[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 288 - Replicating the Whisperers
Leon crumpled the plan-covered paper into a ball and shot it into the corner trash can like a basketball.
"Alright. Everyone out."
He waved his hand.
"I'll handle it."
"I've already got a solution."
Merle looked like he had something to say. Daryl's glare killed it before it could leave his mouth.
Rick studied Leon for a long moment.
Then he nodded, said nothing, and led T-Dog, Ashley, and the others out.
He knew, if Leon said he had a way, then he did. What that way was, or whether it would drag the whole prison down with it, wasn't his problem right now. His job was to trust and execute.
Though he was curious, he had to admit.
He already knew what Murphy was. That blue coward whose primary skills were pissing himself and serving as a mascot?
What did Leon want with him?
A jumbled tangle of thoughts flickered through Rick's mind.
Better just bring the man over.
...
The prison interrogation room.
One iron table. Two chairs. Nothing else.
Leon sat there, working a butterfly knife between his fingers. The blade caught the light as it flipped and spun, a silver flutter in the dimness.
He was waiting for Murphy.
And thinking.
The horde. The plane. Fort Benning.
A dead end, any way he looked at it.
Any large-scale operation would plant them right under the military's nose. And any small-scale cleanup against a horde that size would be like trying to drain the Atlantic with a soup spoon.
Unless...
Unless you found a way that was quiet. Efficient. Continuous.
A group of figures surfaced in Leon's mind, people wrapped in dead skin, drifting through the herds like ghosts.
The Whisperers.
A handful of people. Tens of thousands of Walkers bending to their will, turned into weapons, turned into shields.
The most efficient livestock operation the apocalypse had to offer.
And he was already holding the key to that operation.
Murphy.
That seemingly useless blue coward. That one-of-a-kind skeleton key.
Leon knew the man was hiding things.
All that garbage about his "talent." All that garbage about Walkers treating him like their dear old father.
Horseshit.
It wasn't that they ignored him.
He could control them. Actually control them, to a degree.
That was his real secret. One of his most valuable cards.
Footsteps broke Leon's train of thought.
The door swung open.
Rick pushed a trembling blue figure inside.
The moment Murphy saw Leon, and the butterfly knife spinning lazily in his hand, his legs gave out. His blue face drained to something closer to gray.
"B-Boss..."
Murphy's voice was shaking hard enough to rattle his teeth.
"You... you wanted to see me?"
"Sit." Leon angled the knife tip toward the chair across the table.
Murphy moved like a frog that had taken a cattle prod to the spine, shuffling over in lurches, then perching on the very edge of the seat, ready to bolt at any second.
Rick, his job done, slipped out and pulled the door shut behind him.
Just Leon and Murphy now.
And the crisp, rhythmic click of the butterfly knife folding open, snapping shut. Open. Shut.
Each click landed on Murphy's heart like a tap on a bruise.
"Know why I called you in?" Leon set the knife on the table.
"N-no..." Murphy shook his head so fast it blurred.
"Boss, I've been really good lately, I swear! Haven't stolen any food, haven't gone anywhere I shouldn't—"
"I have a job for you." Leon cut him off.
"A job?" Murphy wanted to laugh bitterly. He was too scared to manage it. "Boss, come on... what can I do? I'm just your mascot, you know that. Glenn probably told you about Vincent having me whipped, and honestly, with this body, I can barely lift a box..."
"I want you to herd Walkers." Leon held his gaze, each word placed down separately and deliberately.
"H-herd... Walkers?" Murphy went blank.
"Like cattle."
Leon nodded toward the window. Nothing visible through the glass, but Murphy knew exactly what he was pointing at.
The color left his face completely.
He understood.
All of it.
He understood all of it.
And all he wanted, right now, was to never be within arm's reach of people this dangerous ever again.
"No." He lurched out of the chair. "No, no, no, I can't do that! I really can't!"
"Boss, please, please just let me go—"
His voice cracked into a sob.
"Not getting bitten is just a talent, that's all it is, I can't control them! They just don't bite me, nothing more! I swear on my life!"
The words came out scrambled, tripping over each other, because he was back in that room with Vincent. The whip. The helplessness. Being forced to perform something he couldn't do, because someone with power had decided it was his purpose.
He'd just been hiding to survive. That had gotten him whipped.
Leon looked a lot darker than Vincent ever had. Murphy genuinely could not bring himself to imagine what this man would do to him if he failed.
He couldn't go through that again.
"Is that so?"
Leon stood.
His shadow fell over Murphy entirely.
"I'll ask you one more time."
His voice was perfectly calm. It crawled down Murphy's spine anyway.
"Will you do it — or won't you?"
"I..."
The word no was right there. It wouldn't come out.
"Looks like you still don't understand your situation." Leon smiled.
He grabbed Murphy by the collar, lifted him like a small chick, and slammed him down onto the cold iron table.
The tip of the butterfly knife stopped less than a centimeter from Murphy's eyeball.
Murphy could see his own face in the blade. Distorted by terror. Smaller than he felt.
"You think those little tricks of yours could fool me?"
Leon leaned close to his ear, voice dropping to barely above a murmur.
"Stop fucking pretending."
"I know it's not that they ignore you."
"You can make them... do what you tell them."
BOOM!
Murphy's mind went white.
Complete blank.
He... how did he know that.
How was that even possible?
That secret lived in the deepest part of him, the only reason he was still breathing when most of the world wasn't. He had never told anyone. Not once. Not even close.
Leon let go.
Murphy slid to the floor and sat there like a wet rag, chest heaving.
This man knew everything. There were no secrets left to protect.
If he couldn't fight it, he might as well lie back and enjoy it.
"Good." Leon settled back into his chair and picked up the butterfly knife again. "Now we can talk about your new job."
Murphy was exactly that type, soft words bounced right off him, but force put him in line. People like that had a rebellious streak, sure. But they were also the easiest to handle.
"You are
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