Chapter 218: Last Speech Before Atlantic City

"Alright! Is everyone ready!"

Martin’s voice rang out across the assembled crowd.

In front of him, gathered in a loose semicircle that had formed organically in the street between the houses, stood the entirety of Margaret’s community. Every single person who’d survived the evacuation from Jackson Township and the subsequent journey to Galloway was present.

Men and women of all ages stood together, some holding the hands of children who clung to their parents with wide, uncertain eyes. Families clustered in small groups, drawing comfort from proximity to loved ones. The elderly stood with younger survivors, creating a cross-section of humanity that might have been unremarkable before the apocalypse but now represented something precious and increasingly rare.

Their expressions were a complicated mix of hope, fear bleeding into nervousness. Some faces showed quiet serious, others barely concealed terror. A few looked excited, energized by the prospect of finally establishing a permanent home. But underneath all the surface variations, there was a shared understanding that resonated through the entire group: moving forward was their only real option. Stagnation meant death. Only by continuing to push ahead, to adapt and build and fight, could any of them hope to survive what the world had become.

I stood off to the side with Rachel and the rest of our group, positioning ourselves apart from Margaret’s community rather than integrating into their gathering.

Martin stood at the front beside Margaret, his posture straight and his expression serious as he prepared to address the assembled survivors. Margaret herself remained silent, allowing Martin to take the lead in this moment, though her presence beside him lent authority and legitimacy to whatever he was about to say.

"Today, we’re heading to Atlantic City," Martin bega as he laid out the plan. "Our objective is to establish our new home there—a permanent settlement where we can finally stop running and start building something lasting. The location we’ve chosen is near the ocean, which gives us access to an endless supply of water for drinking and cleaning. We’ll have fishing opportunities that could provide a sustainable food source for the entire community. With time and effort, we can build something even bigger and better than what we had at Jackson Township—a real community with proper infrastructure, maybe even rivaling what we accomplished with the Municipal Office back home."

He paused, letting that vision sink in before continuing with the harder truth. "But achieving that goal is going to require everyone working together as a unified group. We have a tremendous amount of work ahead of us. Along Ryan and the others from his group we have already scouted Atlantic City, and together we’ve identified a specific area that would be ideal for settlement. However, before we can even begin to build, we need to clear that entire zone of Infected. Every street, every building, every dark corner needs to be swept and secured."

His gaze swept across the crowd, making eye contact with as many people as possible. "We’ll need to find suitable shelter—probably one of the larger hotels in the area would serve as a good centralized home for everyone. But once again, before we can move anyone in, we’ll have to clear that building completely. Fight through whatever Infected have made it their nest, secure every floor, every room. It’s going to be dangerous, exhausting work."

"Easy for you to say!" A loud, angry voice cut through Martin’s speech.

The interruption came from somewhere in the middle of the crowd, and heads turned to identify the speaker—a middle-aged man whose face was flushed with frustration and fear.

"Not all of us can fight Infected!" The man continued, his voice rising with emotion. "Not all of us want to fight those monsters! You’re standing up there talking about clearing buildings and securing zones like it’s some kind of military operation, but most of us are just ordinary people! We’re not soldiers!"

Murmurs of agreement rippled through portions of the crowd. The man had clearly struck a nerve, voicing concerns that many others had been thinking but hadn’t dared to speak aloud.

"Do you think I want to fight Infected?" Martin shot back, his voice hardening with frustration as he swept his gaze across all the assembled faces. "Do you think any of us enjoy the prospect of facing those things? None of us want to do this—absolutely none of us. But we don’t have the luxury of choice anymore. We have no other options but to fight if we want to find and secure a new home. The alternative is to keep wandering until we run out of supplies, until we get picked off one by one, until there’s nothing left. Is that what you’d prefer?"

The man who’d spoken up looked away, unable to meet Martin’s eyes, though his expression remained troubled.

"Or maybe there is another option," Brad’s voice rang out as he stepped forward from where he’d been standing near the back of the crowd.

"Oh god, here we go," Sydney muttered from beside me, crossing her arms with an expression of exhaustion. "Can we please not do this again?"

I couldn’t blame her for the sentiment. We’d already had this argument multiple times in various forms, and Brad’s stubborn refusal to let it go was becoming genuinely tiresome.

Couldn’t we just get moving already? Every minute we spent standing here debating was a minute we weren’t making progress.

"Hear me out, everyone," Brad continued, raising his voice to ensure he had the crowd’s full attention. "I went to Atlantic City myself. I met those bastards at the Boardwalk settlement—saw them with my own eyes. And you know what they did? They nearly shot us down without provocation, without even trying to communicate or figure out who we were. And yet Martin and the others want us to settle right next to these trigger-happy assholes and somehow live peacefully like good neighbors and friends."

