[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 626 - Into the Prison

The armored side door groaned — low and heavy, and the thick steel panel rolled back. Several fully armed guards stepped through the gap in quick formation, rifles up.

The one leading them was a young Asian man.

Glenn Rhee had an M4 Carbine with a holographic sight pressed tight against his shoulder, muzzle level, aimed directly at Smith.

"Hands up, pal. Don't make any unnecessary moves."

No attempt to hide the suspicion. None at all.

Smith complied on the spot, raising his hands even higher than asked.

He was a seasoned soldier, the kind who knew when to read a room. One look at these guards' tactical positioning and movement patterns told him everything: this was not a ragtag group of survivors who'd grabbed whatever guns they could find. These people had been trained. Rigorously.

He had zero doubt that if he so much as reached toward a weapon, he'd be turned into a sieve inside half a second.

"Easy, pal. We're unarmed." Smith kept his voice slow and level. "Our people spotted a Sanctuary here. We came to join up."

Glenn tilted his head.

Two guards moved in immediately and slammed Smith and the Lieutenant against the wall. The frisk was rough and thorough, armpits, waistline, down the calves, nothing skipped.

"Boss, they're clean. Not carrying a thing. Not even a pocket knife." The guard stepped back and reported.

Glenn dropped his muzzle slightly, but his finger stayed on the edge of the trigger guard.

"You want to join up, you follow the rules."

He lifted his chin toward the open side door.

"Walk ahead. Hands stay up."

Smith and the Lieutenant fell in without resistance.

The corridor they walked through was a good 20 meters thick. Smith drew a quiet breath.

A defensive wall this solid, a missile might not even punch through it. Whoever was running this place had a serious obsession with fortification.

The interior made both operators' eyes go wide.

A Patrol Squad in matching Tactical Vests walked the perimeter with powerfully built hunting dogs at their sides. Up on the walls, another patrol was conducting a handoff with the ground team below.

Smooth. Orderly. No wasted motion.

"Keep moving. Stop looking around."

Glenn drove the rifle barrel hard into Smith's back.

They were brought into a low, solid single-story building, the base's dedicated quarantine zone. Both sides of the hallway were lined with observation rooms fitted with one-way glass.

Any newcomer showing an unexplained wound, a fever, or any symptom that preceded Walker transformation got put in one of those rooms for 7 days. Results usually came within 3. The extra days were just insurance.

"In here."

Glenn pointed.

Smith and the Lieutenant walked in. The room had two iron-welded stools and nothing else, lit by a fluorescent light so white it was almost painful.

Glenn followed them inside. He slung the rifle across his front and rested his right hand on the pistol grip at his thigh. Casual. Relaxed.

Not actually relaxed.

"Standard inspection."

He looked at both of them.

"Strip. Everything off."

The Lieutenant froze and looked at Smith.

"Those are the rules." Glenn's tone had no room in it whatsoever for negotiation. "We need to confirm there are no bites, no scratches, no marks from those things. I mean everything — nothing stays on. If you're not willing to cooperate, go back to wherever you came from. You're not welcome here. Understood?"

In a wasteland soaked through with lethal virus, it was the most direct and most effective method available.

Smith recognized the logic. He didn't hesitate. He grabbed the hem of his black T-shirt and pulled it over his head in one motion, dropping it onto the iron stool beside him. Belt next, unfastened with practiced ease. Trousers off.

The Lieutenant had no choice but to grit his teeth and follow.

When Smith stood bare from the waist up under that harsh white light, Glenn, whose expression had been completely flat from the start, felt his body go rigid without meaning to.

His hand moved to the pistol and pulled it halfway clear of the holster.

Smith's body was not what a normal human being looked like.

It was a living record of warfare.

Above the right pectoral, a deep concave scar, the signature of a large-caliber rifle round that had passed clean through. Left side of the abdomen, a ragged cord of raised scar tissue more than 10 centimeters long, the kind only a bayonet dragged through flesh in close-quarters killing could leave behind. His shoulders and thighs were mapped in dense, fine laceration marks, the permanent signature of someone caught in the fragmentation radius of a mortar or a grenade at close range.

No ordinary survivor scrambling to stay alive on the wasteland carried wounds like these. These were the kind of injuries that only came from extreme modern combat.

Glenn had spent enough time with Leon that his eye for these things had long since been calibrated past the average person's. He could see at a glance that these scars spanned years, a long stretch of them, none of it accumulated in the few months since the biochemical apocalypse began.

The broad-shouldered white man with the close-cropped hair standing in front of him had spent years living on the razor's edge between life and death. That much was not in question.

Glenn pressed the half-drawn pistol back into its holster.

He said nothing.

"Turn around. Hands behind your head."

He went over both men head to toe, careful and thorough. Only after confirming no Walker-caused infection wounds did he pull two sets of gray cotton newcomer uniforms from a nearby cabinet and toss them over.

"Put those on. Guards at the door — I'd stay put if I were you."

"Wait here. I'll get your registration forms."

He pulled the iron door open and walked out.

Smith worked the outfit on, it was visibly too big, and crossed to the room's single small observation window.

Through that narrow strip of glass, he could see most of the interior camp laid out in front of him.

➤ Next: Mind Reading