The Walking Dead: The Road to Woodbury

SEVENTEEN

The next morning, the Governor gets an early start on the last-minute preparations for the big show. He’s up before dawn, quickly getting dressed, making coffee, and feeding Penny the last of his supply of human entrails. By seven o’clock he is out on the street, on his way to Gabe’s apartment. The salt crew is already up and working on the sidewalks, the weather surprisingly mild considering the events of the last week. The mercury has risen into the lower fifties, and the sky has lightened, perhaps even stabilized, now overcast with a pale gray ceiling of clouds the color of cement. Very little wind disturbs the morning air, and the burgeoning day strikes the Governor as picture-perfect for an evening of new and improved gladiator matches.

Gabe and Bruce supervise the transfer of zombies held captive in the holding rooms beneath the track. It takes several hours to move the things into the staging areas up above, not only because the walkers are unruly beasts but also because the Governor wants to do it in secret. The unveiling of the Ring of Death has gotten the Governor’s show biz juices flowing and he wants the evening’s revelations to dazzle the crowd. He spends the bulk of that afternoon inside the arena, checking and double-checking the curtain drops, the public address system, the music cues, the lights, the gates, the locks, the security, and last but certainly not least, the competitors.

The two surviving guardsmen, Zorn and Manning, still wasting away in their underground holding cell, have lost most of their body fat and muscle tissue. Subsisting on scraps, stale crackers, and water for months, chained to the wall 24–7, they look like living skeletons and have very little of their sanity left intact. The only saving grace is their military training—as well as their rage—which, over the weeks of their torturous captivity, has festered and deepened and turned them into wild-eyed revenants hungry for vengeance.

In other words, if they can’t rip into the throats of their captors, then they’ll happily do the next best thing and rip into each other.

The guardsmen are the final piece to the puzzle, and the Governor waits until the last minute to move them. Gabe and Bruce enlist three of their beefiest workmen to go into the holding cell and inject the soldiers with sodium thiopenthol in order to soften them up for travel. They don’t have far to go. Dragged along with leather restraints around their necks, mouths, wrists, and ankles, the two guardsmen are led up a series of iron stairs to the concourse level.

Once upon a time, race fans wandered these cement corridors buying T-shirts and corn dogs and beers and cotton candy. Now these tunnels lie in perpetual darkness, boarded up, padlocked, and used as temporary warehouse space for everything from fuel tanks to sealed cartons of valuables pilfered off the dead.

By six-thirty that night everything is ready. The Governor orders Gabe and Bruce to station themselves at opposite ends of the arena, inside the exit tunnels, in order to guard against any wayward contestants—or errant zombies, for that matter—attempting to flee. Satisfied with all his preparations, the Governor heads back home to change into his show garb. He dresses all in black—black leather vest, leather pants, leather motorcycle boots—and puts a leather stay in his ponytail. He feels like a rock star. He finishes off his ensemble with his trademark duster.

Shortly after seven the forty-plus residents of Woodbury begin filing into the stadium. All the posters tacked up on telephone poles and taped across store windows earlier in the week advertise the start time as seven-thirty, but everybody wants to get a good seat down in the center-front of the bleachers, get settled in, get something to drink, get their blankets and cushions situated.

The mild weather has everybody buzzing excitedly as the start time looms.

At 7:28 P.M. a hush falls over the spectators crowded around the front of the bleachers, some of them standing on the warning track, their faces pressed up against the chain-link barrier. The youngest of the men are down front, while the women and couples and older residents sit scattered across the higher rows, blankets wrapped around themselves to ward off the chill. Each and every face reflects the desperate dope hunger of a junkie in withdrawal—gaunt, wrung out, jittery. They sense something extraordinary about to occur. They smell blood on the wind.

The Governor will not disappoint.

