Lizzie took one sharp breath before pulling the trigger, the cool metal recoiling in her hands like the viscous kicking leg of a stubborn mule. The first few days of shooting had given her severe shoulder pain, along with very limited success, but she was improvingly rapidly. She had always had an eye for aim. 

As soon as her silenced bullet fizzed through the air and thumped into her target with a soft thud, the others opened fired on the surrounding clickers. Within seven well-executed seconds, the entire group was laid to waste, a mere puddle on the pavement.

She was glad to have a clear role to play in the defence of Novus, but the job came with its haunting down sides. The thing is with a sniper, your eyes spend their days locked down that sight, zoomed in on your targets. Their faces appear so defined, as if they were stood next to you. It made it all a little too real for Lizzie, but she knew it was the right thing to do... the only thing to do.

If they were bumbling shadows in the night it would be easy, like shooting the boogie man on an old video game. But it wasn't, and they weren't. Every time she looked down that sight, she couldn't help but see the helpless face of JJ, or the striking ginger locks of Dawson.

The faces haunted her. She spent her days staring at those faces.

It had been three weeks since Max had demanded that he, Lizzie, and Rodney have a seat on the council, and two weeks since they had started implanting their protection plan.

Much to Max's surprise, there had been little resistance to their plans once they had outlined the gruesome and gory details of their encounters with the clickers. Most of the council hadn't stepped foot outside the walls since the very beginning, all they had seen was the beginnings of an epidemic, a tiny percentage of the horrors that now plagued the earth.

They told them about the clickers and the brotherhood. They told them about the little girl in the school and the chilling trap that they had been lured into. They told them about the undead's ability to organise at attack, to surround you, to close off any available exit. They told them about Paulo, Han, JJ, Karl, and Dawson. They told them about Joey.

With each passing detail, the faces of the council members turned a paler shade of ill white, disbelieving of the truth behind Max's words. Luckily GiGi was on hand to weigh in with a few tales of his own.

Once Max had them convinced, they had agreed to let him found a new team within their walls, the hunters. Their job was simply to patrol one block in diameter in every direction away from Novus. Search and destroy, nothing more, nothing less.

At first there had been some rebuff to Lizzies introduction onto the council, as some found it abhorrent to have someone so young in a position of such power. However, once she was allowed to say her piece, the grumbles turned to silence. After all, if a sixteen-year-old girl had more experience in dealing with the undead than them, it was more of a statement on their own capabilities than Lizzie's.

Max, Lizzie, Rodney and GiGi spent the next seven days setting out rigorous sets of plans, guidelines, and emergency measures to ensure a smooth and successful running of the group.

They laid out extra walkways between buildings to allow them to access a one block radius without setting foot on the tarmac below. If possible, they wanted to get the bulk of their work done from the skies. It was quick, silent, and risk free, something that the council eat up like Christmas pudding.

Beyond that, they designed American-football like plays to ensure the most effective of operations. The idea was to work as a team, in complete tandem and synchronisation. The less time they gave the clickers to react, the less chance they had to scatter and scurry back off into their holes.

They had an emergency plan laid out for each and every scenario imaginable. Max wanted to avoid ever being in a situation where each and every person didn't know their role, others' roles, and most importantly, the escape plan.

If someone got separated from the group, if they unearthed a hidden horde of clickers, if there was an attack back at Novus, hell if the Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters showed up, they had a rigorous plan for it.

The council had been extremely impressed with their work, albeit from an outward perspective. None of them were actually willing to join the team, or to leave the safety of the Novus walls at all for that matter.

They were deemed too important, too pivotal to the day to day running of the camp. No, recruitment had to come from other pools, more specifically, the gen pop.

The reaction had actually been more positive than they could have ever imagined. Many of the current guards and lookouts were eager to volunteer, apparently itching to escape from the walls and make an actual difference. Max found it funny that the barricades seemed like protection for one person, but then like a prison for the next.

The guards were ideal material for the team, with extensive firearm training already under their belts. Many of them had actually roamed outside of the camp before too, being later arrivals to Novus. They had ex-army, ex-police force and ex-security guards in the mix, which also freed up spare positions on the wall for new residents to receive gun training.

Max had already expressed this as a much-needed asset. If the fight was brought to them at any point, they needed as many confident and competent shooters as possible.

"Beta team in position," a voice croaked through a walkie attached to Max's belt.

"Alpha team are ready to go," Max replied. "You good to move down there?"

The towering, bulked form of T raised his ham-sized fist into the air to indicate that Gamma team were all set. As the only ground team within the hunters, it was key to move at a slow and steady pace, assessing each and every situation as it came.

Alpha and Beta sat high atop opposite rooftops, providing cover on every conceivable angle around T and his men. As the man mountain plodded his way down the street, the sniper teams edged along their respective rooftops, scouting the path both beyond and behind.

"All clear on your six," Beta reported.

"We have a scenario eight upcoming at your 11 o'clock, Gamma," Max reported calmly. Two second later a fizz and a pop indicated that Lizzie had dealt with the threat.

Each and every possible scenario had its accompanying number for fast and simple execution.

