Flush with victory the raid group eagerly advanced towards the fulfillment center.

  David assessed what he was seeing and sensing and started making calls to organize them.

  "We need to establish a safe perimeter around the vehicles and get them prepared to receive survivors."

  Before he knew it everyone was gathered around him as he laid out the plan.

  The weight of all those eyes watching him was uncomfortable, but he pushed through. This was just logistics. Break down the problem, assign resources, execute. He'd done project planning at work. This was the same thing. Just with more zombies and higher stakes.

  "Mark, you stay with the vehicles and coordinate the healers. Once we start pulling people out, you'll need to stabilize anyone in bad shape." David glanced at the fulfillment center's dark entrance. "We don't know what condition they'll be in."

  Mark nodded, his deep voice carrying easily. "We'll set up a triage station. Anyone with healing skills or medical knowledge, stay with me."

  Several people peeled off from the main group, including Ivy. He was pretty sure that most of this group had struggled with violence. David counted. Six plus Mark. Not enough if things went badly, especially considering that most of them were those who stumbled off the line.

  He doubted many had any kind of actual healing skill as just like in MMOs those skills were not popular. Ivy at least seemed to be actively engaging Mark in some sort of conversation gesturing repeatedly towards the trucks and then waving something around from her bag for emphasis. Mark seemed to be listening and nodding along.

  David dismissed the huddle of healers as his brain turned to another problem.

  "Carl, can you organize security for the perimeter? We need people watching our backs in case zombies come from other directions."

  The older man was already scanning the industrial park around them, his tactical mind clearly working. "Y'all heard the man. I need shooters set up with good sight lines. If something moves that ain't us, you call it out before you engage. Anyone fancy climbing to get up on top of a truck?"

  "The rest of us are going in to extract survivors." David turned to face the crowd. "We'll split into teams, each led by someone from the original group so you’ve got a heavy hitter in case of trouble. Stay with your team lead. Don't wander off. Call out if you see anything."

  "What about moving people?" someone called from the back. A man in his thirties, one of those who had fought beside Camila. He still held the tire iron she'd used to brain zombies. "Some of these folks might not be able to walk."

  "Good point." David hadn't thought that through completely. "We have some stretchers, a wagon or two I think but we need more. Anything that can carry people. Check the area for-"

  "Pallet jacks!" Charlie interrupted, excitement clear in his voice. "Dude, this is a fulfillment center. They'll have tons of pallet jacks inside. Just throw some blankets on a pallet and boom, instant stretcher."

  David felt stupid for not thinking of that himself. "Right. Pallet jacks. We'll grab those first thing inside."

  Camila stepped forward, all business. "Teams of five to eight people each. Don’t all grab survivors. Make sure there are always fighters with guns ready. We go slow, we stay together, and we don't take stupid risks." Her dark eyes swept the crowd. "This isn't about being heroes. It's about getting everyone out alive, so make an extra trip if you need. Entiendes?"

  A chorus of agreement rippled through the group.

  "Alright people, pick your teams and let's move!" Camila's command voice carried the kind of authority that made people jump to follow.

  The crowd organized itself with surprising efficiency. David ended up with a mixed group: two teenagers who'd proven decent with shotguns, if enthusiastic. A woman in her forties who was clearly their mother and a man who seemed to be her partner. The group was rounded out by Another man, wild haired and if he remembered someone they rescued from the homeless shelter. At least he knew Billy and Bessie.

  "I'll scout ahead," Billy’s friend suggested. “I got good hearing…” Then he was off, clutching his hunting rifle.

  "Fine. Stay within sight though." David extended his spiritual senses, feeling for the characteristic murmur of the Nath.

  He frowned. "There are zombies inside, but not many active ones. Lots of bodies that haven't turned yet, probably. And..." He paused, trying to parse what his senses were telling him. "I’m not sure what else."

  "Have you got some sort of detection magic?" one of the teenagers asked nervously.

  "Something like that. Just stay alert."

