I look up at Shane with a grim expression before asking,

“Was their gear gone?”

He nods his head,

“Vehicles and all. All that was left was empty ammo boxes and their bodies. Even their weapons were taken.”

I ask him curtly,

“How close?”

He shakes his head,

“Within a few miles.”

I nod my head,

“Alright. So, we got a group that’s relatively close by that can be assumed to be hostile and active looters. What steps are you taking to make sure our guys don’t get killed by them?”

He motions down at the map,

“For now, teams in this area will be dropped down to three or less. The largest number of military guys we found dead was around twenty, so we can assume they have more than that. Figured it’d be a better idea to have smaller, more stealthy teams going that way. We’re also gonna have a team stationed in a few tree stands we found last time we went out by the front entrance to warn us ahead of time.”

I nod my head and say,

“See if Daryl could teach a few guys how to move more quietly in the woods. That dude seems to be able to walk like cotton.”

Shane chuckles and says,

“That’s a weird analogy, but alright I’ll look into that.”

I shrug my shoulders,

“I mean, it worked, didn’t it?”

We continue on with a discussion of the security of the prison, before we move onto something else. By this point, a large gathering of the old group and a few newer people have come up. I look at everyone and address them;

“Alright, everyone. We’re gonna be planning to try and bring more people into the prison to help boost our numbers for safety, as well as food production. To do so, we’ll need to advertise ourselves more. And we can’t exactly do that without a good name to use.”

I motion to Shane,

“Shane here thought about the name Valhalla. I think this works perfectly. It makes us sound powerful. A good place to go if you have a family to protect.”
Dale is the first one to speak up,

“I personally think it sounds a bit too combative. Think about it, if another group were to hear the name of our group, and the fact we live in a prison, they’d think we were vicious warlords.”

I nod to him,

“And then they’d know not to cross us. We may want life to go back to how it was before, but life won’t be the same ever again. At least, not in our lifetimes. We live in an apocalyptic wasteland where death breathes down your neck, and people are more than willing to deliver you to it sooner than you should go. In order to survive in a dog-eat-dog world like this, we need to adapt to it. I’m not saying we become one of those groups that hunts down people as much as we hunt down walkers, no. I’m just saying we need to become a group that is willing, and able, to fight back.”

I look down at Dale, and continue on,

“With a name like Valhalla, some groups may be too intimidated to actually try and fight us. It’s strong. The realm of Valhalla in Norse mythology is a land where dead warriors go to drink themselves full, eat till bursting, and relax, as they’ve fought with honor in the land of the living. To me, this name means more than just fighting and war. It means rest and celebration. A celebration that we, as a people, are able to accomplish so much in a world so brutal.”

Looking around, I can see that most of the people not currently on guard or wall duty have gathered, including all of the old group. I can tell that they’re getting slightly fired up by this, ready to don the name as soon as it becomes official.

“With a show of hands, who would like to adopt the name Valhalla?”

Immediately, the vast majority of people present choose the name Valhalla. I smile out over them, seeing the excitement on some peoples faces.

“Then, it’s official! From here on, we’ll be known as Valhalla!”

Shane begins to clap as I say this, slowly being joined by the other group around us. He begins to speak as the excitement dies down.

“Now, I can see that everyone’s pretty happy with our new name. Well, I’ve been discussing a couple people, and we think we need to have an election for who will represent us. Especially so if we got a name. Someone who could represent us and the interests of us all. A president of sorts. We’ll also want a group to help gather ideas for the base. We don’t have anything official quite yet, so we’ll probably have to get back with that stuff, but keep who you want as your leader in mind.”

I nod to him, and turn to the gathering,

“Alright! Let’s get back to work! We got a wall that needs building, and fields that need tending.”

Slowly, people begin to funnel out of the area, leaving just me, Shane, Rick, Dale, Morales, Amy, Glen, Hershel, Gerard, and Kim.

I nod to everyone before saying,

“I think I got an idea for the group under the leader. We’ll have a head of agriculture, industry, electricity, healthcare, and anything else we could need. These people will take suggestions to the leader, who will decide on which ones we could work with using information gathered from the other groups. After all, we won’t be able to do absolutely everything we want to. Once we got everything ready, we’ll basically run it like a school election. We’ll put up posters of who exactly is running for each office and set up a way for people to vote anonymously. Probably just a Survivor style locked box. “

Dale nods his head and says,

“I’ll see if I can come up with a few more things we’ll need someone at the head of.”

I nod to him and say,

“We can brainstorm together later. For now, I wanna go help get the wall built. If you guys can think of anything, write it down on a piece of paper or something and we’ll meet back up tonight after dinner to discuss.”

As we begin to walk away, Shane throws up his fist and yells out,

“FOR VALHALLA!”

Sorrest

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