[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 767 - Victor's Humiliation

The outskirts of Washington, D.C.

The Alexandria Safe-Zone, once hailed as a sanctuary, had become a living hell.

Flames roared into the sky. Thick black smoke rolled in heavy waves.

The sturdy steel walls the survivors had once been so proud of were gone, completely demolished. The streets were carpeted with dismembered corpses, organs and blood smeared across every inch of asphalt.

Victor stood at the center of the ruins in a black tactical trench coat.

He had one foot resting on a fresh body, its face half torn away. His expression was cold.

Around him, tens of thousands of blood-soaked Runners tore through the wreckage in a frenzy, hunting for anyone who'd slipped through. Yet they moved as if by instinct around him, not a single one daring to come within 3 meters of where he stood.

Victor reached into his pocket and pulled out a custom satellite communicator, the red-and-white Umbrella Corporation logo stamped on its face, and pressed connect.

"Sir." No inflection at all.

"The Alexandria Safe-Zone outside Washington, D.C. has been cleared."

"The experimental data is perfect."

"Walkers infected with the second-generation T-Virus variant have fully demonstrated the eradication capability we projected."

He watched a Runner clear an abandoned car without breaking stride, a cold gleam crossing his eyes.

"Speed, strength, endurance, instinctive tracking of the living, all optimal. Most critically, these brainless things have developed rudimentary intelligence."

"These Runners are the perfect Cleaners."

A low, arrogant voice came through the other end.

"Well done, Victor."

"The resources of this world are finite. Those inferior genes clinging to existence like cockroaches don't deserve to consume the planet's air and water."

"Only humanity's finest, the selected — deserve to survive in a purified world."

"The human extinction plan appears ready to roll out in full."

There was a trace of cruel amusement in the voice.

"Continue the cleanup. Deal with every rat still running loose. Leave no survivors."

The call ended.

Victor put the communicator away.

And the expression on his face went dark immediately, not a trace of satisfaction at a mission completed.

Just frustration.

Deep, suffocating frustration.

He was a senior executive of the Umbrella Corporation. A core member with real authority. And here he was, personally leading the charge to mop up insignificant survivor camps.

Using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. An insult to his capabilities.

Victor ground his back molars together, the muscle in his jaw jumping.

Every last bit of it was that bastard Leon's fault.

Just thinking about Fort Benning made him want to grind his teeth to powder.

Taking over that base had been a perfectly crafted operation. Control the military there, control the massive Armory, and his standing within the organization would have climbed to a whole new level, maybe even put him in the Board of Directors' sights.

Instead?

Leon stuck his foot in the door.

That man, that thing that moved like a monster, didn't just tear his plan apart. He forced Victor to retreat from Atlanta like a stray dog, tail between his legs.

And the worst of it: in the chaos of that retreat, he had lost Lisa.

An extraordinarily important mutated Subject. The Umbrella Corporation's masterpiece, built at enormous cost.

Because of that one catastrophic failure, headquarters had erupted. His clearance was immediately downgraded. His core research projects were stripped away.

In the end, like an officer banished to some remote frontier post, he'd been assigned to this, technically worthless "Cleaner" work, leading a pack of brainless Runners around to chew on people.

"Leon..."

He squeezed the name out through clenched teeth, something venomous flickering in his eyes.

He yanked his pistol from his hip and aimed it at a nearby Runner crouched over a length of intestine.

BANG!

The Runner's head exploded like a rotten watermelon. Black blood splattered across the ground.

The surrounding Runners startled at the shot, turning their heads, baring teeth, growling low warnings from deep in their throats.

But none of them lunged.

Beneath Victor's trench coat sat a special signal emitter broadcasting an ultrasonic frequency that filled these creatures with dread.

"What are you looking at! Move!"

He roared at them in fury.

"Bite every last rat that escaped — kill them all!"

The Runners seemed to register the command. They wheeled as one and surged like a brown flood toward the highway beyond the community.

Ten thousand Runners. Enough to flatten everything in their path.

,

On the highway roughly 10 kilometers from the Alexandria Safe-Zone.

Deanna Monroe was running with everything she had.

She gasped in great heaving gulps, her lungs burning like a bellows on fire, every breath tasting of blood. Her once-carefully-maintained hair was a tangled wreck. Her expensive suit was plastered with mud and bloodstains.

"Keep moving! Don't stop!"

She spun and screamed it at the crowd behind her, her voice already reduced to a raw croak.

Fewer than 200 survivors ran at her back.

They'd started with far more.

The moment the Safe-Zone was breached, those Runners, moving at speeds that defied belief, had descended like the Grim Reaper himself. The heavy iron gates buckled and fell, and the people at the rear were swallowed by the herd in seconds. Not even bones left behind.

Jessie Anderson ran alongside her, face white as paper, both hands locked around an empty rifle she couldn't bring herself to drop.

"I can't — I can't run anymore!"

Jessie's feet caught and she went straight down, hitting the rough asphalt hard. Her knees split open, blood welling freely.

Deanna rushed over and hauled her back up by the arm.

"Get up! You want to die here?!"

Her voice was shaking. Her eyes were red.

She turned and looked back down the highway.

A wall of dust was rising into the sky. The churning cloud of tens of thousands of Runners blotted out the sun.

That skin-crawling drumbeat of footsteps, like a death knell striking again and again, drew closer with every second.

"They're catching up!"

A scream of despair tore through the crowd.

Elderly people. Children. Several of them crumpled at the roadside, weeping and crying out without the strength to even crawl, hope completely gone.

Deanna gripped Jessie's arm and her mind went blank.

She didn't know where to run.

Washington, D.C. was a dead city. The camps nearby were almost certainly gone too. They were sheep being driven by wolves, running blind with no destination, no plan.

All they could do was buy one more second of life.

"Up ahead! School buses, there are school buses up ahead!"

Aaron, at the very front of the group, was pointing down the highway and shouting.

Several yellow school buses sat parked haphazardly along the roadside. Windows shattered. Doors hanging open.

"On the buses! Everyone get on and hide!"

Deanna pushed the last of her strength into driving the crowd forward.

The survivors found their final reserves. Scrambling, stumbling, half-crawling, they surged toward the buses.

Deanna shoved Jessie onto one and climbed on right behind her.

Aaron was last. He charged through the door and wrenched it shut behind him, the warped metal groaning in his hands.

"Get down! Not a sound!"

Deanna clamped her hand hard over Jessie's mouth and pressed herself beneath a seat.

The bus went silent as a grave.

Nothing but the sound of people trying not to breathe too loud.

Then, the rumble.

Low at first. Then massive.

The ground trembled. The metal floor of the bus hummed against it.

Deanna pressed her eye to the gap and looked out.

The first Runner came into view.

Covered in blood. Eyes blazing crimson. Tearing past the school bus at a speed no living human could match.

Then the second. The third.

Hundreds. Thousands. A brown torrent howling down the highway in a single churning mass, their bodies twisted and frenzied, beyond pain, knowing only forward.

Row after row after row of them streaked past on both sides of the buses.

Inside, every person held their breath. Many were trembling so hard they had wet themselves without realizing it.

Deanna's heart climbed into her throat.

She kept her eyes fixed on the outside.

Just let them keep running. Just let them not stop.

Under normal circumstances, Walkers that couldn't see the living would eventually move on. Eventually scatter.

But this was different now.

One Runner stopped.

It stood just outside the bus door, nostrils twitching, head tilting slowly to one side, studying the school bus.

➤ Next: The Salvation Army