The American Military Base was located some way North West of the village and in times past, it would take between twenty and twenty five minutes to get to its entrance by road. Just as in past times of crisis, civilians would seek guidance from the authorities, the police, the politicians and if they were not available, then the army. Even though the men and women stationed there were not of the same nationality, just the fact they were a military organisation was enough for them to represent a beacon of hope for those who survived the end of the world.

Of course, just because the Americans were military, did not mean that they didn't suffer the effects of the apocalypse within their tall wire fences. A percentage of their personnel did die to the sickness and rise as mindless, starving corpses and it was just as difficult for them to put down this new enemy, for they were not the blank faces of opponent soldiers in a foreign land. But however difficult, they swept through the housing and barracks with decisiveness after an initial hesitation with deathly force and only lost one healthy man in the process due to a moment's distraction cost him his life. His death was not in vain as it taught them a valuable lesson; do not get bitten.

The first wave of survivors came to knock upon their doors just two days later and at first, they were not willing to let them in. Some of the soldiers wanted to focus on their own survival first and hopefully make it back home, others were fearful that these refugees might carry the virus. But, the survivors kept arriving and were unwilling to leave, begging to be allowed into the dubious safety of the wire fence walls.

The smarter individuals realised that if the numbers continued to grow, they would not only attract wandering zombies, but might also threaten the safety of those within the gates. So there was a compromise, the initial wave of people were placed into an empty house and kept in quarantine for three days. Not only did the soldiers hope that this would identify any who could become zombies, but gave them time to think about solutions to the refugee problem. It was not as if they had a great deal of family housing that could be used to accommodate these people.

Eventually, the people were assimilated, but while they were in quarantine, new arrivals came. These people were quarantined elsewhere. Another group of survivors brought with them a mob of hungry zombies, who'd followed their noisy vehicles and had to be dealt with first, before the survivors could be. It was then that some soldiers noticed they had weird super-powers. They were no J*stice Leag*e nor X-m#n though, their powers didn't make them much stronger than normal. However, those handful that could summon water came to be treated like Kings and made to retreat behind the lines.

When the utilities no longer worked, the soldiers began recruiting the strongest of the survivors to help them scavenge food and supplies. As the base numbers continued to grow, survivors were put to work strengthening the wall and building temporary housing from wood and brick. If people did not work, they did not get fed, that was the rule. One mostly civilian squad had the idea of bringing back caravans and campervans from driveways and the base continued to grow.

"When I arrived at the base," Chang Min reminisced as the truck slowly trundled down the broken road, "there were no spare beds, people slept with padded green blankets upon floors or on couches. It was not difficult for me to adapt, but there were many grumbles from the people I arrived with. They also complained about the food and the work. I do not think that they were well received by the others. But I had performed my duties as a bodyguard, so I let them do as they pleased and made myself useful."

Chang Min had never been a stranger to hardship.

"How many people were on the base when you left?" Dexter asked him. The squad that he'd taken with him was somewhat a show of force with the big guys Harry, Arthur and Winston displaying the majority of the muscle, while himself, Chang Min and Cole had good abilities as well. Tyler had been left behind this time as water users were precious and they didn't want to reveal all of their cards, not knowing just what sort of reception they'd receive. This was also the reason for leaving all the women behind as well, even if Monika had proven more than once that she could look after herself.

"Around three thousand four hundred," Chang Min replied. "Of which around five hundred were originally military or personnel and another one or two hundred were family members."

"I thought it would be bigger," Harry admitted, aloud, with some melancholy in his voice. They could not blame him. The two towns that the base was located in between used to have tens of thousands of people living within them, not to mention the smaller populations of the scattered villages close by.

"There may have been others like us," Dexter suggested, "that grouped together outside military bases. Plus isn't there another military base about an hour or so away?"

"You mean the one that houses members of our own Royal Air Force?" Winston asked, before swerving to miss a particularly large pothole. The men unfortunate enough to be in the back braced themselves against the cold metal walls of the van's storage area. Fortunately, the ice packed metal containers that Shaun and Tyler had rigged up were secured well; they were suffering enough bruises from the bumps and other obstacles in the road, let alone broken bones from the containers.