* * *

At 7:30 on the nose—according to the Governor’s self-winding Fossil wristwatch—the music in the stadium begins to sneak under the ceaseless moaning of the wind. It starts out soft and faint through the PA horns—a low chord as deep as a subterranean tremor—the overture familiar to many, even though few would be able to name the actual symphonic poem: Also sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss. Most know the piece as the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey, the booming horn notes coming one at a time, building on a dramatic fanfare.

A light veil of snow becomes visible up in the arc lights, a brilliant beam hitting the center of the muddy infield, a magnesium-bright pool the size of a moon crater. The crowd lets out a collective holler as the Governor strides out into the cone of light.

He raises a hand—a regal, melodramatic gesture, as the music builds to its big climactic finale—the wind tossing the tails of his duster. His boots sink six inches into the muck, the infield a mire of rain-sodden earth. He believes the mud will only add to the drama.

“Friends! Fellow residents of Woodbury!” he booms into a microphone hardwired to a PA stack behind him. His baritone rises up into the night sky, the echo slapping back across the empty stands at either end of the arena. “You’ve worked hard to keep this town up and running! You are about to be rewarded!”

Three and a half dozen voices—their vocal cords, as well as their sanity, stretched thin—can make a hell of a racket. The caterwauls swirl on the wind.

“Are you ready for some hard-hitting action tonight?”

The gallery lets out a cacophony of hyena yelps and wild cheers.

“Bring on the contestants!”

On cue, huge follow spots flare on across the upper decks, the noise like giant match tips striking—the beams sweeping down across the arena. One by one, the silver pools of light land on enormous black canvas curtains, each of which drapes one of the five gangways around the concourse.

At the far end of the stadium, a garage-style door rolls up and Zorn, the younger of the two guardsmen, appears in the shadows of the gangway. Clad in makeshift shoulder pads and shin guards, he holds a large machete and trembles with latent madness. He starts across the track toward the center of the infield with a feral expression on his face, moving stiffly, jerkily, a prisoner of war off the leash for the first time in many weeks.

Almost simultaneously, like a mirror image of Zorn’s entrance, the garage door at the opposite end of the stadium jerks upward, and from the shadows comes Manning, the older soldier, the one with the wild gray hair and bloodshot eyes. Manning carries an enormous battle-axe and trudges through the mud not unlike a zombie himself.

As the two combatants approach each other in the center of the ring, the Governor bellows into the mike, “Ladies and gentlemen, it is with great pride that I give you the Ring of Death!”

The crowd lets out a collective gasp as the curtains around the periphery—once again, on cue—suddenly drop away, revealing clusters of snarling, decomposing, hungry zombies. Some of the spectators in the stands spring to their feet, instinctively wanting to flee, as the biters start lumbering out of their archways, arms reaching for human meat.

The biters get halfway across the infield, their awkward, shuffling steps mired in the mud, before reaching the end of their chains. Some of them—surprised by the limit of their freedom—are yanked off their feet, landing in comic fashion in the mud. Others growl angrily, flailing dead arms at the crowd and the overall injustice of their leashed captivity. The crowd jeers.

“LET THE BATTLE BEGIN!”

At the center of the infield Zorn pounces on Manning before Manning is ready—in fact, before the Governor has even had a chance to make a safe exit—and the older soldier barely has time to block the slashing blow with his weapon.

The machete comes down and grazes the axe head in a gout of sparks.

The crowd cheers as Manning careens backward into the mud, sliding through the muck, coming to within inches of the closest zombie. The walker, wild-eyed with bloodlust, snaps its jaws at Manning’s ankles, the chain barely holding the creature. Manning scrambles to get back on his feet, his face ablaze with terror and madness.

The Governor smiles to himself as he walks off the infield, exiting through one of the gates.

The crowd noises echo through the dark tunnel all around him as he walks through the cement-encased shadows, chuckling to himself, thinking about how amazing it would be if one of the guardsmen got bit before the crowd’s eyes and actually turned during the course of the battle. Now that would be entertainment.

