TWD - Chapter 576: The Campus Route (Patreon)

Leah's main force took the route through the UTK campus. Compared with the residential streets, it was considerably easier to move through.

Some of her people cleared the surrounding blocks while the rest entered the university grounds.

The campus, once filled with students, had been abandoned to the wilderness.

It had never held as many walkers as the residential neighborhoods. Hank's squad had also cleared some of them out when they came to collect Martin Sorensen and the group of teachers and students. Add in the protection offered by the Walker Disruptors, and the advance had been relatively smooth.

Even so, Leah remained on guard.

Earlier reconnaissance had counted more than a hundred walkers on campus and over twenty survivors hiding somewhere among the buildings. At this stage of the apocalypse, unless a horde appeared, human beings were far more dangerous than walkers.

The improved Walker Disruptor needed to be reapplied every half hour to maintain an invisible barrier around the team. Today, however, Leah had no intention of depending entirely on the spray.

"All squads, listen up," she said softly into her radio. "Use bows, crossbows, and melee weapons first. Save your guns for emergencies."

A chorus of acknowledgments came back immediately.

The soldiers entered the campus at a steady pace.

UTK had once been one of Tennessee's leading public universities, with over thirty thousand students at its height.

Now the teaching buildings, library, and dormitories stood amid waist-high weeds like rows of gravestones, monuments to the desolation the apocalypse had left behind.

As the team pushed farther in, walkers began to appear.

The first stood outside the library. It wore the remnants of a security guard's uniform, the torn fabric barely clinging to its dark, rotting body.

Its face was twisted to one side. Half its jaw was missing, exposing a crooked row of teeth.

This walker's sense of smell seemed dulled, and the Disruptor offered little protection against it.

Hearing footsteps, it slowly turned toward the soldiers. Its hollow eye sockets faced the approaching group, and it opened its foul mouth with a rasping groan.

Whoosh!

An arrow shot from thirty meters away and struck it squarely in the left eye. The shaft punched through its skull and emerged from the back of its head.

The walker stiffened, tipped backward, and hit the ground with a heavy thump.

Leah glanced at the archer and gave a small nod. The soldier lowered his bow and quickly caught up with the others.

A second walker came into view around the corner of a dormitory.

It was a young woman, presumably a student before the outbreak. Now her body was so badly deformed that she scarcely looked human. Her features were crumpled and misshapen, as though someone had crushed her face and put it back together badly.

Two soldiers approached from the side, their spears leveled at the back of her head. They thrust almost at the same time.

A dull, wet sound followed. The spearheads pierced rotten flesh, broke through the skull, and came out through her mouth.

Black blood and gray-white brain matter trickled down the shafts, carrying a sickening stench.

The female walker convulsed a few times before collapsing like a puppet with its strings cut.

One of the spearmen grimaced, withdrew his weapon, and wiped the worst of the filth on the body.

The squad continued in the same fashion, putting down each walker they found with swift, decisive strikes.

Spears drove through skulls. Knives entered eye sockets. Arrows and crossbow bolts silently dropped targets from a distance. It was a quiet, brutal business.

The smell of blood and decay slowly thickened around them.

They crossed a stretch of overgrown lawn where the grass reached their waists. Seven or eight walkers were hidden among the stalks.

When the creatures heard the team's footsteps, they all lurched upright. The closest was barely a meter away, too near for the spearman in front to adjust his aim.

Without hesitation, another soldier drew his knife and charged. He slipped past the walker's lunge and drove the blade into its temple from the side, burying half its length.

A garbled sound escaped the creature's throat before its body sagged.

The soldier wrenched his knife free and kicked the corpse away. By the time he looked up, the other walkers had been dispatched too.

One veteran drove his spear through a walker's throat, but he missed the vital spot.

Even with its throat pierced, the walker kept clawing blindly and struggling to reach him.

The veteran swore, pulled out his spear, repositioned it, and stabbed again, this time straight through the eye socket.

That did it. The walker stopped moving and crumpled to the ground.

Looking down at it, the veteran muttered in frustration, "Holy shit. Missed the mark."

A soldier beside him laughed. "Miss or not, it's dead now."

The veteran glared at him. "Shut up."

When they reached the entrance of a teaching building, a dozen or so walkers wandered out from somewhere inside. Drawn by the sounds outdoors, they gathered sluggishly. The Disruptor kept them from recognizing the humans nearby, so they continued to mill about without a clear target.

The archers and crossbowmen took aim at once.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

A volley of arrows dropped more than half the group.

The survivors of the volley grew agitated, seemingly stimulated by the smell of their fallen companions' blood. They were too slow to matter. Before they could close the distance, five spears struck together and pierced five skulls.

One walker remained. A soldier rushed in from the side and swept his blade across its neck, severing its head in one clean stroke.

The head rolled across the ground. For an instant, the body stayed upright, swayed twice, then fell heavily, kicking up a little dust.

Leah strode over and surveyed the corpses sprawled in every direction. Black blood spread across the ground, mixing with gray-white brain matter into a revolting slick.

She looked back at her soldiers and waved them onward. "Keep moving."

They entered the teaching building beside them.

Inside, the air was damp and the corridors dark. Old debris blocked the windows, leaving only a few weak threads of daylight to cast irregular patches of light on the floor.

Two walkers were wandering near the stairs.

At the sound of footsteps, they turned their heads sluggishly, their eyes empty.

The soldiers closed in before either creature could react.

Two dull impacts sounded almost together. Both walkers took blows straight through the skull and tumbled down the staircase like sacks of rags, hitting the steps with a series of heavy thuds.

The team continued climbing.

Three walkers waited in the second-floor corridor.

The archers quickly nocked their arrows and shot, dropping two where they stood.

The third was already close enough to notice the soldiers and began shambling toward them.

A quick-thinking fighter darted in from the side and drove his knife deep into its eye socket.

The walker went limp and collapsed on top of him.

He shoved it away and stood, only to discover that black blood covered his face and clothes. He looked filthy and smelled worse.

"Shit!" he cursed. "This was my newest set of clothes!"

A teammate handed him a bottle of water. "Rinse yourself off. You can wash the rest when we get back."

He took the bottle and poured water over his face until the black blood began to run off. After a deep breath, he regained his composure.

"Let's go."