17 New Arrivals

The road was clear and whenever they did bump into a stray undead moseying around, they would take it out with a silenced rifled and carry on. They didn't attract any attention and kept the trucks in a quieter mode they referred to as silent so the engines wouldn't attract any undead to come their way. By the time the sun started to go down, the two trucks had covered half the distance before Gabriel caught up. He landed on one of the trucks as Alyssa opened the hatch on top for him.

"Good morning," she said playfully.

"I guess you got impatient," Gabriel said, looking around, "You covered a lot of ground. Any trouble?"

"Hardly," She replied, "Just a few strays we easily picked off from up here. And if we had, we just would have stopped and waited for you."

"Good to hear," Gabriel said as he sat down and made himself comfortable. "Do you guys have a plan for when we get there?"

"Pablo and I have been working on it," Alyssa said, "Just let us do the talking and I have a feeling we'll be just fine. We'll be there in a few hours too."

"Sounds good," Gabriel said, "I'm going to fly about and scout ahead. Just to make sure there's nothing ahead of us."

"How can you see anything in this darkness?" she asked him.

"I'm a creature of the night," he reminded her, "To me this setting is as clear as day, and I can also hear very well too. I can hear the moans of the undead ten miles away so they cannot sneak up on us. Right now I hear nothing."

"That's a good sign then," Alyssa said, "But it's a good idea to check anyway."

"Yes ma'am." Gabriel said as he leaped off the roof of the truck and she watched him fly away before closing the hatch.

The stayed on the road for several hours and with Gabriel flying ahead there was nothing in their blocking their path the entire way. It was around four in the morning, just a few hours before daybreak when the two medium sized trucks started to see Alyssa's town in the distance. She couldn't believe how happy she was to see it. And when the trucks came up to the large gated wall, there were two guards who didn't notice they had arrived until Pablo honked the horn, which got their attention.

"Holy crap!" one of them said, as if he had just woken up. "Where the hell did these two things come from?"

The other guard went on the radio and called for someone to wake up the mayor, and it took Max about ten minutes to run over to the gate, and up the stairs to join the guards. He looked down at the two trucks, and then back at the guard that called him over.

"Have they said anything yet?" Max asked.

"Not a peep." the guard replied, "They just honked the horn."

"Who are you?" Max called out to the two trucks. "Identify yourselves!"

The hatch of one of the trucks opened up, and to the surprise of the two guards, and especially the mayor, Alyssa popped out with a smile on her face.

"Hey boys!" she called out, "Did you miss me?"

"Alyssa?" Max called back, startled. "Whose trucks are these?"

"They'll be ours if we negotiate in good faith," Alyssa answered.

"Negotiate with whom?" Max inquired, eager to know more.

This was when Pablo also popped out of the same hatch hole, and waved to the mayor. "Good evening, Max. It's a pleasure to finally meet you. Alyssa has said nothing but nice things about you and your town."

"Has she," Max said, sounding skeptical. "How do you know Alyssa?"

"I know her through my son," Pablo replied, "I believe you met Gabriel already."

"I have," Max confirmed, "But what are you doing here?"

"We had to desert our home," Pablo explained, "things were getting too hot on the West Coast."

"Interesting," Max said, thinking about it. "What do you have to trade?"

"Besides these trucks?" Pablo replied, "We bring twelve new residents, a few of them who are exceptionally talented."

"What kind of talents?" Max asked.

"One of them is a doctor," Pablo answered, "A former surgeon and he comes with two of his own nurses."

"Open the gates and let them in," Max said, as he looked back to Pablo. "Drive these things over to town hall, Alyssa can lead you there."

"Will do," Pablo said as he hopped back into the truck.

After the gates opened, the two armored trucks rolled in and slowly drove up to city hall as requested to. There were some people walking around when the trucks arrived, so a small crowd gathered at city hall. They were all surprised when the side door opened and Alyssa popped out to greet them. Her stepping out first was all the people needed to see, as knew she wouldn't let them into the town if she didn't trust them. The mayor motioned everyone to back away as he walked up to Pablo and offered his hand.

"Pleasure to meet you," Max said, trying to be hospitable.

"The pleasure is mine," Pablo said, equally diplomatic.

"Where's Gabriel?" Max said, looking around.

"He's not here." Pablo replied, "He takes off whenever he smells something that might be worth salvaging. It's his talent."

"Say no more," Max said, smiling. "I've seen the results of his work."

