Walking Dead: Fall of The Governor: Book Two Part 14

"Hey, you okay?" he asks, giving her a tender pat on the shoulder. "What's with the humming?"

She pauses, looking at him. "Humming?"

"You were humming to yourself-didn't recognize the song-but it struck me as kinda weird."

She wipes her face. All around the clearing, engines are firing up, gouts of exhaust spewing from tailpipes. Doors slam, gunners climb into place on the backs of turrets, and the Governor stands on his beloved tank, watching it all, looking stiff and pale, blanched of all humanity, like a golem rising from the mud. It takes Lilly's breath away. She wants to see him tear limbs off these people, chew their jugulars out with his teeth, burn the prison to ashes and then bury the ashes and seed the ground with f.u.c.king salt. "Get in, pretty boy," Lilly says at last, climbing behind the wheel. "We got a f.u.c.king job to do."

They pull out of camp at just before noon, the sun high and pale in the sky.

Austin doesn't say much en route, just sits in the pa.s.senger seat, cradling his Garand in his lap, every once in a while glancing out at the side mirror to check on the four soldiers riding in the back. Lilly drives in silence, feeling a strange sort of calm. In every transaction, the person willing to lose everything has the advantage-Lilly has nothing else to live for but her hate-and this strength makes her flesh tingle as the convoy climbs the winding access road toward the eastern horizon. She slams the shift lever into the lower gears and hums a tuneless tune, more of a tic than an actual melody. She glances across the cab at Austin, and all at once something flutters in her gut, a jolt of unease nagging at the back of her mind, pinching her midsection and shattering her confidence.

His head down, his hair hanging in his face, Austin Ballard has never looked younger or more vulnerable to Lilly than he does at this moment, and it wakes her up, breaks through her stupor, and sends an unexpected wave of dread coursing through her. His life is on the line as well, and the realization crashes down on her-he's not ready for this, he's not equipped-and this revelation leads to another unexpected bombsh.e.l.l. At first, she sees it out of the corner of her eye, and she's not sure anybody else in the regiment of vehicles notices it.

Just as the procession of vehicles crests the top of the ridge east of the prison and the wide, scabrous slope of pastureland bordering the property comes into view through the trees-in the middle distance a few dozen dead straggling across the meadow in the front of the prison-Lilly sees faint signs of movement on either side of the dirt road, way back in the shadows of the woods, blending in with the dark columns of pines, milling through the gloom with the hectic purpose of ants in an ant farm.

Scores and scores of walkers, maybe hundreds of them, have converged on the area-drawn over the last thirty-six hours to the commotion of the skirmishes-their number now multiplying like amoebas growing in the vast petri dish of the forest. Lilly knows what this means. She's tangled with herds of undead before. Autumn of last year, during the ill-advised coup d'etat attempt on Woodbury, a herd had engulfed Lilly's band of conspirators in the woods like a tidal wave, nearly overturning their van and devouring everything within miles. Lilly knows all too well how unpredictable and dangerous herds can be, especially if they coalesce into a slow-motion stampede. In their legion of stubborn, clumsy, shuffling bodies, they can mow down the st.u.r.diest barricade, turn settlements to rubble, and break through the fences of any prison.

In that one horrible instant, as the convoy crosses over the ridge and vehicle by vehicle starts down the slope, Lilly's brain registers a dark truth. She realizes at last the difference between this a.s.sault and the last.

Now both sides are f.u.c.ked.

Fifteen.