"Yeah," came the reply. "Some people have rooted biases, like Tyler or maybe it was just the first place that came to mind. They could have gone there." It was a pretty dream, but no one really bought it. Who'd go so far a field when there were soldiers on your doorstep?

"Still, that's a lot of people to feed over winter," Cole mused, "it's no wonder we almost came to blows with them in the wheat field."

"That was just greed," Arthur said, softly from the passenger seat. It was not as if they were planning to take a lot of the wheat having wanted it just in order to start their own wheat field in the spring and not in order to produce flour.

"Officer Randell was not a bright man," Chang Min mentioned the man that had been in charge of their expedition. "And he is inflexible. He will follow his orders to the letter and cannot see in more than black and white. But he is very much trusted."

"A good soldier not a good team leader," Dexter came to his own judgement about the man. No one really blamed him for his actions, however, if they were in his position facing a force that potentially threatened his mission, they can't claim that they wouldn't have done the same. Especially when they had a weapon like Chang Min to rely on. A pity for him, then, that the weapon defected or rather was simply biding his time until he could return to Ren Zexian's side.

The conversation lapsed into silence for a few minutes before Winston swore and deftly avoided yet another zombie. Fortunately, it seemed to be an ordinary one and not an evolved one again. That massive monster had chased after them fiercely, using its long arms as momentum and swinging like an ape as what remained of its legs were nothing but stumps. Fortunately or unfortunately, they also ran into the Herd.

They had not seen the group of zombified cattle for a while, but they had grown uglier. Their numbers seemed neither larger nor smaller than in the autumn, but there was a massive bug-eyed, bull in amongst them now. Its horns had looked vicious and it swung its still intact tail about swatting the flies from exposed, rotting holes in its large body. When it had charged, however, it decidedly ignored the metallic van and hint of live flesh for the zombie chasing it. The rest of the herd had followed it in a rush, smacking against the walls of the van as they did, leaving a large dent in its side, but apart from scaring the shit out of them as the truck teetered to one side for a breath, there was no other damage and they lost the tailing zombie.

"There's more zombies up ahead," Winston mentioned. The one he'd almost hit was a straggler from the crowds it appeared.

"Not surprising," Dexter drawled, "there's a buffet in a tin up ahead as well. Question is, how do we get past them in order to get inside that tin?"

"Not to worry," Chang Min mentioned, breezily and stood up in order to see the situation ahead. "The base likely have measures of their own in order to allow their own people inside. But for now, allow me to deal with them."

"Do you need any assistance, Min," Cole murmured behind him.

"This small matter, I can deal with," Chang Min advised him, confidently. "I just require someone to attract them towards us first." Winston glanced towards Dexter as he slowed the vehicle to a near halt, who shrugged in response. As his boss had no opinion on it, he pressed hard upon the van's horn, filling the air with a loud squeaking sound.

After a pause, Harry couldn't help but ask; "What was that?"

Dexter smirked behind his hand, before coughing. "It was rather weak for a van this size. I mean I wasn't expecting a low, blasting horn like in a lorry, but..."

"It's not like we ever bothered testing it when we claimed it from the garage," Cole rolled his eyes as they continued to jest at the second squad's expense.

"Can we just deal with them right now?" Arthur asked, making an attempt to be the voice or reason as numerous zombies waddled, crawled and otherwise made their way towards them.

"No evolved ones?" Winston pointed out this small fact as no fireballs, lightning strikes or blades of ice came towards them.

"At least nothing threatening," Dexter said in response. "The base would be real idiots not to deal with evolved zombies as soon as they appeared. But dealing with low numbers of small fry is probably a waste of resources." Chang Min nodded in agreement. There always seemed to be small numbers of zombies surrounding the base, no matter how many were cleansed and without strong powers, the soldiers relied on bullets. But they could only rely on them for so long. It was deemed better to use them on the strongest zombies and otherwise keep the numbers of weaker zombies low by going out as a force once or twice a weak with melee weapons instead. There also should be pits here and there, formed by Chang Min when he was around to help control the numbers, but not upon the road.

And speaking of pits... the ground began to tremble.