TWD: Saving Merle First - Chapter 87: The Lost (Patreon)

Abraham sat frozen in his seat for several seconds.

Then uncontrollable rage surged into his eyes.

His face twisted as he roared,

“Say that again?!”

Eugene stumbled back several steps in fright.

He didn’t dare say another word.

But his silence hurt even more than anything he could have said.

Abraham immediately climbed out of the vehicle and slammed the door shut with a deafening bang.

Like an enraged brown bear, he charged straight at Eugene, seized him by the collar with both hands, and lifted him up.

His eyes were bloodshot.

“So what you’re saying is that you fucking lied to me?! There is no viral serum, you’re not some research expert, and you’re nothing but a goddamn fraud?!”

“...”

“Fuck! People died getting you this far! We lost so many people protecting you, and now you’re telling me you’re just a fucking liar?! How the hell can you face any of them?! Huh?!”

The moment he finished shouting, Abraham released Eugene’s collar.

Then his right fist slammed viciously into Eugene’s face.

“Thud!”

Eugene’s eyes rolled back, and he dropped straight to the ground.

“Hey! Hey! Hey!”

“No!”

“Stop!”

The sudden violence threw everyone into chaos.

The women quickly backed away with the children while Shane and Rick rushed forward.

“Stop, Abraham!”

But Abraham was far too furious to listen.

He stepped forward, bent over Eugene, and raised his right hand again, clenching it into a fist as he prepared to bring it down.

Before he could, a hand clamped tightly around his wrist like a vise.

Abraham instinctively tried to pull free.

He couldn’t move it at all.

He turned his head.

It was Wade.

“I’m not against you teaching him a lesson, but if you hit him like that again, he’s going to die.”

“And even if you kill him, all you’ll accomplish is venting your anger for a few minutes. It won’t change anything.”

Wade looked at him.

“So how about giving him a chance to make up for what he did?”

As the strength gradually left Abraham’s arm, Wade pulled him upright and released his wrist.

The red slowly faded from Abraham’s eyes.

What replaced it was confusion and emptiness.

He turned away and walked toward the tents like a man who had lost his soul.

“Marcus, check Eugene’s injuries. Glenn, move the vehicle back and grab Abraham a bottle of liquor while you’re at it. Everyone else, go rest and don’t wander off. The men stay here. We still have bodies to clean up.”

Marcus and Glenn stepped out of the crowd at Wade’s orders.

Marcus crouched beside Eugene to examine him while Glenn climbed into the SUV and drove it back to its original spot.

Daryl soon appeared across the distant grass, jogging back toward camp.

He looked at Wade and shook his head.

“Wade, no sign anyone stopped in that direction.”

Wade nodded.

“All right. Leave it for now.”

He looked around at the others.

“Come on, guys. Let’s get moving. Clean this mess up, then get back to whatever you were doing.”

Otis and Jimmy pushed two trailers out from behind Hershel’s property.

Everyone else put on gloves and heavy-duty clothing before getting to work hauling bodies.

They worked until noon before finally clearing them all away.

The corpses were dumped in an abandoned field, doused with gasoline, and set on fire.

Wade watched the flames rise along with thick black smoke and clicked his tongue.

“What a waste. When we have some free time, we should build a walker shredder. Could use them as fertilizer for the fields.”

“...”

“...”

None of the men carrying bodies said a word.

They simply stared at Wade as though he were some kind of monster.

They already knew the guy could be ruthless.

They just hadn’t expected him to take it so far that even dead walkers wouldn’t escape being put to use.

Andrew, meanwhile, was actually considering whether the idea was practical.

It didn’t seem that difficult...

By afternoon, Eugene finally regained consciousness.

Marcus had examined him and determined that he had a mild concussion, but nothing too serious.

A few days of rest should be enough.

His mood, however, was another matter.

Just like Abraham, Eugene stayed inside his tent and refused to come out.

Unfortunately for him, he had seriously overestimated Wade’s sympathy.

Merle, Daryl, and several others hauled him out, put him in a vehicle, and took him into town to search for equipment or parts that could be used to build a two-way radio.

Andrew, Glenn, and several others went along as well.

Their objective, however, was to gather materials for the UV lights.

Marcus took several of the women and began disinfecting the area around the camp to reduce the risk of diseases such as influenza or other outbreaks caused by all the walker remains.

Maggie, Rosita, and Andrea were sent out as well.

Their job was to systematically inspect the surrounding wheat fields and determine the order in which they should be harvested.

Wade, meanwhile, went through the camp’s armory again and started planning.

The situation made him scratch his head.

They had plenty of rifles, shotguns, and handguns.

Their ammunition reserves were decent too.

What they lacked was heavy firepower.

And explosives.

The only explosives they still had were the grenades they had recovered from the gang hideout a long time ago.

And only two remained.

He needed to find more somehow...

As Wade thought about it, another idea crossed his mind.

Molotov cocktails.

It wasn’t that they were especially destructive.

But they had another useful feature.

They could provide light at night.

Maybe they should make a few.

The materials were relatively easy to find.

Glass bottles, gasoline, diesel, and something thick enough to help the mixture stick.

There were plenty of possibilities for that last part.

Motor oil, foam plastic, scraps of rubber inner tubes, and so on.

Since he wanted to make use of whatever they already had, Wade assigned the task to Nancy and Emma.

After explaining the precautions and safety concerns, he gave each of them a pair of cut-resistant gloves.

They were part of his camp, after all.

He didn’t want either of them getting hurt.

Nancy didn’t react much.

She handled knives every day while cooking, so she was already used to that kind of work.

Emma, on the other hand, became so excited that her face turned red.

She looked as though Wade had entrusted her with some incredibly important mission.

Chest out and head held high, she immediately got to work beside her sister.

After sending nearly everyone in camp off to their assigned jobs, Wade finally found himself with some rare free time.

Strangely enough, his mind went blank.

For a while, he genuinely had no idea what to do.

Maybe he could head back into town, level up some more, and pick up ammunition and other supplies along the way?

Once Wade got an idea into his head, he rarely wasted time.

After giving Rick a few instructions, he walked straight to the pickup, started it almost immediately, and drove off.

Rick stood there with a frown, scratched the back of his head, then let out a long sigh.

He looked exactly like an exhausted employee being worked to death by his boss.