He looks at a middle-aged man in a Braves cap and denim shirt standing nearby with his hands on the stocks of his twin Colt .45s. “Raymond, I want you to pick a couple men and scout the perimeter tonight. Look for weak spots in their compound, any suspicious movement—I want to know what they’re up to in that roach motel they’re hiding out in.” He looks at another man—a bearded biker in leathers with a pump-action 20-gauge. “Earl, I want you and three others standing watch on all sides while we’re regrouping. You see anything that doesn’t look right, you blow it away. You understand?”
The bearded behemoth gives a nod, and then hurries off to choose his crew.
The Governor turns to Lilly and lowers his voice. “I’m gonna need you and Gorgeous George here to help do an inventory, figure out what kind of ammo situation we’re looking at. I want to hit back hard, but I want to make sure we got the wherewithal, all right?”
Lilly nods. “No problem … we’re on it.”
The Governor looks around, gazes up at the sky. “Gonna be dark soon.”
Lilly looks at him. “What are you thinking?”
He looks at the grave. “I’ll let you know.” And then he turns and walks off.
* * *
Nobody in the beleaguered Woodbury militia sees the two figures three miles to the east, darting out of the unmarked rear exit of Cellblock D and hurrying across the back lot of the prison, slipping off the premises through a temporary gate in the northwest corner of the fences.
Nobody in the Governor’s scouting party sees the dark silhouettes of a man and woman running side by side through the tall grass and into the thicket of trees along the western horizon. It’s not yet full-on darkness, and the golden dusk is turning the surrounding meadow into a gauzy, softly lit knoll. Shadows of live oaks and exhaust chimneys from the prison buildings stretch and elongate into surreal, ghostly patterns as the two fleeing figures pass unnoticed—their weapons sheathed and strapped and secured to their backs—into the tree line at precisely 6:17 P.M. eastern standard time.
At this point, Raymond Hilliard’s scouting party hasn’t lit out yet—they’re still discussing what weapons to bring along, how much ammo, and what supplies they might need. Meanwhile, the men on the steel bonnets of truck cabs, keeping an eye on the periphery of the Governor’s camp, are positioned far too low to see over the surrounding pines. If they were indeed elevated above the treetops, they might see the subtle peristalsis of twitching foliage, the twig-snapping and jiggling limbs marking the course of the two stealthy invaders as they weave their way through the deeper woods toward the militia’s temporary encampment.
At that moment, on the edge of the clearing along the riverbed, outside the circle of trucks, three men and one woman huddle in the gathering shadows, checking their weapons and taking stock of their ammunition.
“Leave that shit here,” Raymond Hilliard orders the oldest man in the scouting party.
“What—this?” James Lee Steagal, a rangy old farmworker from Valdosta with thinning hair and hound-dog eyes, indicates his little stainless steel flask, from which he has just taken a slug of cheap whiskey.
“No, ya moron—the goddamn backpack,” Raymond says, pointing at the heavy rucksack on the farmworker’s back. Raymond Hilliard is a former football coach with a Class C college team out of north Atlanta—a tall, sinewy, grizzled good old boy—with a Falcons cap pulled down low on his forehead over dark, cunning eyes. He carries an AR-15 with a high-capacity clip. “We’re traveling light, just bringing enough to defend ourselves.”
The woman steps forward. “Is my Tec-9 gonna be enough, Ray?” Gloria Pyne is a small, compact, ruddy-skinned woman—tough around the eyes—with deep crow’s-feet that belie her age and a thick thatch of red hair tucked under a visor that says I’M WITH STUPID.
“Yeah, just bring an extra mag or two.” Raymond turns to the other men standing behind Gloria—both of them younger, dressed in the tattered hip-hop regalia of urban youth—baggy shorts, high-top Jordans, mesh shirts, tats. They both look sheepish and a little scared, despite the fact they each pack an AK-47 with a high-capacity mag. “You two bring up the rear flanks, keep an eye on our backside.”
One kid looks at the other kid, clearing his throat nervously, muttering under his breath. “I ain’t staring at nobody’s backside, least of all Gloria’s.”
“Shut your mouth!”