  “Cool. Maybe I’ll get magic. Mum wouldn’t let us…”

  He shut up at a glare from his mother “Kevin, you just concentrate on looking out and leave David alone. He’ll keep us safe, but you need to do your part. Which isn’t distracting him by complaining about being sensible about picking health.”

  They moved through the entrance, emergency lighting casting everything in sickly yellow. The fulfillment center had some natural light, but the maze of towering shelves loaded with pallets cast complex shadows. The smell hit David: stale air, Cardboard and old sweat, underneath it the sweet-rot stench of death.

  Bodies lay among the merchandise. All wearing the blue vests of employees, some wearing headsets or with supervisor emblazoned on their backs.

  "Jesus," the rifle woman whispered.

  David kept his spiritual senses extended, calling out softly.

  “Check them, call it out if they are alive. Or if they move.”

  They found their first survivor moments later. A young guy, maybe early twenties, wearing a stained fulfillment center vest. He was slumped over with a fallen bar code reader near his hand.

  "Hey, we got one!" The teenagers excited yell reached David. Followed by "See Kevin! I told you I would rescue someone first!"

  "Boys! Help the man." The call from their mother got them back on track.

  After a brief search they found a manual pallet mover unattended and were soon moving back to the entrance where a neat stack of empty pallets waited.

  Camila's team, larger and armed with the stretchers they had used at the station was already back with three survivors.

  As more and more teams returned from the depths of the warehouse with survivors it became an informal competition.

  It felt good to find a pulse, bringing someone out to triage, or better yet a pallet with a few people for Mark and his crew to check over earning you a gruff “Well done!”

  The pattern repeated with the intervals slowly extending and the chance encounters with another group becoming more infrequent.

  Survivors lying out in the open, tucked into corners. In break rooms and even the bathroom.

  Lots and lots of survivors. David found himself fluctuating between tears as he checked yet another person who hadn’t made it and grinning fiercely as he helped to load another comatose survivor.

  David’s group started to bond, settling into a routine. Kevin and Marcus the two teenagers moved the pallet lift and worked with whoever found the survivor to load them. Their mother, Jolene checked people and scolded her boys whenever they got distracted or started pestering David to learn about his magic.

  Her Partner Chris and Billy’s friend Doug kept watch and sometimes ranged a distance from the group watching and checking people.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Once David was confident in their vigilance he went back to trying to dip into the deeper spirit sensing he was developing.

  They had just rescued a woman who even unconscious seemed to radiate exhaustion with dark crows feet under her sleeping eyes when something clicked in his mind.

  He extended his senses toward her, really focusing. The spiritual soundscape around her was... muted. Almost silent. Like she didn’t really make noise on the frequences the Nath spirits used.

  "That's it," he muttered.

  "What?" Jolene asked.

  "The survivors. They're quiet to my senses. Really quiet. I think their lack of integrated mana is why the zombies ignore them. They go nuts when they find a mutant and I bet they have more magic active in their bodies to transform them."

  The group had seen the gruesome splattered remains of several chrysalises by this stage. Victims again of the zombie’s wrath.

  The implications rolled through his mind. "The same thing that is incapacitating them is also protecting them. Until the acclimate to magic and it starts flowing through them they probably register as being literally inanimate.”

  It made a horrible kind of sense. The Nath simply didn’t normally interact with life lacking mana. That made him wonder how they found the dead, but he had no answers and since the integration hadn’t seen a single intact body that didn’t have a Nath in it.

  The pattern from the train station repeated, mutants crushed before they hatched. Survivors ignored. Bodies occupied. That combined with the soundscape he was now aware of meant something. He kept worrying at it, there was something there…

  "At least they're gone," one of the teenagers said after they had passed another ruined chrysalis, enough blue vest clearly visible to leave no doubt as to the ultimate source of the gore.

  David nodded but kept scanning. "Stay sharp. Just because we haven’t seen trouble doesn’t mean something won’t sneak up on us."

  Sarah's team passed them and paused to give them a radio.

  “We found these charging in a supervisor’s room we checked. Everyone is on frequency one.”

  Carl's voice crackled over the handheld radio. "Perimeter's clear. No movement outside."

