Chapter 188: Tensions in the Memorial Building

The Atlantic City Memorial building.

It rose before us—a substantial structure built in a roughly square architectural footprint, standing two full stories high with solid construction that suggested it had originally been designed to last. The architecture carried that distinctive early-to-mid-twentieth-century aesthetic that characterized many of Atlantic City’s older public buildings—clean lines, functional design, built to make a statement about civic permanence.

Even in darkness, I could make out details that indicated its transformation from memorial to fortified refuge. The windows had been systematically reinforced or blocked entirely, reducing vulnerable entry points. The main entrance showed signs of heavy modification—additional barriers, and even firing positions...if I wasn’t wrong.

We had a relatively clear, straight path leading directly to the entrance without any infected in sight—a luxury that spoke to Rico’s group having thoroughly cleaned this approach route before our arrival.

Lights flickered in several windows—lanterns or possibly candles rather than electric lighting, but still representing safety, warmth, human presence.

Once we reached the reinforced entrance, Maribel approached the heavy door and knocked three times in what was clearly a pattern.

"It’s Maribel with Shannon," she called out clearly. "Open up."

Several seconds of tense silence passed—presumably while whoever stood guard inside verified her identity through one of the firing slots or improvised peepholes. Then I heard the distinctive sounds of multiple locks being disengaged and heavy barriers being shifted aside with scraping sounds.

The door opened slowly, revealing Jake’s lean figure backlit by lantern glow from deeper inside. His face immediately shifted into a frown when he registered not just Maribel and Shannon, but also my presence accompanying them.

"What are you staring at? Just move aside already," Maribel said with clear impatience.

"Yeah, yeah, fine," Jake muttered, stepping back reluctantly. But his eyes tracked to Shannon with confusion replacing his initial hostility. "Wait—what the hell is Shannon even doing here?"

Once we entered inside the memorial building, I took in the interior with quite assessment overlaying initial impressions. The space had clearly once been designed as a community gathering area—high ceilings, open floor plan, architectural features meant to honor military service and sacrifice. Now it had been converted into a functional survival shelter with sleeping areas marked by bedrolls and scavenged furniture, supply caches stacked against walls, weapons propped within easy reach.

Everyone present seemed surprised to see Maribel entering with Shannon.

"Ask her yourself what she’s doing here," Maribel said before carefully lowering Shannon into a wooden chair that had been positioned near one of the lanterns. "I just spent the last hour tracking her down."

When everyone’s collective gaze fell on Shannon, the girl lowered her eyes with visible shame.

"I just... I wanted to help everyone," Shannon said quietly. "I’m tired of being useless and protected all the time."

"She ran away after having another fight with Carmen," Maribel clarified bluntly, stripping away Shannon’s more noble-sounding explanation. "This was about family conflict, not some heroic desire to contribute to the community."

"It wasn’t like that!" Shannon protested, but the denial sounded weak even to my ears.

"Sure looks like it from where we’re standing," Rico said with a heavy sigh, and the others around him seemed to silently agree based on their expressions and knowing nods. This clearly wasn’t Shannon’s first time pulling this kind of stunt.

"And to make matters worse, she managed to injure herself during this little solo adventure," Molly said, moving to kneel beside Shannon’s chair to examine the girl’s twisted ankle. Her fingers probed gently but thoroughly, assessing swelling and checking for breaks. "This is badly sprained, maybe worse. You’re not walking on this for at least a week, girl."

"Even worse than the injury—she nearly got herself completely devoured by infected," Maribel said, glancing at me with an expression that mixed gratitude and lingering embarrassment about our earlier fight. "Ryan heard her screaming from blocks away and managed to reach her just in time to kill the infected that were about to tear her apart."

"Oh, so that’s why you suddenly ran off like that?" Molly looked at me with undisguised amazement. "You actually heard her scream from that distance? You must have incredibly amazing hearing."

"A little better than average, yeah," I said awkwardly, not particularly wanting to explain Dullahan enhancements to strangers right now.

"Playing the hero in shining armor again, Ryan?" Sydney’s voice carried across the space with affectionate exasperation as she appeared from deeper inside the building. "I’m honestly not even surprised anymore. You can’t go five minutes without rescuing someone damsel in distress."

