Danny was not worried about the safety of his stash of crystals though. He doubted anyone would covet his hard-earned gains.

To any onlooker, they appeared as just pretty gems. Other than their shiny and lustrous appearance, there was nothing about the translucent stones that demanded a second look.

Beautiful but useless was how anyone would evaluate his crystals upon laying his or her eyes on them.

There was no way anyone would be able to connect the soul gems with the zombies if they did not already know about their origin, which Danny doubted could happen.

And since Danny did not expect anyone to feel a sudden compulsion to eat one of the shiny stones upon seeing them then and there, their mystical properties would remain undiscovered, completely flying under the radar.

In that case, there was no reason for Danny to go out of his way to hide them and prevent others from discovering the gems during the inspection.

Upon finding them inside his backpack, others would naturally assume that Danny collected them because he liked how they looked, or because he expected to get some economic value out of them if things ever went back to normal.

Just as if he was hoarding diamonds.

At the same time, however, the more steps he took to hide and protect them, the more suspicious he would look.

After all, when most people were going hungry, thirsty, and weapons had hit an all-time-high in value, why was it that among all the things he had on himself, Danny decided to pay special attention to those pretty but seemingly useless crystals?

That would definitely raise many eyebrows and draw unwanted attention.

In fact, it was better if he acted as if the stones were really just shiny baubles. The more he treated them like they were irrelevant, the more secured they would be.

On the other hand, Danny would not risk leaving his stash behind, hidden in some part of the settlement or even outside. Who knew what could happen? The future was anyone’s guess, so no, he would not be doing that.

Wherever he went, his pile of precious gems would come with him.

Better to leave them hidden in plain sight than to risk not being able to return to grab them for whatever reason.

Danny was only human after all and could not predict the future. He did not have prophetic powers and many things could blindside him.

In a time where dead bodies rose and attacked the living; invaders looked at Earth with greedy eyes; and whole stretches of land were shuffled around as if they were a deck of cards, it was prudent to keep an open mind as to what was and was not possible.

Predictions were unreliable at best.

Therefore, the best way to guarantee the safety of his precious treasure was to keep it close to him at all times.

It was with this mindset that Danny headed straight to the command center.

The building that served as the administrative center of the base was nothing impressive. It was an old wooden structure.

Its walls were made of dark brown logs and it was merely two stories tall. Danny estimated that not many things or people could fit inside there at the same time. There were probably only a couple dozen rooms in the building or less.

Even so, the structure was very conspicuous and drew the attention of anyone passing by.

That was because there were almost no buildings in the settlement, so no matter how small or unimpressive, the edifice still stuck out like a sore thumb.

In fact, the main plaza where it stood was one of the only few places anybody could find something other than a tent to hide from the rain. There were some other small constructions here and there around the settlement, and a few more around the plaza, but they managed to be even more simplistic than the weathered log building.

The area, the whole encampment in fact, seemed to have been a camping destination where children and tourists came to enjoy the Summer and nature, which explained the original lack of constructions.

From the plaza - which was also the highest point of the settlement - Danny could see the entirety of the newly formed village.

He noticed that the only spot that was not occupied by edifices or fully packed with tents was an area directly behind the main building, in the opposite direction from which he had come from.

In there, Danny could see a natural occurring spring surrounded by untouched vegetation.

Since there was no river or lake in the immediate vicinity of the settlement, Danny guessed that it was from that spring that the whole encampment sourced the fresh water they needed on a daily basis.

‘I see. A secluded location on elevated terrain with access to a natural source of fresh water within its boundaries is a very good defensible position indeed. It is also easy to sustain if they can solve their food needs’ Danny thought silently, evaluating the merits of the budding town while scratching his growing beard.

It had been some time since he took the time to take care of that, and he was very rapidly starting to look like a hobo.

‘Meh. I will deal with it whenever I have the time. There are more important things to worry about then my appearance.’ Danny thought while shrugging. There weren’t many merits to the apocalypse, but not having to worry as much about keeping up appearances or how others saw him and thought of him was one of its perks.

Not wasting any more time to appreciate the view, Danny turned around and walked over to the wooden stairs that led to entryway of the command center of the settlement.

There were just a couple of steps in front of the main door, just enough to slightly raise the base level of the building from the ground.

Danny crossed them in a single step, and opened the double doors that led inside, going into the building proper for the first time.

He turned his head left and right, looking around the place, but he barely had time to take in the view when he heard a woman’s voice.

“Good day to you sir. Can I help you with anything?”

Danny’s head swung to his right, locking into the direction from where the sound had come from.

There, behind a wooden counter, a woman in her late twenties or early thirties stood. Apparently, she had been crouching behind the dark wooden furniture when Danny arrived, so he failed to notice her.

