[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 578 - Sherry Walks Right Into His Hands

Claire drew her revolver.

"Forget it. No need to make this complicated — I'll head down and take care of them myself."

She pushed the car door open. Her foot hadn't even cleared the vehicle when everything went sideways.

People exploded out of the surrounding abandoned shops and thickets, dozens of them at once.

Their movements were perfectly synchronized. Their gear was good enough to make your scalp crawl.

Reinforced Riot Gear on their bodies. Arm guards and shin guards strapped to their outer limbs. And the weapons in their hands weren't crude baseball bats — every single one of them carried a long-handled machete or an extended tactical spear.

Not a word from any of them. They simply closed in and surrounded the van completely.

Claire yanked herself back inside and pressed her gun against the window.

"It's an ambush!"

She gritted her teeth. Her first instinct was that they'd stumbled into one of those gangs that preyed on survivors.

But this was something else entirely. This was far more terrifying than that fat corrupt cop from the Fort Benning Police Department.

They were completely surrounded.

Even with wings, there was no flying out of this.

Just then, the few Walkers that had been shuffling lazily toward them in the distance picked up on the noise. They swiveled and lunged toward the crowd instead.

A tall Black woman stepped out from the group.

She wasn't wearing bulky Riot Gear like the rest. Just a clean leather vest, a slender Katana strapped across her back, and a distinctively patterned headscarf tied around her head.

She didn't blink. Her hand reached back and closed around the hilt.

She drew.

Cold light flashed. The motion was too fast to follow.

The Walker at the front lost its head in an instant. The clean cut sprayed dark, reeking blood. The headless body lurched forward two steps and crashed to the ground.

Two more Walkers came charging in behind it.

The woman pivoted. The Katana swept out in a horizontal slash. The Walker was nearly cleaved in two at the waist, lost its footing, and went down.

The two Riot Gear squad members behind her stepped in immediately. Their tactical spears drove through the downed Walker's skull with surgical precision.

3 seconds. Start to finish.

Clean. Efficient. Not a single wasted movement.

Claire sat in the car with her mouth hanging open.

That combat discipline. That seamless coordination. These were not a rabble of thugs.

The woman flicked the blood off the Katana and sheathed it in one smooth motion.

She walked to the driver's side of the van and knocked on the window.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

Each knock landed somewhere in Claire's chest and made her whole body go rigid.

"Nobody move."

Lilly reached over and pressed down on Claire's gun hand.

"Put it away, Claire."

She let out a long breath, and every trace of wariness on her face dissolved.

Claire stared at her.

"You know them?"

"Of course I do."

Lilly pushed the car door open, raised both hands, and stepped slowly out of the van.

"They're from the prison."

Tara climbed out after her. Claire hesitated for a few seconds, then holstered her gun and got out, the two little girls from the back seat trailing behind her.

The Black woman looked them over with cold, measured eyes.

Her gaze paused briefly on the holster at Claire's hip, then on the two children.

"My name is Michonne."

She lifted her chin slightly. Her voice was flat and direct, leaving no room for interpretation.

"I handle perimeter clearing and survivor intake for this area."

"State your purpose."

Lilly stepped forward.

"We're here to join you."

"I ran into your leader before — Leon. He took me to the prison once."

"He left us supplies before he went. Said if things got too bad, we could go north and find him there."

Michonne's eyebrow went up.

Someone Leon had made direct contact with?

She looked Lilly up and down. The woman did look vaguely familiar. Probably hadn't stayed at the prison long. After Leon had gone missing and come back, he had indeed brought survivors with him.

"So it's you."

She gave a nod, and her hand moved away from the hilt.

"Consider yourselves lucky."

"Two more blocks ahead, there's a herd that just migrated through — over 500 Walkers."

"In that wreck of a van, the herd would have swallowed you whole."

Claire stood to the side listening, her heart seizing in her chest.

500?

"Who's she?"

Michonne's eyes settled on Claire.

"Picked her up on the way," Tara said.

"She took out a twisted cop at the Fort Benning Police Department and saved this little girl. Looked like she could handle herself, so we brought her along."

Michonne narrowed her eyes.

In this world, a young person willing to put their life on the line for a stranger was a rare thing. Either they were a fool, or they were the genuinely dangerous kind with real ability.

"Name?"

"Claire."

Something moved behind Michonne's eyes.

