TWD - Chapter 534: Someone Has to Take Care of Things Back Here (Patreon)

At noon, Leah took Benson to the mess hall at Rock Fortress. There were over a dozen long tables, a serving window, and menus and point price lists posted on the walls.

At least several dozen people were eating inside, most of them Defense Force members in uniform, along with a few administrators who looked like long-time base staff.

Just as Leah was about to sit down, she was called away to handle some business.

Benson had no choice but to carry his tray alone and find a corner to sit in.

On his tray was a piece of meat, a mound of mashed potatoes, a few pieces of vegetables, a slice of bread, and a glass of water.

He lowered his head and took a deep breath. The aroma of fresh food immediately whetted his appetite. Just as he was about to dig in, someone called, “Benson?”

Benson looked up to see a bald man standing before him, holding a tray and staring at him.

The man was in his thirties, over two meters tall, broad-shouldered and powerfully built. It was Rickson.

Rickson sat down across from Benson and set his tray on the table. “Oh shit! It really is you! Bossie said you were here, but I thought he was joking.”

Benson opened his mouth. “Rickson?”

Rickson did not seem to mind. He picked up his fork and started eating, shoveling down large bites as he mumbled, “I’m starving. I haven’t had a bite since this morning.”

Benson watched him. Rickson had once been a squad leader of equal rank, the guy who was always laughing and joking, never cared about logistics, and only concerned himself with fighting.

“You...”

Benson started to speak, then stopped. Rickson looked up at him. “What?”

“...Are you the...”

Rickson swallowed what was in his mouth and wiped his lips. “Chief Administrator. I handle the food, housing, and day-to-day needs of more than two thousand people. Oh, it’s around three thousand now, actually. Huge pain in the ass!”

His tone was complaining, but there wasn’t a trace of impatience on his face.

“Over three thousand?”

“Yeah, including the outlying outposts, probably around three thousand two?” Rickson looked down and started eating again. “Deanna’s still tallying up the new arrivals.”

Benson: “How... how did you go from leading troops into battle to managing all this?”

Rickson didn’t answer right away. He speared another piece of potato with his fork and popped it into his mouth. “At first, no one was in charge. It was just me and Leah, two small squads, about twenty people.

“Back then, we were holed up at Calista’s winery. She was wealthy before the apocalypse and owned a huge wine estate, including the Blackberry Ranch down the hill. That whole stretch of land you’re on now belonged to her, but there was nobody here.

“At night, we took turns standing watch. During the day, we built defenses. The Howards were in their sixties, and Dr. Evans was in his fifties and had trouble getting around, so they couldn’t do heavy work. The twenty or so of us were the only people who could really fight.”

Benson listened.

“Calista had to go out to find supplies, recruit people, and expand our territory,” Rickson continued. “She could only take Leah, Carver, Mike, and a few of the others who could fight. I stayed behind to mind the place.”

As he said this, his tone was very matter-of-fact, as if he were talking about someone else’s business.

“Damn it, I’d only ever been responsible for my own people before. Running a base with more and more people? I had never even imagined it.” Rickson smiled.

“Once, we took down a group of raiders in the Knoxville Industrial Park and absorbed a lot of their workers and prisoners. The first week nearly broke me. One person needed food, another started a fight the next day. I was so stressed my mouth broke out in sores.”

Benson looked at him. “So how did you get through it?”

Rickson was silent for a few seconds. “Every time Calista and Leah went out, they’d give me a to-do list: which section of the wall to repair today, how many supplies to take inventory of tomorrow...”

Benson didn’t say anything, so Rickson continued, “Later, as the base grew bigger and the population swelled, I found myself getting better and better at managing all this. Calista never interfered. She’d say, ‘You handle it better than I do.’”

He smiled. “I know she wasn’t just being polite, because she really did have more important things to do: build infrastructure, find survivors, and deal with the raiders outside.”

Benson sighed. “So she basically forced you into being the manager.”

Rickson laughed and gestured around them. “Oh, no! Bro, she didn’t force me. Someone has to do this job. Look at these people. They’re alive, they work, they eat. Isn’t that what matters?”

“Don’t you regret it?” Benson asked.

Rickson finished his last bite, set down his fork, and looked at him. “Regret what?”

“Regret not being on the front lines.”

Rickson shrugged. “There are people to fight on the front lines, but someone has to take care of things back here. Otherwise, when the fighting is over, what do we come home to?”

After lunch, Rickson and Benson took a leisurely stroll outside the cafeteria.

Rickson held a bottle of water and watched the workers in the distance as they changed shifts. “Do you remember Maya?”

