[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 430 - Taking Effect
Leon's laughter cut through the cold night like something had snapped loose inside him.
He doubled over, nearly crying from it.
Everyone around the fire went still. The kind of still that meant fear.
"Boss, you... you okay?"
Merle clutched his bottle and quietly scooted his ass a few inches farther from Leon.
"That laugh's giving me the creeps. Worse than watching that running bastard back there."
Leon finally stopped.
He wiped his face, pulled in a slow breath. His eyes caught the firelight and held it, burning bright in a way that wasn't entirely comfortable to look at.
"What's there to be afraid of?"
He looked around at all of them, his crew, wound tight, waiting.
"You seriously think I'd march you straight to your deaths?"
"You think I'm pulling some fucking kamikaze bullshit?"
He pointed toward the prison.
"Don't forget. We've got our own research team."
"Candice. Rebekah. The other researchers. Their combined brain power beats every roughneck at this fire and then some."
"Yeah, the T-Virus is dangerous. But who said we have to shoot it straight into our veins as-is?"
"We dilute it."
"We run tests on low-value Mutants first. We find the right dosage. We take our time."
"We can even modify the damn thing, strip out the side effects, keep only what makes us stronger."
"I am not sending you to gamble with your lives."
Leon scoffed.
"When the time comes, every single one of you becomes Captain America."
It landed like a tranquilizer dart. Every tense muscle in the circle just... released.
Rick's shoulders dropped.
Shawn Greene uncrossed his arms for the first time in an hour.
Abraham smacked himself in the forehead.
"Shit — right!"
"How did I forget? We've got scientists!"
Glenn Rhee exhaled so long it could have been his whole body deflating. He felt human again.
Yeah.
They weren't some pack of idiots swinging on muscle and luck.
They had Leon.
They had Rebekah.
They had the prison.
They were an organized operation with brains, a plan, and something that looked a lot like a future.
"So put your hearts back where they belong."
Leon flicked his cigarette butt into the fire.
"The Super Soldier Project is our long-term goal."
"Right now, we handle what's in front of us."
His gaze drifted toward Terminus.
"After the next sunrise, we go collect our new employees."
"Abraham. Shawn. You two watch Terminus tomorrow. Every team that rolls out of that place, you clock it."
The camp exhaled. Tension bled out of the air like smoke.
That was how it always went with Leon around. Didn't matter how bad it looked, somehow it stopped being the end of the world.
Follow him, and you'd eat. You'd drink. You'd wake up the next morning.
Maybe this apocalypse wasn't so goddamn unbearable after all.
Rick walked over and held out a bottle of water.
"You really scared me back there." He kept his voice low. "I actually thought you'd lost it."
Leon took the bottle, cracked it open, drank.
"On that one, you're not wrong. I really have lost it."
"But sometimes — how else do you survive in a world like this?"
He clapped Rick on the shoulder.
"Don't worry, Rick."
"I'm more scared of dying than any of you."
"Because if I go, the prison goes with me. And then every single one of you goes too."
"I've got no interest in watching that happen."
Rick looked at him and didn't say another word.
He understood. The weight this man carried on his shoulders outweighed all of theirs put together.
...
The night passed without incident.
When the first thread of dawn tore open the darkness, Leon's group was already packed up and moving.
The 3 Humvees turned over in sequence, their engines tearing apart the early morning quiet.
In the trunk, the trussed-up Runner resumed its rhythmic headbutting against the cargo floor.
Terminus.
Overnight, Leon's special cocktail had done its work.
The first to go down were Robert's core men, the ones who'd drunk the most last night and stayed up the latest burning through it.
"BLAAARGH—"
A big guy stumbled out of his container with both hands pressed to his stomach and hit his knees in the dirt, retching hard.
"Fuck, what's happening? My head feels like it's underwater."
"Was it the meat last night? Did the meat go bad?"
"I need to, I gotta get it out, I gotta stick my fingers, HURGH, "
More and more of them surfaced with the same thing. The urine had been diluted, which pushed the onset back, but it came for them all the same.
Vomiting. Diarrhea. Full-body chills. Headaches that felt like something trying to split the skull from the inside out.
Terminus was a pit of misery.
The only people untouched were Gareth and his family, the original residents he'd warned in advance, and a small handful of stragglers who hadn't touched any water the night before.
Gareth sat inside his container and listened to the noise outside.
He already had a pretty solid guess.
Robert kicked his door clean off its hinges.
His face was gray. His eyes were sunken like two holes pressed into wet clay.
He'd had his share of water too, and though it hadn't hit him as hard as his men, his brain still felt like it had shifted loose in his skull.
"Get the fuck up! All of you!"
He roared at the bodies sprawled across the ground, moaning like they were auditioning to be walkers.
"You ate some bad food! That's it! Stop acting like you're dying!"
"On your feet! Get to your posts!"
➤ Next: The Price of Causing Trouble