Chapter 3: The Quarry
Three days of walking through the skeletal remains of suburban Atlanta had left Jake hollow-eyed and stumbling. His backpack had faithfully produced its daily ration, but trauma had murdered his appetite. Food tasted like cardboard, and his stomach rejected most of what he forced down. The weight he'd lost showed in his gaunt cheeks and the way his scrubs hung loose on his frame.
The sound of voices drifted through the trees like a mirage made audible. Jake paused on the ridge overlooking the quarry, his death sense scanning automatically. No walkers within range, just the blessed emptiness that meant living people below. Real, breathing, warm-blooded human beings who laughed and argued and moved with the fluid grace of the truly alive.
The camp spread out beneath him like something from a postcard—tents clustered around a central fire pit, children playing between the vehicles, laundry hanging from improvised lines. It looked so normal, so peacefully domestic, that for a moment Jake forgot about the dead walking the earth.
Then his eyes found familiar faces, and his heart lurched.
Rick Grimes stood near a blue Cherokee, his sheriff's uniform unmistakable even from a distance. Shane Walsh paced nearby, gesticating with the aggressive energy Jake remembered from the show. Dale sat atop his RV like a benevolent lighthouse keeper, binoculars glinting in the afternoon sun.
This is it. This is where it begins.
Jake's hands trembled as he made his way down the slope. He had maybe an hour before sunset, which meant the walker attack was still weeks away. Time to integrate, to become part of the group, to position himself to save lives when the moment came. All he had to do was act normal and not reveal that he was a transmigrated medical student with supernatural powers and perfect foreknowledge of everyone's tragic fate.
Simple.
The first person to notice him was T-Dog, who straightened from where he'd been working on an engine and called out a warning. "Got someone coming in!"
Jake raised his hands, palms visible, and kept walking at a steady pace. Don't appear threatening. Don't appear desperate. Don't appear like you know exactly who everyone is and how most of them are going to die.
Rick appeared first, one hand resting casually on his holstered Colt Python. The casual nature of the gesture fooled no one—the man was coiled spring-tight, ready to draw and fire in a heartbeat. Behind him came Shane, and Jake's breath caught at the dark intensity radiating from the deputy. Shane's eyes moved constantly, cataloging threats, calculating angles of attack.
"That's far enough," Rick called when Jake was about twenty feet away. His voice carried the authority of a man accustomed to being obeyed, but there was weariness beneath it. The weight of leadership in a dead world aged people fast.
Jake stopped, keeping his hands visible. "I'm not armed. Well, I've got a knife, but it's in my pack."
"What's your name?" Shane's voice was harder than Rick's, all sharp edges and suspicion. His stance shifted subtly, weight on the balls of his feet, ready to move.
"Jake Martinez. I was—I am a medical student. Third year at Emory." The half-truth came easily. He had been a medical student, just not in this world. "I got trapped in Atlanta when everything went to hell."
Rick's expression softened fractionally. "How'd you get out?"
"Luck, mostly. And knowing when to run." Jake let exhaustion color his voice—not hard, since he was genuinely spent. "I've been walking for three days, trying to find other survivors."
"How'd YOU survive alone?" Shane stepped forward, his tone turning aggressive. "City's crawling with geeks, and you're telling me some college boy walked out without a scratch?"
Jake met his stare without flinching. Something cold flickered in his chest, a whisper of the power that could freeze the dead in their tracks. Shane's hostility triggered an instinctive response—the urge to show this potential threat exactly what he was dealing with.
Instead, Jake forced himself to look tired and vulnerable. "I hid a lot. Moved at night. Got lucky with supplies." He gestured to his pack. "Found some canned goods in an abandoned store."
Rick held up a hand before Shane could respond. "We'll get to that. Right now, you look like you're about to fall over. When's the last time you had water?"
The kindness in Rick's voice hit Jake like a physical blow. This man had no idea what was coming—the farm, the prison, the losses that would carve pieces from his soul. Right now he was still the small-town sheriff who helped stranded motorists and believed in the fundamental goodness of people.
"I could save him so much pain. If I could just say the right words, warn him about Shane, about the CDC, about everything—"
"This morning," Jake managed. "I've been rationing what I have."
Rick nodded and looked back toward the camp. "Dale! Bring some water!"
The older man climbed down from his RV with surprising agility, carrying a plastic bottle. "Welcome to our little community," he said, offering Jake the water. His eyes were kind behind wire-rimmed glasses, but Jake caught the sharp intelligence there. Dale was watching, cataloging, forming impressions.
Jake drank gratefully, the cool water soothing his parched throat. Around him, more camp members gathered—Lori with her protective mother's stance, Carl peering out from behind her legs, the Morales family keeping their distance. And there, near the edge of the group, Carol Peletier stood with her arm around a young girl's shoulders. Sophia.
Jake's heart clenched. In the show's timeline, Sophia had maybe two months to live. Carol would lose her daughter, would transform from abuse victim to stone-cold survivor through unimaginable grief. Unless Jake could change things.
"So, medical student," Shane said, circling back to his interrogation. "What kind of medicine?"
"Emergency trauma, hopefully. I was doing a rotation in the ER when—when things started falling apart." Jake met Shane's suspicious stare. "Look, I know how this looks. Lone survivor shows up, claims to have useful skills. But I'm not asking for charity. I can pull my weight."
"Can you, now?" This from a gravelly voice Jake recognized immediately. Daryl Dixon emerged from behind a tent, crossbow slung casually over his shoulder. His pale eyes were flat and assessing, taking in Jake's condition with the clinical detachment of a predator.
