TWD - Zomboid - Chapter 290: Ellie: Here’s a Middle Finger. Figure It Out Yourself (Patreon)

“Creep!”

Ellie shot Merle a look, then suddenly moved. With startling speed, she lunged for the shotgun in his hands.

A battle-hardened veteran like Merle reacted almost entirely on instinct. He sprang upright and jerked backward just in time to keep the weapon out of her reach.

“Damn, kid!”

Merle broke out in a cold sweat.

But instead of getting angry, he looked at Ellie standing there without a trace of fear and burst out laughing.

“Hahaha! All right! I like this kid!”

Merle slung the shotgun back over his shoulder, clearly impressed. “You’ve got guts! You’re going places. I’m looking forward to the day you join the troopers!”

“But you still can’t have the gun.” Merle shook his head. “Not unless the boss gives the okay. Until then, stick with a pencil.”

Ellie pursed her lips and gave him the middle finger.

That only made Merle laugh harder.

Now that was more his style.

“All right, don’t bother with these old assholes,” Luke said with a laugh. “They stand around here all day with nothing to do but talk about women and mess with kids. They’re bored out of their minds.”

With that, he led Ellie through the gate.

After they had gone a few steps, Ellie quietly glanced back and gave Merle the middle finger again.

“Hahahaha!”

The men behind Merle practically doubled over laughing.

Luke pretended he hadn’t seen a thing.

“Bro, take a squad and follow them!”

Merle shot Daryl a look.

“Don’t need you telling me.”

A cigarette hanging from his lips, Daryl gave him an annoyed glance.

Then he raised his rifle, called over several white-armored soldiers, and headed out after them.

There was no way he was going to let Luke wander around outside alone with a girl.

He knew better than that.

...

The forest.

Luke led Ellie straight into the woods beyond the city.

The moment they entered the forest, Ellie’s entire demeanor changed.

She was no longer the hesitant, guarded little girl from before.

She lowered her body and moved with feather-light steps, barely making a sound even when her feet landed on fallen leaves.

Her small, light frame certainly helped, but having that kind of awareness at her age already marked her as a natural hunter.

Luke even noticed that her eyes never stopped sweeping across their surroundings while her ears tracked every rustle in the woods. She was constantly judging the rotten smell in the air, deciding whether it came from decaying leaves or the flesh of walkers.

Not bad.

Not bad at all.

She was already a capable young hunter.

Luke watched her and nodded inwardly.

The girl really did have talent.

With his hands clasped behind his back, Luke strolled leisurely after her like some loafer wandering through a market.

Before long, Ellie noticed something strange.

No matter how fast she moved, this carefree-looking man who seemed completely off guard always stayed right behind her.

And somehow, his footsteps were even quieter than hers.

No matter how careful Ellie was, stepping on dead branches and leaves inevitably produced the faintest sound.

Luke, however, followed behind her without making so much as a whisper.

It didn’t matter what he stepped on, even thick piles of dry leaves. From beginning to end, there was no sound at all.

It was almost as if his feet never actually touched the ground, like he was gliding just above it.

Like a damn ghost.

It was a level of agility Ellie couldn’t even begin to understand.

The stealth skills she had always been proud of suddenly made her seem like an inexperienced little girl beside him.

A fine layer of cold sweat formed across Ellie’s back.

Luke kept his expression perfectly neutral.

Showing off in front of people really did feel pretty damn good.

You think walking across leaves without making a sound is agility?

Wrong!

This is luck!

In the distance, Daryl stood on a rise and ordered the white-armored soldiers to spread out and secure the surrounding area.

He raised his binoculars and silently watched.

Through the lenses, the young girl moved through the forest with a speed and awareness completely at odds with her age, slipping between the trees while constantly checking her surroundings.

“This girl...” Daryl narrowed his eyes.

Surprise crossed the veteran hunter’s face.

That movement, that alertness, and the way she read her surroundings were not things an ordinary survivor could possess.

Those were the instincts of someone who had spent years living on the edge of a knife.

And yet she was just a little girl.

The contrast was almost absurd.

He shifted the binoculars toward Luke.

Luke was even harder to figure out now.

Back at the quarry camp, his stealth had been excellent.

But now?

Ever since entering the woods, Luke had kept his hands behind his back and wandered along like he was strolling through his own backyard.

What was this?

Had his tracking skills actually gotten worse?

Still, judging by Luke’s expression, Daryl could tell he was quite satisfied with the girl.

The two continued deeper into the forest.

This area had once been thick with walkers, but the farther they went, the more Ellie sensed something unusual.

They occasionally passed scattered walker remains, and there were plenty of traces of old fighting on the ground, but there were far fewer active walkers than she had expected.

“Why are there so few walkers around here?” she finally asked.

“Because we cleared them out,” Luke explained patiently. “When I first took over as the Commonwealth Security Director, I had the surrounding hordes eliminated so they wouldn’t form nests nearby.”

“But you can never really kill them all.”

“Know what the current ratio of humans to walkers is? One to five thousand.”

“Based on Virginia’s population density, even if there are still a hundred thousand survivors left, that works out to almost eighty walkers per person. And that’s without counting all the walkers drifting in from neighboring states.”

“So the deeper we go, the farther we get from the areas we regularly clear, and the more varied the walkers become.”

Ellie nodded and immediately sharpened her focus again.

Sure enough, after they went several more miles into the forest, a few staggering figures appeared between the trees ahead.

A handful of stray walkers.

They wandered aimlessly along the outer edge of the woods, their skin badly decayed and their steps unsteady.

The moment they heard movement in the forest, every one of them turned toward the sound.

Then they picked up speed and came straight for Luke and Ellie.

Ellie instinctively reached for her knife.

“Hold on.” Luke raised a hand to stop her. “Those ordinary ones are boring. Look over there.”

He tilted his chin toward the rear of the small group.

Behind the ordinary walkers, something completely different slowly emerged.

It stood nearly a head taller than the others and had a much heavier build. Its skin was a sickly bluish-gray, and it wore a tattered hoodie.

It apparently could climb trees and watch its prey from above, making it difficult to tell at first whether it hunted humans by sound or by sight.

Probably sight.

Its eyes were brighter than those of ordinary walkers, carrying a faint, animalistic ferocity.

“What is that?” Ellie’s pupils narrowed.

She had never seen a walker like it before.

“A mutated walker. Looks like a Hunter,” Luke said.

“Remember what I told you? This world is a lot more complicated than you think. The walkers you encountered in the Southwest may have been infected by fungus, but around here there are monsters that are even harder to deal with.”

Looking at the Hunter, Luke explained, “Leave walkers alone long enough, let the virus keep working on them over time, and eventually some of them mutate.”

“Some develop varying degrees of muscular enhancement. Some specialize in speed, defense, or calling others. There are even Nest Builders that keep producing terrifying Hunters.”

“And the worst ones can tear an entire fully armed squad apart in the middle of the night without making a sound.”