[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 768 - The Salvation Army
It was covered in blood. A large chunk of scalp was missing from its head, exposing pale grey skull.
But its eyes held none of that murky, lifeless vacancy. Only a skin-crawling, humanlike cunning.
Inside the bus, Deanna Monroe clamped her hand hard over Jessie Anderson's mouth.
Jessie's tears streamed down her face in a flood. She was terrified.
The Runner tilted its head. Its gaze passed through the window and fixed directly on the gap in the curtains.
It saw Deanna Monroe's eyes.
In that instant, the Runner split into a grin — an utterly grotesque smile.
It did not do what the dumb ones before it had done, clawing frantically at the metal body of the bus with both hands.
Instead, it snapped its head back and let out a piercing shriek from deep in its throat.
"AWOOOO—!"
The sound cut through everything. It spread far across the empty highway, carrying in every direction.
The next second.
The brown tide that had already run several hundred meters down the road ground to a dead stop.
Hundreds upon hundreds of Runners snapped their heads around in unison.
They abandoned their aimless charge and reversed course, flowing back, surrounding the school buses on all sides.
Deanna Monroe closed her eyes in despair.
It was over.
Completely over.
Then something even more terrifying happened.
The lead Runner lowered its head and began searching the asphalt, scanning the broken gravel scattered across the road.
Within moments, it bent down and picked up a fire axe someone had left behind.
It gripped the handle. Walked to the school bus door.
BANG!
The axe head slammed into the door.
Spider-web cracks exploded across the glass in an instant.
From inside the bus burst screams that could no longer be held back.
Aaron scrambled forward on all fours and threw his back hard against the door.
"Get back! Get back!"
He roared it in desperation.
BANG!
The second blow came down.
Glass fragments sprayed across Aaron's entire body.
The Runners outside did not swarm forward. They formed a circle instead, watching quietly as their axe-wielding companion worked through the door.
This was the horror of a monster that had learned to think.
Deanna Monroe stared at the fire axe rising and falling, and the images surfaced again — the fall of the Alexandria Safe-Zone. Rising in her mind like they always did.
A nightmare she could never erase for the rest of her life.
Just a few hours ago.
The survivors of Alexandria had still been standing on top of those tall metal walls, laughing at the Walkers wandering below.
That wall had been built with countless hours of work. Years of effort.
Impregnable.
But when the Runners came, everything changed.
They didn't mindlessly ram the wall.
They piled on top of one another at its base, frantic and relentless, like ants.
The first wave lay flat on the ground.
The second wave climbed up, stepping on the backs of the first.
The third wave. The fourth.
In less than 10 minutes, a wall of flesh and bone had risen straight up from the earth, level with the top of those 10-meter-high metal ramparts.
Deanna Monroe watched with her own eyes as the monsters cascaded over the top like a black waterfall.
They scattered the moment they hit the ground.
No blind lunging. No random biting.
They moved in groups of 3 and 5, like a disciplined wolf pack, herding the panicked guards into dead ends, then swarming all at once.
It was a one-sided massacre.
Those guards with assault rifles never even got the chance to swap magazines. They were tackled and torn apart where they stood.
Blood soaked every inch of lawn in the Alexandria Safe-Zone.
If Aaron hadn't fought to his last breath to lead these fewer-than-200 people out through the back gate, they would all have died inside.
But even now, they still couldn't escape.
CRACK!
The glass in the door shattered completely.
A hand reached in through the broken hole and seized Aaron by the shoulder.
"Ahh!"
Aaron screamed as a tremendous force yanked him violently outward.
Deanna Monroe found strength from somewhere she couldn't explain. She lunged forward and locked both arms around Aaron's waist.
The few others in the bus rushed over and grabbed on.
2 forces pulled furiously against each other through a broken door.
Outside, more and more Runners were gathering. Some had started climbing onto the roof. Their heavy footsteps thundered across the metal above, pounding like a drumbeat that kept getting louder.
Less than 500 meters away, on a rise overlooking the highway.
Several modified pickup trucks sat hidden in a dense patch of forest, iron plating welded to their front ends for ramming.
A subordinate lay prone in the underbrush, a high-powered scope pressed to his eye, watching the scene on the road below.
He swallowed. Turned his head.
"Boss, those things are seriously off."
"They actually know how to axe open a door. And they goddamn know how to surround people."
The man leaning against the pickup truck door turned around.
Negan.
He wore a slightly worn black leather jacket. A red scarf wrapped around his neck. A barbed-wire baseball bat hanging loose in one hand.
Negan unfolded his long legs, walked over to the subordinate, and snatched the scope away. Held it up and looked for a moment.
"Ho."
He let out a low whistle.
"Now that's something."
"I thought those Rotters that could only crawl around on the ground were already disgusting enough." He lowered the scope. "Turns out they've gone and learned to use tools."
"Boss, there are survivors in those vehicles. Looks like they're about to cave."
"Should we do something?"
"Do something?"
Negan hoisted the bat onto his shoulder and shot his subordinate a cold look.
"There are at least a thousand of those things down there. And they run faster than your worthless brother who can't last 3 minutes in bed."
He raised a hand and pointed down the hill.
"Risk the lives of my men to save a bunch of strangers?"
"You think those Rotters chewed my brain out too?"
The subordinate lowered his head and said nothing more.
➤ Next: A Chance Encounter with Carlos