The Difficulties in Leading

Just outside Atlanta, a materials warehouse. 

Today Rick led a team to organize a large-scale collection operation. It's been three months since he took over the last military base, and this time is the first time he's led a team after organizing supplies. 

Shane had also come to Rick's base to help him organize the operation, meanwhile at the growth base Elias is currently ruling as the main leader. 

As for the problems he had recently it was due to Lori finding out about the encounter with cannibals and the numerous deaths with the evolved walkers, the fuss his wife made was overwhelming, making it difficult for him to be for the base or his family. 

He knows very well what his wife means. He is now the leader of the base, and he cannot take risks at all times. If there is any accident, not only his family will suffer an injury, but also the base he leads.       

After much thought, he decided to stay at the base for a while, at least until his daughter was older, since his wife gave birth his mood was still not very stable.

Fortunately, there are many familiar and close people in this place, Hershel's youngest daughter for example, Beth, often accompanies Lori and helps her to take care of Judith, which allows her to have more free time to manage the base seriously, and during the big outings they were led by Mike and occasionally Guillermo. 

Rick paused for a moment and finally had a very serious conversation with his wife last night, and only then was he able to go out today with peace of mind. 

It has been almost a year and a half since the end of the world broke out, and the materials that can be collected have become less and less, and the base has mainly shipped containerized materials from the port in recent months. 

It is for this reason that the growth base is responsible for producing important materials, while the central base is responsible for producing food that is planted on a large scale. 

Likewise, Atlanta is one of the main inland ports of the country, there has always been a large amount of supplies in the port area, such as food, medicine, basic necessities, medical equipment, fishing boats and many other important things. 

The nearby bases have sent a large number of soldiers to clear the port area and then block some roads leading directly to the port with containers filled with sand sacks leaving special walkways that only S.C.T. bases know about.

Sam was in charge of managing numerous military bases that were taken, some were abandoned but more decided to take them as outposts where they can expedite their domain. 

The cleanup lasted many days, thanks to the receipt of goods from the military base, a large amount of protective equipment was equipped so that the losses from this cleanup work were small, today there were special teams that were responsible for eliminating walkers with spears and short swords. 

Although the walkers that had now been classified as W-1 are the slow ones, the W-2 walkers that run at high speed and lastly the rarest, W-3 walkers that were the ones that are intelligent and were also fast. There were a few more but the differences of these variants were not yet clear, but even so there were dozens of deaths and eventually the places were razed to the ground. 

After numerous deaths and disastrous accidents, the situation at the port has now stabilized, there is a permanent staff group and every day a large amount of materials are transported from the port to the base, these materials cover all aspects and will be stored at the base by categories. 

Before Airon left, these containers were thought of in the growth plans of all the bases in general, not only for the materials in the containers, but also for the containers themselves which were very useful. 

With a large number of containers, as long as the surrounding forests were cleared, another wall could easily be built to defend the outer areas. 

...  

Rick looked at the work of various warehouses and glanced at his watch from time to time. It is safe to say that the stuff in this large warehouse is the first choice for all survivors. With an attitude of not leaving important places any longer, he still had plenty of other plans. 

At this moment, Shane pulled some people out of a warehouse, and Rick could see the helpless expression on the other party's face from a great distance. He sighed secretly, this is already the fourth warehouse today, and his convoy has not filled the truck spaces. 

"Classify this place as cleared, we should not waste any more time searching this area once again."

"Nothing?" Rick asked as he approached Shane. 

Shane simply shook his head and then reached up to wipe his face, "Ralamente there isn't much in these malls, my people in the first few months were in charge of moving all the supplies to the growth base." 

Shane was irritated as two people had died while he was leading the cleanup, although this was common people kept dying from red eyed walkers. 

Looking at his good brother, Rick just smiled, he knew this guy was just talking and would get his energy back when he went to other places in a while. 

Soon Rick saw the other groups leaving the mall warehouse, led by Guillermo  and Morgan, who also had a few suitcases in their hands. 

Rick quietly opened the map of Atlanta and drew a large cross at the current warehouse location with a marker. 

"Since we're covering areas our people haven't covered, we need to be cautious." Rick patted the car door, and the group continued on to the next target. 

The main objective for going out this time was not food, but some medicine and other supplies, and the places they were looking were in areas they had not been. Therefore, they would be searching shopping malls, sealing off areas already looted, and moving forward. 

Sitting in the car, Shane looked at the abandoned cars on the side of the road, 

The glass of many roadside stores is broken and there are several products scattered outside the door, which have been destroyed by walkers or people. 

"Let's go to the surrounding villages to see this area! It is getting harder and harder to find things on the edge of the urban area, and most of the walkers in the urban area have left town. Now the surrounding counties are more dangerous, and relatively few people who aren't our people go there." 

Rick thought for a moment after hearing what Shane said, and felt that what he said made sense, and a group of several cars quickly pulled over to the side of the road and drove quickly toward a nearby town. 

... 

Soon, the group arrived at the nearest town on the map. There were not many walkers on the road, and the fallen leaves on the road also indicated that the place had been deserted for a long time, and even the signs for many places fell to the ground. 

To Rick's surprise, the stores here seemed to be in good condition, all the roadside stores were closed, not sure if there were supplies, but it was a good sign. 

Soon, Rick set his sights on a three-story building, which was a supermarket in town. The door was closed at the time, but he could faintly see through the glass windows that there appeared to be different items on the shelves inside. 

Rick stopped the car in front of the supermarket without hesitation and said to the crowd behind him. 

"Everyone, don't disperse, don't shoot unless absolutely necessary! " 

Putting his hand on the doorknob and pushing, the supermarket door opened and Rick left two people in the car. Be alert, and the rest of the people entered the supermarket all at once. 

There was a lot of stuff on the shelves. Rick looked around. Not far from the entrance on the second floor was a stand. There should have been several fruits on it, but now they were completely rotten. 

Sniffing his nose, he discovered that although the air in the supermarket wasn't good, it didn't smell like rotting corpses. He lifted his chin to the other side, and Shane, who was standing to the side, understood and led a few people from the other side of the shelf. 

They all started carrying stuff. 

And Rick also led a few people in the opposite direction. After a round of investigation, there were no traces of walkers in the supermarket. There was a variety of food on the shelves, and only a few individual shelves were missing things. 

Rick checked the labels on the shelf and found that the missing products were basically canned food, bread, crackers, and the like. 

"Is anyone here? Seeing Shane approaching, Rick asked quietly.