost with several dozen people in the “transition zone,” an area with moderate walker density, and Maya had been sent to manage it.

The Black Rock Mountain Outpost had been secured, and Joe had been actively searching for survivor camps in the surrounding area.

Now Rick was feeling the pressure too and had thrown himself into recruitment.

If only a few larger camps would show up soon.

Then Calista could finally get out there herself for a while instead of sitting around until she started growing mold.