TWD - Chapter 544: The Veterans’ Dorm (Patreon)

Calista had just handed Cyrus the walkie-talkie and turned to head back when Carver came up behind her.

He walked at an unhurried pace, but Calista knew he had something to say.

“Calista.”

Calista stopped and looked back at him. Sunlight fell across the face that usually carried a roguish edge, but his eyes were serious now.

“What is it?”

Carver stepped closer and lowered his voice. “Victor and Cyrus are going back to try to turn the others. I don’t like it.”

Calista looked at him. “Go on.”

Carver took a deep breath. “I know people over there too. A few of them used to run missions with me. If I can get inside and make contact with them quietly…”

He paused. “I’m confident I can convince them.”

Calista did not answer right away. She only looked at him, making Carver shift slightly under her gaze. “I know it’s risky, but I think it’s worth trying. They have weapons and intelligence. If we can bring them over to our side…”

“No.”

Carver froze for a moment. “Why?”

Calista stepped closer, close enough that Carver could make out the curve of her eyelashes. “Because you’re Plan B.”

Carver did not understand. “What Plan B?”

Calista explained, “Victor and Cyrus are making the first move. If they fail, we’ll need someone to carry out Plan B. You’ll be the one leading it.”

Carver’s breath caught as he looked into her eyes. “You-you mean…”

“I mean,” Calista cut in, “when the time comes, I want you to take the lead and work with the others to lure them here.”

She reached out and pressed lightly against his chest, right over his heart. “You all go out alive, and you all come back alive.”

The touch was light, but Carver’s throat moved. “…I understand. No matter what happens, I’m on your side.”

As he said this, his tone was natural, but there was something else in his eyes besides loyalty.

Calista looked at him and smiled softly. “Carver, I know.”

Carver nodded and stayed where he was, watching Calista walk away. Sunlight fell over her and stretched her shadow long across the ground. He touched the spot on his chest where she had just touched him.

Benson had walked up beside him without Carver noticing. “What are you looking at?”

Carver didn’t turn around. “Nothing.”

Benson followed his gaze. Calista was talking to Leah. “You like her, don’t you?”

Carver nearly choked on his own spit and shot him a look full of contempt. “You-you only just noticed?”

Benson: “…”

He had expected the kid to deny it. Apparently Benson was the one who had been slow on the uptake.

...

By the time Cyrus and Victor emerged from the ruins, the sun was already close to setting.

The shipyard looked especially menacing in the twilight. Three gantry cranes stood by the river like silent giants.

A massive cross had been welded to the top of the tallest one. In the last light of day, it became a black silhouette nailed against the darkening sky.

Cyrus stood at the edge of the ruins and looked at the place where he had lived for most of the past six months.

After the apocalypse, he had woken up looking at that cross every day and fallen asleep beneath it every night. It had long since become part of his life, as natural as breathing.

But looking at it now, it seemed more like a tombstone. A massive rust-red tombstone waiting to bury everyone inside.

“Come on,” Victor urged beside him, poking him in the side. “It’s almost dark. If we don’t get back soon, they’re going to notice!”

Cyrus took a deep breath, one hand unconsciously pressing against the walkie-talkie hidden against his chest. “Let’s go.”

The two followed the familiar route toward the factory grounds. The outer sentry posts were empty. The guards on duty were slacking off.

At Sentry Post No. 3, Cyrus spotted two men crouched beneath the tattered sunshade, huddled together and muttering about something while the red tips of their cigarettes brightened and dimmed.

“Fuck!” Victor cursed under his breath. “Those two bastards are definitely gambling again, and they still have cigarettes!”

Cyrus said nothing. He knew both men, Zike and Dubin. One was bald, the other broad-faced and vicious-looking. Both were the kind of men who killed without blinking.

They either had not noticed Cyrus and Victor or simply did not care.

They were all their own people, coming and going all the time. Who the hell cared?

Cyrus and Victor slipped into the factory grounds through a side entrance. It was darker inside than out. Dim yellow light spilled from the workshop, powered by several diesel generators. The power failed every few days, but it was enough to get by.

The Furnace of Purification was still burning, casting a dark golden glow over the massive iron propeller shaft. Whenever the flames leaped, its shadow moved with them like some living beast.

The same smell always hung in the air. Rust, the choking reek of coke, and a faint cloying sweetness. The smell of burned human flesh.

