The Walking Dead_ The Road to Woodbury - By Robert Kirkman Page 0,90

rifle.

The Governor ignores the comment and hollers, “Travis! Back it into position!”

The truck shudders and beeps and rattles backward into the opening.

“Now put the ramp down!”

Bob watches, completely vexed by the proceedings, as Eugene hops out of his cab with a grunt and marches around behind the truck. He throws open the vertical door and lowers the ramp to the pavement.

In the glare of spotlights the zombie contingent approaches to within a hundred yards.

Shuffling footsteps draw Bob’s attention back over his shoulder.

From the shadowy center of town, in the flicker of burning trash barrels, Dr. Stevens emerges with his arm around the wounded guardsman, who hobbles along with the lethargic gait of a stroke victim.

“Watch this, Bob,” the Governor says, throwing a glance over his shoulder at the older man, and then, with a wink, adds, “Beats the hell outta the Middle East.”

FOURTEEN

The screams inside the empty trailer, amplified by the corrugated metal floor and steel walls, build and build, an aria of agony, which compels Bob, standing behind the crane, to look away, as the moving cadavers shamble toward the opening, drawn to the noise and smell of fear. Bob needs a drink more than ever now. He needs a lot of drinks. He needs to soak in the booze until he’s blind.

At least ninety percent of the herd—all shapes and sizes, in varying degrees of disintegration, faces contorted with scowling bloodlust—press toward the rear of the trailer. The first one trips on the foot of the ramp, falling face-first with a wet splat on the tread. Others follow closely, pushing their way up the incline, as Stinson shrieks inside the enclosure, his sanity torn to shreds.

The portly guardsman, bound to the front wall of the trailer with packing straps and chains, pisses himself, as the first walkers shuffle in for the feeding.

Outside the trailer, Martinez and his men keep an eye on the stragglers along the barricade, most of them milling about aimlessly in the glare of tungsten spotlights, cocking their gray faces and glazed eyes up at the night sky as though the screaming noises might be coming from the heavens. Only about a dozen of the dead miss this opportunity to feed. The men on the 50-calibers take aim, awaiting orders to blow the stragglers away.

The trailer fills up with specimens—the Governor’s growing collection of lab rats—until nearly three dozen walkers have swarmed Stinson. The unseen feeding frenzy ensues, and the screaming corrupts into watery, gagging death cries, as the last zombie staggers up the ramp and vanishes inside the mobile abattoir. The noises issuing out the back of the trailer now become almost feral, Stinson reduced to a mewling, squealing head of stock in a slaughterhouse, rendered by the ragged teeth and nails of the dead.

Out in the cold darkness Bob feels his soul contracting inward like an iris closing down. He needs a drink so badly his skull throbs. He barely hears the booming voice of the Governor.

“All right, Travis! Go ahead and pull trap now! Go ahead and close it down!”

The truck driver cautiously creeps around behind the vibrating death trailer and grabs for the rope hanging down from the lip of the door. He yanks it hard and fast, and the vertical gate slams down with a rusty squeak. Travis quickly latches the lock, and then backs away from the trailer as if from a time bomb.

“Take it back to the track, Travis! I’ll meet you there in a minute!”

The Governor turns and walks over to Martinez, who stands waiting on the lower rails of the crane. “All right, you can have your fun now,” the Governor says.

Martinez thumbs the radio send button. “Okay, guys—take the rest of them out.”

Bob jumps at the sudden roar of heavy artillery, the noise and sparks from the .50-calibers lighting up the night. Tracer bullets streak hot pink in the dark, crisscrossing the beams of magnesium-bright klieg lights, engaging their targets in plumes of black, oily blood mist. Bob turns away once again, not interested in seeing the walkers taken apart. The Governor, however, feels differently.

He climbs halfway up the crane ladder so he can see the festivities.

In short order the armor-piercing tracers eviscerate the stragglers. Skulls blossom, florets of brain matter spitting up into the night air, teeth and hair and cartilage and bone chips shattering. Some of the zombies remain upright for many moments, as the rounds spin them in macabre death jigs, arms flailing in the stage light. Bellies burst. Glistening tissue ejaculates