Work District

The area around the south side of the city was covered in a grey cloud. These clouds had been created from all the workshops burning fuel.

Baladan and his group had slowly pushed into the work area. What they saw was completely different then what they thought. There a wall was in construction, with the help of welders and all the metal in the area a group of people had been gathering everything to wall off the Work District from the Central District.

Though with the wall incomplete it was easy to move some of the metal to the side before driving in. What stopped them was a group of armed men standing on the rooftops of the workshops. Their fingers had been on the trigger ready to light up the dog and people in the vehicles.

The only reason they hadn't started firing the moment they saw the big dog was just because there were trucks driving right beside it.

???: "Stop the car! Put it in park before throwing the keys out the window! I don't want to see your hands anywhere besides up above your heads! If you so much as look at me funny I will give the order to light you up!"

A man in a biker jacket had been standing on a elevated platform with a microphone yelling out his orders to the people in the cars.

Bal: "Randy! It's me Baladan! You know Grim Reaper!"

This confused some of the people, not everyone here was a biker. Most of them had been workers starting their day only for the system to descend.

The moment the man heard Baladan's voice he began to laugh heavily. He couldn't help himself, one of his brothers in arms had came back alive!

Randy: "Lower your weapons! They are friends!"

He almost couldn't stop himself from just jumping off the platform! Once he saw Baladan stepping out of the car, along with Harry, Rick, and Chris he instantly started to make his way down!

It took him a minute to head down only to run up and hug the boys. Even though he wasn't the closest with him he still had a bond with the group after their years of working together.

Randy: "I should have known the Grim Reaper wouldn't die so easily! Even the three stooges made it out alive! The boss is both going to be happy and upset after finding out Rick survived! Haha"

He started to laugh while hugging the group. When he stopped he noticed Rick had a look of sorry on his face.

Randy: "Don't worry, the boss isn't going to do anything to you. His daughter wouldn't allow it anyways!"

Another round of laughs had been unleashed until Baladan began to talk.

Bal: "How is everyone? I expected most of you guys to be alive but I didn't think you had planned to block off the whole Work District! We only came by to get some weapons before heading to the Housing District for our loved ones!"

Randy: "Oh? Most of us huh? Who did you write off as dead the moment the apocalypse hit huh?"

Bal: "Of course it has to be Sam. The man can barely hold a gun let alone attack someone without shaking all over. He would be to hesitant to immediately attack someone like we would"

Randy: "Well, you are dead wrong! Once everything started happening and he noticed the world was changing it was like a switch flipped in him! The moment he got a weapon he was one of the first out there saving people while bashing in those corpses heads!"

———

They had began to walk and talk, the workers had taken the cars to a parking lot close by. Everyone was still on edge around Grim but with the reassurance of Randy they calmed down with a little time.

"Mom! Wow! Look at that big fluffy dog! It's so cute!!"

A little girl with brown hair and green eyes was holding her mothers hand as she pointed at Grim from afar.

"Calm down sweetie! We wouldn't want to anger the creature or it could just swallow us whole!"

"But mom! Look at him! Those people are petting him and he's not doing a thing about it!"

The area behind the wall had become a community of survivors. With the bikers and some of the courages men going out to find loot and save people it was slowly coming together.

With all the armed men the area felt safer for the normal citizens. This allowed them to go out without worry of being attacked, that alone made everyone thankful to be in the shelter.

Bal: "I see everyone seems to be in good spirits… even though many have died, maybe even some of their loved ones"

Randy: "Yeah, for the past couple days the boss has been sending our men out to bring back everything we can. We might not be saints but how are we going to get anything done if everyone besides us is dead right? So we have been saving people and giving them a safe place to sleep"

Rick: "I'm happy that the gang is saving people and all but… are you really just doing this because the boss said so? Or are you guys doing this because you want too?"

Randy: "A bit of both, the way some of us see it is, we leave everyone to die making more of those corpses that we have to deal with. Or we bring in those people train up those who are willing to fight and protect what's ours"

They had been walking and talking, each of the group was amazed on what they got done in only 3 days. They had already saved around 1,000 people just from the work district alone, that is not counting how many people they had saved from the central district as everything was going down.

It was a very big community compared to Baladan's old group of only around 50 people. However that wasn't important right now, what was important was the building they had been walking into.

This building was in the center of the Work District. This place was more of a manor then a workshop! Once Baladan entered memories came flooding back to him. All the times he had come here for gang meetings and personal business.

It was nice to reminisce but his concentration was broken the next second by a very familiar voice.

Boss: "Hey brats! It looks like you finally decided to come back and see this old man!"

A man with silver hair and a beard walked onto the balcony from the top of the stairs looking down at the entrance. He wore the same biker outfit just with more badges to give it a more unique touch. The man had brown eyes with a sharp gaze, at least it was usually sharp. However the moment he saw the kids he grew to love walk through the door he couldn't keep the act of a strong leader.

Bal: "I'm happy to see you too boss! I hope you didn't worry to much about us!"

He decided to tease him a little before suddenly enveloping his body in aura just to jump straight up! This shocked some of the gang members watching this touching reunion, how could they expect Baladan to suddenly jump up and pull himself over the railing like that!?

Baladan quickly moved forward only to give the old man a hug. This man was like a second father to him, after what happened he was going through a really tough time. Moving city to city for his education, the only reason he had stayed here was because of this man.

He had single-handedly put an end to everything that was happening to Baladan at the time! With the threat of a gang leader hanging over their heads most people avoided him like the plague.

Of course the gang still stayed close, they were basically his second family! Now that he knew they are ok the only thing on his mind is his mother. The last individual and most important one he wanted to bring back safely.

Bal: "I'm happy to see you in good health… but now that I know you guys are ok I need to go find my mom… she should be in the housing district. I can't truly rest until I bring her back"

Boss: "I know boy, we had actually planned to hit up the housing district soon. With a majority of our people having homes there we decided to bring everyone here! This will be a large operation so we plan to hit up all the schools close by and take their buses to transport people back to our sanctuary!"

Bal: "Oh! If we are heading back I have to warn you about someone! His name is Ryder Jackson, he is the principal at our school. He had gathered people to "protect" but instead has been using his command ability to make those weaker then him submit! He should have around 600 people under his wings but I don't know how long that will last"

Boss: "Good! Then we won't have to worry about killing him! We will be gathering as many people as we can as we take the buses, can you tell me the situation at the school?"

Bal: "Last time we were there all of the Shadow Corpses had been killed. All except what could be inside the science building, me and my friends had slaughtered our way through the horde just to get here!"

Boss: "You boys… I'm very proud of you all… even you Rick… not only did you come back alive but you brought a lot of capable people with you as well! I'm sure it was hard on you all, go and take a rest for a bit before we meet up to tell everyone the plan and put it into action!"

With that the boys who had a new feeling of pride in their chest, one had more shock then any other feeling but, It wasn't a bad feeling at all. Rick couldn't help but smile hearing the Boss's words as they headed inside with the rest of their friends while the massive dog sits in the lobby waiting for its owner to return.