Ch.74

Zach, the newest kid in the Reclaimers, gave me the problem when I reached the busted building. Apparently the area was too big to hold so I had them stack rubble with tractors in between the buildings, leaving enough space between the rubble for a single file walk. It took time, but once it was done, the area was far easier to secure. In the meantime I went and cleared several buildings on my own.

I met with Abraham and Rosita at the end of the day while we made camp and wooden spike barricades were moved in and the perimeter was manned. I sat by a fire and noticed they were geared up, tired and a bit dirty. The Lieutenant came over while his men secured the chopper for the night and told me the apartments were secure two blocks back. I nodded and sighed as James came over. "The perimeter is set. We'll take shifts of three and reinforce it until morning."

I nodded slowly. "Have the newbies get some rest and take third shift. I don't want any accidents in the wee hours. I'll take the north block sector and radio if there's a horde. The rest of the people there can come back and double up on shifts or get some sleep and be bright eyed for first light duty."

He nodded and I turned to the lieutenant. "Have the chopper fueled up and ready for the morning. I want you to scout five blocks deeper west and lead the walkers into the pushers and stakers when our men are ready. It's time we start doing our job in force. I can't have the council breathing down my neck cause it's taking too damned long. Just remember, slow and steady."

He nodded and James warned him to be careful about leapers. I grunted and headed to the north sector where the rest were dismissed while I sat in the middle of the street on a car and meditated, closing my eyes. The men and women left to get some rest, knowing I'd handle this entire sector. Seven blocks of walkers and I watch it alone as always.

At two o'clock in the morning a walker bumped into a car alarm and I cursed, knowing I'd be in for a long night. Four hours of walkers coming through gaps in our defenses later and I sat on the hood of the car I chose, covered in walker goo. The reclaimers returned to a massacre of thousands of walker bodies. I told them to get them cleaned up and tossed my walkie to the patrol guard in charge. "Tell the boys that the damned walkie batteries are for shit. It died the moment I tried to use it to call for backup."

I walked away and he asked. "How-"

I growled. "I fucking manage as I always do. Just get this shit cleaned up!"

They agreed and got to work while I went to base at the apartment complex, washed upas best I could and told the Lieutenant to begin scouting as soon as the pickers are in place. I told him how to lead the leapers before going low to get the walkers attentions. Sure enough it worked while leapers went splat trying to get to the chopper more fell through broken windows in the buildings and the walkers below had to funnel into our trap of lined cars and pickers atop them, stabbing heads of walkers with pikes.

Hours later we cleared the dead, started over with the chopper and while they were at it, I cleared streets on my own blocks deeper across the other side of the reclaimed area into the hot zone. Everyone did their part and everyone got to go home as they say. Weeks passed and soon Eugene was getting bouncy with a corporal from the chopper riders.

Rosita found me appealing enough knowing the other three women at camp were my lovers and carrying my kids, but beyond that it was no strings so they could leave me anytime and find new lovers. Rosita wanted stability and she got it while I used the table to stabilize her ass and fucked her atop it. No, seriously, it was a good table we found. Still, she accepted that I wouldn't change and that I'd keep fighting until Atlanta was ours before we returned.

With T-Dog's men helping us make inroads, some of the survivor groups in the city helped us reclaim it. Many joined us and after said two weeks, the reinforcements arrived to help us reclaim the city from all the camps back that way. I sent the chopper back to scout the territory and make sure no hordes were breaking through behind us.

With a total of five hundred and sixty-four people thanks to a lot of survivors in the city joining us, it was reclaimed within a month and a half. The worst wasn't even the final push, it was a super horde in the center of the city that took a week to clean out. More survivor groups joined us once they figured out what was happening and helped us in the last push, giving us a near two thousand strong army.

Out of nearly five hundred thousand people that'd lived in Atlanta, only about three thousand had survived and over half that now joined us. They helped fortify the city, empty the gas in cars and fill up others while using the cars to build a wall, dig spikes trenches and fortify the city. It took nearly three weeks for a decent perimeter to be set and supplies to be gathered in bulk.

The Atlanta survivors moved out and into the reclaimed territory behind us, taking farms over and rebuilding for food, water and shelter inside the fortified areas. Entire towns were refilled and the prison camp became the heart of it as the council grew, changed to more qualified people when trust came and I didn't give a damn about politics because Rosita was pregnant now and my children were being born in the camp hospital.

When I saw my two sons from Amy and Sasha and a daughter from Andrea, I knew I had to do something more. That night while they slept, I slipped off and wiped out every walker within a thousand miles of the prison in diameter, taking back the coast and wiping out most of the walkers in this area of Georgia. None within the perimeter were left alive and instead they were piled up and vaporized.

