[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 435 - What Would Happen If Walkers Could Shoot?

Gareth stood before Leon, notebook in hand.

"This is the supply inventory we kept before. Robert and his people have been using it ever since they took over."

"Guns — mostly rifles. AR-series, thirty-plus. No modification kits, all semi-automatic. A dozen or so shotguns on top of that. More handguns, but the calibers are all over the place."

"Ammo — 5.56 is the most plentiful, several crates. Everything else, not so much."

Leon took the notebook and flipped through it.

Rick added from beside him.

"I just took some people through their Armory. Gareth's right."

"These weapons are enough to arm a lot more of our people."

"Found the diesel reserves too. Enough to run those locomotives back and forth quite a few times."

Not far away, Abraham patted the iron shell of the locomotive and grinned.

"This thing is a real treasure."

"From now on, if we want to go somewhere, we just take the train. A hell of a lot more comfortable than driving."

The haul was bountiful.

Weapons. Ammunition. Fuel. Labor. And a train.

Terminus, that tough nut, they hadn't just cracked it open. They'd swallowed it whole, bones and meat alike.

Leon closed the notebook and tossed it back to Gareth.

"From now on, you're in charge of managing the people here."

"You mean... the ones who've become Mutants?"

Gareth looked over at them, the Mutants being bossed around by Shawn Greene and T-Dog, hauling supplies like puppets.

"Them. And the rest of you."

Leon looked at him steadily.

"I need a foreman who can keep this group in line."

"You're the right fit."

Gareth's breathing quickened.

He knew what this meant.

Trust. And power.

"I... Can I actually do this?"

"You can."

Leon's tone left no room for argument.

"Because you don't have a choice."

Gareth nodded, hard.

Leon continued.

"The supply sweep wasn't thorough enough. Take the rails, for example — those are worth having. Find cutting equipment and pull up every section of track that isn't being used."

"You and the Mutants will stay here for now. Strip all the useless track in the surrounding area."

"The maintenance workshops too — welders, jacks, all of it. The backup diesel generators and batteries in the waiting hall. All valuable. Don't leave any of it."

"Follow the rail line and check if there are any Fuel Tanker Trucks parked along it."

"And those large display screens, communications towers, broadcasting equipment, they might have salvageable components. Don't miss a thing..."

The longer Gareth listened, the stranger his expression got.

Damn. This was way too specific. How had he not thought of any of that...

Time to head back.

---

3 Humvees churned through the snow and rolled back to the prison.

The convoy stopped at the gates.

Carol and Ashley came running out. When they saw who was stepping down from the vehicles, the worry drained from their faces and turned to relief.

Leon dragged the Runner out of the trunk.

"Where's Rebecca?"

Ashley pointed toward the underground lab.

"That girl heard you brought back a new toy. She's been waiting down there for ages."

Leon carried it and headed straight for the lab.

Rebecca was already at the door. She had her goggles on, and when she saw what Leon was pushing toward her, her eyes lit up.

"This is the Runner you mentioned?"

She leaned in close, like she was looking at something priceless.

The human stump in the shopping cart was still thrashing wildly, throat pumping out a raw, animal snarl.

"Yeah." Leon pushed the cart through the door.

"It's all yours."

"I didn't pull its teeth, so watch yourself."

"I need a detailed report. Every difference between this thing and an ordinary Walker, I want to know all of it."

"No problem!" Rebecca rubbed her hands together.

"Give me 2 days. I'll take it apart from the inside out."

Leon nodded. Professional matters, professional hands. He didn't understand it, and he didn't need to. He turned and walked back out of the lab.

Outside, the Mutants were at work, sorting and carrying the supplies from Terminus into the warehouse. Methodical, tireless.

With this batch of labor, the prison's construction pace had jumped several times over.

People really were the most valuable resource.

Leon climbed the watchtower.

He lit a cigarette and looked out over his domain.

A patrol squad made up of Terminus members was moving in tight formation along the base of the walls.

Give them an order and they would carry it out without question, right up until they died.

Useful. But not enough.

Mutants still had their own minds. Burning them on grunt work was wasteful.

Leon's gaze drifted past the walls and out into the wilderness.

Scattered Walkers were dragging bricks through the snow. The most numerous group in this world, by an enormous margin.

He could control them.

But beyond meat shields and manual labor, they didn't seem to have much use.

Too stupid. No independent thought. Couldn't handle even the most basic tools.

A thought surfaced.

What if they could use guns?

The moment it appeared, it spread like wildfire. Leon stubbed out his cigarette on the railing and came down from the watchtower.

"Shawn!"

"With me!"

Shawn had no idea what was happening, but he followed.

There was an open area inside the prison used for training, ringed on all sides by chain-link fence.

Leon told him to wait outside.

He went in alone.

Then he closed his eyes.

A few minutes passed.

Walkers began gathering in the open area. More and more of them, closing in from every direction, pressing into the fence until it creaked and groaned under the weight.