  Something about being able to stay in touch as they cleared the aisles and workspaces made the whole process easier.

  It took two hours to sweep the entire building. When they finished the count, David felt a surge of satisfaction mixed with exhaustion.

  Over two hundred people. They'd saved over two hundred people. Even better than the station!

  The celebration when the last survivors were loaded into vehicles was subdued but genuine.

  People were smiling, laughing even.

  The oppressive weight of the apocalypse and the violence they had experienced lifted slightly as everyone realized they'd accomplished something genuinely good.

  "This is what we should be doing," Katie said, appearing at David's elbow. "Saving people. Making a difference."

  "Yeah." David watched Mark and the other healers working on the survivors with spells and small doses of water.

  Camila gathered the team leaders for a quick planning session. "We need supplies and I don’t fancy scanning bar codes in the hopes of finding useful stuff. Let’s hit the nearby stores. Big box stores would have had employees working when this started."

  "There’s a sporting goods store three blocks down, once we get out to the main drag," Carl said, pointing. "They'll have camping gear, outdoor supplies. Useful stuff."

  "Home Depot next to it for tools," someone else added.

  "And the Costco," Katie chimed in. "Paper goods, food, water. We need all of it."

  David checked the sky. Late afternoon sun, maybe three hours of daylight left. "We move fast, hit the high-value targets, then pull back before dark. We don't know if it’s more dangerous, but we can’t see which negates a lot of the advantage of having guns…"

  "Same Teams at each location," Camila decided. "In and out. Survivors first, supplies second. Everyone keeps their radios on."

  They took a moment to strategize and ended up grabbing three more things before leaving; more radios and chargers, a big delivery truck (empty) and fuel.

  David was realizing that fuel was going to become a major issue quickly and mentally added a tanker to the list of things they needed.

  As they headed for the sporting goods store, David’s anticipation was building. Proper camping gear would make the safe zone significantly more livable, at least for him. The idea of an air mattress was heaven after even a single night without.

  They ended up shattering the store's front windows to get in. Which was surprisingly hard. There were zombies inside but given the tight confines David simply blitzed them with Halt. It was then simple to take them out with head shots.

  The rush of XP was extremely strong and he wondered how much more he gained when he was connected to the targets as he was to lock them down with halt.

  They found two survivors in the stockroom, another three on the shop floor. Still there were many fewer staff here than he had expected. Perhaps it was too early for the full staff to arrive.

  While the survivors were extracted, everyone started getting supplies.

  David personally claimed a small tent, air mattress, several sleeping bags and a large backpack that he threw odds and ends that caught his eye in. Best of all, he was able to grab comfortable clothes to replace his soiled office wear.

  A trip to the bathrooms and sacrificing a bit of clean clothing as an improvised washcloth and he was reasonably clean, wearing fresh clothes and an extremely expensive pair of hiking shoes in his size.

  Throwing more clothes in his size into the backpack he finally felt like he was personally equipped for the first time since leaving home before the initiation.

  He felt slightly guilty when he found Camila organizing the loading of systematically grabbed gear into one of the trucks with focused efficiency.

  She noted his new clothes and clean face, nodded and turned to the others.

  “Anyone needs something personal, like a change of clothes you got five minutes!”

  David added “If you don’t have a good pair of tough shoes get some.”

  People stirred uncomfortably.

  “Look, we just saved hundreds of people. They will need clothes, shoes, food, drink. There will be hundreds more things we need. You need to take care of yourselves – so if there is an upgraded pair of shoes that will keep you on your feet for longer get them!”

  As they moved on to Home Depot the reluctance to take things for personal gain started to erode.

  Finding thirteen survivors in and around Home Depot, including some people who had gathered for day work cheered the Raid.

  For some reason grabbing top of the line propane grills and all the tanks of fuel in the cage as well as a large smoker seemed to break down all the reservations the guys had about looting for personal gain.

  Accumulating power tools, generators, and lumber resulted in the group embracing looting the Home Depot fleet of rental vehicles, some of which were designed to carry these precise goods to job sites.