He turns a corner and sees one of his men loading a clip into an AK-47 near a deserted food stand. The young man—an overgrown farm kid from Macon dressed in a ratty down coat and stocking cap—looks up from his weapon. “Hey, Gov … how’s it going out there?”

“Thrills and chills, Johnny, thrills and chills,” the Governor says with a wink as he passes. “Gonna go check on Gabe and Bruce at the exits … you make sure those walkers stay inside the infield and don’t wander back toward the gates.”

“Will do, boss.”

The Governor moves on, turning another corner and striding down a deserted tunnel.

The muffled noise of the crowd echoes in waves down the dark passageway as he makes his way toward the east exit. He starts whistling, feeling on top of the world, when all at once he stops whistling and slows down, instinctively reaching for the .38 snubbie in his belt. Something feels wrong all of a sudden.

He comes to an abrupt halt in the middle of the tunnel. The east exit, just visible around a corner twenty feet ahead of him, sits there completely deserted. No sign of Gabe anywhere. The outer gate—a vertical door made of wooden slats, pulled down across the opening—leaks thin strands of bright light from the headlamps of an idling vehicle.

At that point the Governor notices the muzzle of an M1 assault rifle on the floor, poking around the corner—Gabe’s gun—lying unattended.

“Son of a bitch!” the Governor blurts, drawing his gun and spinning around.

The blue spark of a Taser crackles in his face, knocking him backward.

* * *

Martinez moves in quickly, the Taser in one hand, a heavy leather sap in the other—as the fifty-kilovolt punch sends the Governor reeling backward, slamming into the wall, his .38 flying out of his hand.

Martinez brings the sap down hard on the Governor’s temple, the dull slapping noise like a tuneless bell ringing. The Governor convulses against the wall, swinging wildly, refusing to go down. He cries out with the garbled rage of a stroke victim, the veins in his neck and temples bulging, as he kicks out at Martinez.

The Swede and Broyles stand behind Martinez on each flank, ready to move in with the rope and tape. Martinez hits the Governor again with the sap, and this time the blunt object does its work.

The Governor stiffens and slides to the floor, his eyes rolling back in his head. The Swede and Broyles close in on the quivering, twitching body curled into a fetal position on the cement.

They get the Governor tied, bound, and gagged with duct tape in less than sixty seconds. Martinez signals the men outside the gate with a quick whistle, and the slatted door suddenly jumps up.

“On three,” Martinez mutters, holstering his Taser, shoving the sap behind his belt. He grabs the man’s rope-bound ankles. “One, two … three!”

Broyles takes the Governor by the shoulders, Martinez lifting the legs, and the Swede leads them out through the gate into the cold wind and around the back of the idling panel van.

The rear hatch is already gaping open. They slide the body in.

Within seconds, the men have climbed into the windowless van, and all the doors have slammed, and the vehicle is lurching backward, away from the gate.

The panel van slams to a stop, then the transmission wrenches down into drive and it roars away.

Within seconds all that’s left outside the entrance to the racetrack is a fading cloud of carbon monoxide.

* * *

“Wake up, you sick fuck!” Lilly slaps the Governor, the man’s eyes fluttering open on the floor of the crowded van as it rumbles out of town.

Gabe and Bruce are bound and gagged near the front of the cluttered payload bay, their mouths covered with duct tape. The Swede holds a .45 Smith & Wesson on the men, their eyes wide and searching. Cartons of military ordnance line the sides of the cargo bay, everything from armor-piercing shells to incendiary bombs.

“Take it easy, Lilly,” Martinez cautions, crouching near the front, a walkie-talkie 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 backward, the centripetal force throwing everybody forward against the firewall. Lilly slams her shoulder against the gun rack, knocking half a dozen carbines to the floor like kindling. Gabe and Bruce roll, slamming into each other. Unbeknownst to the others, Gabe has his fingers under Bruce’s shackle now and he starts wrenching at it. Bruce’s gag has come loose and he booms a garbled cry: “YOU MOTHERFUCKERS, NOW WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!”