T continued his advance, finally halting at the far end of the road, the end of their perimeter. He turned to the shop on his left, an abandoned baby and child convenience store, and the target of today's operation.

He yanked a hefty metal baseball bat from a makeshift sheath on his belt and let the dirty metal slip between his fingers before he gripped the top of the handle. He ordered his team of four to back up away from the shop entrance with a shake of the wrist, before clanging the bat against the empty metal window frame.

The unmistakeable clank of metal against metal rang through the streets, then silence. T's hand hovered in the air, his ear craning for any sound of movement. After a few seconds, he held up one strong finger, which quickly changed to three.

"Thirteen," Lizzie spotted through her scope. "He has this."

Scenario 13 referred to bogie movement within a building, but not enough for the snipers to need to get involved. They would only risk hitting their own people.

T waved his team out into the middle of the road, in clear view of the shop window and door. He positioned himself just out of sight, pressed against the wall next to the main door, as footsteps evolved into eager crashing.

The clickers were rampaging through the shop floor, desperate to reach the source of the noise, and even more so once they laid eyes on the fresh street meat.

The two undead bodies jostled and scrapped to be the first to propel themselves out of the window and towards the potential meal, and all the time T's team stood still and patient, unfazed but ready.

As the clickers finally emerged from the battered shop window, the scent of flesh thick in their nostrils, T swung his heavy metal bat directly in their path to the motionless team.

The bat thunked against two skulls in one foul swoop, sending the bodies flying back headfirst into the ground. T's boot had crushed through each of their faces before the clunk of his bat had stopped reverberating around the empty street.

"Fucking tank," Lizzie whispered.

"Okay guys, enter with caution. We have eyes on the front of the shop, and first floor windows. No sign of movement. You know the drill," Max croaked through his radio before peeking back down his sight.

"You not going to say over?" GiGi asked nonchalantly, without even looking away from his weapon.

"What," Max sighed.

"Over... you know, like we talked about yesterday. You're meant to say over at the end of a sentence when you use a radio my friend."

"And like I said, that's just in the movies," Max puffed.

GiGi thought for a moment, "But in the army and the police force, when they-"

"We aren't in the army or the police force, GiGi. We're just a couple of blokes with walkie talkies, okay?"

"I just think that if we-"

"And I just think that this conversation is," Max interrupted.

He paused for a second.

"Is what?" GiGi finally asked.

Max glanced away from his sniper for one brief grin, "Over."

***

Max, GiGi, and Lizzie, tip-toed along the final plank back into the open Novus window, before heading down the hospital building to meet T at the gates.

They had performed yet another safe and successful sweep of the surrounding area, and from the sounds of it, the Gamma team had been able to recover some useful stuff.

"What's the haul for the day?" Max beamed as he approached the main gates, the stacks of scavenged supplies there for all to see.

"Exactly what we went for really," a woman to T's left responded. "The baby formula that we needed to stock up on, we won't be running out of that any time soon. Beyond that we got bottles, toys, even a god damn crib. Not the kind of stuff people wanted to loot back when things turned to shit I guess."

Max clapped his hands together, "Fantastic! And what about all that?" gesturing towards the small mound next to the gate.

"Scrap most of it," another Gamma team member replied. "We took down the shelving units, raided the back for building supplies, T even managed to shift one of the massive great bookshelves. Should all be useful for fortifying the walls."

"That does not surprise me," Max chuckled, easily able to imagine T's intimidating frame lifting a car, yet alone a book case. "Great work today, as always guys. Foods ready on the table in there for you."

He placed a hand on T's bicep as the silent giant stomped past, "Well done out there again, T. We couldn't do any of this without you."

T nodded and continued his slow and heavy plod towards the dining hall. Everything about the man was sluggish and lumbering, until you put him in a battle zone, the adrenaline and danger was like oil to his joints.

"Did you ever find out why he doesn't speak?" Lizzie asked Max in hushed tones. They had felt too rude to ask around.

GiGi instantly waved his hand in a hushed motion, peering over his shoulder until the entire Gamma team was out of earshot. "I wouldn't pursue that little titbit if I were you, friends. The gentle giant doesn't like to discuss his past, or have others discuss it for him."

"What do you mean?" Lizzie questioned. "What past?"

GiGi sighed, "You didn't hear it from me, okay?"

Lizzie mimed closing a zip along her lips, before locking it and throwing away a pretend key. Her mouth may have been closed, but her eyes bulged wide, begging her Italian friend to fill in the details.

"T arrived later to Novus, a lot later than most, he was in a bad way too. Seemed that he fell in with the wrong people, and once he realised, it was too late."

Lizzie gasped, "What do you mean, too late?"

"Once he realised who they were... what kind of people they were, he started asking too many questions. Wanted to leave the group from what I hear. Only they weren't the types to let their guys just up and leave," GiGi explained.

"So, what did they do?"

GiGi shrugged, "What do you do to a guy who asks too many questions?"

"You don't mean...?"

"Sliced it clean off," GiGi confirmed, sticking out his tongue and making a sideways cutting motion with his right hand. "Some psycho named Otto from what T has said to people. I don't envy the guy if T ever catches up with him again."

"I don't think that will be a problem," Max whispered in disbelief.