The baritone growl comes from behind one of the vehicles, the shadow of a portly figure marching toward them. Gabe comes around the rear of a cargo truck with his MIG shouldered and a surly look on his face. His eyes blaze with tension. He storms up to the two younger men and hisses at them through gritted teeth, his thick neck beaded with perspiration, his black turtleneck damp with sweat spots: “Stop fucking around and get this show on the road!”
Raymond thumbs the safety off his assault rifle and gives the group a nod. “All right, let’s move out.”
* * *
They get less than five hundred yards from the clearing—moving single file through the deep woods, Raymond on point, Gabe coming along to keep watch on the proceedings, the others following closely behind—when Jim Steagal realizes he has to pee.
For the last few years, Jim’s prostate has been acting up. He forgot to relieve himself before they left camp, and now the combination of his weak bladder and the many sips of whiskey he’s been tippling all night make the trudge through the silent, shadow-bound forest very uncomfortable. But he doesn’t say anything at first. He just follows closely behind Gabe, twitching at every faint noise and chirring cricket that floods the dark woods with a low droning symphony of night sounds. Darkness has pressed in, and the air sparkles with fireflies and the occasional moth that ticks across their path. They can smell walker stink, but not in a profusion that worries them. The biters seem to be flocking toward the activity in the prison, which is keeping the adjacent woodlands blessedly clear of the dead. Jim grits his teeth at the urgent fullness of his bladder as they start down a winding path.
They reach a clearing—a mossy ravine about the size of a tennis court—the moonlight now as bright as a reading lamp. Raymond pauses. “PPSSSSST!” He turns to the others, and with hand gestures orders everybody down. His whisper is barely loud enough to be heard above the crickets. “Everybody just cool your heels for a second.”
Gabe comes over to him, and the two men crouch on the edge of the clearing. “What’s the problem?”
“I heard something.”
“What was it?”
Raymond gazes out across the clearing, toward the opposite line of trees. “I don’t know, maybe nothing.” He looks at Gabe. “We’re close to the prison, ain’t we?”
“Yeah, so?”
“Maybe we ought to find higher ground and take a look at what’s cooking down there.”
Gabe nods. “Okay … let’s double back and take that other trail up to the ridge.”
“I’m right behind you.”
The two men rise to their feet and are about to head back the way they came, when Jim Steagal comes up to them. “Guys, you go ahead. I’ll catch up with you.”
Gabe and Raymond look at each other. Gabe says, “What the fuck is the problem?”
“Nature calls, boys—gotta take a whiz.”
Gabe lets out an exasperated sigh. “Just be quick about it, and get your ass back in line.”
Jim gives them a nod and heads to the other side of the clearing.
Gabe and Raymond lead the others back up the trail and wait at the top of the ridge for the older man to finish his business. Jim goes over to a log, shoulders his rifle with its leather strap, and unzips. The urine stream arcs out over the hard-packed earth and makes a loud spattering noise as he empties his bladder.
He exhales with relief. Then he hears a noise off to his left, a twig snapping perhaps, or maybe he’s just imagining it. The woods tick and breathe. His piss puddle spreads across the cracked earth.
Movement in his peripheral vision gets his attention as
he continues peeing. He glances to his left. He sees a shadow burst out of the woods—accompanied by the sound of body armor rattling—and he lets out an involuntary noise from deep within his lungs: “W-WHU—?!”
The woman comes at him with a gleaming katana sword, a blur of black Kevlar and dreadlocks flowing off her head, her slender, sculpted ebony face partially obscured by a riot helmet.
It all happens so quickly the piss stream continues unabated as she expertly swings the blade. The last thing Jim Steagal sees is the gleam of the blade’s beveled edge in his eyes.
The sword slices through his face between the earlobe and jawline with the sick crunching sound of a celery stalk snapping.
The top of his skull jettisons and tumbles to the ground. Blood fountains out of the concavity left behind, while his eyes continue sending imagery to his brain. For a split second, as the severed head hurls through the air, the optical nerves register the wobbling body left behind, still peeing, the involuntary urine stream continuing to fountain in a high arc. Then, what’s left of Jim Steagal collapses to the hard mud in a heap of blood and piss—and the rest of the events in that clearing go unheard and unseen by the dead man.
