[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 426 - The Runner

Fuck.

That was the only thought in Glenn's mind.

He didn't even get a chance to react before that rotting, twisted face exploded toward him at a speed he had never seen in his life.

It's over.

He threw himself into a desperate roll, trying to dodge the attack.

But he already knew it was too fast. He was probably going to get bitten.

Nothing happened.

The searing pain he braced for never came.

Just a suffocating wave of stench blasted him full in the face.

Glenn looked up, trembling.

The Walker had stopped dead right in front of him.

Its mouth was stretched wide open. Those murky eyes held a frenzy he had never seen on one of these things before.

But it didn't move.

Like a nightmare statue someone had hit pause on.

"Holy shit! Glenn! Are you still fucking alive?!"

Merle's booming voice yanked him back from the edge.

Glenn scrambled backward on all fours, tumbling and crawling until he was behind Leon, chest heaving. He jabbed a finger at the Walker, barely able to get the words out.

"It, it — it can run!"

No shit.

Everyone had seen it.

Shawn and Abraham had their muzzles locked dead on the Walker, cold sweat plastered across their foreheads. In that split second, not one of them had managed to pull the trigger.

If Leon hadn't been there...

Every set of eyes in the room drifted to Leon.

Leon said nothing.

His expression was dark.

He stared at the Runner he'd forcibly frozen in place with his psychic power, brow knotted tight.

He could control it.

But it felt completely different.

Controlling an ordinary Walker was like leading an unruly cat on a leash. It took effort, sure, but the thing obeyed.

Controlling this was like trying to tether a rabid pit bull with a fishing line.

He could feel it clearly — that invisible psychic link, hammered by the thing's will from the other side.

It was resisting.

Weak, compared to Leon. But it was genuinely resisting.

This one Runner was harder to hold than ten ordinary Walkers combined.

"What the fuck..." Merle raised his rifle and edged closer, slow and careful. "Is this some new breed?"

He prodded the Walker's head with his muzzle. The body didn't even sway. But a low, threatening growl rolled up from its throat.

"Boss, this thing ate some gunpowder or something. Real feisty."

Leon ignored him.

He walked up to the Walker, grabbed it by the jaw, and forced its head back.

Up close, he noticed more.

Its muscles weren't the loose, rotting slack of a normal Walker. They were taut. Coiled. Packed with explosive power. Even standing frozen, the tendons beneath the decaying skin were still twitching.

And its eyes.

Not the murky, hollow void of an ordinary Walker. These were a deep, violent red.

This wasn't simple hunger.

"Rick. Look at its legs."

Rick stepped up and followed Leon's gaze.

The muscle definition was sharper than on a living man. The calf muscles bulged like iron packed under skin.

What the hell kind of Walker was this?

This wasn't a Walker. This was a cheetah wearing a human suit.

"I've never seen anything like this," Rick said, something dazed in his voice. "I'd put its explosive speed above an Olympic sprinter."

"We're done," Glenn groaned from behind them. "If all the Walkers turn into this, what the hell are we even fighting for?"

"Shut your damn mouth." Shawn shot him a glare.

But his heart sank all the same.

Glenn wasn't wrong.

The reason any of them were still alive came down to one thing: Walkers were slow. They shuffled, they rotted, they stumbled. Sometimes a strong gust actually knocked them down. On foot, a healthy person could outpace them at double speed. As long as you kept your distance, they couldn't touch you.

But if Walkers started evolving into this...

Every advantage humans had would flip overnight.

"Leon."

Rick looked at him.

Right now, this was the only man who might have an answer.

Leon let go of the jaw. He circled the Runner slowly, studying it the way you'd study something rare.

Something was wrong here.

Very wrong.

Had the virus mutated? Or was this something else entirely, something he'd never actually encountered before?

Either way, the fact that he could control it also meant his own combat options had just expanded. That wasn't nothing.

"Cut off its arms and legs," Leon said.

"Huh?"

"Cut them off?"

Merle blinked. Then a grin split his face.

"You got it."

He pulled a heavy machete from his belt and brought it down on the Walker's shoulder.

THUNK!

The resistance was noticeably heavier than anything they'd hit before. Merle still severed the arm in one stroke, but the right arm hit the floor trailing a spray of black blood.

Merle stared at his blade.

He had the distinct feeling it had gotten duller.

Leon nodded, turning something over in his mind.

The Runner's body shuddered hard. The growl in its throat jumped up an octave into something rawer and wilder.

But Leon kept it pinned.

Abraham and T-Dog moved in, one on each side. Working fast, they stripped the thing down, arms gone, then legs, until what remained on the floor was a human stump.

It kept going.

Without limbs, it twisted its torso against the floor with everything it had left, grinding and writhing in furious, relentless circles.

"Huh. Still got some fight in it." Merle planted his boot on its head and pressed that snarling face flat against the floor.

Leon crouched down.

He looked at those eyes, pinned underfoot, and still burning with rage.

"Take it back."

"Take it back?" Rick stared at him. "Leon, you serious? This thing is too dangerous."

"That's exactly why we're taking it." Leon stood, dusted his hands off. "I need to know what we're dealing with. Freak mutation, or the beginning of something new."

He looked toward the deeper dark at the back of the mall, and his expression settled into something heavy.

"Rebecca needs a live sample."

"This might be the most valuable thing we've found today."

Nobody argued.

Leon's decisions were orders.

He pointed at the stump still writhing on the floor.

"Merle. Watch it."

Merle snorted. "Relax, boss."

He dug several rolls of binding wire out of a shopping cart. He and T-Dog trussed the stump up thoroughly, looped and cinched until it couldn't do much more than twitch. Then they dropped it into an empty cart.

It immediately went berserk inside, rattling and banging against the metal with a hollow, rhythmic clatter.

CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.

All around them, the other Walkers pushed their carts in perfect silence, blank and slack as puppets.

The contrast was almost funny.

"Keep shopping." Leon waved a hand. "Don't let this thing kill the mood."

Easy to say.

A shadow had settled over all of them, quiet and cold, and it wasn't going anywhere.

That Runner thrashing inside the cart, howling with something that wasn't just hunger anymore, felt less like a problem they'd solved and more like a warning they didn't yet know how to read.

➤ Next: How to Respond