[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 424 - Deployment — The Conversation
"What's your plan?"
Gary's voice carried a note of deference.
Leon smiled. He turned around, unclipped a military canteen from Merle's belt, and twisted the cap off.
Then, in front of everyone, he pulled down his zipper.
SPLASHHH...
A stream of warm liquid poured neatly into the canteen.
Merle watched from the side, mouth splitting into a grin. Not the least bit bothered about his canteen.
"Damn, boss. Nice aim."
"We should set up a contest sometime — see who can piss the farthest. Bet bullets on it."
Rick pressed a hand over his face. Leon's little performance had left him completely speechless. It was just too much.
Gary had stopped functioning entirely.
He stared at Leon. At the canteen filling rapidly with yellow liquid. His brain had simply quit.
What kind of play was this?
Humiliation?
Some mysterious ritual he couldn't even begin to understand?
Was this man's grand plan really to make those bastards at Terminus... drink piss?
Leon zipped back up.
He held the canteen out toward Gary.
"Take it."
"I've been saving this up for a while. Holding it in all afternoon."
Gary extended his hand on autopilot and took the canteen.
"Your job is simple."
Leon's face wore a smile Gary couldn't read at all.
"You don't need to fight anyone. You don't need a single weapon."
"You just need to find a moment and pour this into their water tower."
Gary looked at the canteen. Then back at Leon.
This plan...
It was just too goddamn insane.
But those dark-gold eyes looked back at him without a trace of humor, and the doubt in Gary's chest got forcibly buried.
This man was not joking.
"This is..."
Gary swallowed hard.
"Making them drink piss?"
"Pfft."
T-Dog couldn't hold it. He burst out laughing, then quickly choked it back under Leon's gaze.
"You think this is some kind of prank?"
Shawn Greene spoke up from the side, impatient.
"Boss tells you to do something, you do it."
"Stop asking questions. All you need to know is that this stuff is worth more than a hundred bullets."
Leon patted Gary on the shoulder.
"No doubts."
"You'll understand what it's for when the time comes."
"Starting now, warn everyone you trust. Your mother, your brother, all of them."
"For the next couple of days, do not drink from the water tower."
"Not a single sip."
"Use snowmelt. Steal the bottled water those animals have stashed. Whatever it takes."
"Just stay away from that tower."
Gary nodded slowly, turning it over in his mind.
"Go."
Leon waved him off.
"You need to get back now."
"Make it convincing. Don't let them spot a crack."
Gary drew a slow breath. He gripped the canteen and shoved it deep inside his tattered jacket.
Then he looked at Leon the way a drowning man looks at a rope, one long, burning look.
He turned around.
Facing the direction of Terminus, stumbling worse than when he'd come, he ran.
Merle watched him scramble off like his ass was on fire and spat on the ground.
"Boss, you really trust him that much?"
"What if the kid goes back and rats us out?"
Leon lit another cigarette.
"He won't."
"Right now, there's nothing in his head except revenge. Nothing else fits."
"And besides, he doesn't have a choice."
---
Gary felt like he'd been running for a century.
When Terminus's ring of cold chain-link fence came back into view, his legs buckled. He dropped straight to the ground.
He gulped air in ragged mouthfuls, his face plastered with the relief of a man who'd somehow survived.
All of it was an act.
But he committed to it completely.
Because he knew. Behind that fence, there were countless eyes watching.
"Holy shit! The little coward actually made it back alive?"
"What, are the walkers going vegetarian?"
A wave of disbelieving chatter broke out at the Terminus gate.
Robert stepped out of his shipping container.
He'd just finished his business. A cigarette still dangled from his lips, his expression carrying the look of a man still savoring something. He saw Gary face-down at the entrance like a dead dog and his brow creased.
The gate swung open.
Two men walked out and dragged Gary inside the same way you'd drag a carcass.
"How are you not dead?"
Robert stood over him and prodded his body with the toe of his boot.
"I... I don't know..."
Gary curled up on the ground, arms wrapped around his head.
"They chased me. I ran into an abandoned train car and locked the door..."
"I hid inside. Didn't dare come out until they were gone..."
It was a lousy alibi.
But it fit perfectly with the spineless reputation he'd built for himself.
Robert looked him over. Saw nothing suspicious.
He figured the kid just got lucky.
"Waste of space."
Robert spat on him and walked away.
To Robert, the life of a dog like Gary wasn't worth as much as the cigarette he'd just finished.
Gary was hauled roughly to his feet and dragged toward the Zone B containers.
That was the living area for the "natives" like him.
Passing a corner, he spotted his mother, Mary.
She was with a small group of women, washing something. Her face was pale. Hollow. But when her eyes landed on Gary, a faint light came back into them.
Gary looked at her and moved his lips without making a sound.
Don't.
Drink.
Water.
Mary went still.
She didn't understand what her son meant.
But she nodded anyway.
Gary was shoved into a dark shipping container.
The moment he stepped inside, his younger brother Alex threw his arms around him.
"Bro! Are you okay? I heard them saying — they said you..."
Alex's leg was still in a cast. His face was wet with tears.
"I'm fine."
Gary patted his back. Then, low enough that only the two of them could hear, he spoke quickly into his ear.
"Don't drink the water."
"Not a single sip. Not for the next two days."
With his family taken care of, Gary leaned back against the metal wall. His heart was hammering.
Step one, done.
Now step two.
The most critical step.
He had to wait.
Wait for the dead of night.
Wait until those animals were all blind drunk, passed out inside whatever filthy dreams they had.
The minutes crawled by.
Night finally came down.
On the far side of Terminus, the party started.
Robert's crew ringed a bonfire, tearing into meat with their hands, bellowing songs.
The new woman was passed between them like a toy.
Laughter and a woman's sobbing tangled together, the same nightly symphony as always.
Nobody noticed.
A lean, tall shadow slipped out of the darkness in Zone B.
Gary stayed low, moving through the terrain he knew better than anyone, slipping past every sentry without a sound.
He reached the center of the compound.
The water tower stood right in front of him, painted in faded red and white stripes.
He found the maintenance ladder on the side and started climbing, rung by rung.
The wind was brutal, cutting at his face until it burned.
He didn't feel it.
There was only one thought in his head.
Pour it in.
He didn't know why Leon had insisted on adding this specifically. He didn't need to know. He just had to do it.
He reached the top of the water tower.
He heaved the heavy iron hatch open.
A sharp smell of chlorine rose to meet him.
Below was a full tank of clear, still water.
The lifeblood of every person at Terminus.
Gary pulled the canteen from inside his jacket.
He held it up and looked at the pale yellow liquid through the metal.
He didn't hesitate.
He twisted off the cap and upended the canteen, pouring every last drop into the water below.
➤ Next: Strange Walker — The Turning Point