The Endgame Chronicles (by Hugh White) novel Chapter 42

Chapter 42

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The next morning, Hayley started clearing the area in front of her shelter’s wire fence.

This time, she tried something different. She wiped out every zombie from the fence all the way to the road, then planted a sign that read, “Private Property. Beware of Dogs!”

That sign became her boundary marker.

At this point in the apocalypse, barely anyone was still alive, let alone alive enough to argue with her over land ownership.

She staked the claim, and that was that. Who was gonna complain?

Ding! [Territory expanded by five acres! Reward: 500 points!]

Hayley grinned the moment she heard the system chime. She had been right.

She could claim these empty areas, even places that technically used to belong to someone, as long as she and her dogs had cleared and scouted the land themselves.

That morning, she and the pack had marched from her base to where she planted the sign. That stretch covered about five acres.

As long as she walked the area with her dogs, the map in her mind lit up with new territory, like some survival game where the world only appears after the main character explores it.

Luckily, her dogs counted as part of her team, which meant the land they scouted also counted as hers. That boosted her progress a lot.

Once the sign was planted, she brushed her hands off. Sure enough, her mental map expanded to cover the new area.

Standing there, she thought about where to go next. Her whole hillside shelter was secure now.

To the left lay the highway. To the right stretched a mostly empty mountain range.

That range had an abandoned quarry and a handful of scattered villas.

If she went left along the highway, it would lead straight to Aecraton. The terrain that way was flat and easy to claim, but the right side was trickier. It was covered with mountains and rough paths.

Hayley thought it over only for a minute before deciding.

Right side, of course.

She wasn’t the type to rush headlong into things. The mountain terrain was tougher, but much safer in the long run. Why bother pushing toward the highway, where random survivors or waves of zombies could show up at any moment, when she hadn’t even secured the ground behind her yet?

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Chapter 42

+25 Bonus

Besides, her territory came with rules: every zombie inside it had to be cleared.

If she left them for too long, the system would automatically cut that land out of her map. Which made sense-if your territory was crawling with zombies, it wasn’t really yours.

It did mean she had to give up on the idea of keeping a few zombies around as “guards”.

Still, she wasn’t worried. Not anymore. With 15 military dogs on her side, she had a team that was smart, disciplined, and deadly when it came to taking down strays. They were perfect for clearing out intruders.

She would need even more dogs, though. The bigger her territory grew, the more muscle she’d need.

Setting those thoughts aside, Hayley focused on the task at hand. She pushed deeper into the mountains with her pack.

By the time she returned that night, she had successfully claimed another hill.

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