He shook his head. "It’s not going to happen. We can’t trust people like that—people who shoot first and don’t even bother with questions. But while I was there, I learned about another group operating in Atlantic City. A stronger group that apparently has the Boardwalk people absolutely terrified, shitting their pants just thinking about them. His name is Callighan, and from what I heard, he’s got powerful, capable people working with him. Real fighters, real survivors who know how to operate in this new world."

He smirked then.

"So here’s my proposal: instead of trying to clear territory ourselves and risk massive casualties fighting Infected, and instead of trying to coexist with the Boardwalk assholes who’ve already proven they can’t be trusted, we go directly to Callighan. We make a deal with his group. Form an alliance that benefits both sides. They’ve already got established territory and resources—we could negotiate for space within their protection rather than starting from nothing."

"You want to make a deal with the person who shot me in the shoulder, Brad?"

Clara stepped forward from where she’d been standing near the edge of the crowd, one hand moving to grip her injured shoulder.

She turned to face the broader crowd rather than just Brad, making sure everyone could see her face and hear her words clearly. "That bullet could have hit me in the head instead of my shoulder. I could have died right there without ever knowing why, without even getting a chance to explain who I was or what we wanted. That man—one of Callighan’s people—shot me without even attempting to identify us first. He just opened fire on a stranger."

Clara’s voice grew stronger. "And you seriously want to make a deal with people who operate that way? People who think violence is the appropriate first response to encountering other survivors?"

Silence fell over the gathering at her words, heavy and uncomfortable. People looked at each other with uncertain expressions, many of them shaking their heads slowly.

Brad let out an audible groan of frustration. "Listen to yourselves!" He said. "Not everyone out here is kind and welcoming! We’re all just trying to survive in a world that’s actively trying to kill us! You can’t blame anyone—including Callighan’s people—for being paranoid and defensive. That’s how you stay alive in this new reality!"

If only this guy was putting his tongue to good use instead of antagonizing everyone around.

"That doesn’t mean he needed to shoot me," Clara shot back, glaring at him. "There’s a difference between being cautious and being a murderous psychopath. Shooting an unarmed person without warning crosses that line."

"So what’s your brilliant alternative?" Brad retorted, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "You’d rather commit to this suicide mission of trying to clear Infected from an entire city district? There could be hundreds of those things out there—maybe thousands depending on how far inland they’ve spread. And what do we have? Sixty people total in this community, and if you remove the children, the elderly, and anyone who’s not physically capable of sustained combat, that number drops to maybe thirty who can actually fight. Thirty people against potentially hundreds of Infected."

He snorted derisively, shaking his head. "Those are terrible odds. We’ll be massacred."

"We’re not going to be alone in this," Clara replied. "Ryan and his group have already agreed to help us. They’ll be fighting alongside us."

The moment she said that, the crowd’s attention shifted toward where our group stood off to the side. Dozens of pairs of eyes turned to assess us, and I could see relief washing over many faces as people remembered what they’d witnessed during our journey together—the way we’d fought Infected with supernatural speed and strength.

Their expressions brightened noticeably, shoulders relaxing and worried frowns easing into something approaching hope. Having seen firsthand what we were capable of during the various encounters on the road, they clearly felt reassured by the promise of our assistance.

However, Brad’s reaction to this show of relief was exactly the opposite. His face darkened with anger, his entire body tensing as he watched the crowd’s mood shift.

"Oh, what?" he said, his voice heavy with contempt and disbelief. "Because we have that guy and his little group of girls backing us up, you suddenly think we can take on hundreds of Infected now? Is that it?"

He gestured dismissively in our direction, his expression twisted with disdain. "You’re all massively overrating these people. Stop putting them on some kind of pedestal like they’re invincible superheroes who can save us from anything. If we put our lives entirely in their hands, if we depend on them to do all the heavy lifting, we’re going to die. They don’t actually care about us—we’re not their responsibility, not their community. They’re just passing through, and when things get too dangerous, they’ll save themselves and leave us to whatever fate we’ve earned."

"Can you shut up already?"

Sydney clearly heard enough of his fearmongering and negativity. She stepped forward from where she’d been standing beside me.

She turned to face the assembled crowd directly, her eyes sweeping across all the anxious, uncertain faces. "Listen, everyone. If you genuinely want a new home—a real, secure place where you can stop running and actually live instead of just surviving—then we’re going to have to work together. All of us, as a unified team."

She shrugged her shoulders then.