Guns, ammo and supplies were stored in safe places in bulk so our people would find them. It didn't take long either now that the reclaimers were back to training and scouting local areas beyond the perimeter for walkers. The news of a total wipe out and the fact that Daryl's group found a veritable shit ton of supplies raised spirits higher as the perimeter expanded to the coastline, only stopping outwards as walkers were found again. The area was so massive that it was ten times our current size.

The camps soon joined up seeing ours expand as the council formed to rule over all except the reclaimers. We were a separate faction and now, a very popular one that expanded to a thousand strong once stock was retaken. For the coming months I worked with Eugene, several doctors and scientists in a lab while the council dealt with the Saviors who tried to take over.

Negan was dead, executed publicly and his group of rapists and victims were dismantled. The new government took a hard line against such activities now that it had been remodeled. Don't think the government didn't try to establish control over the reclaimers and make them a paramilitary force, it did, but I told them I'd leave and take whoever came with me if they succeeded. Considering I was working on a vaccine having studied a lot to make them believe I'd just learned micro biology, they reconsidered and made their own military force from ex cops, military and survivalists.

The reclaimers still taught all those willing to learn, but they weren't so counted on anymore which diminished them and me in the public's eyes as the politicians planned. Over the next year I worked on the cure with those qualified and sent my reclaimers out to take back another three hundred odd miles from the walkers. Power was restored to the whole providence, everyone carried weapons that were qualified and a full blown government was formed.

Radios blared night and day that it was safe there and live broadcasts were sent far and wide from Atlanta which was cleaned up. Health checks were mandatory by month and daily if sick with anything. We did the best we could with what we had and I couldn't fucking believe it when Eugene and I found a vaccine solution that would work. It wouldn't raise the dead, but given to the living they wouldn't turn when they died.

The news made a big relief wash over not just our area government, but the entire small nation of ten thousand strong men, women and children. The solution was in my children's DNA, not that Eugene ever knew it. Their bodies had naturally fought off the virus and became immune to it. I held little Joshua, my son by Rosita, while I heard the government announce the vaccine had been discovered and was being mass produced once thoroughly tested.

They said it was found by Dr.Eugene and associates working for the government after a year of constant effort on his part. I frowned, knowing it was just another cop out to keep my name out of things. The television broadcast ended with a message of hope because the military and it's allies were taking back more and more of the world each day and now they could keep fighting after treating their injured instead of killing them.

The Reclaimers were pissed and at a thousand strong, they had a say even nine to one. The next broadcast spoke the truth, that I'd been the one to find the cure while Eugene merely bounced ideas and talked about stupid shit like how many walkers I'd killed or his girlfriend he'd made. It then pointed out that the reclaimers were the ones going outside the perimeter each day and expanding it, taking out walkers and training more people to do so.

There was a brief intermission and the government soon had a problem because they arrested thirty of my men for speaking the truth. Words were exchanged on an open com to the entire general public and they found out the truth, the government was pushing out the Reclaimers because we refuse to fall in line and follow their orders. No one governed us and because of that they wanted the people to believe in the military and government instead of a bunch of crazy walker baiters as council man Dave Andruse called us.

Oh, you can believe there was an upheaval because the one thousand Reclaimers made up about a fourth of the entire population when you include friends and family. It damned near came to open war when they refused to release our men from their own admittedly illegal incarceration. A faction led by T-Dog and the original Coalition leaders settled it as the councilman was arrested for abuse of power and misleading the public.

His faction quickly lost traction and became the minority. Even the civilians weren't on their side anymore. Misleading the public was a very serious offense in the new government and I'd made it so when they amended the laws. There was no more need to know anymore, just the absolute truth.

A former congressman himself, Dave had tried to reinstate the old ways and play by their game of smoke and mirrors, but that shit wasn't going to fly in the here and now. All government buildings had cameras the public could watch them discuss the future in. Back room deals and shit were in fact illegal as fuck and getting caught was a bad offense, like prison time without the comforts and banned from all forms of public office, leaving the farm life or cleaning duties available to them from then on after prison time.

The vaccine was tested and stress tested even going so far as to have the Reclaimers volunteer for human trials. It worked and what's more it was already where it was needed most because all the Reclaimers volunteered for the trials. I was back where I was needed most and with renewed vigor we cleared three times the size of our current area in the first month, getting seven more copters in the air when we reached several former military and coast guard checkpoints.

By the time Michonne gave birth to little J.R. Grimes, half of Georgia was now taken back and survivors were pouring in from all over, getting vaccinated. The military maintained the boarder while the reclaimers now ten thousand in number, waged war for the rest of Georgia. Sadly Zach, my second in command and Beth's boyfriend, died from a scouting mission within the first weeks of the war.

