[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 292 - Walkers Don't Listen

The prison's back door groaned open, and out stepped a squad of monsters that looked more like Walkers than actual Walkers did.

Rotting strips of corpse-skin draped over them like filthy wet-weather gear. Dried-skin masks covered their faces, leaving nothing but two black, hollow eye sockets staring at the world.

A stench powerful enough to make a vulture gag rolled off them as they moved, spreading like a slow plague.

Doc felt his bile climbing toward his throat.

He swore to God, he'd rather lick every toilet in the prison than spend another minute outside in this getup.

"Lord almighty," he muttered, voice muffled behind the mask.

"If I die today, please make sure they bury me somewhere far away from this outfit."

Leon wasn't wearing any of it.

He walked behind the squad like a man taking a pack of rabid dogs out for a stroll. Doc's complaining washed right over him. Doc just liked to hear himself talk.

Their target today was a small patch of woods not far from the corpse river. A few Walkers were drifting through it aimlessly — perfect first audience.

"Begin, Commander."

"Don't use your ability. Try controlling them with your voice alone."

Leon jerked his chin toward Murphy at the head of the squad.

Murphy went rigid, like a man who'd just been shoved in front of a firing squad.

He pulled in a deep breath. The rot hit him like a wall. For a second, he genuinely thought it might kill him before the Walkers did.

He shut his eyes, reached back for the feeling from yesterday's training, and forced a low growl up from the back of his throat.

"Hrr..."

Barely a sound. More like clearing phlegm.

Inside the tree line, the wandering Walkers paused.

One of them actually turned its head and looked their way.

Then the moment passed. They lost interest and drifted on, aimless as ever.

"Damn, that's not doing shit."

Wrench, one of the prisoners, kept his voice low.

"Murphy, louder!" Roberta's voice came through her mask, flat and muffled.

Murphy tried again, volume up this time. The sound that crawled out of his throat was somewhere between a growl and the wheeze of a dying animal.

"Hrr — hhrrhh!"

Better.

All the Walkers stopped. Every head swiveled toward them at once, hollow eye sockets staring with something that almost looked like confusion.

But they still didn't move. They just stood there like idiots who'd spotted a strange road sign and couldn't figure out which direction it was pointing.

"Christ, is this ever gonna work?" Merle grumbled from behind a tree twenty yards back, binoculars raised, patience clearly at zero. "Are these things even dumber than they look?"

Leon didn't bother answering.

His brain had already moved on.

Wrong approach.

They were thinking about Walkers like humans. Whispering. Mimicking. That was camouflage, useful for blending in, useless for giving direction.

To move them, you needed a reason they couldn't refuse.

A bone to dangle in front of a dog. A hook baited for a fish.

So what was Walker bait?

Not a voice. Not a greeting. Not some vague sound in the dark.

Food. The signal of a feed.

When hyenas find a carcass, the sounds they make pull in every other hyena within earshot. The noise isn't communication, it's a dinner bell. Instinct answering instinct.

Walkers were the same. No intelligence. No plan. But that hunger for fresh meat never went quiet, never faded, never changed.

The sound that would move them wasn't the shuffle of their feet or the directionless growls they made drifting through empty streets.

It was the sound they made when they found something to eat.

That was the real signal. The one hardwired into whatever was left of them.

The dinner bell of a dead world.

"Everyone shut the hell up!"

Leon's voice cracked out sharp enough to flinch the whole group.

"Stay here. Nobody moves."

He looked at Murphy.

"Watch this position. Keep it clean."

Then he turned and walked, quick and direct, back toward the prison.

"Hey — where are you going?" Roberta called after him.

"Back to set something up." Leon waved a hand without turning around. "Call it a demonstration."

➤ Next: The Language of the Walkers