  Now increasingly heavily loaded they were starting to struggle to find places to put everything and everyone.

  This more than anything got them moving towards Costco as twilight fell.

  With the sun dipping towards the horizon the fight to secure Costco ended up being a little harder than the earlier ones. Poor light was starting to work against them and people were getting tired. The zombies got close and David found himself called on to use his mass halt twice.

  There was a lot of food once they got into the big box store. It was also clear that the store had been operating on backup power for a while. The frozen goods were thawing, the meat was room temperature not spoiled and the fresh vegetables were still in good shape.

  This caused a minor celebration as people loaded up with ice cream, steak and other treats.

  “Men! We need balanced meals.” Camila commented after seeing one man go past with an entire shopping cart loaded with beef and booze.

  His beer belly and ‘Grill Master’ T-shirt kind of made her point for her. Still David smiled and nodded then spoke softly.

  “People need to celebrate. We also need a big win to bring the folks back at the Safe Zone.”

  Katie, joining them nodded along. “Let’s make sure we have spices and salt. Come on Mark! You can make your dry Rub!”

  Seeing people starting to spread out, browse and agonize over choices David Yelled out.

  “One shopping cart per person. We need to get back before Dark!”

  That got people moving and started friendly competitions both to have the most laden cart and the best fresh and durable items.

  As everyone was taking their load of food and other goods back to the vehicles Camila caught up with David as he scanned the darkening sky with increasing worry.

  "There's the pharmacy. We need to break in and take what we can. We need medical supplies and medications. Especially insulin and maintenance drugs."

  David shook his head. "We're losing the light. I’m nervous about moving around at night."

  "It's important. People are going to need their medications." Her expression was serious. "We can't save everyone just to watch them die slowly because they can't get their prescriptions."

  She had a point. David hated it, but he had to raise the counter point. "The need is less than you think. The people who need those prescriptions, they are the zombies now.”

  Seeing her gearing up to argue he continued “We can do this but we can’t spend too much time on it.”

  Camila looked extremely upset, her eyes filling with tears then turned around and stormed away throwing over her shoulder. “You’re wrong! We need those medicines. Estupido.”

  She continued in Spanish, clearly upset as she vanished back into the store.

  “What did I say?” David asked. “I agreed with her.”

  Katie looked at him like he was an idiot and Sarah filled him in.

  “Cammie’s Mum back in Puerto Rico is diabetic.”

  The reminder of family sucked the air of out David. “Damn, that was too blunt wasn’t it.”

  “You didn’t think.” Sarah’s judgement was hard. “You need to do better with people looking up to you.”

  “I’ll go after her, make sure she’s OK.” Katie vanished after Camila.

  "We're done," David called out twenty minutes later. "We got the meds. Everyone mount up. We're heading back."

  No one argued. Camila didn’t speak to him at all as she got into a truck with Katie and Sarah. Otherwise they were all spread out driving vehicles, except Billy who rode with Carl.

  David was in a newly acquired pickup, using the radio to speak to the others. There was some chatter, the mood generally upbeat but fatigue was setting in.

  "Good day's work," Carl’s voice came over the radio. "Y'all did good. Now let’s get safely home and have us a nice meal and a rest."

  It wasn’t clear who he was speaking to.

  "We got lucky," David spoke softly, but didn’t hit transmit. "Still too many near misses. Still it could have been a lot worse."

  He didn’t gnow if his dark mood was because of the fallout with Camila or just his brain refusing to stop the constant stream of what ifs.

  He was alone and without a major task to plan for what felt like the first time today. He felt his shoulders slump and closed his eyes for a moment as he let the stress wash over him.

  He was a leader and he couldn’t afford to let these people down. Right now it was OK for him to just relax. He could be himself and not try to maintain the infallible fa?ade that would get these people through this.

  Alone in the privacy of his stolen truck David let his own fears out. “Mum, Dad, Just be safe OK? I don’t know how but I’ll find you. Mary, you were always smarter than me, my infallible big sister. Hang on, survive.”

  He spoke softly, almost a prayer, and nobody heard him except the silent court of spirits that attended him.