The woman had blonde hair and big brown eyes, with a modest chest and a slim body. She had tanned skin and wore the uniform of a police officer that was clearly a couple of sizes too big for her, but Danny guessed that she probably had to make do with what they had available here at the settlement.

Not always would you be able to find clothes and gear that matched your build perfectly. Such was the reality of their current circumstances.

“Good day to you too.” Danny smiled at the woman presenting his hand for a handshake.

“My name is Danny. Joff have told me to swing by and talk to the one in command. I just arrived at the settlement a couple of minutes ago.” Danny explained, going straight to the point.

“Oh! Nice to meet you. You can call me Sally, everyone around here calls me that.” Sally took his hand and introduced herself mirroring Danny’s smile.

“It has been a while since anyone new arrived in town. We have been getting less and less visitors, but I am glad to find out that there are still people persevering out there.” Sally checked Danny up and down without any hint of shame or intention to hide her appraisal before nodding to herself in a satisfied manner.

Satisfied about what though, Danny did not know.

“So, why did Joff sent you here exactly?” Sally asked him.

To that Danny shrugged before saying:

“I am not too sure about that myself. Joff didn’t give me much details. He told me you guys were having trouble with a group of zombies somewhere and that the settlement was looking for people to help you deal with that. He did not say much else, though.”

“Are you the one in charge here?” Danny asked immediately after.

“Me? Oh no. Thank God, no.” She said before laughing. “Too much responsibility and stress for my taste. Hank is the one you are looking for. I just help around the place. I guess I double as a secretary and door guard.” She gave him a toothy smile.

“Come with me, Hank has some time for you now. I’ll lead you to him.” Sally said and turned around, not waiting for Danny’s confirmation.

It really had been the correct decision to keep his hoard of valuables on him. He didn’t even had to go through an inspection. As Joff had told him before, it seemed that it wasn’t always that such security measures were enforced.

He followed Sally through the corridors of the building and into the second floor before she knocked on a specific door.

“Who is it?” A male voice came from inside the room.

“It is me Hank can I come in?”

“Sally? I told you I have a lot on my plate right now. I can’t have you coming here every couple of hours to mess around just because you are bored downstairs…”

After hearing that, the woman blushed slightly and looked at Danny from the corner of her eye.

“What are you talking about, you senile old-geezer! I am just doing my job, like always! You have a visitor!” Sally huffed at the man through the door, embarrassed to have her mischievous side unexpectedly exposed to Danny so quickly after just meeting him.

“A visitor? Come in then!”

Not waiting a second longer after hearing the man’s authorization, Sally marched into the room and started berating the older man for his ‘unjust’ evaluation and treatment of her.

Danny followed closely behind and watched speechlessly as the woman spent a couple of minutes ‘teaching’, the one Danny presumed to be her superior officer, about the weight of spoken words and how one should be careful about what they say, rebuking him fiercely whenever he tried to explain himself and leaving the man in the room no recourse other than to apologize repeatedly for his ‘transgression’ until she was finally satisfied.

Afterwards, she just harrumphed and left while leaving behind the words “make sure it does not happen again!”, and closed the door.

Danny kept looking at the closed door in bewilderment, not entirely sure what just happened, when a soft giggle woke him up from his stupefaction.

“Quite a piece of work, isn’t she?” Hank said smirking, but in a quiet enough voice as to ensure he would not be heard by Sally who had just left.

Best not to poke the slumbering beast.

“For my own sake, I think it is better if I don’t respond to that…” Danny said, still shocked by the play he had just witnessed.

“HA! Wise words my boy! I wish I had half your wisdom at your age!” The man said in-between his bouts of laughter.

Hank had a booming voice and a rounding belly.

In one word, Hank was BIG. However, that was not only in terms of his waistline as the man had the height and the muscle behind it to back it up too. His loud voice only went to accentuate his imposing look even further.

Even while sitting, Danny could see the strength contained in the man’s portly shape and limbs. The man had an intimidating presence even while laughing his ass off and smacking his table from Danny’s automatic response.

That only went to emphasize Sally’s fierce personality all the more. Even in the face of such a towering man, her superior nonetheless, her unbridled personality could not be contained.

“Take a seat boy and tell me your name. I think we will get along quite well. I am Hank by the way, as you already heard.” The man managed to sneak in an introduction in between his uncontrollable fits of laughter, gesturing to the chair in front of his desk with his hand as he wiped a tear from the corner of his eye with the other.

Hank was having trouble regaining his composure as every time he seemed to recover some semblance of seriousness, his booming laughter broke through his stoic façade once more, rendering their conversation impossible.

Through it all, Danny waited patiently. Even after a few minutes went by, Danny still didn’t feel a single hint of annoyance at the man for wasting his time. It was impossible to resent someone so genuinely happy, so even though he didn’t share the man’s amusement at his words, he was content in just waiting there for their talk to begin.

“Sorry about that, so what can I do for you?” Hank asked after finally regaining control of himself.