"You say you don’t want to put your lives in our hands? Fine, I understand that hesitation. But you’re seriously considering putting your lives in the hands of some psychopath named Callighan clearly a bag guy’s name by the way and his group of killers—people you’ve never even met, never learned anything concrete about beyond secondhand rumors and the fact that they shot one of you without provocation?"

I watched as several people in the crowd began shaking their heads, the absurdity of Brad’s proposal becoming clearer when stated so bluntly.

"That moron is right about one thing though," Sydney continued glancing briefly at Brad. "The reality we’re living in now is harsh and unforgiving. People are paranoid, resources are scarce, and violence has become commonplace. That’s all true. But that’s exactly why we need to work together and take calculated risks—because the alternative is to keep running aimlessly until we literally can’t run anymore."

She turned to address Martin directly. "We don’t have enough fuel for extended travel anymore, do we Martin? How much longer can we realistically keep moving from place to place?"

"We don’t have enough," Martin confirmed with a nod. "Our fuel reserves are critically low. Same situation with our food supplies—what we have left won’t sustain everyone for more than a couple weeks at most, and that’s with strict rationing. We have to make our decision now, today. We’re out of time for endless debate and second-guessing."

"I know this is incredibly difficult," Margaret said, speaking for the first time since the gathering had begun.

Everyone fell completely silent, all side conversations and murmured discussions cutting off instantly as every person turned their full attention to her.

"We’ve been through so much already," she continued quietly. "All of us have lost friends and family members in Jackson Township despite our best efforts to prevent exactly that kind of tragedy. We built barriers, we established routines and security shifts, we thought we’d created something safe."

Her expression grew more serious. "But mere barriers constructed from cars and scrap metal won’t be enough anymore to ensure our safety and survival. We’ve learned that lesson in the most painful way possible. If we want to truly survive in this new world—if we want to avoid reproducing the same fatal mistakes we made at Jackson Township—we have to do more. We have to be smarter, stronger, more vigilant. We can’t take our safety for granted ever again."

She paused, letting her words sink in as she looked across the assembled faces, making eye contact with as many people as she could. "I’m not asking you to blindly trust outsiders or put faith in promises that might not be kept. What I am asking is for you to work together the way we did when we first built Jackson Township—but this time, work even harder, with even more dedication and unity. We cannot accomplish what needs to be done if we’re divided, if we’re pulling in different directions based on individual fears or ambitions. We need everyone’s help, every single person contributing what they can."

"Just for the next few days—that’s all I’m asking right now. Your cooperation for the immediate future as we establish our foothold and begin securing our new home. We’ve all felt the same pain, we’ve all suffered the same losses. Use that shared experience to put aside whatever differences or doubts are dividing us. Help us build a new home and a real future for our children."

As she said this, her gaze drifted to a little girl standing nearby—maybe five or six years old, with tangled blonde hair and dirt-smudged cheeks. The child was hugging her mother’s leg tightly, her small face pressed against the fabric of her mother’s pants.

"Please," Margaret added, the single word spoken so quietly it was almost a whisper, yet somehow it carried across the entire gathering.

The silence that followed her speech was long. Nobody moved, nobody spoke.

Then, finally, someone broke the silence.

"I’ll do it."

A man stepped forward from the middle of the crowd.

"Same here," another voice called out, this one belonging to a woman near the front. "I’ll fight as many Infected as it takes. Whatever needs to be done."

"Yeah, let’s do this!" A younger man shouted, pumping his fist in the air.

"You can count on us, Margaret!" An elderly couple called out together, their weathered hands clasped tightly.

"Yes! This time we’ll build something so strong that none of those monsters can even get close to breaching our defenses!"

Within seconds, the momentum had shifted. One voice became two, then five, then a dozen, then dozens all speaking over each other in a rising chorus of determination and commitment. The enthusiasm spread like wildfire through the crowd, people feeding off each other’s energy and conviction.

Of course, there were still some reluctant faces visible among the crowd—people whose expressions remained troubled and uncertain, who weren’t entirely convinced but felt pressured by the overwhelming majority. But those hesitant few were completely drowned out by the enthusiastic ones, by the people who genuinely believed in Margaret’s words, who were ready to work and fight for the future she’d described.

I couldn’t help but smile as I watched that.

"She handled that quite well, didn’t she?" Rachel said from beside me, her own smile warm appreciating also the trust put on Margaret.

"Yeah," I agreed, nodding with satisfaction. "Margaret will always be the best leader for them. She knows exactly what to say and when to say it. She understands all of them."

Martin stood at the front wearing a broad smile, clearly relieved and energized by the crowd’s response. He raised his voice to capitalize on the momentum before it could fade.

"Then let’s go!" he shouted. "You have exactly ten minutes! Pack everything you need inside your vehicles! Make sure you’re not leaving behind anything essential! We’re moving out!"