The people in the prison are prepared this time. The convoy barely gets halfway across the pasture before the yards light up with heavy fire, taking the invasion force by surprise. Air breaks hiss. Windshields shatter. Ricochets shriek off iron and steel. Trucks skid on the damp turf. Drivers and pa.s.sengers alike duck down for cover, some of them diving off flatbeds and belly-crawling under the cha.s.sis of the ma.s.sive transports. Lilly slams on her brakes and brings the truck to a shuddering stop and screams for Austin to get out in case the fuel tanks go up in the barrage. She kicks the door open, lurching out of the cab and hitting the ground, a series of divots exploding in the dirt around her. She can't see anything. Austin has vanished out the other side of the cab. Over the din of the gunfire, Lilly can barely hear the Governor's ranting and raving somewhere in the gathering haze of gun smoke and dust, but she can't locate his position. She tries to fumble with her rifle, and maybe return fire-some of the militia members are making feeble attempts to answer the salvo-but Lilly's hands won't obey the signals her brain is sending to them. The people in the prison have taken positions behind parked vehicles, on their stomachs, firing from underneath the cars, causing ma.s.s chaos now, taking down more and more of Woodbury's beleaguered militia. Lilly hears Gabe's baritone voice barking frantically, hollering above the noise, arguing with the Governor, demanding to know why these insane tactics are going to work this time. Lilly covers her head as the turf continues to get chewed up around her, puffing up clods from the relentless bombardment. She tries to take deep breaths and focus on her weapon and her rage and her meager training, but something else is intruding on her thoughts. Out of the corner of her eyes, she sees the edges of the battlefield filling up with ragged, stumbling figures, and her chest freezes with the realization: There's countless more of them now, coming from every direction, descending upon the meadow like a moving plague.

Lilly manages to crawl under the M35. She sees Austin's feet shuffling next to the cab-he's struggling to rise up and return fire-and she calls out above the noise for him to get the f.u.c.k down and get under the f.u.c.king truck for f.u.c.k's sake.

Walkers have surrounded them, most of them managing to shamble between the gunshots or turn away from the bullet-riddled fences and lumber toward the invaders. Lilly starts firing at walker feet, knocking them down and then systematically sending slugs into their crania. Skulls pop out like fuses overloading, sending blood stringers across the gra.s.s and onto Lilly's arms and legs, but she keeps firing. The ragged figures continue dragging themselves toward the invaders, and Lilly keeps blasting away, until her clip clicks dry and a cloud of blue haze builds around her truck. Her heart drumming in her chest, Lilly suddenly feels a vise tighten around her ankle. She lets out a yelp of shock, and she looks down at her lower half.

A large male walker in a funeral suit has crawled under the truck and has her leg in his blackened, gnarled hands, his rotting mouth opening-the mossy green teeth inches away from the exposed flesh of her slender shin between the top of her boot and the cuffed leg of her jeans-and the sight of it paralyzes her for a moment. She swings the barrel of the Ruger down at the thing's skull and pulls the trigger-forgetting that the gun needs a fresh mag, the feeder slide gaping open-and now nothing but a click issues from the empty gun.

Lilly screams and kicks and scrambles for the magazine in her belt when a third figure fills the narrow s.p.a.ce under the M35-just a dark blur at first-and then the gleaming blue steel of Austin's Glock.

A flare of a spark and the flat blast puts the male biter down in a gushing stream of oily fluid from its freshly breached skull, spreading across the matted gra.s.s under the truck, the stench of the dead now engulfing Lilly as she lets out a pained, shocked sigh of relief. Austin crawls over to her.

"You okay, did he get you, did he nick you?-You all right?!" Austin babbles, putting his arm around her, tenderly wiping away the damp tendrils of hair loosened from her ponytail.

Lilly manages a nod, swallowing back the coppery taste of acid in her throat. The noise of another volley from all around them makes it impossible to be heard. She twists back around and reaches for her rifle, crawling out from underneath the truck.

The air has gotten so thick with cordite and crisscrossing gunfire, it looks as though night has rolled in, and it chokes the breath out of Lilly, numbing her senses, making her eyes water. She positions herself against the cab. She tries to get her bearings back, slamming another clip into the Ruger pistol, shoving it into her belt, and then swinging the Remington around into shooting position. Austin huddles behind her, aiming the Garand at the sparking, flaring gunfire coming from inside the fences.

Lilly is lifting the scope to her eye when all at once she sees a tiny object floating up through s.p.a.ce above the razor-wire fence tops and everything slows down.

A momentary lull in the firefight ensues unexpectedly, and the fast-forward motion of the skirmish slams on its brakes. In her mind's eye, Lilly sees the projectile arcing over their heads in extreme slow motion until it lands on the ground in front of a big Buick sedan, bouncing once and clattering under the car's dented front grillwork.

