[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 481 - The Miserable Rescue

The Hummer's engine grew from a distant hum to a roar.

Rick's group.

The door flew open and Shawn jumped out first, gun up, followed by Rick, Abraham, Daryl Dixon, T-Dog, Glenn, and that loudmouth Merle.

They took in the scene and every single one of them stopped cold.

A battered pickup truck sat in the middle of the road. An unfamiliar woman was huddled in the driver's seat, face white with terror.

And their boss, Leon, was lashed to a tree by two black seatbelts, head down, not moving.

"What the hell..." Merle's eyes went wide. He scratched his head. "Is this some kind of performance art?"

"Boss into that kind of thing now?"

"Shut up." Shawn's voice came out low and hard. His eyes never left Leon.

Something was wrong.

Very wrong.

Leon slowly raised his head.

Those eyes held no joy at seeing them. No relief at still being alive.

Nothing.

Just a coldness that had no business being in a human face.

"Boss?"

Merle grinned, shuffled forward two steps, and raised a hand like he was coaxing a dog he hadn't met before.

"You good? You scared the hell out of us, you know that? Ashley, that girl, she, "

He never finished.

On Leon's arms, the black mass began to move. It had its own pulse, its own hunger, pulling itself together like it knew exactly what it wanted.

The Leeches hit the seatbelts and tore.

CREEE, SNAP.

Two seatbelts. As brittle as paper.

"Holy shit, Boss, you—"

CRACK!

The belts gave all at once.

Leon was across the gap before anyone could process it. His fist drove into Merle's chest like a wrecking ball.

The sound it made was ugly.

Merle left the ground. He flew a full 2 meters, hit the dirt, rolled three times, and stopped face-down in the road.

He spat blood.

"Holy — Boss! It's me! Merle! Your most loyal guy!"

He curled around his chest, teeth bared against the pain. "I know you're pissed. Yeah, we lost Ashley. But you can't just, that really hurt, man."

Nobody laughed.

Rick and Shawn's faces had gone stone-dark.

Had Leon lost control again?

Both of them raised their guns.

"Leon!" Rick's voice cracked out like a whip. "Snap out of it!"

Leon didn't even look at him.

He rolled his wrists. The joints cracked, sharp and dry. Then those empty eyes swept the group, slow and methodical, like he was running threat assessments on a herd of animals.

The Hummer's doors opened. Candace and Maggie climbed out.

The moment Candace saw Leon's face, her pupils snapped tight.

"He's lost control!" She was already shouting at Rick, at all of them. "Completely! Everyone together, restrain him! Don't let him hurt anyone else!"

They moved.

Leon's gaze cut through the crowd and found Candace.

No warmth. No recognition. Just that flat, absolute zero.

One second.

Candace's body jerked like she'd grabbed a live wire. Those steady, sharp eyes of hers went hollow and dark, filled with something identical to what was looking out of Leon's face.

Her mind emptied.

The link buried deep in her genes, the one that had always been there, waiting, detonated open.

Obey.

Unconditional. Total. Obey.

"Candace?"

Maggie was right beside her. She caught the change immediately, opened her mouth to say something,

Candace spun and got both hands around Maggie's throat.

The strength was grotesque. Maggie's feet left the ground instantly. Her face flooded dark, purple-red, going ugly fast. Her legs kicked at nothing.

"You, what are you—"

"Nobody move!"

Rick swung his barrel toward Candace.

Leon was already gone from where he'd been standing.

He reappeared in front of Rick without crossing the space between. Rick caught a blur, felt a spike of pain detonate through his wrist, and his rifle was spinning away through the air.

Behind them, Merle was still flat on the ground, groaning.

Inside the pickup, Lily had pressed herself as deep into the seat as she could go. She wasn't even breathing.

Leon stood at the center of all of it.

He looked at these people. The ones who had fought beside him, bled beside him. He looked at the fear on their faces and the anger underneath the fear.

For a moment, something flickered in those hollow eyes.

Confusion. Just a trace of it.

Then the indifference rolled back in and buried it completely.

He raised both arms wide and lifted them high.

A conductor. Standing alone at the center of the stage, about to bring down the baton on his end-of-the-world symphony.

The woods answered.

Rustling, first. Soft and distant, then closer, then everywhere, layering on top of itself until it was a single continuous sound.

Then the howling.

That sound they all knew. The one that came from somewhere past death.

One shape at the tree line. Ten. A hundred.

Countless shambling figures pushed out of the dark forest, out from both shoulders of the road, out of every shadow and corner they hadn't been watching. Moving slow and steady, eyes clouded, joints locked stiff.

One target.

This spot. Right here.

The howls folded in from every direction at once, a black tide rising from all sides, pulling tight around them like a fist closing.

And the man standing at the center of the tide, arms raised, utterly still.

He was the reason it was here.

He was all of it.

➤ Next: Fuck It, Whoever Wants to Save Him Can Save Him