"I've never seen anything like this," said Trevor looking at some of Dave's sketches and comments.
"Don't you have some people working on this as well?" asked Dave. "Some sort of scientific team?"
"It hurts me to say this but the base that I've come from has a painful lack of qualified people. Take myself and Holden. With us there's a total of five people with a military background, and none of us are officers. If we want any sort of military help then we have to borrow from the civilians. I'm not trying to be mean, but there's a difference between a trained soldier and someone who's watched a war movie or two."
"With you two here that means that your base is being defended by three people...or more?"
"Yeah. But to be more precise, it's not really a base. It's more of a camp."
"A camp? As in people camping in an open field?"
"There's a lot of them. A little over a hundred. It was just easier to have them all camp out on a football field."
"You have to be fucking bullshitting me," exclaimed Josh.
"What's wrong?" asked Trevor.
"Maybe we're jumping ahead of ourselves," said Dave. "How are you defending your camp? What sort of walls have you built around it?"
"We haven't built a thing," said Trevor.
Dave and Josh stared wide eyed at each other.
"How," asked Dave, "do you stop attacks?"
"There have never been any attacks," said Trevor.
"I... . How?" stammered Dave.
Trevor pointed to the south. "I've never seen the dead cross the river."
Dave stood rooted to the spot. "Are you saying that they are afraid of the water?"
"I don't really know. They've just never been a problem at our camp."
"That just makes no sense."
"Until this moment I never really thought about it."
"If they are afraid of the water why not just cross over a bridge? And that river is mostly a straight line. What about the other side of your camp? Are you somehow surrounded by rivers?"
"Not that I'm aware of. The only thing behind us is a small hilly ridge covered in trees."
"So now the dead can't managed inclined surfaces."
Dave rubbed his face with a hand. But not matter how much he tried he couldn't erase his confusion.
* * *
The conversation between Dave, Josh and the two Army guys went on into the late twilight.
"It's almost night," commented Dave. "Are you okay with getting back to your camp, or would you want to stay the night here? But if you do stay the night here it will be a bit rough. We've got some stretcher beds that you can use, but we've not got any spare sleeping bags."
Josh pointed in the direction of the clothing store that doubled as a camping store. "It's a bit too late for ducking over to the camping store and grabbing something extra. I wouldn't like to be on the streets right now."
Trevor nodded. "I appreciate the offer but it's really not far to the bridge. Once we cross that then we'll be safe."
"I still don't trust using the river as a barrier," said Dave. "Will there be any problems if you don't go back tonight?"
Trevor nodded towards Holden. "He's got a radio on him. The range isn't fantastic, but I wouldn't be surprised if we could get a signal to our camp. It's not that far away."
"I don't mean to insist, but I'd feel much better if you stayed up here with us for the night. Even at a time like this the dashers will appear. I wouldn't want to be on the ground with them."
"Dashers?" asked Trevor.
"Dashers are the night version of the dead. They seem to be pretty fast and I suspect that they are also much stronger."
"That sounds like pain. I guess we'll take you up on that offer." Trevor looked to Holden. "Better contact the camp and tell them that we'll be back tomorrow. Tell them that we might have guests."
Holden gave Trevor a concise nod and turned away from the group. Holden then started speaking into a hand-held radio.
"Guests?" ask Dave.
"I've really enjoyed listening to you today. Although 'enjoy' isn't really the right choice of words. What I mean is that you've gathered a lot of useful data and I'd like to share that with others at the camp if you don't mind."
"I feel that my research is incomplete and that I've only just started. I'm not sure if I've got anything to really share."
"There's no point waiting for perfection. Trust me. You've got a lot of good stuff, it should be rather beneficial to share it. I'm hoping that you'll jolt people out of the funk that they are in."
Dave looked thoughtful for a moment. "Okay. Is there anything that I should bring along?"
Trevor looked around the roof area briefly. "I'd like it if you continued your studies so I supposed this will be where you'll be working in the future. Don't take anything away from here. Just bring yourself and your knowledge."
"What about me?" asked Josh. "Should I stay here and work on improvements?"
"That's tempting," said Dave, "but you should come with us. I suspect that if our camps are really close then there will be a lot of communication in the future. We might even recruit a bit of help. Getting familiar with going between here and the camp across the river will be very helpful."
Josh nodded and Holden turned to join the group.
"I told Barry that we'd be out all night and that we'd be returning tomorrow. I suggested that he organise a few people for a quick meeting. Maybe around lunchtime."
Trevor nodded. "It pains me that we're kind of stuck here, but I guess safety comes first."
"The walkers should all be dashers by now," said Dave.
"What do you mean?" asked Trevor.
Dave pointed to Charlie. "Look at his skin. His skin is now all grey. There's no trace of yellow on him. If he