The explosion that follows rocks the earth and sucks the air pressure out of the landscape, turning the pasture-just for an instant-into the surface of the sun.

The grenade propels the two-thousand-pound vehicle into the air, tearing shrapnel from its front half and sending every man and woman within a fifty-yard radius falling to their feet. The boom shatters eardrums and rattles the trees and throws the Governor and Gabe into different directions, each man sprawling to the ground and rolling.

The Governor slams into the undercarriage of the tank, his breath squeezed from his lungs as he catches a bleary glimpse from his one working eye of the projectile-spray blooming in the sun-razor-sharp particles of the Buick's front end-ripping through the closest, unsuspecting combatants. Jagged pieces of metal punch through portly old Charlie Banes, tearing a chunk out of his chest, lifting him four feet off the ground and sending him hurling backward, arms pinwheeling, the gush of lifeblood enrobing him in liquid scarlet as he lands in the weeds, his heart shutting down and his life draining out of him before he even stops rolling.

At the same exact moment, on the other side of the lot, a constellation of shards like tiny missiles have pa.s.sed through Rudy Warburton's upper body, causing him to momentarily jitterbug in a gruesome death dance, his gun flying off, his deep, whiskey-cured voice-the same ringside announcer's voice that proudly introduced the Governor to crowds at the racetrack arena-now bellowing a death wail that sets the Governor's teeth on edge.

"F-f.u.c.k!" The Governor rolls out from under the tank, gasping for breath and seeing double through his lone eye. He tries to focus on the ground. His eye patch has come askew. Blades of crabgra.s.s are in his hair, the stench of burning fuel in his nostrils. His body screams with pain. His bandaged face feels wet and hot, his phantom arm twisting and clawing at the air on its ghostly stump. "F-FFF-f.u.c.k!-F-FFFF-f.u.c.k!!"

He rises to his hands and knees, his ears ringing, his brain blazing with rage. He barely hears the return fire screaming over his head. Most of the surviving militia have ducked behind cover and have started firing wildly at the guard towers and the nooks across the prison grounds. The air ignites with tracers and ricochets. A total of six men lie in heaps around the blackened, scorched earth cratered by the grenade blast.

Charlie is gone. Rudy, Teddy Grainger, Bart, Daniel, and even big Don Horgan, the wrestler-all gone-mutilated to shreds by either gunfire or the deadly shrapnel.

The Governor sees Gabe on his back about thirty feet away, next to the flatbed, his head drooping, the concussion blast knocking him silly. Magnesium-hot rage courses through Philip as he struggles to his feet, wincing painfully as .50 cal bursts zing over his head. On top of a nearby flatbed truck cab, the machine gunner, Ben Buchholz, sprays the prison grounds furiously, without strategy or purpose. A quick glance at the southeast guard tower reveals puffs of white flame as a lone sniper rains pinpoint shots down on the convoy, the bullets ringing off fenders, shattering windshields, and nipping at the heels of surviving militiamen.

"Gabe!"

The Governor's voice sounds m.u.f.fled and garbled to his own damaged ears. He manages to dart across the gap between the tank and the flatbed. By this point, Gabe is hauling himself back to his feet, blinking away the shock and pain. The Governor reaches the fat man and grabs the nape of his turtleneck as though lifting a runt from a litter. "Get the f.u.c.k over here!"

Philip drags Gabe across the wasted ground to the rear of the Abrams.

"C'mere!" The Governor slams the portly Gabriel Harris against the back of the tank, knocking the wind out of Gabe's lungs as more high-velocity blasts ping and spark off the armored Abrams.

"Wh-what the-!!" Gabe convulses with agony, jerking at the buzz-saw grind of the .50 cal twenty yards away. Bullets blaze around them for a moment, distracting them, making each of them duck and twitch with nervous tension, giving each man a weird sort of tunnel vision.

Neither man sees the giant, battered, road-worn Winnebago camper roaring out of the trees directly to the west, skirting the edges of the battlefront in a fogbank of dust. In fact, at first, n.o.body in the attack force notices the new addition to the war zone.