The van bumps over an object, and then another, and another—the wet, muffled thumps rocking the chassis—and Lilly holds on to the side brace with her free hand, scanning the cargo hold.

Martinez scrambles on hands and knees toward the fallen walkie-talkie while the black man spits and curses, and Swede aims the muzzle of his .45 at the bald black man. “SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

“YOU MOTHERFUCKERS DON’T EVEN—”

The rear of the van slams into an unknown object and bogs down, the rear wheels spinning on something slick and gooey on the road, the g-forces flinging everybody into the corner. Guns fly off across the hold, and the Governor rolls against a stack of cartons that fall on him. He lets out an angry cry—the duct tape hanging from his chin now—and then he gets quiet.

Everybody gets quiet as the van sits there for a moment, very still.

Then the entire vehicle shudders. The sideways jerk gets everybody’s attention. Broyles’s voice crackles from the fallen two-way, something about “too many” or “getting out,” when all at once the roar of Broyles’s AK-47 from the cab pierces the silence, followed by an eruption of broken glass and a human shriek.

Then things get quiet again. And still. Except for the low, droning, mucusy moans of hundreds of dead voices, which, coming through the walls of the windowless van, sound like a giant turbine engine rumbling outside the van. Something bumps the vehicle again, jerking it sideways with a violent convulsion.

Martinez grabs an assault rifle off the wall, jacks the lever back, lurches toward the rear hatch, and grasps the handle, when he hears a deep, whiskey-cured voice come from behind him.

“Wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Lilly glances down at the floor and sees the Governor—his gag loose—struggling into a sitting position against the wall, his dark eyes smoldering. Lilly holds her Ruger on him. “You’re not giving orders anymore,” she informs him through clenched teeth.

The van jerks sideways again. The rumbling silence stretches.

“Your little plan’s gone all to hell,” the Governor says with sadistic glee. His facial features tic with residual trauma.

“Shut up!”

“Thought you’d leave us out here, feed us to the biters, and nobody would be the wiser.”

Lilly puts the muzzle of the .22 against his forehead. “I said shut the fuck up!”

The van shudders again. Martinez stands frozen with indecision. He turns, and he starts to say something to Lilly, when a sharp blur of movement near the front takes everybody by surprise.

Bruce has managed to free his hands and suddenly lashes out at the Swede, knocking the gun out of the older man’s grip. The .45 goes off as it clatters to the floor, the boom so loud it ruptures eardrums, the blast chinking metal out of the floor and grazing the Swede’s left boot, making the older man cry out and slam against the back wall.

In one smooth movement, before Martinez or Lilly can fire, the big black man scoops up the hot .45 and empties three rounds into the Swede’s chest. Blood sprays across the corrugated side wall behind the older man as he gasps and writhes and slides to the floor.

From the rear, Martinez spins toward the black man and fires two quick, controlled bursts in his general direction, but by that point Bruce is already diving for cover behind piles of cartons, and the bullets are chewing through cardboard, metal, and fiberglass, setting off a series of muffled blasts inside the boxes, which send puffs of wood shards, sparks, and paper into the air like meteors—

—and everybody dives to the floor—and Bruce gets his hands on his bowie knife—a weapon he had hidden on his ankle—and he’s going for Gabe’s shackles—and things are happening very quickly now all around the cargo bay—as Lilly swings her Ruger toward the two thugs near the front—while Martinez leaps toward Bruce—and the Governor screams something like “DON’T KILL THEM!—and Gabe is loose now and scrambling for one of the fallen carbines—and Bruce slashes the knife at Martinez, who dodges the blow, and then stumbles against Lilly, sending her slamming against the rear doors—

—and the impact of Lilly’s body against the double-doors springs the latch.

The doors suddenly and unexpectedly burst open, letting a swarm of moving corpses into the van.