[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 425 - Strange Walker — The Turning Point

Leon's group found an ideal observation point.

Prone on a hillside, not far from Terminus.

The wind cut like a knife, raw against their faces.

Nothing to do now but wait.

Wait for it to kick in.

These people could go a day without food. They couldn't go a day without water.

Give it twenty-four hours, and every last one of those Terminus scumbags would be Leon's most loyal soldiers.

"Boss, we really just gonna lie here and wait?"

Merle rubbed his hands together, red and chapped from the cold, and breathed out a long cloud of white vapor.

"This shit weather. We stay out here much longer, we're gonna freeze solid."

Leon glanced at the sky.

He was right. The nights had turned brutal.

"Starting a fire is the same as sending up a flare."

He pushed himself up from the snow and brushed off his jacket.

"Let's move. Find somewhere else."

He pointed at a blurry outline in the distance.

"There's a mall over there. We'll make do for the night."

"Might as well look around while we're at it. Feels like we haven't done any real scavenging since the Big Highlight."

The moment Merle heard the word "look around," his eyes lit up.

......

The mall's front entrance was choked with broken glass and abandoned shopping carts.

A problem for ordinary people. For Leon's group, it was no different from pushing open an unlocked door.

Shawn Greene, Abraham, and the other big men cleared a path in about thirty seconds flat.

Inside, the light was nearly gone. A few shafts of moonlight filtered down through holes in the shattered skylight, casting pale streaks across the dead silence and making the place feel genuinely haunted.

Merle took the lead, swaggering with his gun up, acting like he owned the place. He was scanning the darkness the whole time, eyes moving even when his voice wasn't.

"Remember the beginning?" he said. "We were crammed into that little store in Atlanta. Walkers wall to wall outside, and we were scared out of our damn minds. Had to smear ourselves in Walker guts just to get two blocks."

He shook his head.

"Now look at us. Waltz right the hell in."

Shawn Greene snorted.

"That's 'cause the boss is a badass."

Fair point.

Without Leon's ability to control the Walkers, none of them would be this casual about it.

Leon was up front. He spotted a Walker in the corner, staggering to its feet at the noise they'd made.

No tension crossed his face. He smiled.

A warm, easy smile, like he was running into an old friend.

"Look at that. Another one of ours."

He greeted it like it was a person.

The Walker went still immediately. Docile as a dog that just heard its owner's voice.

Leon snapped his fingers.

That was all it took. Every wandering Walker in the mall seemed to receive a silent signal. They came from all directions, stiff-legged and shuffling, and assembled in front of Leon one by one.

They stood in a quiet row, like soldiers waiting for inspection.

Glenn and T-Dog watched from a few steps back, their eyelids twitching.

No matter how many times they saw it, the scene was still deeply, fundamentally wrong.

"Alright. Stop staring."

Leon was in a good mood. He grabbed a shopping cart and rolled it over.

"Let's shop. My treat. Take whatever you want, don't hold back."

He gestured at the assembled Walkers.

"And we've got free labor."

Merle let out a low whistle.

"Now that's what I'm talking about."

What followed was one of the strangest scenes the apocalypse had produced so far.

Leon's group moved through the aisles like they were on a Sunday afternoon, pulling things off shelves and tossing them into carts without a second thought. Behind them trailed a dozen Walkers, each one pushing a cart or carrying bags, dutifully playing pack mule without complaint.

"Boss, what exactly are you doing up there?"

Merle watched Leon make a beeline for the women's section on the second floor. The cart was already filling up with sanitary pads and underwear. Merle couldn't help himself.

"That's a, uh... unique hobby you've got."

Leon gave him a flat look. He picked up a bottle of perfume, gave it a sniff, and dropped it in the cart.

"Gifts. For Ashley and the others."

"Those of you with wives, get moving. Pick something out."

Rick watched him and didn't say anything.

The guy could be a brutal, calculating bastard one moment, and then something like this the next. Thoughtful in a way that caught you off guard.

Leon wasn't paying attention to what any of them were thinking.

His mood was genuinely good.

Terminus was handled. No more threats from the east. And he was walking away with fifty-plus free laborers on top of it. The train cars could be useful too, if they ever needed to move supplies across long distances.

This deal had paid off well.

He drifted over to a jewelry store out of mild curiosity.

The cases had been picked clean a long time ago. But under one of the counters, tucked into a hidden compartment no one had bothered to find, was a diamond necklace.

Leon held it up under his flashlight.

Good quality.

Ashley would like this.

He'd give it to her. Call it a down payment on all the ways he'd been a bastard.

He was reaching to pocket it when something caught the corner of his eye.

A black shape. Fast. Gone before he could focus on it.

Hm?

Leon went still.

His brow came down.

What was that?

Too fast. Faster than anything he'd seen in this world. Faster than anything he had a category for.

"Something wrong, boss?"

Shawn Greene had noticed him freeze.

Leon didn't answer. He turned slowly, eyes moving over the section of the mall swallowed by darkness ahead.

CRASH!

A shelf going over. The sound was enormous in the silence.

Every person in the group stopped moving. Guns came up. Everyone pointed at the same spot.

"The hell was that?" Merle muttered. "Scared the shit out of me. Don't tell me it's a stray dog."

A figure stepped out of the dark.

A Walker.

Mall security uniform. Decayed face. Hollow eyes. Same as all the others.

Except.

Something was wrong.

The posture.

It was crouched low, weight forward, leg muscles pulled tight under the rotting clothes. The stance of a predator. A cheetah a half-second before the sprint.

Then it moved.

Not a shuffle. Not a lurch.

It ran.

Full sprint, like something fired from a gun, straight at Glenn.

➤ Next: The Runner