Chapter 49 Prepare for the Blood Moon!

A savage bloodlust was already building inside Magnus Vane, restless and hungry, as though something in his body demanded violence before it could settle down. Counting from the end of the first Blood Moon, tonight at midnight marked the beginning of the second one, and the time was already pushing close to eight in the evening.

The enormous red moon above seemed to grow more oppressive by the minute, feeding the agitation in his muscles and making Magnus genuinely wonder how much control he would have left once midnight arrived. He had felt this aggression before, but the second Blood Moon already seemed stronger.

There were plenty of reasonable explanations for Daryl and Merle going silent. They might have run into a walker herd, found hostile survivors, gotten trapped by the worsening storm, or simply lost radio contact because of the heavy rain and terrain.

Under normal circumstances Magnus would have waited and trusted Daryl to work his way back, but tonight their disappearance also gave him exactly the excuse he needed to separate from the convoy. If Magnus remained beside everyone when the Blood Moon began, he was almost certain the consequences would be disastrous.

Rick’s group had never faced Berserkers before. Ordinary walkers were slow enough that inexperienced survivors could keep distance, recover from mistakes, and rely on gunfire if things turned bad, but Blood Moon Berserkers were different.

They ran, attacked relentlessly, and gave Magnus four times the normal experience because the system treated them as something far more dangerous than standard walkers. Worse, the second Blood Moon should draw even more of them than the first.

Magnus had survived the previous event by redirecting part of the horde into the raider compound and using the surviving structures to control the rest.

He could not count on being that lucky again, and nobody else in the convoy possessed his system’s ability to treat infection with Antibiotics. One bite on Rick, Lori, Carl, or anyone else could turn a manageable crisis into a death sentence. Magnus could practically guarantee that if he stayed with the convoy until midnight, somebody would die.

“I’m going to find them.”

Magnus reached behind the seat and grabbed the modified Stone Sledgehammer. The muscles along his arms tightened beneath his soaked combat uniform, veins rising across his skin as the Blood Moon pressure continued building. Rick looked toward him in surprise, but Magnus was already turning toward the door.

“I’ll look for Daryl and Merle,” Magnus said, forcing his voice to remain steady despite the growl beneath it. “I’ll also check for a gas station or abandoned vehicles in case there’s something we can use for the RV.” He glanced at Rick, his eyes lowered enough to hide the blood-red tint spreading through them. “You keep everyone here safe. I’ll be fine.”

Before Magnus could jump out, Rick shoved something against his chest.

“Take this.”

Magnus looked down.

Rick had wrapped one of the handheld radios inside multiple layers of plastic.

“Rain shouldn’t get through that,” Rick said. His expression hardened. “Whether you find Daryl and Merle or not, you’re back here by dawn. If you’re not, I’m not keeping everyone parked on this road waiting forever.”

Magnus stared at him for a moment.

Then grinned.

“That’s the right call.”

He opened the door and jumped down.

The instant his boots hit the mud, the rain soaked through whatever parts of his combat uniform were still dry. Magnus slipped one hand under his jacket, transferred the wrapped radio into the system inventory where water couldn’t touch it, then adjusted the Stone Sledgehammer over his shoulder. Without another word, he ran toward the dark tree line.

People watched him disappear.

Carl immediately moved toward the rear window. “Dad, why did Magnus leave?”

Rick looked toward the jungle Magnus had entered.

“He went to find Daryl and Merle.”

Carl’s expression remained uneasy. Over the last week Magnus had become someone he instinctively expected to be nearby whenever things went wrong, and now that person had vanished into the storm. The feeling wasn’t unique to Carl either; almost every vehicle in the convoy became noticeably quieter after Magnus left.

Shane leaned against a window and stared into the darkness.

Inside another vehicle, Glenn and Maggie looked toward the same tree line while Hershel and Beth sat behind them, unable to see anything except rain and black forest. Andrea instinctively squeezed Amy’s hand as she caught the last glimpse of Magnus disappearing in the rearview mirror. Jim and Otis, slower to understand what had happened, started asking the others why Magnus had left when everyone was supposed to remain together.

