Athens

Just as the group is about to kick the vehicles into gear, you hear a heavy thud hit the pavement behind you. A walker lies in the road, with the back of its head in absolute ruins from the fall. Your eyes go up, and you watch another walker tumble through a smashed window from high up on of the buildings.

The second walker’s legs are obliterated as soon as the thing hits the ground. That doesn’t stop it from trying to drag its ruined bottom towards you. Another walker careens over the window rim, clearly drawn by the sounds of gunfire in the streets below. It’s impossible to know how many will come…The Athenians would surely catch them when it came time to do a sweep later. That big battle bus would make small work of them!

You head for Bethlehem! You put your foot down, as you notice walkers in several of the alleyways you pass on your exit from Athens proper. While Athen was keeping the problem controlled, they were by no means clearing out the city.

You pass a sign that reads: Bethlehem: 26 Miles

The road between Athens and Bethlehem reminds you of your time back on the pontoon. The roads taper back down to one not unlike where you encountered Big John and his nameless friend; before Owen gutted the man and you saved Eva and Selena.

The roads are choked with cars, with dense wood on either side. In places, the forest has begun to reclaim the road, and you find yourself driving over more green than grey.

One thing is clear: There had been a desperate attempt to escape Athens when everything went down. Cars are everywhere along the road. For the most part, it’s passable with a little time and care.

However, only a few miles from where you want to be, you come to a stretch of road so teeming with forest and cars that you can’t help but stop up and survey the surroundings.

Someone at Athens, perhaps Loucilla, is smarter than this groups gives them credit for. Just as the group offers up their curses at the bad information given to them by the community leader, they spot it.

There’s only one car that blocks a hidden path off to the side and around the blockade. Someone had left this mess here to divert or discourage anyone looking to approach Athens on the road. But not you…

It’s easy work to push the well-placed car out of the way, and toss the accompanying foliage off to the side too. You’d be back this way before long and could set things right before returning to the city.

You trundle down the dirt path, watching the line of rusted cars snake down the abandoned and overgrown road. Eventually, the small dirt tracks reaches an end and you once again will have to move a car out of the way at the other end. Moving in single file, you come upon something you never expected to see again…

Owen’s little, red pizza delivery car. Here, miles and miles away, blocking the path to Bethlehem. Last you saw it, you were high-tailing it out of camp before the raiders arrived…

Nearly as bad as the bright red color, is the stink of gasoline all inside the car. It was as if some grease monkey had pawed at the thing with oiled hands or boots, without any regard for what had once been the key to this group’s survival; helping you do runs in the dead of that first winter.

Someone had been at the thing… a lot. They had found out that the small, beat up car was good for little else than blocking an entrance to a side path.

Who had brought it all this way? Had someone traded the Athenians for it?…

Somehow, the clunker still actually works. Despite the thick smell in the air, the car purrs to life as it once did by the riverside…

Another vehicle for the group, if they wanted one!