[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 761 - The Strange Wound

The hall that had sat silent for fifteen years erupted.

Simon, buzzing like an oversized prairie dog, directed the logistics crew to wrench those heavy liquid-cooled servers bodily out of their racks. Shawn Greene and Merle — both built like they'd been assembled in a factory — threw themselves into it with genuine enthusiasm, hauling hundreds of pounds of equipment like it was nothing. In that bitterly cold underground space, every single person was drenched in sweat.

Every person except one.

Kaya.

She was pregnant, so Leon had issued a firm, non-negotiable order: safe zone, rest, don't touch so much as a single screw. Kaya sat off to the side, bundled in thick cold-weather gear, watching Simon shout himself hoarse across the room. The corner of her mouth twitched.

It didn't last long before the boredom set in.

Her gaze started drifting.

There were a lot of desiccated corpses on the floor.

Dense. Wall to wall.

According to Alexia Ashford, they'd all been killed by nerve gas fifteen years ago, then flash-frozen by the extreme cold before they could rot, which was how they'd ended up like this. Shriveled. Hollow.

Kaya stared at the nearest one.

A man in a white research coat. Face-down. Both hands clawing at the floor, fingernails torn and curled back, face twisted into an expression of absolute agony. He had not gone quietly.

Kaya stood and moved toward him carefully.

She wasn't a timid person. Anyone who'd survived this long in the apocalypse had that in common, she wasn't particularly bothered by corpses. She crouched down and studied the head closely.

Desiccated skin pulled tight against the bone. Grayish-brown.

Then her brow creased.

There was something on the back of the neck.

She fished a flashlight out of her pocket, clicked it on, and aimed the beam over.

Light hit the back of the corpse's neck.

She pulled the collar aside.

Just above the shriveled cervical vertebrae, there was a perfectly round hole the width of an adult thumb.

Kaya went still for a moment.

Then she used the end of the flashlight to pry the collar back further for a better look.

The hole was immaculate. Edges sunken inward. It looked nothing like a gunshot wound, and nothing like a bite from one of the dead. It looked more like something extremely thick and tubular had been driven straight into the back of the neck from behind.

Her heart lurched.

Someone killed by nerve gas, why would they have a hole like that?

Maybe it was just this one.

She stood, walked to a nearby corpse in a security uniform, steeled herself, and flipped it over with her foot.

The flashlight swept across.

Same spot.

Same hole.

Kaya's breathing picked up.

She checked 5 or 6 more in quick succession.

Not a single exception.

Every corpse. Every neck. The same thumb-sized hole.

This was not a coincidence. And nerve gas couldn't do this.

Kaya turned and walked briskly toward the center of the hall.

Leon was standing behind Simon, watching him pull up the base's structural schematics on the keyboard.

"Leon."

She stepped up beside him and dropped her voice.

Leon turned.

"What's wrong? Are you feeling unwell?" he asked immediately.

Kaya was Simon's person, and as the camp's head hacker's woman, he couldn't be careless about her. A little special attention was perfectly reasonable.

"It's not that." Kaya shook her head.

She leaned close to his ear.

"Those corpses aren't right."

Leon's eyebrow rose.

"Show me."

Kaya turned and led the way. Leon followed without a word.

They walked to the edge of the hall where the bodies lay thickest. Kaya shone the flashlight on the back of the neck of the corpse she'd already flipped over.

"Look here."

Leon crouched. He saw the hole immediately, perfectly regular, clean-edged.

His expression shifted.

He drew his combat knife and used the tip to peel back the desiccated flesh around it. The dried muscle tissue tore like cardboard. The wound ran straight through the cervical vertebrae, punching directly into the junction between the brain and the spinal cord.

Leon stood. Without a word, he walked to the next corpse.

Blade up, blade down.

He opened the backs of several more necks in quick succession.

Every single one. The same hole.

His face went dark.

He pushed the knife back into his boot and let his mind run.

Nerve gas?

Bullshit.

