TWD: Saving Merle First - Chapter 108: The Club's Big Haul, Part 1 (Patreon)

The group walked together toward the training ground. Halfway there, Merle, Daryl, and Glenn broke away from the group and headed toward what appeared to be a warehouse.

The rest of the group continued on until they entered the chaotic reception hall. Only after seeing the floor plan hanging on the wall did they go their separate ways.

After glancing at the map a few times, Wade led Marcus toward the location marked as the workshop.

Corpses were piled haphazardly through the corridor. It was the height of summer, and the bodies had decomposed badly. With the corridor sealed off and no ventilation, Wade and Marcus were suffering every step of the way.

The indescribable stench came in waves, boring into their skulls like a metal rod stirring their brains.

Wade fought down his nausea. His knuckles had gone white around the knife hilt, and his hand trembled slightly as he hurried through the sealed corridor. He pushed open a door, and several walkers inside lunged at him like beasts catching the scent of fresh meat.

"Fuck!"

Already in a foul mood, Wade exploded forward with a kick that hit the nearest walker and sent it crashing into the others, knocking almost all of them down.

The walker at the far edge only staggered from the impact before flailing its arms and shambling toward Wade again.

Wade thrust his knife up through its jaw. The tip tore through the brain, and the walker went still as its eyes clouded gray-white.

He shoved the corpse away with his right hand as he pulled the knife free, took two steps forward, then kicked another walker that had just gotten back up and knocked it down again.

He moved in and drove his knife down again and again, finishing off the rest.

When he was done, Wade cursed under his breath, wiped the blade on a walker's clothes, and slid it back into its sheath.

Marcus finished securing the door, calmly watched the whole thing, and only then stepped forward to help search for supplies.

Several beakers, a precision scale, a pile of opened boxes, and a canister sat on the cold metal workbench.

The boxes contained 9mm cartridge cases, bullets, and primers that had already gotten damp.

The canister held granular gunpowder. The visible powder had gotten damp and clumped together, making that portion unusable as firearm propellant.

The powder deeper inside might still be usable. They would have to take it back and test it to know for sure.

Wade stepped forward, opened his backpack, and carefully packed the beakers inside.

The precision scale was valuable because of its accuracy, but that same precision made it delicate and awkward to pack.

For Wade, though, that was easy. The moment Marcus turned away, Wade pretended to put the scale into his backpack and actually tossed it straight into the Storage Space.

[Storage Space: After so many chapters, yours truly finally gets to appear again.]

He dumped the cartridge cases and bullets into his backpack as well. The primers had already absorbed moisture and carried too much risk of misfiring, so he left them behind.

Finally, Wade looked over the case tumbler, reloading press, case trimmer, and the rest of the equipment on the workbench.

The case trimmer would fit in his backpack, but the other two pieces had to be carried separately, so moving them would take some time.

Marcus also found several boxes of cartridge cases and bullets in a workshop cabinet, along with an unopened five-pound container of smokeless powder and three foil-sealed boxes containing one hundred primers each.

The casings and bullets could be packed without much fuss. The powder and primers had to be handled carefully. One hard knock could ignite them and turn into a serious accident.

While the two of them carefully gathered and moved supplies, Merle's group was making a sizable haul of its own.

The first warehouse they found was packed with dust-covered junk that was basically useless.

Merle came out cursing and slammed the door so hard that a layer of dust shook loose.

They checked four more warehouses in a row. Scrap wood, broken lawn mowers, boxes of paper targets, temporary employee rest areas. There was all kinds of weird junk, but still no sign of the reloading components Merle wanted.

At the fifth warehouse, Merle jammed a crowbar he had picked up under the latch and heaved. The lock popped open.

This warehouse was different. Instead of junk, more than ten large metal cabinets stood inside, and the floor was poured concrete rather than bare dirt.

Merle's eyes lit up. "Holy shit! I've got a feeling. This is it! This is what we're looking for!"

Daryl and Glenn didn't respond, but both silently walked deeper into the warehouse.

Rusty padlocks sealed the metal cabinets. Merle torqued one with the crowbar until it snapped, then pulled the door open. A dry metallic smell with a trace of brass hit him in the face.

Inside sat one large cardboard box, heavy-duty by the look of it.

He jostled the box and heard a faint rattle from within. "Fuck! Finally found it!"

He dragged the box out, cut through the seal with the hunting knife at his waist, and opened it. Inside was another moisture-proof liner bag.

"Hahaha!" Merle laughed, sheathed his knife, and closed the box again.

There was no need to inspect it any further. That style of packaging was a calling card in itself: finished cartridge cases and bullets.

Glenn pulled a document folder from a smaller cabinet and took out a paper ledger. When he found the most recent entry, his pupils constricted slightly.

"My God. This haul alone could keep us shooting for years."

Merle snatched the ledger from him, read the figures, and broke into a yellow-toothed grin.

"Hey, hey, little brother, think Wade would get mad if I took this haul back and kicked his ass?"

Daryl frowned. "You drunk?"

Merle's face darkened as he shoved the ledger at Daryl. "Read it yourself."

[9mm Cartridge Cases Remaining: 43,963]

[9mm Bullets Remaining: 43,965]

[5.56×45mm Cartridge Cases Remaining: 23,655]

[5.56×45mm Bullets Remaining: 23,655]

Daryl went quiet for a moment after reading it. "What are you so happy about? These are not live rounds. We cannot fire them as-is."

"And you are still talking about kicking Wade's ass? Forget the last time he kicked you more than three meters?"

"Fuck! Bullshit! A little over two meters at most. Definitely not three!"

"Fuck! What difference does that make? A few dozen centimeters?"

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! You are no different, little brother!"

"I took one extra punch! That is the difference between us!"

Merle glared. Merle flushed. Merle... fell silent. Then he descended into a hysterical, mechanical loop of one word: "fuck"...

Glenn fought back a laugh, took two steps away, and said, "Should we start moving this stuff? This much inventory is going to take a long time."

Both brothers turned toward him at once. "Shut up!"

Glenn hesitated for a second, then shrugged. "Fine. You two keep going. I'll go tell Wade what we found."

The brothers looked back at the boxes, stayed silent for three seconds, then started hauling.

That was a typical day for the Dixon brothers. Start with taunting, fill the middle with "FUCK," and finish in silence.