TWD - Chapter 580: The Hospital Squad (Patreon)

Carver's unit had left the industrial park and was pushing toward downtown by way of the hospital district.

When the Wildfire virus first erupted across the world, ordinary people had no idea what kind of catastrophe they were facing.

Anyone who developed even the slightest symptom rushed to a hospital in terror. Inevitably, hospitals everywhere became gathering grounds for walkers.

Large, densely populated cities like Atlanta had suffered another blow when the U.S. government bombed them during Operation Cobalt Blue.

Smaller and midsize cities such as Knoxville had escaped those devastating strikes, leaving far more of their buildings standing.

Unfortunately, that also meant more walkers had survived. Clearing them out would be harder and more complicated.

Carver strode at the head of his column, scanning the imposing buildings on either side. Hospitals, clinics, pharmacies.

Before the world ended, this had been Knoxville's medical center. Now it was one of the city's worst walker-infested areas.

"All teams, listen up," he said quietly but sternly over the radio. "Use melee weapons first. Take down as many walkers as you can.

"If you can't finish them that way, switch to suppressed firearms. Keep the noise down. We don't want to attract any more."

A round of "Copy" came back over the radios, and the troops advanced with care.

The streets around the hospital were worse than anyone had expected.

Abandoned ambulances lay at strange angles across the road, their doors hanging open and their interiors stained with dried blood.

Overturned wheelchairs littered the roadside. IV stands leaned out of the landscaped strips, while patient records and X-rays lay scattered across the sidewalk.

Carver raised one hand. The column stopped immediately.

Some twenty or thirty walkers wandered around the intersection ahead, packed so tightly into the roadway that they blocked the unit's path.

He studied them.

The Walker Disruptors had made the creatures a little more sluggish, but there were still too many to slip past. To force their way through, his people would have to eliminate at least half.

He made a decision and signaled.

The crossbowmen picked off the first few from a distance. The rest stirred. Some lifted their heads and looked around, but the disruptors' scent left them confused, swaying in place without finding a target.

Carver drew the long blade at his waist and stepped out first. "With me!"

The first walker was facing away from him.

His blade swept through the air. The creature's head lurched forward as though struck by a hammer, and the point punched through the back of its skull and out through its mouth, trailing thick black blood.

He pulled the weapon free. The walker crumpled, and he was already moving toward the next.

The second staggered out from behind an abandoned ambulance, almost directly in front of him. At that distance, the disruptor no longer kept it docile.

Something like animal ferocity flashed in its empty eyes when it spotted him. Its arms swung wildly as it hurried toward him.

Carver sidestepped the clumsy lunge without breaking stride and drove his blade sideways into its temple. A muffled wet sound followed. The walker stiffened, then dropped flat.

A third. A fourth. A fifth...

He moved through the cluster at will. Before the creatures could shake off their stupor, one after another fell to his ruthless attacks.

The soldiers stayed close, finishing any walkers that wandered beyond his reach.

Five minutes later, the intersection was clear. Corpses littered the asphalt, their dark blood spreading across the road and filling the air with a stomach-turning stench.

Carver stood in the center, black blood dripping from his blade. After one indifferent glance at the bodies, he sheathed it. "Move out!"

The column pushed on behind him.

At the very back walked Sturgess, who kept turning to look at the bodies they were leaving behind.

He had come from Alexandria, where he'd been one of the few residents with any experience outside the walls.

The Defense Force offered the best conditions at Rock Fortress. And since his friends Heath, Scott, and several others had enlisted, signing up had seemed the obvious choice.

Now, looking back at the walkers, he found himself experiencing a peculiar feeling.

The monsters that had once terrified him seemed almost tame under the influence of Rock Fortress's Walker Disruptors, like wild beasts subdued by some mysterious power.

So walkers weren't such a big deal after all. Even he could stab one without much trouble.

His confidence swelled. He turned for one more look, and in that moment of distraction, his foot landed on an iron pipe.

It had been hidden beneath a thick layer of dirt and trash, so thoroughly blended into the roadside debris that he hadn't seen it.

His weight tipped one end upward, and the pipe sprang against his calf with a sharp bang.

Sturgess cried out and pitched forward. He threw out a hand to catch himself, only to land in a foul heap of garbage. And right under his palm was a severed hand.

It was rotted almost beyond recognition, the skin shriveled and blackish brown, its fingernails long and yellow. The wrist ended in a ragged stump, as though a walker had bitten it off.

His unprotected palm pressed down on those sharp nails. Before he could pull away, one sliced a cut across his skin. It wasn't deep, but bright blood immediately welled from it.

He froze. For more than ten seconds, his mind went completely blank. Then he scrambled upright and shouted in a shaking voice, "Captain! Captain, I've been scratched!"

Carver spun around. Sturgess stood at the rear of the column, deathly pale, holding his injured hand above his head.

Blood seeped from the cut. Beside him, the iron pipe still rocked and rolled faintly against the pavement.

Carver hurried over, seized Sturgess's wrist, and examined the wound. "Sturgess."

Sturgess looked up at him helplessly, his lips quivering. "Captain, I..."

Carver didn't answer. He took a clean axe from his belt, one that had never been used.

Terror filled Sturgess's eyes. "Captain, please! M-maybe nothing will happen!"