These people weren't asphyxiated. Something had driven straight into the back of their necks and sucked out every drop of fluid and brain matter in their bodies. That was why they looked like this, shriveled like mummies that had been sitting in a museum for a century. The Antarctic cold had slowed the decay, but it wasn't what had reduced them to husks. This was predation. Some kind of feeding behavior.

Alexia Ashford had lied.

Leon turned and looked at her with cold, flat eyes.

Why lie about this? Fifteen years ago, what reason would she have to hide it?

Unless whatever had killed these people was still inside this base.

And she didn't want him to know about it.

But that didn't track.

He clearly remembered feeding her blood fused with multiple viruses. The Genetic Assimilation had already been branded deep in her consciousness. Inside the Mental Network, Alexia's Mutant Node burned bright, but it was in submission. Absolute submission.

Or so it had appeared.

Had he not actually controlled her?

Leon's eyes narrowed.

The T-Veronica Virus was the final product of fifteen years of Alexia Ashford soaking in its influence, fusing with it completely. Her intelligence was off the charts. Could she have fabricated a false submission inside his Mental Network? Or had the sheer mass of T-Veronica Virus inside her been enough to compress that single drop of blood's assimilation power into some forgotten corner, buried and contained?

If that was true, this woman was terrifying.

She had played the obedient, compliant role the entire way here. Had even let herself be put in that wretched, humiliated state. All of it, just to lure him into this Antarctic Base.

It made sense. This was her ground.

Leon took a step toward Alexia Ashford.

The world cracked open.

"AHHH—!"

A single shriek tore through the noise in the hall like a blade.

It came from the server rack area on the left.

Everyone froze.

Merle snapped his assault rifle up and spun toward the sound.

"Who's screaming! What the hell is happening!" Rick bellowed.

Leon looked.

Flashlight beams swung that direction.

A logistics worker was thrashing violently in mid-air, both feet dangling.

From the back of his neck jutted a dark-brown vine, thick as an adult's finger.

It hung from the ceiling high above. Its tip was sharp as a spear, punched straight through the man's neck, hoisting his entire body off the ground.

"Open fire!" Rick roared.

BANG BANG BANG.

Gunfire detonated through the hall.

Bullets hit the dark-brown vine and did nothing. Couldn't pierce it.

The man didn't even get out a second scream. His body shriveled in real time, visibly, rapidly. Blood, fluid, everything, sucked completely dry in seconds.

THUD!

The vine whipped and flung him to the floor like garbage. The husk rolled twice and stopped at Simon's feet.

Simon dropped straight onto his backside and scrambled backward in a panic.

That corpse had been alive less than 10 seconds ago.

On the back of its neck: the same hole. Identical to every one Kaya had found.

BOOM,

The floor shuddered.

The hall's center.

That massive plant Shawn Greene had declared completely dead.

Moved.

The dry, rough bark began to writhe, rippling, churning, as though dozens of pythons were rolling beneath the surface of the trunk. The dead branches stretching up to the ceiling swelled in an instant, doubling, thickening, exploding outward into hundreds of thrashing lethal tendrils.

"Spread out! Find cover!" Shawn Greene roared, grabbed Simon off the floor, and hauled him bodily behind a massive equipment rack.

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH.

Dozens of razor-sharp vines dropped from above like a sudden storm, hammering down into the crowd. The floor punched through easily wherever they struck, leaving ragged holes in the concrete. Several logistics workers who couldn't clear the way in time were run straight through and hoisted into the air.

Screams layered on top of screams.

The vines fed like something starving. They sucked their prey dry in seconds, leaving husks where people had been standing.

Then one thick vine shrieked through the air and drove straight for Leon's face.

Leon's left hand snapped up.

He caught the sharp tip in an iron grip.

The vine thrashed with enormous force, writhing in his fist.

Leon raised his head.

His eyes were cold and flat and full of killing intent.

He looked at the white figure still standing upright.

➤ Next: I've Been Waiting Here for You for a Long Time