Leon opened his eyes.

He pointed at one.

A Walker that looked relatively intact seemed to receive something, a signal, a pull. It stopped snarling. Turned. And with an awkward, stiff-legged shuffle, pushed through the others and made its way to the gate.

Leon opened the gate and let it in.

Then he locked it again.

The Walker stood before him, silent.

"What are you doing? Training Walkers?" Shawn called out from the other side of the fence.

Leon smiled and gestured for him to watch.

He drew the Python from his hip. The Desert Eagle was already Carl's now, but the Python had its own weight to it. Leon dropped it in the snow in front of the Walker.

"Pick it up."

First command.

"Bend down."

The Walker bent, joints grinding.

"Extend your arm."

The rotting arm rose slowly.

"Open your hand."

"Grab it."

"Pick it up."

Command by command, the Walker moved, and it was agonizing to watch. Clumsy didn't cover it. Several times it nearly toppled over.

Its hand found the gun, but the fingers wouldn't cooperate. It tried to grip the thing and slipped off. Tried again. Slipped again.

"Christ, this is harder than me trying to use chopsticks," Shawn muttered, watching with a grin.

5 full minutes of instruction.

Then the Walker finally got its fingers around the trigger guard and hauled the Python up out of the snow.

It stood there, arm rigid at its side, gun dangling.

The sight was deeply wrong.

Shawn's grin died.

His face went pale.

"It... it actually picked it up?"

Just a simple motion. But the implications behind it hit him like a truck.

Leon kept going.

"Raise the muzzle."

The arm began to rise.

"Aim at that target."

Leon pointed to a stack of old tires at the far end of the open area.

The Walker turned its stiff neck. Clouded eyes tracked toward the target.

Its arm trembled. The muscles and nervous system had degraded past the point where fine motor control was even possible. The muzzle swayed in wide, drunken arcs, up, down, left, right.

"Fire."

The finger on the trigger stiffened.

Then it squeezed.

BANG!

The bullet went somewhere. Not the target.

The recoil sent the Walker lurching. The Python spun out of its grip and landed in the snow several meters away.

The Walker went still. Blank and vacant again, standing exactly where it was.

Silence.

Shawn's mouth was open. He didn't close it.

"It... missed," he finally said. Flat. Like the word barely made it out.

"But it fired." Leon let out a long breath. A smile crossed his face.

He looked at the Walker. Looked at the gun in the snow.

There it was.

"Holy shit." Shawn's voice came back all at once. He stared at Leon. "You're out of your mind. You're actually out of your mind!"

"You want to turn these Walkers into an army?"

"What else?" Leon said.

He walked to the gate and undid the lock.

"This is just the start."

He looked out at the Walkers still pressing against the fence, still snarling. His eyes moved over them the way a man looks at an armory that will never run dry.

"Its aim is terrible. Right?"

"But what about a thousand of them? Ten thousand? All firing in the same direction, at the same time?"

"You think accuracy matters then?"

The chill that ran down Shawn's back had nothing to do with the snow.

He let himself picture it.

Tens of thousands of Walkers, guns in hand, rolling forward like a black tide, firing and firing and never stopping, never slowing, never caring if they got hit.

Anything in their path would cease to exist.

"We don't need elite soldiers."

Leon's voice was calm. Almost quiet.

"I just need cannon fodder."

"Cannon fodder that doesn't fear death. Doesn't get tired. And will never, ever turn on me."

He turned and looked at Shawn, who had gone completely blank.

Enough Walkers. Enough guns. And they would have the largest, most relentless, most unstoppable army this world had ever seen.

"Come on."

Leon clapped him on the shoulder.

"We've got a lot of work ahead of us."

"Shawn, I need you to take inventory of every junk gun in the prison."

"Defective pieces, garbage ammo, our people don't touch any of that. But the Walkers? Different story entirely. If one of those guns blows up in a Walker's hand, I won't lose a minute of sleep."

"We're running out of time."

Leon looked up at the heavy, overcast sky.

The Runner's appearance had been a warning bell.

They were getting stronger. So he had to move faster.

Fight this world's most terrifying monsters with themselves.

Once Rebecca finished with that Runner, it would be time to move on Fort Benning.

---

[Author's note, skip if you want: Seen a lot of comments asking for the protagonist to pick up the Blacklight virus from Prototype, Alex Mercer's thing. That's a bit much, no? Drop your thoughts in the comments. Overall though: Blacklight at this stage would be a rush, but it'd completely wreck the plot structure down the line. Not happening anytime soon, at the very minimum, he has to get the T-Virus first.]

[Keep the reviews and comments coming, keep following the updates, my hands are a lot better, back to 15 chapters. As for the illustrations everyone's been asking about, the recent ones of Ada and the others have to wait until after I finish the main text. I'm writing from morning until past midnight every day, no time to slot them in right now. Sorry about that. But if you're doing a reread, you're in for a treat, haha.]

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