"You could have at least told us what you were doing before running off into infected territory alone," Rachel said, a bit upset. "We were worried sick when you just disappeared."

"I was capable enough to handle the situation alone," I replied. "There was no need to drag all of you into additional danger when I could move faster and more quietly by myself."

Actually Sydney could have done it even faster than me but well, I preferred to do it myself. Call it stupidity but after I dragged Jasmine with me stupidly to radio station and got her killed, I became less enthusiastic in taking people with me, even the ones with Dullahan Enhancements...

"Yeah, sure, very logical," Christopher sighed "But be more careful going forward, alright? Don’t try to do everything alone when you have people who want to help and watch your back."

I nodded slightly.

"So these are the people you came to Atlantic City with?" Maribel asked, looking around at my companions with open curiosity and assessment.

"We traveled here together, yes," Brad said, stepping forward and actually pushing Christopher aside—physically shouldering him out of the way—before Christopher could respond. He smiled with what he probably thought was charming confidence but came across as oily arrogance. "We left most of our group back in Galloway temporarily, just until we could scout the city and find a suitable place to settle permanently."

"Well, about establishing yourselves here—that’s going to be significantly more complicated than you might expect," Maribel said carefully. "Our community is already settled in the Boardwalk area, and we’ve claimed that entire territory as our main settlement zone."

"Yes, exactly," Rico nodded agreement, his expression making clear this wasn’t negotiable. "We cleared those blocks of infected at significant cost in lives and resources. That area belongs to us."

"Then isn’t that even better for everyone?" Kyle said with oblivious enthusiasm, apparently missing or ignoring all the subtle tension in the room. "We can help each other! Combine resources, share defensive duties, build a stronger community together!"

"It’s not remotely that simple," I said, cutting through his naive optimism before it could build momentum. "They already have enough mouths to feed with their existing two hundred people. Adding sixty additional mouths from our group wouldn’t help either community—it would strain their resources past sustainability while making us dependent on their charity."

"What exactly are you implying?" Billy said with immediate defensiveness, his face flushing with annoyance. "We’re plenty capable of feeding ourselves independently! We brought supplies with us—enough food for at least two weeks, maybe more if we ration carefully!"

"Then why the fuck would you want to join up with us if you’re so self-sufficient?" Jake scoffed, his voice dripping with contempt. "Sounds like you just want to mooch off the infrastructure and security we built while contributing nothing."

"What did you just say to us?" Billy glared at Jake, his hands clenching into fists.

"Stop this already," I called out, trying to defuse the escalating confrontation before it could explode into actual violence.

As much as Jake was genuinely an irritating person with poor social skills, he hadn’t actually said anything wrong in this instance. If anything, he was completely right.

"Fuck off, Ryan!" Billy whirled on me instead. "You’re always acting tough and aggressive toward us while being a complete pussy when dealing with outsiders! Why don’t you defend your own people for once?"

"He didn’t say anything wrong," I replied, refusing to rise to the bait. "And besides all those concerns, we genuinely shouldn’t plan on staying in Atlantic City long-term anyway. There’s another survivor community here that’s apparently extremely dangerous and hostile. People have been killed in conflicts between these groups."

"Are you serious?" Christopher asked, his eyes widening. "You’re saying there’s active warfare between survivor community here?"

Sydney, Rachel, and Martin also looked at me with shocked expressions, clearly not having anticipated that particular complication.

"Yeah, that’s the situation," I nodded. "So do we really want to voluntarily involve ourselves in somebody else’s war? Haven’t we lost enough already without walking into another combat zone?"

"Then the decision is basically made for us," Brad said with a smile. He forward confidently, looking directly at Jake and Rico with a smirk provocation.

"What decision?" Sydney asked with an incredulous scoff, apparently recognizing the same warning signs I did.

Brad sneered at Jake and Rico, his expression transforming into open contempt. "If you people are refusing to let us join your community, then we’ll simply go make contact with that other community instead. I’m sure they’ll be much more welcoming and reasonable than you’ve been."

The entire room went silent.

Complete, absolute, shocked silence where everyone seemed to freeze mid-breath.

Then the temperature in the space seemed to drop about twenty degrees as Rico, Maribel, Jake, Molly, and every other member of their group turned to stare at Brad with expressions ranging from disbelief to open hostility.

