TWD - Chapter 488: The Debut of a New Tactic (Patreon)

The raiders in the salvage yard were jolted awake.

Someone burst out of one of the buses with a gun in hand, looking around in confusion.

Then they saw countless walkers emerging from every patch of darkness.

Drawn by some irresistible call, they dragged their mutilated, rotting bodies toward the center of the yard in a horrifying procession.

"Oh God..." Abraham and Rosita murmured.

Tara was stunned as well.

It was the first time any of them had seen the Walker Attractant in action. Even though they had prepared themselves mentally, witnessing it firsthand still sent chills down their spines.

At first, there were only a dozen or so walkers.

Then there were dozens.

The attractant worked far better than expected.

The salvage yard itself had already drawn walkers to the area, and the groups lurking among the abandoned vehicles and nearby buildings were far larger than the reconnaissance reports had estimated.

After Professor Martin Sorensen joined the team, the biochemistry specialist had further optimized the Walker Attractant, making it even more effective than before.

In just ten minutes, more than fifty walkers had poured into the yard.

Chaos erupted.

The raiders opened fire, but their shooting was completely disorganized, and panic spread through the camp like a disease.

One man was dragged down by three walkers, his screams drowned out by the sounds of biting and tearing.

Others tried to climb onto the piles of wrecked cars, only to be surrounded by more walkers.

Another group rushed toward a pickup truck, but the engine wouldn't start. During their infiltration, Daryl and Merle had quietly sabotaged the ignition systems of every visible vehicle.

"Carver, the east exit's blocked by the horde!" Shane reported excitedly over the team radio. "They're trapped!"

Carver glanced at his tactical watch.

3:22 a.m.

The walkers had been flooding into the yard for more than twenty minutes.

The gunfire inside was beginning to thin out.

Either they were running out of ammunition, or there simply weren't many people left alive to shoot.

"All units, prepare to move in," Carver said into the microphone. "Only deal with anything that's still moving. Conserve ammunition and maintain formation. If you run into too many walkers, use the Walker Disruptor."

He pressed the button on his own disruptor dispersal unit and led the charge toward the area with the heaviest concentration of walkers and raiders.

After a faint vibration, a light ozone-like smell spread through the air.

"Assault teams, advance."

Shane and Michonne's group entered first through the western opening, advancing in a standard wedge formation.

Michonne was carrying a Walker Disruptor, and the effect was immediate.

The walkers ignored them completely and continued shuffling toward the locations marked by the Walker Attractants in the center of the yard.

The scene ahead looked like hell.

Mutilated bodies littered the ground, some human, some walker.

A few raiders were still fighting back, standing in small circles with their backs pressed together, but walkers were closing in from every direction.

"Help us!"

A young raider with blood covering his face spotted Carver's team and waved frantically.

"Please..."

A walker lunged onto him from behind before he could finish.

Carver didn't even blink.

He kept moving, methodically clearing out any raiders or walkers still standing in their path.

Anyone who surrendered was quickly restrained and marked with a fluorescent tag.

Anyone who resisted was put down with a single bullet.

Abraham's sniper team provided cover from the high ground to the north.

Rosita fired precise shots at raiders attempting to organize any meaningful resistance.

Tara led several others in clearing out enemies hiding inside vehicles and shipping containers.

The battle, if it could even be called that, was really a one-sided slaughter.

Within forty minutes, it was essentially over.

The effects of the Walker Attractants were beginning to fade, but more than forty walkers and over twenty human bodies already covered the yard.

Fewer than ten raiders remained alive.

Most were wounded.

They were gathered in an open area with their hands tied behind their backs and forced to kneel.

Carver surveyed the battlefield.

The sweep squads had suffered no casualties.

The debut of their new tactic had been nearly perfect.

"Secure the battlefield. Collect every weapon, every round of ammunition, and anything else we can use. Get that pickup that's still drivable out of here.

"Pile up the bodies and burn them. Walkers included."

Carver walked over to the prisoners.