"Our work isn't possible on the west coast anymore," Pablo said, aware Max was likely short on data about the news from the west. "Denver was attacked earlier this week, and we could only get a select few out before the city was swarmed with herds of the undead. It's not pretty out there."

"Who's attacking Denver?" Max asked, confused about it.

"California," Pablo educated him, "They've been threatening force for a while over the Colorado water supply. That part of the country is too hot for anyone to do any kind work in the foreseeable future."

"It's not like we have enough creatures like the undead out there trying to get us," Max said, sounding pained to hear news of the west coast conflict. "We can't afford to fight one another."

"I'm in complete agreement," Pablo concurred, "That's why we chose to run rather than fight. We have no interest in killing other human beings, especially since there are so few of us left compared to only thirty years ago."

"So you have a surgeon?" Max then asked, eager to know more about Sean.

"We do," Pablo confirmed, "He can deliver babies or remove your appendix, and that's just the tip of the iceberg of what this guy knows. For the last ten years he's been running a family practice in Denver, which he'd like to reopen here to serve this community, if it's alright with you of course."

"Doctors like him are in high demand," Max admitted, "And if he has half the experience you say he does... he's far more advanced then the doctors we have."

"He can teach yours," Pablo added, "He's willing to help your doctors advance, because we can't have too many good doctors in these troubled times."

"And what do you want in return?" Max asked, aware they wanted something.

"A place to call home," Pablo told him, "A roof over our heads, good people to mingle with, and a chance to earn our keep."

"That's music to my ears," Max confessed, "We have space, especially in the building that Alyssa and her sister lives in."

"She told us that," Pablo added, "We'd like to move into that building, to be close to Alyssa."

"Most people in town don't like it," Max informed him, "It's very close to the wall and the undead can be heard from it."

"It's nothing new for us," Pablo said, "I don't even hear the undead anymore. They're like crickets to me now. And I'll toss the trucks in too, which could be used for gathering more supplies. Do we have a deal?"

Pablo extended his hand the mayor, looking the man in the eyes to see how he would respond to be offered such a sweet deal. Based on what Alyssa had already told him about Max, he had a good idea of how the mayor was going to respond. She had already told Pablo that their doctor was not well trained, so the idea of Sean making her a better doctor was beneficial since if things went wrong and they left in the future, they would have better doctor afterwards than they had going in. Yet it was Pablo who had the advantage going on since he had Gabriel, who was the ace up Pablo's sleeve. The undiscovered vampire was a wildcard that can swing any situation his way, which would explain why Pablo was smiling widely as he offered the mayor his hand.

"We do have a deal," Max said, reaching out and shaking his hand.

"Excellent," Pablo said, just as pleased. "We are short on supplies, but we can change that in a jiffy."

"How do you plan to do that?" Max asked, rather curious.

"We'll send Alyssa and Gabriel out to get some," Pablo answered, "You now have the best scavenger in the lands, so make up a new list. Include everything in the last one and we'll make sure it's filled in a few days."

"A few days?" Max repeated, as he was somewhat surprised.

"We lost our home," Pablo answered, "But we didn't lose our contacts. We have trade deals with people in various cities up and down the west and east coast. We'll stick to our contacts in the east for now, the west is just too hot to even venture into."

"Are you going to share Intel on these contacts?" Max asked.

"Alyssa already told you," Pablo said, proving how much she told him. "You do not want to know how the sausage is made. Once you know what we know, you're going to have a lot of sleepless nights. I barely get five a night. You're the leader, you need a lot more to function and make the tough decisions. Let us take care of the sausage and you take care of this wonderful town."

Max nodded as he understood. "Fair enough; allow me walk you all over to your new home. I think there are enough vacancies in Alyssa and Diane's place to take care of everyone in your party."

"Lead the way," Pablo replied.

As the group of new people walked with Max towards Alyssa's building, Gabriel was in the air, watching them walk. He was a few hundred feet up and it was still dark so no one could see him with the naked eye. He was their backup in case things had gone sideways but Alyssa was right: Max's ambition and greed made Pablo's offer to rich to turn down. Sean and his family just wanted a safe place, so they were more than happy to accept any deal they could get. Sean would get a much need break from work as whatever medical practice he ran in this small town would be far less busy than the one he was running in Denver. Compared to the number of patients he saw in Denver, Sean was going to see a lot of down time. Once everyone entered the building, Gabriel flew away in the direction of Nashville as he was eager to get back to his own place before daybreak. Little did he know was that someone in town had spotted him, and took note of his direction as he flew away.