[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 277 - Cleanup Work
Oscar's words snapped Glenn back to reality. His brain, a panicked mess seconds ago, started to clear.
Lee Mi-joo.
The prison.
Shit, how did I forget?
There was a doctor at the prison!
Sure, that Korean woman looked more like a psych ward escapee than a physician, but she was still the only doctor at the prison worth a damn.
"Oscar!"
Glenn's head jerked up.
"A car! Find one that still runs!"
He shouted it while carefully lowering Mia to the ground, hands impossibly gentle, like he was setting down a piece of porcelain.
He didn't dare look at her face. Didn't dare look at those blue eyes already going glassy.
He knew if he did, the last bit of strength he'd scraped together would come apart.
"Glenn, you—"
Oscar started to say something. Then he got a look at Glenn's face and swallowed every word back down.
"Go. Now."
He was racing death, and death had a head start.
Oscar didn't waste another word. He turned and ran.
Paco and the handful of surviving dealers exchanged uncertain glances, unsure whether to help or just stay out of the way.
They decided staying out of the way was probably smarter.
"You guys."
Glenn climbed to his feet.
"Follow my brother's lead. He'll tell you what comes next. I've gotta go save someone."
He jerked his chin toward Rat Boss, who was hauling himself out of a twisted heap of scrap metal not far away.
Oscar came back fast, rolling up in a pickup with half its windows gone but the engine still running strong.
Together they lifted Mia onto the back seat.
"I'll drive. You watch her."
Oscar was already moving toward the driver's side.
"I've got it." Glenn shoved him aside and dropped into the seat.
He locked both hands on the wheel. The veins on the back of his hands stood out like cables.
"Take care of her."
"I... I'm scared my hands'll shake." For once, Oscar was being completely honest.
It wasn't the driving he was afraid of. It was turning around and watching that girl take her last breath.
God, if they couldn't save her, Glenn was going to fall apart completely.
He didn't know if he could carry that weight...
Glenn turned the key and floored it.
The truck bellowed like an enraged bull. The tires screamed and spun on the blood-soaked ground, then found grip and launched them forward.
A few walkers shambled into the road to block the way.
Glenn didn't even glance at them.
BANG.
One walker caught the bumper and cartwheeled through the air in a grotesque arc before crumpling to the asphalt like a torn sack.
Glenn's hands never moved on the wheel.
His eyes stayed locked on the highway stretching out ahead, endless, merciless, and he had exactly one thought.
Faster.
Go faster.
...
The gas station.
Rat Boss dragged himself out from under a flipped truck.
He spat the dirt from his mouth. Every bone in his body felt held together with tape.
He watched the dust cloud from Glenn's pickup dwindle and vanish, then looked around at the devastated battlefield, wrecked vehicles, blood, bodies, and then at the cluster of dealers staring back at him.
He stood there for a second, completely blank.
Holy shit. Does that mean I'm running things right now?
Monkey limped over, one arm banged up but still sharp-eyed.
"Rat bro, Glenn, he—"
"Went to save someone."
Rat Boss dragged a hand down his face. For once, something other than his usual skeevy expression settled over his features. Something heavier.
"So what do we do?" Monkey scanned the area.
The dealers were drifting closer, their expressions unreadable.
What do we do.
Rat Boss's brain kicked into gear.
He thought about Leon.
He thought about the look on Leon's face after every fight, that expression, like a starving man who'd just walked into an all-you-can-eat buffet and intended to clear every single tray.
Lick it clean.
Everything that can be carried, you carry. No exceptions.
Even the shell casings off the ground. We might be making our own ammunition someday.
Something welled up in Rat Boss's scrawny chest. Something he'd never quite felt before, a savage, swaggering sense of purpose.
"What the hell is everyone standing around for?!"
He jumped onto a still-intact oil drum and roared down at the assembled dealers from his elevated perch.
"We've got work to do!"
"You!" He stabbed a finger at Paco.
"Fuel tanks. Pump this whole station dry, everything underground, every last drop. Not a puddle left behind!"
"You lot!" He swung toward another cluster.
"Drag those smoking wrecks off to the side! Strip out every part that's still worth a damn!"
"And—"
His gaze landed on the armored vehicle sitting abandoned at the edge of the battlefield, massive and dark, crouching there like a steel beast going to sleep. Left behind by the Governor's people.
Rat Boss's eyes went wide.
They were shining about a hundred times brighter than when he spotted a naked woman.
"That thing..."
He swallowed. His finger pointed at the armored vehicle, and his voice actually trembled.
"I don't care how you do it. Tow it, drag it, or push it with your goddamn balls, I don't care."
"That vehicle comes with us."
"And Vincent's howitzer, that son of a bitch didn't have time to pull it out! All of it! Every weapon! Pack it all up!"
Dead silence fell over the gas station.
Every dealer stared at Rat Boss like they were watching a man lose his mind in real time.
Monkey sidled up next to him and muttered under his breath.
"Rat bro, don't get so fired up you say something you shouldn't. They don't know who Leon is. Can't let that slip yet."
Rat Boss gave a slight nod.
Right. These dealers were still the biggest unknown variable standing in front of him.
Monkey pulled him a few steps away and dropped his voice further, face drawn tight with worry.
"Rat bro, these people. Can we actually trust them?"
"You've got them going after all those weapons. What if they grab everything and run? Or worse, they turn the guns around and put a bullet in both of us. We wouldn't even have a place to cry about it."
Rat Boss looked over at the dealers huddled together in low, muttering conversation, and the same weight settled over his face too.
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