The Walking Dead_ The Road to Woodbury - By Robert Kirkman Page 0,109
clutched in his gloved hand. His face tight with nervous tension, a heretic rebelling against the church, Martinez turns away and thumbs the switch and says in a low voice, “Just follow the Jeep, and keep the lights off, and let me know when you see a roamer.”
The Governor regains consciousness in stages, blinking and scanning his surroundings, testing the strength of his bonds—the elastic shackles, nylon rope, and duct tape tight around his mouth.
“You need to hear this, Blake,” Lilly says to the man on the corrugated floor. “‘Governor’ … ‘President’ … ‘King Shit’ … whatever you call yourself. You think you’re some kind of benevolent dictator?”
The Governor’s eyes still shift around the confines of the van, not focusing on any one thing—an animal boxed in on the killing floor.
“My friends did not have to die,” Lilly goes on, looming over the Governor. Her eyes mist over for a moment and she hates herself for it. “You could have built this place into something great … a place where people could live in safety and harmony … instead of this twisted, sick freak show that it’s become.”
Near the front, Martinez thumbs the switch. “Stevie, you see anything yet?”
Through the speaker crackles the younger man’s voice. “Negative … nothing yet … wait!” The sound of static, then rustling noises. Stevie’s voice is heard off mike: “What the fuck is that?”
Martinez thumbs the switch. “Stevie, say again, I didn’t copy that.”
Static … rustling noises.
“Stevie! You copy? I don’t want to get too far from town!”
Through the static Stevie’s voice intermittently sizzles through the noise: “Stop, Taggert.… Stop!… What the fuck! WHAT THE FUCK!”
In back, Lilly wipes her eyes and latches her gaze on the eyes of the Governor. “Sex for food? Really? Seriously? That’s your great society—”
“Lilly!” Martinez barks at her. “Stop it! We got a situation!” He thumbs the send button. “Broyles, stop the van!”
By this point the Governor’s eyes have found Lilly’s, and the man is fully awake, staring at her with a silent fury that burns holes in her soul, and she doesn’t care, she doesn’t even notice it.
“All the fighting and the suicides and the fear driving everyone into catatonic stupors…?” She feels like spitting at him. “This is your idea of a fucking COMMUNITY—”
“Lily! Goddammit!” Martinez turns and faces her. “Would you please—”
The truck screeches to a stop, throwing Martinez backward against the firewall and tossing Lilly forward across the Governor and into a stack of ammo boxes. The cartons topple as Lilly sprawls across the floor. The walkie-talkie spins against a duffel bag. The Governor rolls from one side to the other, the duct tape coming loose from his mouth.
The crackle of Broyles’s voice squawks out of the speaker. “Got a visual on a walker!”
Martinez crawls toward the two-way, snatching it up and thumbing the button. “What the hell’s going on, Broyles? What’s the idea of slamming on the—”
“Got another one!” the voice squawks out of the tiny speaker. “Got a couple, coming out of the … Oh, fuck … oh, fuck … OH, FUCK!”
Martinez thumbs the switch. “Broyles, what the hell is going on?”
Through the radio: “There’s more than we—”
Static washes over the voice for a moment, and then Stevie’s voice cuts through the noise: “Jesus Christ, there’s a whole bunch of them coming out of the—” Static crackles for a moment. “They’re coming out of the woods, man, they keep coming—”
Martinez yells into the mike, “Stevie, talk to me! Should we dump them and come back?”
More static.
Martinez screams, “Stevie! Do you copy? Should we turn around?”
Broyles’s voice now: “Too many, boss! Never seen this many in one—”
A burst of static and the sound of a gunshot and glass breaking—echoing outside the walls of the van—all of it gets Lilly to her feet. She realizes what’s happening, and she reaches behind her belt for the Ruger. She pulls it out and cocks the slide, glancing over her shoulder. “Martinez, call your men back, get ’em outta here!”
Martinez thumbs the button: “Stevie! Can you hear me?! Get outta here, pull back! Turn around! We’ll find another place! Can you hear me? STEVIE!”
The sound of Stevie’s anguished cry spurts out of the speaker, right before another barrage of automatic gunfire rattles the air … followed by a terrific wrenching of metal … and then an enormous crash.
Broyles’s voice: “Hold on! They turned it over! There’s too goddamn many! Hold on! We’re fucked, y’all! WE ARE TOTALLY FUCKED!!”
The van shudders as the engine revs into reverse, rocketing