On the bright side, if a bit weird, Lori and I hooked up repeatedly. Apparently her status as a farmer wasn't suitable and she wanted more for Judith so she found me tired one night while my lovers were working and got the fuck of her life. It was so good she kept coming back for more even after she ended up pregnant again. I knew it was mine and she didn't once try to deny it.

Still, she knew she was just sex to me and it wouldn't be like it was with Rick or Shane, she couldn't get into my head or heart to mess around and do damage. A full three months passed after that and I'd built a manner compound for my women and children. It wasn't perfect, but it was big, ours and armed to the teeth with all the defenses from the RV. It was high tech and dangerous to walkers and intruders.

Lori lived there with Judith and Carl visited, knowing the score like Rick and the rest did. Beth got tired of her boyfriends and nice guys at that dying so she hedged her bets on me. She was definitely the youngest of my lovers and to my surprise, a virgin not having had a chance to get rid of that with her last two boyfriends before they were killed. The results were her joining Lori in maternity leave though not as intentionally as it had been on Lori's part.

Glenn, Maggie, Daryl and some of the others joined the Reclaimers on the front lines. Maggie got pregnant and a full nine months passed before Glenn was killed by assholes not wanting to accept a new government coming their way. Maggie had barely survived giving birth after going into labor when she heard the news. It was just shit timing is all and it didn't get any easier.

Full tactical suits were made for the reclaimers and the military dealt with the humans themselves. It was a rough five fucking years after that. Most of Florida, half of Alabama and all of South Carolina had been taken back in that time. On a personal level, I'd rebuilt the Greene farm, herd of cattle and all, giving it to Hershel for him, Maggie and the baby boy named after Glenn.

I'd built a farm for the Grimes next door and others for the original members of the group including Carol and Daryl who had a baby coming back then. Maggie had barely stayed a week after it was built before moving in with Beth and the others at the compound. I raised Glenn Jr like my own, taught him and cared for them both like I did Judith and my actual blood kids. When I wasn't fighting, saving people or helping rebuild society on an industrial level, I was back home with them which was a lot after Georgia was ours.

The Reclaimers were headed by Tyreese now, Sasha's brother and Daryl. They'd led the war and after a few too many a year after Glenn's death on the anniversary, Maggie got drunk and wound up in my bed. It was awkward at first, but nothing changed with how I treated her, even when she'd ended up with morning sickness, puking for half a day or craving weird things.

She decided a life there as one of my lovers, safe and happy was better than going back to the farm and remembering the bad or moving off to parts unknown. She explained it to me and asked if I'd have followed because she was pregnant. I put a hand on her cheek and told her. "I would've followed to keep my friend safe, no matter what else she was to me."

She smiled and we ended up in bed after an awkward fuck over my favorite table. She had wanted it from behind so she bent over the table and I felt awkward, just giving her what she wanted. Fast forward four more years and she had two of my children, Ashley and Jake, pregnant even now. Beth was right there with her and the rest weren't far behind or ahead time wise.

They'd stopped being singularly my lovers and called themselves the harem of Oz. Even Lori didn't say much to it, knowing each time I was with her it was because the rest were sleeping, busy or on their periods. So yeah, we found what remained of the old government and contacted them, getting satellite access and using it to do targeted warfare against the walkers. They'd been extremely relieved when news of the vaccine had reached them and a bit put off about the government system changes.

Sure, most of the laws were the same, but changes were made, giving everyone equal rights, removing all the old unnecessary laws and abolishing the indentured servitude to pay off debts law that'd literally been around since the founding of America. Stuff like that that divided people were abolished. Media held power over the freedom of speech with cameras in all government offices and buildings.

All meetings were recorded and viewed freely, there were no more lies. They about equaled us for people and had better weapons, but they weren't as well supplied or fortified. The fact that we had coast guard boats and gunships though made a hell of a equalizer. So instead of war, the diplomats talked it out and a sort of cohesive government formed.

They didn't like the Reclaimers, calling them a militia or military contractors, but they learned quickly it wasn't all sir yes sir that got shit done. I officially retired and became full civilian that day as it was a requirement of the new government. They didn't like a figurehead with my kind of fame holding sway. Oh, they tried to use me to achieve their goals with the media, but I didn't bite.

I was retired so I worked the compound's farm fields, taught the kids and road horses. The government tried to take my weapons and tech and that didn't fly. When they saw the anti air missiles, mortars and tank barrels coming out the ground and roof of the compound, they knew them it was a well stocked and fortified fortress. They backed the fuck off and tried to negotiate for the military firepower.

I told them walkers didn't need firepower to take out so they'd have to find their own weapons or wait for the reclaimers to take over more military complexes.