"We have got to rethink this f.u.c.king thing," Gabe proclaims a few seconds later in a strangled, exhausted voice, standing with the Governor behind the armored tank while bullets whiz over their heads like wasps. Burning his gaze into the Governor's solitary eye, speaking loudly enough to be heard above the noise of intermittent gunfire, Gabe deploys a tone of voice he has never used with the Governor-a tone dripping with recrimination and anger. "Our people are scared s.h.i.tless! They're getting the s.h.i.t beat out of them-dropping like flies-you gotta do something, man, you gotta f.u.c.king take charge!"

The Governor's left hand thrusts out and grabs Gabe by the throat, slamming the heavyset man against the riveted hull of the Abrams. "Shut your f.u.c.king mouth, Gabe! We're not gonna p.u.s.s.y out this time-we're taking this place down-it's now or never!!"

In that tense millisecond of a pause, Gabe stares wide-eyed at his boss-his mentor, his father figure-and a spark of shame kindles in Gabe's gaze. Neither man is aware of the Winnebago circling around the far western edge of the battlefield, far enough back to go unseen by most of the combatants-even those within the confines of the prison. The camper skids to a stop in a whirlwind of dust, and a figure appears like a specter on the roof, a solitary woman holding a sniper rifle.

"Okay, okay, I'm s-sorry, sorry," Gabe babbles, both his gloved hands on the Governor's wrist, trying to wrench it off the ample girth of his bullish neck. Philip releases his grip. Gabe hyperventilates as he goes on raving over the noise of the firefight. "I'm just saying, we're getting beat up and we need a plan! We can't just keep hammering away at these c.o.c.ksuckers without a-"

"Shut the f.u.c.k up!"

Philip Blake trains his blazing eye on the burly man and hears voices in his head bubbling up from the dark catacombs of his brain-Philip's dead, gone, Philip is dead and buried, he's dust-and Philip flinches suddenly at the unexpected banshee shrieking in his head-Shut up, shut up! Guns roar behind him, the crackle making him twitch, distracting him from the sight of the lone sniper standing on the roof of a rust-pocked camper hundreds of yards away, ghostly in the mirage of heat rays on the edge of the forest.

"Listen, listen to me, you chicken-s.h.i.t fat body-we're not gonna f.u.c.king pull back again!" Philip manages to bellow in a strangled voice, shoving Gabe across the slimy iron bulwark of the tank. "You understand?! You got that?! We're gonna end this thing Now!-Now!!"

Gabe backs away, rubbing his neck, blinking back tears of dread, looking suddenly like a little boy who would say or do anything to appease his abusive father, who would lie and steal and kill and rape and pillage, anything to please his angry parent and squelch the taunts of schoolkids who once called him a big tub-o-lard.

The single shot that rings out from the west, a large-caliber bullet fired with the precision of a beesting from the roof of a mobile home 350 yards away, hits the exposed part of Gabriel Harris's skull.

The Governor jerks back as Gabe's head erupts, washing the tank with a splash of gelatinous pink brain matter, forming a giant fuchsia blot on the iron. The Governor's breath freezes in his lungs as Gabe teeters on wobbly legs for a moment, his gla.s.sy eyes fixed on Philip, a death stare reminiscent of a computer crashing, locked onto Philip's face, endlessly looking for a parent's approval that will never come. And then the big man collapses as if swooning.

He hits the earth with a thud that wakes Philip up with the force of a cold slap.

"Motherf.u.c.k!"

Philip Blake lurches behind the tank and peers around the other side.

"f.u.c.k!-f.u.c.k!-f.u.c.k!-f.u.c.k!!" In quick stages, he sees the distant Winnebago and glimpses the female figure standing boldly on the roof like some mythical creature, some Valkyrie swooping down from the heavens to aid and a.s.sist the inhabitants of the prison, and finally he notices the pickup truck parked fifty feet off his left flank in the weeds. He sees Gus crouched behind the rear gate, firing an AR-15 at will, cursing and firing and cursing.

"Gus!" Philip roars. "Get in your truck and drive it up that woman's a.s.s-Right now!!"

