The Walking Dead_ The Road to Woodbury - By Robert Kirkman Page 0,87
the wind. They get halfway to the main drag—safely out of earshot of the others—when Alice says to the doctor, “Did you smell it?”
He nods. “Yep … it’s on the wind … it’s coming from the north.”
Alice sighs, shaking her head. “I knew these idiots would draw a crowd with all that noise. Should we tell somebody?”
“Martinez already knows.” The doctor indicates the guard tower behind them. “Lots of saber rattling going on, God help us.”
Alice lets out another sigh. “Gonna be busy next few days, aren’t we?”
“That guardsman used up half our whole blood supply, gonna need some more donors.”
“I’ll do it,” Alice says.
“Appreciate the thought, sweetheart, but we got enough A positive to last us until Easter. Besides, I take any more out of you I’ll have to plant you next to the big guy.”
“Should we keep searching for an O positive?”
The doctor shrugs. “Like looking for a very small needle in a very small haystack.”
“I haven’t checked Lilly or that other new kid, what’s his name.”
“Scott? The stoner?”
“Yeah.”
The doctor shakes his head. “Nobody’s seen hide nor hair of him in days.”
“You never know.”
The doctor keeps shaking his head, hands deep in his pockets, as he hastens toward the shadows of concrete archways in the distance. “Yeah … you never know.”
* * *
That night, back in her squatter’s flat above the boarded-up dry cleaner, Lilly feels numb. She’s thankful that Bob has chosen to stay with her for a while. He makes her dinner—his special beef jerky Stroganoff courtesy of Hamburger Helper—and they share enough of Bob’s single-malt Scotch and generic Ambien to ease Lilly’s racing thoughts.
The noises outside the second-story window grow fainter and farther away—although they seem to be making Bob nervous as he tucks Lilly in. Something is going on down on the streets. Maybe trouble. But Lilly cannot focus on the distant commotion of voices and running footsteps.
She feels as though she’s floating, and the moment she lays her head on the pillow she sinks into semiconsciousness. The bare floors and sheet-covered windows of the apartment blur away into a white oblivion. But right before she sinks into the void of dreamless sleep, she sees Bob’s weathered face looming over her.
“Why won’t you leave with me, Bob?”
The question hangs there for a moment. Bob shrugs. “Haven’t really thought about it.”
“There’s nothing for us here anymore.”
He looks away. “Governor says things are gonna get better soon.”
“What’s the deal with you and him?”
“Whattya talkin’ about?”
“He’s got a hold on you, Bob.”
“That ain’t true.”
“I just don’t get it.” Lilly fades. She can barely see the weathered man sitting on the side of her bed. “He’s trouble, Bob.”
“He’s just trying to—”
Lilly barely hears the knock on the door. She tries to keep her eyes open. Bob goes to the door, and Lilly tries to stay awake long enough to identify the visitor. “Bob…? Who is it…?
Footsteps. Two figures come into view over her bed like ghosts. Lilly struggles to see through the shade descending over her eyes.
Bob stands next to a gaunt, lean, dark-eyed man with a carefully trimmed Fu Manchu mustache and coal-black hair. The man smiles as Lilly sinks into unconsciousness.
“Sleep tight, girlfriend,” the Governor says. “You’ve had a long day.”
* * *
The behavior patterns of the walkers continue to baffle and enthrall the deeper thinkers among Woodbury’s inhabitants. Some believe the undead move as bees in a hive, driven by something far more complex than mere hunger. Some theories involve invisible pheromonelike signals passing among zombies, producing behaviors that depend upon the chemical makeup of their prey. Others believe in dog-whistle sensory responses above and beyond mere attraction to sound or smell or movement. No single hypothesis has stuck, but most of Woodbury’s residents feel certain about one aspect of zombie behavior: The advent of a herd of any size is to be dreaded and feared and treated with respect. Herds tend to grow spontaneously and take on troubling ramifications. A herd—even a small one, like the cluster of dead forming at this very moment north of town, drawn by the noise of the gladiatorial match the previous night—can overturn a truck, snap fence posts like kindling, or topple even the highest wall.
For the last twenty-four hours Martinez has been marshaling forces in order to suppress the imminent attack. Guards posted on crow’s nests at the northwest and northeast corners of the wall have been keeping tabs on the progress of the flock, which first began to morph into a herd about a mile away.