"You..." Rico narrowed his eyes. "You want to join Callighan? That man who’s been systematically hunting and killing anyone who doesn’t obey him?"

"That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard anyone say," Jake said flatly. "And I’ve heard a lot of stupid shit in my life."

"Callighan’s people would either execute you on sight or enslave you," Molly said, her earlier warmth completely gone. "They don’t welcome independent groups. They demand absolute submission or elimination.

Brad just snorted, folding his arms like he’d just won something. "If that’s the case, why are you still alive?" He drawled. "What, are you scared we’ll go join that Callighan guy? You all look like you’re shitting yourselves just thinking about it. We just have to walk over, tell him we hate your guts, and he’ll welcome us with open arms. Unlike selfish fuckers like you."

This guy...

The words hadn’t even finished leaving his mouth before the atmosphere changed.

Metallic clicks cracked through the memorial hall in a sharp, ugly chorus as half of Rico’s people raised their rifles and pistols in one smooth coordinated motion. Muzzles swung toward us—toward Brad, Kyle, Billy, and, by extension, everyone standing near them. Rico’s weapon came up with the same certainty as before, and Jake’s face twisted into something vicious as he leveled his own gun dead at Billy’s forehead.

On our side, reflex kicked in.

Sydney’s handgun was out and up in a blink, muzzle aligned with Rico’s chest. Christopher pivoted, assault rifle coming to his shoulder, the barrel tracking smoothly across Rico’s line toward Jake and the others behind him.

"What’s this supposed to be?" Christopher asked, finger resting just off the trigger.

"If you’re going to run to Callighan anyway," Rico said, eyes flinty, "we’d better shoot you here. At least then we know where you die."

"You’d better hit clean through the head, big guy," Sydney replied, smirking without humor. "Because if you don’t, you’re getting wiped off this floor before you even see what hit you."

Maribel’s teeth clenched, annoyance sparking hot in her eyes. "What did you just say?"

"You heard me, beauty," Sydney said, not taking her aim off Rico.

When I saw Maribel’s knuckles whiten around her wooden lance, my stomach dropped. One wrong twitch, and this whole place was going to turn into a slaughterhouse.

How the hell did things get to this in under a minute?

Rachel looked just as thrown as I felt, her gaze flicking from barrel to barrel, trying to track who was aiming at whom. She hovered protectively beside Clara’s chair, clearly resisting the urge to throw up a barrier at any time.

"Say it, Sydney," Kyle chimed in with a cocky grin, apparently thrilled by the chaos. He raised his own gun and Brad and Billy followed suit.

"Wait a minute, we’re not here to fight," I snapped, stepping in between the two lines of guns before someone’s nervous finger twitched.

"Yes, please!" Martin shouted from the side.

He stood next to Clara, who was still unconscious, slumped in the chair and bleeding through the makeshift bandages. Her face was waxy-pale, sweat dampening her hairline, breath shallow and uneven.

"You said you have a doctor nearby, remember?" Martin’s voice cracked as he addressed Rico and Molly. "Please—take Clara to him. She’s not doing well. If we keep wasting time like this, she’s going to die. We have to hurry."

Rico and Maribel both glanced toward Clara, then back at the tangle of guns. For a heartbeat, their weapons wavered, the conflict written across their faces.

"No, Rico!" Jake barked, like a pit bull yanked back to full alert. "These idiots just said they’ll run straight to Callighan, and you want to bring them deeper into our territory? Are you out of your mind?"

"We never said we’re going to Callighan," Christopher shot back immediately, not lowering his rifle.

"I don’t believe a single word coming out of faces like yours," Jake snorted, lips curling.

I hated it, but I knew what I had to do to break this deadlock.

"I pulled Shannon out of a pack of infected," I said. I looked straight at Rico and Maribel, making sure their eyes locked with mine. "I did it without knowing who she belonged to, without asking what group she was from."

Their gazes sharpened.

"Are you really going to stand there and let Clara die in front of us?" I continued. "Decide it now. Because depending carefully on your answer, anything can happen. And I don’t exclude taking my people straight to Callighan if he’s the only one offering shelter and medical help."