Magnus was already deep in the woods by then.

For an ordinary person, the forest would have been almost impossible to navigate without a flashlight. Thick trees blocked what little light remained, and heavy rain swallowed shapes only a few yards away. Magnus, however, saw the entire world through a faint red tint, and even the darkness seemed strangely clear to him under the influence of the Blood Moon.

A walker lay motionless beneath a fallen branch.

Magnus spotted it immediately.

He didn’t stop.

By the time he crossed the forest and reached a broad open field on the other side, he finally slowed enough to breathe steadily. The convoy was now far enough behind him that the Blood Moon horde should focus on him without immediately overrunning everyone else. Magnus glanced back once, then looked toward the increasingly red sky.

“If everything goes right, I’ll be back by dawn.”

He had no serious concern about leaving Rick in command for one night. Rick could protect the convoy, and if Magnus failed to return, Rick was rational enough to keep moving toward the prison instead of sacrificing the entire group on a blind search. Magnus had heard Rick’s warning before leaving and knew it hadn’t been an empty threat.

Rick’s priorities had changed since Atlanta.

Dale was still alive.

Shane was still alive.

Carl and Lori were traveling with him.

Magnus’s influence had also pushed Rick toward making decisions for the survival of the whole group instead of trying to satisfy everyone individually. If Magnus disappeared permanently, Rick would eventually take the convoy south, secure the prison if possible, and only then organize a search. That was exactly what Magnus wanted him to do.

There was no point dragging twenty people into danger to look for one man.

Even if that man was Magnus.

Finding Daryl and Merle tonight, however, was another matter entirely. They had motorcycles, countless side roads to choose from, and several hours of travel between their last confirmed position and the convoy. Searching for them blindly in a storm would be like trying to find two specific shells on a beach.

Magnus tightened his grip on the Stone Sledgehammer.

“First things first.”

The red tint in his vision deepened.

He needed to survive the Blood Moon.

If he found Daryl and Merle while doing that, good. If not, he could search after dawn without dragging a Berserker horde directly onto them. Looking for the brothers while the system was actively summoning blood-crazed walkers toward him would be more likely to kill them than save them.

Magnus began calculating from what he remembered about the first event. “Last time was under twenty when it started. If the system scales the second wave anywhere close to the doubled interval, I should expect at least thirty.” He glanced toward the hills ahead. “Maybe more.”

He needed terrain.

Walls.

Choke points.

Something that would force the Berserkers to approach from predictable directions while the heavy rain helped cover his movement.

Then Magnus remembered the regional map.

“There was a little settlement nearby.”

He changed direction immediately.

An hour and a half later, Magnus emerged onto a muddy back road winding through rolling countryside. The rain had become heavy enough that each drop struck his exposed skin sharply, and even his enhanced body was beginning to feel the strain of moving quickly through soaked ground. Mud sucked at his boots while his clothing clung to him, making every step more irritating than it should have been. By the time scattered houses became visible through the storm, sweat and rainwater had mixed completely.

Magnus stopped on a low hill overlooking the settlement.

It wasn’t really a town.

More like a rural community spread across a wide area.

The United States had plenty of land, and homes here were separated by large yards, barns, sheds, and stretches of road rather than being packed together. In total area, the settlement looked almost as large as a small town, but it lacked the infrastructure that would normally define one—no hospital, no police station, no firehouse, and no real commercial center.

Magnus crouched beneath the rain and studied the buildings carefully.

“Most of the original residents either turned or wandered off.”

Any walkers still trapped inside homes or sheds would remain scattered rather than forming a single concentrated group. The rain also worked in his favor because it dampened sound and made it less likely that walkers outside the settlement would be drawn back from long distances. Magnus estimated there were probably fewer than twenty ordinary walkers still inside the village.

That was manageable.

More importantly, once midnight arrived, the Blood Moon would bring the real problem directly to him.

Magnus slowly smiled.

“Yeah.”

He rested the barbed Stone Sledgehammer across one shoulder and looked down at the village.

“This’ll work.”

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