It takes only a moment for Gus to see what the Governor is talking about. With a terse nod, Gus gets moving, staying low and duckwalking around the other side of the Chevy S-10 to the cab. He climbs behind the wheel, the windshield already cracked into a million diamond-bright shards of broken gla.s.s from all the gunfire.

The tailpipe coughs vapor as Gus slams it into drive and blasts off toward the camper.

The Governor goes over to Gabe's body and untangles the Bushmaster rifle from the dead man's shoulder, and by the time Philip has straightened back up and taken stock of the battlefront, things have begun to go from bad to worse.

From behind the tail gate of the M35, Lilly Caul watches the chain of events unravel and implode like a nuclear reaction, her lungs heaving for air, her heart banging as loudly as a timpani drum against her rib cage. She grips her Remington with sweat-sticky hands and jerks at the concussive blast of metal on metal thundering on the horizon to the west. She peers around the edge of the hatch just in time to see Gus ramming his pickup into the Winnebago, nearly breaking the ma.s.sive camper in two.

The impact sends particles of broken gla.s.s and shards of trim and metal fittings into the air and throws the sniper-a fair-haired woman in a ponytail and prison dungarees-cartwheeling off the roof and into the weeds on the edge of the woods. It's hard to tell at this distance, but it looks as though Gus has been hit-his door springing open on impact, his squat body flopping out of the cab, a swirl of black smoke obscuring the crash site.

Lilly hears a strangled, maniacal laugh and glances to her left and sees the Governor crouched behind the tank watching Gus's pickup and what's left of the Winnebago go up in a mushroom cloud of smoke and flame. "Take that, b.i.t.c.h-you f.u.c.k with us!-Yeah, that's right!" He sounds to Lilly like he's finally slipped his tether.

"Jesus ... Jesus ... this is insane!" Lilly ducks behind the hatch and jumps at a booming series of blasts that nearly pop her eardrums, the gunfire coming from inches away. She wrenches around and sees Austin, crouched behind the opposite end of the hatch, firing his Garand at the guard tower, the .308 sh.e.l.ls booming and ringing. He's yelling something. Lilly tries to get his attention. "Austin!-Austin!"

"-f.u.c.kers are picking us off like flies!" He shoots some more, glancing at Lilly, shooting, then glancing at her again with eyes blazing. "C'mon!-Lilly, what's wrong?!-Whaddaya doing?!"

"Save your ammo, pretty boy!"

"Whaddaya talking about?!"

"You're gonna-!"

Lilly starts to explain that they have a finite amount of rounds and they need to get better positions and these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds could lob another grenade at any second when the sound of the Governor's voice rings out above the gunfire. She twists back around and sees him limping across the battlefield, his face filled with psychotic glee.

"Only a matter of time now!" He walks toward a pair of shooters huddled behind a pile of fallen supply crates, firing blindly at the towers. "We got 'em pinned down! Motherf.u.c.kers can't last!"

One of the shooters behind the crates-an older man with thinning hair and yellow aviator sungla.s.ses-looks up from his scope when a round hits him in the left eye.

The blast shatters the aviator lens and bursts out the back of his skull. He convulses backward, his rifle flying out of his hands-his brain matter spraying the weeds behind him-as he collapses less than ten feet from where the Governor is shuffling along.

"We got them right where we want them!" Philip strides along behind the row of vehicles and shooters like a black-clad General MacArthur. "Don't let them take a f.u.c.king breath! Keep the pressure on!"

"Hey-Governor!" Lilly tries to get his attention from behind the M35. "Hey!"

Another hail of bullets streaks down from the tower-the Governor doesn't even flinch, the blasts puffing at his feet-and all at once another militia member goes down in a burst of blood mist from the back of his skull, the man's Caterpillar cap flying off as he drops to the ground.

"Governor!!" Lilly screams at the man. "They're killing us!-We can't do this!"

Some of the men are backing away from the line of fire now, searching for cover, running this way and that, diving under truck cha.s.sis.

"The f.u.c.k are you doing?!" the Governor booms at the retreating troops. "We can't give up now!! We can't let them win!!"

