[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 275 - The Soldiers' Strength

Beside the Hummer, the contempt on the lieutenant's face froze the instant the shot landed, like a camera had caught him mid-sneer and stopped time.

He went down hard. Stared at the scorched hole punched through his combat vest. Then looked up toward Glenn in pure disbelief.

What the hell?

This half-starved trash. These nobodies. They'd actually fired the first shot at him, at a soldier of the United States of America.

The wild ecstasy on Vincent's face hadn't even finished forming before it collapsed into something raw and bewildered. He stared at the Asian kid standing in the pickup bed, rifle still raised, and felt a buzzing in his skull where his thoughts used to be.

He's insane.

He's actually insane.

"Glenn..." Vincent's voice dropped low. "You... you motherfucker..."

Paco had both hands clamped over his head, whole body crammed into the truck bed.

"We're dead. We're dead, we're so dead."

The dealers behind them, whipped into a blood-fury just seconds ago, looked like someone had dumped ice water straight down their spines. All that fire, all that bravado, gone. What replaced it was something older and much colder.

That was the military.

The last violent institution in this broken world that still carried any claim to "rules" and "order."

"OPEN FIRE!"

Glenn didn't spare a breath for the spineless wailing behind him. He bellowed the order with everything he had.

His brain was burning. Every rational thought screamed that this was suicide, dragging every last one of them into a meat grinder.

But did he have a choice?

Let Vincent walk. Let him come back with trained soldiers. Let them find the prison. Everyone inside, dead.

There was only one path out of this. Hit these soldiers before they could organize. Hit them hard enough, fast enough, and pin them here.

"Open fire! You want to live? Then fucking open fire!"

He yanked the trigger and swept the muzzle toward the Hummer.

Maybe it was Glenn's suicidal fury infecting the rest of them. Maybe survival instinct finally crushed the fear.

Paco clenched his jaw, raised his head above the truck bed, squeezed his eyes shut, and started shooting.

One. Two.

Scattered pops stitched the air.

"Idiots."

The lieutenant spat a mouthful of bloody saliva onto the asphalt. He raised one trembling hand.

"Light them up."

The next second.

BRRRRRRT.

The M2HB on the Hummer's roof came alive.

12.7mm rounds cracked through the air like a whip woven from death.

The pickup at the front of the pack was smashed flat, as if an invisible hand had simply pressed down. The hood crumpled to scrap metal in an instant. The two dealers inside never got to scream. The hail of fire tore them apart, the cab soaked red before anyone could register what had happened.

This wasn't a fight.

This was a one-sided slaughter.

The dealers' rifles, stacked against a heavy machine gun, were children's water pistols. Their rounds struck the Hummer's armor and threw up little showers of sparks. Feeble. Pointless. Every round coming back punched through sheet metal, through bodies, through flesh.

"Ah—!"

One dealer peeked out from behind cover, just half his head clearing the edge, and a bullet took the top of his skull off cleanly. Red and white scattered across the ground.

"Shit! Shit!"

Oscar had his face buried in both arms, body pressed as low as it would go. Rounds whipped past his scalp so close he could smell the hot air they burned through.

"Glenn! We can't hold this! This is no different from dying!"

And then.

A soft, hollow thump.

A soldier stepped out from behind the Hummer with an M203 grenade launcher braced against his shoulder. He sighted on the thickest cluster of dealers and fired.

The 40mm grenade traced a graceful arc across the sky.

It dropped into a truck bed packed with people.

BOOM.

The blast split the truck apart. Fire and black smoke punched skyward, tangled with pieces of what had been human beings, a fireworks show drawn in blood.

It was over.

Glenn felt it settle into his chest like lead.

They were being crushed. Completely. In every direction.

He watched Vincent pull back into the Hummer. The engine was already revving, the vehicle ready to move at any second.

He was leaving.

That bastard had watched the whole slaughter and now he was simply going to drive away. Clean. Untouched.

Mia came out of nowhere.

She'd been hiding, and then she wasn't. She charged forward with nothing on her face but locked focus, eyes fixed on the Hummer, on the devil who was watching Glenn through the bulletproof glass with the flat, indifferent look of a man watching something already dead.

Vincent.

Him. This man.

He had taken everything from her.

She was going to kill him.

She yanked the small revolver from her hip. Raised it with both hands, arms trembling, and aimed at the passenger side of the Hummer.

But the vehicle was already rolling.

She knew. Those pitiful rounds couldn't touch bulletproof glass. She knew it wouldn't work.

She watched Vincent prepare to leave her world with a smile on his face.

No.

She could not let him just walk away.

She pulled the trigger until the cylinder ran dry. Every round. All of it.

TING. TING. The bullets kissed the door panel and fell away. No mark. No damage. Nothing.

Vincent didn't spare her a glance.

He turned toward the Asian kid still fighting the losing battle and let the smile come.

"Glenn." His voice cut clean through the noise, sharp and certain. "I will never forget today."

"I swear to you — I will find out who you are. I will find where you crawled from. And then I will tie every single person you care about to a post, and you will watch." The smile held. "You'll watch while I burn them to ash. Every last one. Bit by bit."

He rolled the window down, leaned out, and swung his M4 up onto the figure who had given him the worst humiliation of his life.

Mia's pupils snapped tight.

She saw it.

Saw his hands come up. Saw the rifle track toward Glenn.

Her mind went white.

She didn't decide. There was no thought, no calculation. Her body was already moving, turning, sprinting toward Glenn with every last thing she had.

"No—!"

Glenn saw Vincent's movement in the same instant. He twisted for cover.

Too late.

The muzzle spat flame. A frail body slammed into him like a freight train.

The impact staggered him backward, and then came the sounds.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Wet. Muffled. Close.

Something warm splashed across his face. The smell hit him before he understood what it was.

He looked up.

Mia.

That pale face held no pain. Only peace, not the hollow peace of shock, but something deeper. The peace of a weight finally set down.

She was looking at him. In those blue eyes, it was as if a sky that had been raining for a very long time had just, finally, cleared.

Then, slowly, she fell.

➤ Next: Crude Emergency Treatment