The prison was short on exactly this kind of fighter, people who threw down without hesitating. As long as they weren't the type to come in and freeload, as long as they had even a little use to offer, Leon had always kept an open-door policy.

"Alright."

Michonne waved her hand.

An Armored Vehicle rolled up from down the road. Two of her squad members moved at once, looping rope around the undercarriage of the overturned Heavy Truck and lashing the other end to the back of the Armored Vehicle.

The engine roared.

The Armored Vehicle dragged the Heavy Truck off the road by brute force and cleared a passage.

"Get back in your vehicle."

Michonne pointed south.

"Follow our convoy."

"But I'm warning you now."

She looked each of them in the eye, her tone dropping into something absolute.

"The prison has rules."

"Once you're inside, it doesn't matter who you were before or what you think you're capable of. You follow orders."

"Anyone who causes trouble. Steals. Stirs up conflict."

She patted the Katana at her back.

"I will personally cut you down and throw you outside to feed the Walkers."

Claire swallowed.

The weight of this woman's voice was suffocating. And yet it made Claire feel steadier than she had in days.

Rules. Actual rules.

That meant this was a place where normal people functioned, not one of those madhouses held together purely by violence and want.

"I understand the rules."

Lilly answered first.

Michonne walked to the Armored Vehicle and climbed up into the passenger seat.

A few escort SUVs took the lead out front, tucking the battered van between them. The remaining squad members stayed behind to keep the checkpoint running.

The convoy rolled out, heading toward the prison.

Inside the van, Sherry held Claire's hand in a tight grip.

"Are we safe?"

She tilted her small face up, her eyes full of something fragile and hopeful.

"Yeah." Claire ruffled her hair. "We're safe."

She turned and looked out the window at the armed escort vehicles. Her mind kept circling back to the same question.

This leader. Leon. To pull together a force like this in a world like this, and still be keeping this many survivors alive on top of it, what kind of person was he?

The convoy drove for roughly 10 minutes.

Then the horizon cracked open and something impossible came into view.

A wall. Absurdly, almost offensively tall.

Reinforced concrete and brick and stone, mixed and layered into a fortification that looked like it had been built to last centuries.

Watchtowers at regular intervals along the top. Heavy machine guns mounted on each one.

And outside the wall, a wide Leech Moat. Dark red waves churned through the water, and when you looked closely, you realized the redness came entirely from the dense, writhing mass of creatures packed inside it.

Claire's eyes went wide.

The scale of it. The sheer level of fortification.

She'd read about medieval castles in books. She'd seen pictures.

The prison in front of her was 10 times more formidable than any of them.

This wasn't a refuge.

This was a small nation rebuilt from the wreckage of the apocalypse.

The convoy rolled slowly through the main gate.

The heavy steel blast door thundered shut behind them, sealing that Walker-filled world completely outside.

Out on the wide yard, people were training in hand-to-hand combat. Others were being handed farming tools, heading out toward the greenhouses. From somewhere further in came the steady ring of metalwork and the crackle of electric welding.

No despair. No panic. Everyone moved with purpose, locked into their routines, and on every face was something Claire hadn't seen in a long time.

The will to keep going.

Tara parked in the designated area. The car door swung open.

Stepping out felt like crossing into another world.

Michonne dropped down from the lead SUV and walked over.

"Out of the vehicle. Bring your belongings."

"Head over there for a standard medical check and registration." She pointed toward a standalone building nearby. "Clear the check, and someone will assign you quarters."

Just then, a small group came walking over from the direction of the Administration Building.

The man at the front was tall and well-built. Simple tactical pants, black short-sleeve shirt, muscle definition clean and obvious. A half-smoked cigarette hung from his lips. He didn't carry himself like a man who needed to announce his authority, it just came off him, quietly and completely.

A few people walked with him. Hard-edged types in camouflage. Logistics personnel in casual clothes.

Michonne saw him and stopped.

"Leon."

Leon nodded. His gaze moved to the van, to the women standing beside it.

It swept across Lilly. Across Tara.

Then it settled on the young woman in the red motorcycle jacket, and the small blonde girl holding tightly onto her hand.

When he got a clear look at the little girl's face, his eyebrow lifted just slightly.

He had handed the photograph to the search team moments ago.

And here she was, walking straight to his door on her own.

William's precious daughter.

Sherry Birkin.

Now that was a pleasant surprise.

➤ Next: Reunion