Apologies, there had been a mistake in chapter list which caused chapter ninety to be uploaded in advance. This is the correct chapter eighty nine.
The trailer beds sat abandoned near the loading sectors.
Rail-compatible freight chassis—heavy-duty rust was beginning to creep around the edges from long exposure but still structurally solid.
Perfect.
Rick and Daryl handled the first one while Merle and Jim worked the second.
Metal groaned as they lined the trailer beds behind the armored trucks.
I climbed up into the reach stacker cab. The smell hit immediately—old sweat, dust, diesel soaked into fabric and steel after years of use.
The seat creaked under my weight as I settled in.
Controls spread around me—joysticks, pedals, switches, hydraulic gauges.
I wrapped my hands around the controls carefully.
Slow.
As I had never operated this kind of machinery, neither in my past life or the current one, so I kept my ego in check.
The last thing I needed was flipping a forty-foot container because I got cocky.
I eased one joystick forward.
The boom arm shifted with a heavy hydraulic hiss.
Too much.
I corrected instinctively.
The massive spreader attachment swayed slightly overhead.
"Easy…" I muttered under my breath.
Outside, Rick stepped back, watching carefully while Jim pointed toward the nearest marked container.
The cross symbol.
Medical.
Good first choice.
I rolled the reach stacker forward.
The machine moved with weight—not fast, not agile.
Every turn carried momentum behind it; every correction lagged half a second after the input.
Like I was steering a building.
The hydraulics whined as I raised the boom, lowered it again, adjusted again.
The spreader locked onto the container roof fittings with a heavy metallic—CLACK!
Outside, Jim gave me a thumbs up. "Locked!"
I tightened my grip slightly, then lifted.
The entire machine groaned as forty feet of loaded steel came off the ground.
Even though I expected it, the weight was something else.
The reach stacker shifted subtly beneath me, suspension compressing as the container rose higher.
I kept it slow and steady, making sure to avoid making no sudden movements.
I rotated carefully toward the waiting trailer bed.
Rick stood off to the side, guiding with hand motions while Daryl checked the trailer alignment.
A little left. Straighten. Down.
The container settled onto the trailer with a deep metallic THUD, then—the twist-locks engaged.
Locked in.
Secure.
Merle let out a whistle. "Hell yeah!"
I exhaled slowly through my nose.
One down, two more to go.
The second container—also medical—went smoother.
By then, I was starting to understand the rhythm, not just the controls.
The machine itself. The slight delay in the hydraulics.
The sway of suspended weight.
The way momentum wanted to keep moving even after you stopped input.
A dance with fifty tons of steel.
The third container—same category—came easiest of all.
The spreader locked, lifted, turned, lowered. CLACK.
Secured.
Three containers.
All medical.
The most important of all the stuff here.
The last trailer bed stayed empty, reserved.
I backed the reach stacker toward it, carefully lowering the machine into position while Jim and Rick secured the ramps.
The tires climbed slowly.
Metal groaned under the weight, then settled.
Tension ratchets came next, clicking tight.
By the time they finished, the entire convoy had changed shape.
This wasn't a scavenging run anymore.
This was logistics.
Supply movement.
The beginning of something bigger.
I climbed down from the reach stacker, my boots hitting asphalt with a dull thud.
Then I stopped for a second and just looked.
Three containers sat mounted on the armored truck trailers, cross-marked under the afternoon Georgia sun.
Those ugly steel rectangles looked better than any medal I'd ever seen.
Better than combat victories.
Better than kill counts.
Because this—this meant survival.
Real survival.
Not for days, not for weeks, not for months, but for years.
I glanced toward the others.
Rick stood with his hands on his hips, staring at the convoy with satisfaction visible on his face.
Daryl leaned against one of the trucks, exhausted but grinning faintly.
Even Merle had gone quiet for once.
Jim just looked overwhelmed, like he'd helped pull off something impossible.
Maybe we had.
I rolled my shoulders once, feeling the burn settle deep into the muscle again.
Then I looked toward the road home.
"Alright," I said. "Let's bring them back home."
And bringing back home we did.
I got in the lead truck and started the engine.
The engine came alive with a roar.
Rick entered the second truck, while Daryl and Merle started the third and fourth trucks respectively.
Jim returned to the box truck he came here with.
Then we took to the road.
The first thing Dale heard was the rumble—low, distant, but growing fast.
He lowered his rifle and took the binoculars that were hanging around his neck and stepped closer to the edge of the RV roof, one weathered hand gripping the railing beside him.
Morgan narrowed his eyes toward the road cutting through the fields.
Dust.
A lot of dust.
Then shapes.
Big ones.
"What the hell…" Morgan muttered.
The convoy emerged slowly through the haze, sunlight glinting off armored plating and reinforced grills.
Four armored trucks rolled forward in formation, engines growling deep enough to vibrate through the RV beneath their boots.
Behind them came the box truck.
But it wasn't the trucks that made Dale's breath catch.
It was what they were hauling.
Morgan leaned forward hard enough the railings creaked. "No damn way... they actually did it…"
Shipping containers.
Full-sized, forty-foot steel monsters strapped down onto trailer beds behind the armored trucks.
And on the last trailer—the reach stacker.
The massive yellow hydraulic machine towered over everything else like some industrial beast dragged out of another world.
Its huge tires bounced slowly over the dirt road while its boom arm swayed slightly with the movement.
To the people on the farm, it looked almost alien.
Too big, too heavy, too modern for the world they lived in now.
Dale lowered his binoculars slowly, genuine astonishment written across his face.
"Open the gate," he said quietly.
Morgan was already moving to let the trucks in.
(To be continued...)