Another volley of sniper fire drives Lilly back to the ground behind the M35-Austin on his belly inches away from her-gouts of turf kicking up with each blast, dirt spitting in their faces. Dizziness washes over Lilly and threatens to steal her eyesight, her ears ringing so badly now the gunfire sounds as if it's underwater-Pling! Pling!-Plink-Plink-Plink!!-and she hears the Governor bellowing something and tries to see through the growing haze of dust and gun smoke engulfing the meadow.

"f.u.c.k it!" The Governor marches toward the tank like a wooden soldier, his single arm flexing stiffly, his solitary gloved hand balled into a tight fist. "f.u.c.k it!-f.u.c.k it!!-f.u.c.k it!!-It's time to end this!!"

He reaches the Abrams and then climbs up the steel side ladder.

In Lilly's compromised vision, as watery and bleary as runny ink, she can barely take in the surreal sight of the Governor pounding on the tank's hatch, as though he has a parcel to deliver to the crew. He howls at Jared to let him in, and the hatch unscrews suddenly, springing open like a jack-in-the-box. The Governor plunges down into the darkness of the enclosure, the hatch slamming shut just as his booming cry reaches Lilly's ringing ears: "-Just drive!"

A plume of dense smoke suddenly spews from the back of the tank as the treads engage. The engine roars, and the beast begins to move.

Lilly freezes on the ground, gaping at the bizarre sight of the armored monolith rolling toward the fence. Her irises dilate involuntarily, her breath stalling in her throat, as she sees the course of the battle suddenly take an unexpected turn.

The tank rattles toward the chain-link barrier, mowing over the last few walkers that still stand in its way, the ma.s.sive treads pulverizing rotten bones and flesh. The front of the tank slams into the fence, the chain link and concertina wire heaving, the reverberations traveling a city block in each direction. The noise is like a metallic rainstorm.

The outer fence gives way in a paroxysm of steel ripping apart.

The Abrams grinds over the first barrier with the ease of a giant trash compactor, smoke billowing from its turbine, treads smashing the chain link into spaghetti. A hundred yards of cyclone fence in each direction collapses as the beast crosses the gap to the next fence. The second barrier goes down as easily as the first.

While all this is transpiring, Lilly observes the eerie cease-fire inside the prison grounds. The only sounds now-barely audible above the creaking, complaining, ringing chain-link fences-are footsteps running in all directions, as the folks inside scatter for cover.

In a dust cloud of haze and crisscrossing sniper fire pinging off the tank's iron carapace, the Abrams devours the last barrier-the innermost fence-as sparks snap and crackle in the air. Most of the walkers in the general vicinity have been vanquished either in the cross fire or beneath the treads of the tank.

Now the ricochets echo eerily across the pa.s.sageways between cellblocks.

Soon, even the towers go silent and still as the armored monolith comes to rest twenty feet inside the gate, trailing shreds of metal linkage in its treads like particles of food stuck in the teeth of a ravenous monster. The engine revs for a moment, almost like an overture to the next movement of this terrible symphony. Exhaust huffs from the a.s.s-end of the tank. The pause that follows-the duration of which is mere seconds-seems to Lilly to last for hours.

"Lilly?! You all right?! Talk to me!" Austin's voice, barely audible to Lilly, cuts through the white noise of her racing thoughts. She turns and sees him huddled next to her behind the M35's rear gate, his M1 Garand gripped white-knuckle tight. "Whaddaya think?" he asks her with fear shimmering in his eyes. "What now?"

She starts to mumble something in response when the sound of another voice cuts through her daze.

"C'mon, we got them outnumbered!" It comes from behind her. She twists around and sees the remaining members of the militia coming out from behind the vehicles with their guns raised and ready. Tom Blanchford, a big mechanic from Macon, has his back pressed against the side of his flatbed. "C'mon!-Let's put these evil b.a.s.t.a.r.ds out of their misery once and for all!-Come on!!"

One by one, creeping low and quick, weaving between the vehicles, the surviving men and women of the Woodbury militia make their way across the battlefield, over the smashed remnants of mangled chain link, and into the prison.

"Let's do this," Austin says, rising to his feet, and then reaching down to help Lilly up.