"I can treat injuries, purify water, help with scavenging runs if you know where the medical supplies are." Jake kept his voice steady. "I'm not dead weight."
Dale chuckled. "Son, anyone who's made it this far isn't dead weight. Question is whether you can fit in with the group."
Before Jake could respond, Rick made the decision that would change everything. "We'll try it out. You can set up near my tent tonight, and we'll see how things go."
Shane's jaw tightened, but he didn't contradict his friend. Not yet. The resentment was there, though, simmering beneath the surface. Jake filed that away for future reference.
The rest of the evening passed in a blur of introductions and careful probing questions. Jake met everyone he'd watched die on screen—Amy with her bright laugh, Andrea with her fierce protectiveness, Morales with his quiet dignity. Each face was a countdown timer, a reminder of tragedies yet to come.
When dawn broke, Jake's pack contained fifteen portions instead of the usual one. The Survivor's Bounty had kicked in, recognizing the group as his people. The problem was, fifteen portions took up considerably more space than one, and several people had already commented on how light his pack looked yesterday.
Jake stared at the impossible bounty and felt panic rise in his throat. How was he going to explain this?
"Morning, sunshine." Dale's voice made him jump. The older man was approaching with a steaming cup of coffee, his expression carefully neutral. "Sleep well?"
"Like a rock," Jake lied, quickly zipping up his pack. "Thanks for the coffee."
Dale handed him the cup and settled onto a nearby log. "Funny thing about packs. They're like stomachs—they shrink when they're empty, expand when they're full."
Jake's blood ran cold. Dale had noticed.
"Yesterday, your pack looked like it maybe had a day's worth of supplies in it. This morning, it's stuffed full." Dale's voice remained conversational, but his eyes were sharp. "Now, I'm not accusing you of anything. Lord knows we've all had to do things we're not proud of to survive. But if you found a cache, it might be worth sharing the location."
Think fast. Jake took a sip of coffee to buy time, his mind racing. "I did find a stash. Vending machine that had fallen over behind a gas station. Took me most of yesterday evening to get it open and redistribute everything into manageable portions."
Dale nodded slowly. "That explains the timing. And the quantity—those machines hold a lot more than people think."
Andrea appeared at Jake's shoulder, making him jump again. Her lawyer's instincts were clearly pinging off his nervous energy. "What kind of food? Candy bars and chips?"
"Mixed bag. Some candy, but also trail mix, crackers, a few canned goods from the attached convenience store." Jake hoped his voice sounded steadier than he felt. "I can share what I've got, but it's not going to last forever."
"Nobody's asking you to feed the whole camp," Rick said, approaching with Lori and Carl in tow. "But if you're willing to contribute to the common supplies, it would help everyone."
Jake nodded quickly, perhaps too quickly. He pulled out two of his manifested rations and handed them over. "Take what you need. I've got enough for a few days."
"That boy's hiding something," Jake heard Dale mutter to Andrea as they walked away. "But I don't think it's dangerous."
The day passed peacefully enough. Jake helped with camp chores, shared medical knowledge, and gradually began to feel like part of the group. But the stress of maintaining his cover story was exhausting, made worse by the constant weight of his foreknowledge.
Evening brought a new challenge.
Ed Peletier had been drinking—not heavily, but enough to amplify his natural nastiness. Jake watched from across the fire as the man's voice grew louder, his comments to Carol more cutting. Sophia pressed closer to her mother's side, her small face tight with familiar fear.
"Maybe if you spent less time gossiping with the other women and more time taking care of your family," Ed was saying, his words slurred with beer and malice.
Carol's shoulders hunched. "I was just—"
"I don't want to hear excuses. You've got responsibilities."
Jake's hands clenched. In his medical school rotations, he'd seen too many women with Ed's handiwork—bruises explained away as clumsiness, fractures attributed to falls. The pattern was always the same: escalation, isolation, violence.
"She was helping with the laundry," Jake said quietly. "Hardly gossip."
Ed's bleary eyes fixed on him. "Nobody asked you, college boy. This is between me and my wife."
The fire crackled between them, casting shifting shadows across the camp. Jake felt something cold and predatory uncoil in his chest—not necromancy, exactly, but something related. The awareness of death that followed him like a faithful dog suddenly sharpened, focusing on Ed with laser intensity.
Jake stood slowly, and the quality of his movement made several people look up. There was something in his posture, in the way he held himself, that spoke of barely leashed violence. For just a moment, his civilized medical student facade cracked, and something much darker peered through.
"You're right," Jake said, his voice soft and dangerous. "It's between you and Carol. But if you decide to make it physical, it becomes between you and me."
Ed blinked, his alcohol-fogged brain struggling to process the sudden shift in dynamics. The predatory energy radiating from Jake was palpable, setting off every survival instinct the man possessed. Without quite understanding why, Ed found himself backing down.
"Whatever," he mumbled, stumbling toward his tent. "Bitch ain't worth the trouble anyway."
Jake watched him go, then turned to find Carol staring at him with wide eyes. "Thank you," she whispered. "Not many people stand up for us."
"Everybody deserves to feel safe in their own home," Jake replied. "Even if home is a tent in a quarry."
Carol's smile was tremulous but genuine. For the first time since arriving at the camp, Jake felt like he'd done something unequivocally good. He'd protected someone without revealing his powers, without breaking his cover.
It was a start.
As the camp settled in for the night, Jake lay in his borrowed sleeping bag and stared at the stars. Tomorrow would bring new challenges, new opportunities to help or fail. The walker attack was still weeks away, but there would be smaller crises before then—injuries to treat, conflicts to mediate, trust to build.
He closed his eyes and tried not to think about how many of these good people would be dead within the year.
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