Some stared blankly ahead, still trapped in the horror of what they had just witnessed.

Others glared at him.

Most, however, looked terrified and desperate.

"When you were attacking and murdering innocent survivors, did you ever think this day might come?"

Carver gave a cold laugh.

He planted a foot on the corpse of a raider beside him, then calmly pulled his throwing knife from the dead man's forehead with a wet sound.

Blood came with it.

With a look of disgust, he wiped the blade clean on the corpse's clothes.

The surviving raiders turned pale at the sight.

No one dared answer him.

"Take them all back," Carver said, waving toward the team responsible for transporting prisoners. "Process them according to standard procedure."

Before dawn, black smoke began rising from the burning bodies.

The sweep squads left the salvage yard with their prisoners and captured supplies, heading back toward Rock Fortress.

When the prisoners were brought through the gates of Rock Fortress, they caused quite a stir.

Their hands were bound behind their backs, and they were linked together in a line as Defense Force soldiers escorted them through the main entrance under the eyes of everyone nearby.

At the same time the sweep squads were carrying out their operation, the first proactive contact team had also set out.

Their target was a farming group hidden in a hilly creek valley.

According to reports, the group numbered around seventeen or eighteen people. They survived through farming and hunting and had rarely interacted with outsiders since the apocalypse began.

Lieutenant Welles led the team.

He had a naturally upright, trustworthy appearance, and Leah and Maya both agreed that, unlike some of the other combatants who looked like they were ready to kill someone at any moment, he was well suited for this kind of work.

The team also included a nurse and a former teacher who was good at talking to people.

They brought antibiotics, vegetable seeds, and several pieces of smoked meat.

The initial meeting did not go particularly smoothly.

The farming families were wary and suspicious.

But clean medicine and food were valuable enough that they couldn't simply turn them away.

Their hesitation weakened even further when the contact team "casually" mentioned the raider group at the salvage yard to the southwest.

Their teammates, they explained, were about to eliminate that threat, which meant the surrounding area would soon become much safer.

The contact team didn't pressure them to relocate immediately.

Instead, they left behind some of the supplies, along with a message that they were welcome to visit Rock Fortress whenever they wanted.

They also left a simple walkie-talkie capable of receiving Rock Fortress's public broadcast channel.

That same afternoon, after the raider prisoners were brought back, the isolation screening and interrogation process began.

Leah personally took part.

The medical department treated the prisoners' injuries first.

Then each prisoner was separated from the others and questioned individually.

Every one of them had to provide everything they knew.

If any one person's account failed to match the others, that person would be executed.

The results were delivered to Calista that evening.

"Nine prisoners total. All questioned separately," Leah said, handing her a stack of reports. "They're between seventeen and forty-five years old.

"Five have been confirmed to have participated in at least one attack on survivor groups.

"Two were directly involved in torture and murder. One liked to slowly torture victims with a knife. The other collected their fingers.

"The remaining two are relatively clean. They only joined recently, mostly did menial work, and haven't directly participated in any killings."

"What about their leader?"

"Confirmed dead. Rosita remembers killing a man with extensive burn scars covering the left side of his face. That matches what all of these prisoners told us."

Calista flipped through the short dossiers.

Her eyes stopped on the names of the two relatively clean prisoners, both circled.

"Send these two to Mike's training camp.

"Tell them this is their only chance.

"If they fail the training or show any sign of resistance, they'll end up the same way as that one."

She pointed toward another file.

It belonged to a raider in his forties who had been accused of multiple atrocities and identified by more than one prisoner as one of the main people responsible for torture and murder.

"This one gets a public trial. Two days from now. Carry out the execution at the training grounds."

Leah nodded.

"We've also heard back from the farm. Lieutenant Welles's team radioed this afternoon. Initial contact was successful, and they've agreed to send representatives to visit us. They should arrive in about two days."

"Arrange things so they just happen to witness the execution," Calista said calmly.

"After that, take them through the industrial park and Blackberry Ranch.

"Let them decide for themselves which choice makes more sense."