[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 286 - Several Plans — The Conversation

Lille's Adam's apple bobbed up and down.

The thing in front of him...

It had fucking surpassed his entire understanding of the word "danger."

That wasn't a group of Walkers, it was a moving black continent.

Slow, but unstoppable.

Leon's face was also grim.

He remembered what Ashley had mentioned to him before, about Walker groups mysteriously appearing around the perimeter from time to time.

The prison had plenty of manpower, and whenever Walkers clawed at the wire fences, someone would immediately go deal with them. They hadn't posed any real danger, so Leon had never really taken it to heart.

Fuck.

So it wasn't some damn mystery after all.

These dead things were just fucking migrating.

Like wildebeest on the African savanna, or reindeer in Siberia.

They followed some instinct etched into their rotting genes, maybe drawn by some sound, moving from one place to another.

And they, the survivors in this prison who thought they could rest easy, just happened to be living right next to the sewer of this migration route.

"We're heading back," Leon said weakly.

...

The prison, meeting room.

The atmosphere was oppressive, like waiting for a death sentence to be handed down.

Leon spread the crudely drawn map across the center of the table. Everyone's eyes focused on the collapsed bridge he had circled with a red marker.

"That's the situation," Leon said succinctly.

"The terrain around that bridge is a natural funnel, and that river is basically a conveyor belt."

"And we are the trash can at the end of that conveyor belt, waiting to receive the garbage."

"If we don't deal with it, the Walkers will just pile up more and more, and eventually drown us."

"By then, the entire prison perimeter will be crawling with those damn things."

"Even if our defenses are strong, we can't just stop going out for supplies forever. Even if we squeeze out in shark-proof suits, the stench that comes every day will be unbearable, you won't even be able to sleep soundly..."

"That's the situation. Figure out what to do about it."

No one spoke.

Rick kept his head down, his fingers drawing unconscious circles on the tabletop.

He tried to calculate the number of that Walker Horde, but soon gave up.

It was a problem mathematics couldn't solve.

Who the fuck knew how many were piled up there?

"So, the water we've been drinking every day is basically corpse-washing water, runoff from thousands and thousands of bodies?"

Merle was the first to lose his cool.

He slammed his palm on the table, his ugly face filled with disgust.

"You could put it that way," Leon glanced at him.

Then Leon chuckled.

"If you want to think of it romantically, you could also treat it as some kind of... free meat broth, heh heh..."

"Urp..." T-Dog dry-heaved beside him.

Ashley folded her arms across her chest, her expression also grim.

But the situation at hand could no longer be described as merely lopsided.

It was the difference between an ant and an elephant.

"Blow it up," Merle said viciously.

"We've got plenty of explosives! Blow that damn bridge to hell, along with all the Walkers on it!"

"And then what?" Leon countered.

"Let the explosion draw in every moving thing within a hundred-kilometer radius, throw a grand party?"

"That's better than just watching them fall on us!"

"Are you thinking with your brain, or with your ass?" Leon shot back without mercy.

"Blowing the bridge will only make the blockage worse, and it won't solve the root problem."

"They'll just detour, or come through from somewhere else, and eventually they'll still get washed down by the river."

Merle's face turned the color of pig liver, but he didn't dare talk back.

He knew that arguing with Leon on this issue would only result in Leon cursing him out with even harsher words.

"We could reinforce the river channel."

Rick finally raised his head, pointing at the river on the map.

"Downstream from the blockage point, use everything we can find, steel plates, cars, shipping containers — build a dam strong enough to separate the river channel from those Walkers."

"Keep the bodies from getting through?" Leon looked at him.

"Right," Rick nodded.

"It's a massive project, but it'll solve the problem once and for all."

Leon's fingertips tapped lightly on the tabletop.

Damn right, massive.

This sounded like Qin Shi Huang deciding to build a Great Wall in the apocalypse.

By the time they finished building that "dam," the people in the prison would probably have collectively mutated into a new breed of explosive diarrhea warriors from drinking corpse water.

Like eating a bucket of bad fried chicken.

He didn't want that.

Too risky, and it would take way too long.

He needed a faster, more direct, more... clever solution.

Daryl, who was always a man of few words, also voiced his idea.

"When the scouting teams went out before, Rat and the others had nothing better to do and tried burning Walkers."

"I thought at first the Walkers might not catch fire, but later I found out that as long as the fire is big enough, it's no problem. After all, burning Walkers is like frying meat — they keep secreting grease that fuels the flames."

"There are a lot of bodies piled up over there. If we set a big fire, they'll be drawn to the flames themselves, gather more and more, and eventually get burned up in one go."

Leon nodded.

That was a good suggestion, could be kept as a backup.

"If we don't want the water flowing here, then let it flow somewhere else," a voice suddenly spoke up from the side.

It was T-Dog.

His black face was full of nervousness, but he still mustered the courage to voice his idea.

"I mean... could we dig another channel where the river bends?"

"Like... like a flood diversion canal."

"Let those bodies wash away somewhere else along the new channel."

Everyone looked at T-Dog like he was an idiot who'd just invented a perpetual motion machine.

"Dig with what?" Merle sneered.

"Your fingernails?"

"We could use explosives, small doses, to blast an opening in the riverbank over there..." T-Dog's voice grew quieter and quieter.

"How's that any different from just blowing the bridge?"

"No, T-Dog has a point," Leon suddenly spoke up.

It wasn't that he thought this method was workable.

But in T-Dog's seemingly foolish idea, he saw a spark for solving the problem.

Dredging, not blocking.

Guiding, not resisting.

Just like Yu the Great controlling the floods.

"I have a good idea. We'll plan a new route for them."

Ashley walked up to the map and picked up the red marker.

"Sound."

"Continuous, stable sound with enough penetration."

"Walkers have no intelligence. They're just a bunch of moths following sound and light."

"As long as we can create a sound source in that area, stronger than the sound of the river flowing or their own footsteps, we can divert the main force of this Walker Horde away from its original path."

"Like putting a pile of the freshest fodder in front of a herd of cattle. They won't be able to resist that temptation."

Leon's eyes lit up.

"I like this plan," Leon nodded in agreement.

"Sounds more reliable than T-Dog's."

"We'll need generators, a lot of gasoline, PA speakers, and enough electrical cable."

Rick immediately pointed out the key issue.

"Where the hell are we supposed to find all that?"

"Scavenge it."

Leon's answer was blunt and straightforward.

"Towns, cities, abandoned camps."

"As long as we want it, there's nothing we can't find."

He looked around at everyone in the meeting room.

"Merle, Daryl, you two are coming with me to the nearest radio station. We're going to tear out the transmission equipment and bring it back."

"That'll definitely make a hell of a racket."

"Rick, T-Dog, you're in charge of gathering vehicle batteries and speakers, the more the better."

"Ashley,"

"You're in charge of planning the route and deploying sound source points. I need an action plan precise down to the minute."

"Everyone else, reinforce the prison defenses. Move all our firepower up onto the walls."

➤ Next: The Root Cause of the Walker Pileup