* * *
“Quickly, Tyreese!” The woman in dreadlocks whirls toward the fallen man. “Help me with the body!”
At that moment, up on the ridge, behind a netting of overgrowth, the face of Raymond Hilliard appears—peering through a break in the foliage—and his eyes bug. “OH—FUCK!”
Then things begin transpiring very quickly—almost too quickly for the naked eye to take in—as Raymond lurches down the trail toward the clearing with his AR-15 locked and loaded and coming up quick. Another blur of blue-black Kevlar appears out of nowhere and charges across the clearing toward the oncoming gunman. This enormous African American man—his shoulders as solid as bridge trestles—performs a flying tackle on Raymond Hilliard.
Raymond’s assault rifle discharges on impact—shattering the night air with a booming report—the blast going high into the treetops, shredding leaves and sending a flock of bats into the dark heavens. Raymond sprawls to the ground, the armored black man landing on top of him. Hitting his head on a rock, Raymond plunges into momentary unconsciousness.
Almost simultaneously, the woman named Michonne, standing twenty feet away on the opposite side of the clearing, sees the other members of the scouting party roaring toward the scene with guns coming up and muzzles starting to flare magnesium-white in the darkness.
“Oh shit,” she mutters, ducking down, as bullets whiz all around her.
* * *
Charging toward the clearing, Gabe sees Raymond writhing on the ground fifteen feet away, momentarily senseless, blinking at the sky, and the other man—the gigantic African American—struggling back to his feet. He stands at least six-four, and has almost 275 pounds on him—very few of those pounds fat—and it strikes Gabe that this guy is moving very quickly and nimbly for such a huge man.
The big man lurches back across the clearing and grabs the woman’s hand and tries to pull her away. “RUN!” he cries. “C’MON!”
“NO!” She wriggles out of his grasp. Gabe spins toward the blur of dreadlocks and fires—the bullet nicking off her shoulder armor, a firecracker in the dark, and she darts behind a tree. The huge man dives to the ground. In the flickering darkness, the woman’s voice cuts through the noise of gunfire. “We do this now, Tyreese! Or not at all!”
By this point, Gabe has taken cover behind deadfall logs across the clearing—along with the other members of the scouting party—and he squeezes off another pair of blasts that coax more shots from his team … until everybody is firing at will.
The arrhythmic crackling reports fill the air with silver lightning, tearing the foliage apart. Gabe uses a .357 Magnum revolver with a laser sight—the luminous red thread dancing across the clearing as he tries to lock onto the moving silhouettes—and his first three blasts kick up spits of dirt inches away from where the big black man lies on his belly, chunks of bark blowing off a tree trunk above him.
“FUCK!” the man named Tyreese grunts through clenched teeth, covering his head.
“Hey!” The sound of Michonne’s voice in the nearby shadows gets the big man’s attention. “Here!—Tyreese!—This way!” She gets her hand around the edge of his armored shoulder plate and yanks hard.
Tyreese careens backward, out of control, sliding on his ass down a small embankment formed by a trench or a burrow dug under the massive deadwood logs by possums or raccoons or God knows what. Gabe blinks and swings the gun downward as the giant slips away into the void of blackness, right behind the woman.
Like magic.
Both of them … vanishing into the dark.
* * *
“WHAT THE FUCK?!” Moments later, Gabe stands on the edge of the clearing with Gloria Pyne and the two younger men in their baggy shorts and silk jackets—each of them holding hot steel, muzzles smoking—their eyes wide and alert as they survey the deserted area. The stillness of night presses down on them—the crickets like a jet engine roaring in their ears—the moonlight shining off their tense faces.
“How the fuck did they—?” Gloria starts to pose the obvious question when the sound of Gabe’s bellow cuts her off.