Cyrus did not know what had been burned there during the day. He could see fresh ash along the edge of the pit, mixed with a few black fragments that had not burned completely. He did not look too closely.

“I’m going to check in first,” Victor said quietly. “Are you heading back to the dorms, or…”

“I’m going back to the dorms,” Cyrus said. “I’ll find you tomorrow.”

Victor nodded, patted him on the shoulder, and then walked toward the workshop.

Cyrus stayed there until Victor’s back disappeared into the dim yellow light, then turned toward the dormitory.

The veterans’ dormitory consisted of a row of shipping containers behind the workshop. They had been left behind by the shipyard. Rusty, but solid.

Each person had a room to himself. The sheet-metal doors creaked whenever they were pushed open.

Cyrus pushed open the door to his room. Inside was a cramped little space.

The blanket on the camp cot lay in a heap. A wooden cross hung above the head of the bed, beside several yellowed magazine pages covered with curvy, big-breasted women, the kind of spreads you would have seen in Playboy before the apocalypse.

A jumble of clothes and shoes sat in one corner, giving off a foul smell. There was no telling how long it had been since any of it was washed.

On the table sat a tin cup and half a bottle of whiskey he had scavenged the previous month and secretly kept for himself. No one else knew about it.

He looked around, shut the door, pulled out the walkie-talkie, and held it to his ear. There was no voice, only a faint hiss of static.

He tucked the walkie-talkie back inside his clothes against his chest, beneath the innermost layer. Just then, footsteps, laughter, and curses drifted in from outside.

Cyrus quickly hid the walkie-talkie and pretended to be straightening his bed. The next moment, the door was kicked open.

“Suck it! Cyrus! Where the hell have you been?!” A bald man shoved his head inside, his face thick and fierce, a half-smoked cheap cigarette hanging from his mouth. It was Dubin.

Another bald man followed behind him. Zike was grinning like he had just found a pile of money. “God damn you, you’re really alive?”

Zike squeezed inside and punched Cyrus in the shoulder. “You weren’t at roll call during the shift change today. I thought the walkers had dragged your ass off!”

The punch knocked Cyrus back a step, but he could not stop the corner of his mouth from lifting. “Bullshit! I had the runs. Spent the whole damn day on the toilet.”

Dubin tossed his cigarette butt onto the floor and crushed it under his boot. “You had diarrhea all day? What the hell did you eat, something expired?”

“That shitty canned food from the cafeteria,” Cyrus replied without missing a beat. “It tasted sour as hell. The second I finished it, I had to run for the toilet.”

Zike and Dubin burst out laughing at the same time.

“Fuck, I stopped eating that shit ages ago!” Zike slapped his thigh. “That bitch Martha only ever fed people garbage!”

“The Pope killed Martha a long time ago. She wasn’t one of us. She got caught stealing from the cafeteria stores, so The Pope slit her throat,” Dubin said. “Malcolm runs the cafeteria now.”

Cyrus paused for a moment. “Malcolm? Which Malcolm?”

“That guy who used to run with Valentino. Flat-top, scar on his face,” Zike said. “Valentino’s gone, right? Malcolm started sucking up to The Pope and the chaplain like crazy, so The Pope put him in charge of the cafeteria.”

Cyrus fell silent. He suddenly remembered what Benson had said. “Forget the core members. Those people have already been completely brainwashed by The Pope.”

This Malcolm might be just that kind of person.

“All right, all right,” Dubin waved his hand. “Now that you’re back, get some rest. We’ll probably have a job tomorrow.”

“What kind of work?”

“No idea,” Dubin said, lowering his voice. “A few of the people who went into Wolves territory to look for Benson’s squad came back today. The Pope called several of them in this afternoon and talked to them for a long time. When they came out, Xavier looked thunderous.”

Xavier was a squad leader at the same level as Valentino and Benson, and the craziest man under The Pope. He was core even among the core members.

Cyrus’s heart skipped a beat, but his face remained expressionless. “All right, we’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

Zike patted him on the shoulder. “Come on. Get some sleep.”

The two turned and walked away. Their voices drifted back from outside. “…Did that idiot really spend the whole day shitting?”

“Who knows? Maybe he slipped off somewhere to get laid.”

“Get laid my ass. There isn’t a single woman in this godforsaken place…”

Cyrus listened until their voices faded away, then slowly leaned back against the wall. He looked up at the ceiling. A crack ran through the top of the shipping container, revealing the pitch-black sky outside.