“Maya? That female soldier under your command?”

“Yeah.”

Benson remembered the Mexican-American woman, athletic, dark-haired, and bright-eyed.

The three “goddesses” of Sentinel Tactical: Leah was aloof, Josephine was beautiful, and Maya was fiery. “What about her?”

“Leah is the base’s Commander-in-Chief of the Defense Force, and Maya handles the Defense Force itself. Right now, she independently commands our outlying outpost in Knoxville, fifty or sixty people,” Rickson said. “Later, Calista plans to push into the city and set up a few more outposts. Maya will be in charge of all of them.”

Benson fell silent. Fifty or sixty people under her independent command. That Mexican girl from back then, with the hot figure and even hotter temper, was now an outpost commander.

Benson didn’t know what to say. “That’s great!”

After finishing his water, Rickson did not rush off. He pulled a crumpled cigarette from his pocket. It was not a Marlboro, but a hand-rolled cigarette with yellowed paper. He handed one to Benson.

Benson took it and examined it. “What’s this?”

“Hand-rolled,” Rickson said, lighting it and taking a deep drag. “Tobacco mixed with dry leaves. It’ll do.”

Benson lit one too, took a puff, and coughed. “Fuck! That’s awful.”

“If you don’t like it, don’t smoke it.” Rickson shoved the pack back into his pocket.

Benson didn’t give it back. He just kept that awful cigarette clamped between his lips, leaning back on the bench, gazing at Rock Fortress, and thinking back on his life after the apocalypse.

Killing, being killed, running, hiding, being sent on suicide missions, watching the people around him fall one by one.

Living? Was that even living?

Rickson seemed to read his mind. “Do you know what Calista’s greatest strength is?”

Benson shook his head.

Rickson tapped the ash from his cigarette. “She made us believe we could pull this off. The first time I saw Calista, she was standing among us in expensive clothes, like a movie star who had wandered onto the wrong set. Then the apocalypse hit.”

He smiled and took another drag of his cigarette.

“I remember thinking, ‘The apocalypse is here. What the hell can this rich girl do? Cook? Do laundry? Be our mascot?’

“But this was Calista’s land, she had stockpiled plenty of supplies, and she was Leah’s sister. We figured all we had to do was keep her safe. But she actually wanted to take charge.”

Benson couldn’t help but chuckle, and Rickson laughed too.

“I was pretty blunt back then. I told her, ‘The way you are, you can’t patrol, you can’t stand night watch, and you definitely can’t fight. You’d be better off staying at the base. It’s safer.’ Leah didn’t say anything, but Calista...”

Rickson paused, remembering the first change in Calista. “Calista refused to stay at the base.”

Benson raised an eyebrow. “Then what?”

“Then she actually went out with us,” Rickson said. “On her first patrol, Leah took her along. They hadn’t gone more than two kilometers when they ran into a few stray walkers.

“I heard Calista just stood there, her face as white as a sheet. She couldn’t aim her pistol properly, so in the end, Leah had to stab the walkers herself.”

Benson fell silent.

“After they got back, everyone except Carver and the other guys in Leah’s squad who were smitten with her thought, ‘That’s it. She’s a liability,’” Rickson said. “Someone even told Leah privately, ‘Keep your sister at the base. Don’t let her come out and cause trouble.’”

“What did Leah say?”

“Leah just gave everyone the cold shoulder and told me to keep my people in line,” Rickson said, stubbing out his cigarette on the edge of the bench. “The next day, Calista came out with us again.”

Benson looked at him.

“Calista realized people weren’t accepting her, so she kept pushing herself to the limit, always charging to the front. Gradually, no one called her a liability anymore.

“Later, she used some damn ingenious method to drive the walkers and wiped out a group of several dozen raiders in the industrial park with a walker horde. After that, everyone was convinced!”

Benson was silent for a long time. Rickson looked at him. “Tell me, how could I not trust her?”

A moment later, Benson spoke. “We had someone on our side too. Someone who wanted us to trust him.”

Rickson knew exactly who he meant. “Pop... The Pope?”

Benson nodded and continued, “He made us believe he could keep us alive. And what happened? He sent us to our deaths, calling it ‘purification’ and ‘atonement.’”

He paused. “Most of the dead were my people.”

Rickson looked at him, his gaze calm. “It won’t be like that here. Here, we won’t send your people to their deaths. Here, we’ll keep you alive.”

Just then, a sleek Knight XV drove in ostentatiously from outside the base and pulled up in front of the command center building.

Rickson stood up. “Calista’s back.”