“FIND THEM!” Veins pulsing at his temples, his thick neck and shoulders as tense as girders, Gabriel Harris ejects a spent casings into the dirt, and then grabs a speed-loader off his belt and slams another six rounds of hollow points into the Magnum. But before the others get a chance to even turn around and start their search, a noise from the other side of the clearing stiffens everybody’s spine. They all go still, their hackles up, the two young men—Eric and Daniel—staring at each other. It could be anything—the wind, animals. Those bastards that just attacked them could be a mile away from here by now.
Another noise—a plunking sound in the dark, almost like the snap of a switch, or a stick breaking—draws the attention of everybody to the west edge of the clearing. All their barrels go up, a collective inhalation of breaths, fingers on triggers. Gabe’s flesh crawls as he double-hands the Magnum, his beefy, ham hock arms locked in the shooting position, front sight aimed on the dense, primordial dark across the tree line. Nobody says a word for the longest time as they wait, and wait, and wait for something to move behind the dark veil of foliage, but nothing moves. They wait for another snapping noise, but silence grips the clearing. Gabe can hear his heart pulsing in his ears.
After another endless second or two, Gabe silently motions with hand gestures for Eric, the youngest of the two hip-hoppers, to go wide to the left, and the other, Daniel, to go wide to the right. With quick nods, the two young gunmen fan out slowly across the clearing, stepping softly over the hard-pack, moving as silently as possible. Gabe gestures to Gloria to stay quiet and follow him. Inching slowly toward the wall of black oak and wild brush—now as dark as black velvet curtains before them—Gabe aims the .357 as he goes, Gloria doing the same with her Tec-9, two-handing it, the tension narrowing their eyes and furrowing their brows. The woods remain silent as Gabe approaches the wall of undergrowth. Now he’s thinking it could be walkers in there, lurking, getting ready to pounce. It could be—
All at once, without warning, the sound of a woman’s voice bellowing at the top of her lungs pierces the silence from behind them—
“NOW!!”
—and Gabe has just enough time to spin around when two figures pounce from opposite corners of the clearing. And in that frenzied instant before a single gun discharges, Gabe’s mind races with a jumble of panic-stricken realizations—even as he swings the .357 up and starts to squeeze off the first shot—the variables flashing in his brain like sunspots in the darkness: They were tossing fucking pebbles or something across the clearing, the oldest goddamn trick in the book, and we fell for it—and now something glimmers like a streak of light in the darkness in front of Gabe’s face before he fires—watch out—WATCH OUT!
The katana sword
gripped in the black woman’s hands whispers past Gabe’s face—coming within a centimeter and a half of his throat—and it’s only because of Gabe’s involuntary reaction of rearing back and accidentally firing the Magnum up into the air that he’s lucky enough to keep his head attached to his neck. He lets out an involuntary cry, and that’s when the clearing suddenly ignites.
For a moment, the mass chaos that ensues—the strobelike effect of all the muzzle flashes, the collective tumult of gunfire and yelling and flashing steel and bullets whizzing and two armor-clad ambushers diving out of the line of fire in different directions—turns the narrow clearing into bedlam.
THIRTEEN
The skirmish lasts for mere seconds, not even a full minute, but when the dust clears—the last gunshots echoing and fading over the far hollows of the forest—one of the younger scouts—Eric—lies on the ground, dead, his neck opened by the katana blade. One of the two assailants also lies facedown on the cold ground, wounded. The other has vanished, her katana sword lying in the weeds.
Gabe hyperventilates as he quickly scans the tree line around the edges of the clearing. “WHERE THE FUCK DID SHE GO?!!”
He hears a noise, and he realizes that in all the excitement the woman has slipped their grasp, careening down an adjacent embankment into the deeper woods. He lurches over to the edge of the slope and sees a shadowy figure down in the darkness to the east, now struggling to escape through thickets of deadfall and undergrowth. He can hear her heavy breathing and panting as she flees.
“STAY HERE!” Gabe roars at the others, pointing at the big black man on the ground. “KEEP HIM ALIVE!”
The man named Tyreese lets out an involuntary moan. One of Gabe’s rounds has penetrated the armor of the giant’s right thigh, passing through the fleshy part of his leg and disabling him. Now Daniel and Raymond hold the man down, shoving their muzzles against the nape of his thick neck, pressing their knees into the small of his back.
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