TWD: Saving Merle First - Chapter 155: A Chance Encounter with the Hammer God (Patreon)

How could a man do his duty without neglecting the woman he loved? Simple. He could bring her along.

Take Wade, for instance. Beth was sitting in the passenger seat beside him, practically glowing with excitement.

"Wade, does this count as our second date?"

"Nope," Wade answered without thinking.

Beth turned her head toward him and fixed him with a dangerously steady stare. "Then what does it count as?"

Under the pressure of that murderous gaze, Wade's expression didn't change. Inside, though, his idiot brain had shifted straight into third gear, scrambling to find a way out.

"Our honeymoon, sweetheart."

He even lowered his voice a couple of notes to deliver the line.

The moment he said it, he surprised himself. Huh. This new brain of mine is pretty useful after all.

Although isn't this a ridiculous thing to be using it for?

Beth blushed, turned toward the window, and answered softly, "Mm. It's a little late, but I'll accept that."

Wade chuckled in delight and pressed down on the accelerator. The pickup sped up a little.

Since the outbreak, highways had become almost impossible to travel without clearing the wrecks first. Instead of taking the highway, they were following country roads.

That made the journey longer than the original hundred and fifty miles. Their route would be closer to a hundred and eighty.

The back roads weren't guaranteed to be clear, either. Every so often, abandoned vehicles blocked the way.

Whenever Wade could move an obstruction, he stopped to deal with it. If a car still ran, he drove it aside. If it didn't, he pushed it out of the way by brute force.

Progress was painfully slow. After traveling all of yesterday afternoon and most of this morning, nearly a full day, they'd covered only forty miles.

It was slower than he'd expected, but he could live with it. At least the route was still passable.

"Screeech..."

Wade eased the pickup to a halt. Beth drew her pistol and chambered a round.

Another small crowd of walkers blocked the road. There weren't many, but ramming them was a bad idea. If the collision damaged the pickup, neither Wade nor Beth knew how to repair it.

That left the more troublesome option: getting out and handling them personally.

Wade picked up the recurve bow and quiver he'd prepared, opened the door, and stepped outside.

Bow in his left hand, arrow in his right, he nocked the shaft, drew the string to its limit, and released.

His coordination and Perception had improved enormously since the early days. Shooting a bow now felt so effortless that it was almost as though he'd switched on some kind of cheat...

"Fwish!"

"Fwish!"

"Fwish!"

Arrows flew one after another, and walkers dropped one after another. It was as if Death were calling roll. Strangely enough, Wade found it relaxing.

Within moments, he'd cleared the entire group without breaking much of a sweat.

Beth holstered her gun, applauded with exaggerated delight, and gazed at him with an adoring expression. She certainly knew how to make him feel appreciated.

Wade smiled, but he wasn't finished. He nocked another arrow, shifted his aim slightly, and shot into a clump of grass.

"Fwish... bzzzz!"

The arrowhead buried itself in the dirt. Half the shaft stuck out, trembling and humming.

A moment later, a frightened man's shout came from the grass.

"Aah! Fuck!"

A burly Black man scrambled to his feet. He had a beard, a knit cap, a backpack, and a claw hammer that looked as though he'd scavenged it somewhere.

Beside him was a woman with a ponytail. Her hair was a little wild, with bits of grass caught in it. She wore a green bag across her body, held a shovel, and looked distinctly unimpressed.

Wade narrowed his eyes. He searched his memories, and it didn't take long for the two names to surface.

Tyreese, the Hammer God. And Sasha, the sharpshooter.

What are the chances of running into these two here?

"Hey, you with the bow! We don't mean any harm! My sister and I were just passing through and hiding from the walkers. We're not here to hurt you!" the man called.

Wade lowered his recurve bow and nodded.

Knowing the characters from the original story had its advantages. He didn't need to spend days figuring out what kind of people they were. He only had to dig the right memories out of his head.

Tyreese, for example, looked terrifyingly tough but was actually a kind, gentle man at heart.

Seeing Wade put his weapon down, Tyreese and Sasha both breathed easier. The man's aim was frighteningly good. He'd been dropping walkers as casually as if he were playing a game. Killing the two of them probably wouldn't have been difficult for him.

"So, do you two have somewhere to go?" Wade asked. "Want to come with us?"

The siblings exchanged glances and began talking quietly.

"Maybe he's right. If we travel together, we'll be safer."

"He just shot an arrow at you! That's dangerous!"

"It's the apocalypse. How was he supposed to know who or what was hiding in the grass? Besides, the arrow landed a little ahead of me. He wasn't trying to kill me."

"...Maybe you're right, but what if they..."

"Then we leave and look after ourselves!"

Wade could hear their whispered argument from more than twenty meters away. A thought suddenly occurred to him. What if I shouted, 'I agree,' right now? Would they lose their minds?

Heh. They just might...

The urge to play a prank steadily grew, and he couldn't stop the corners of his mouth from rising.

"Wade, what are you smiling about? You look kind of wicked..." Beth tilted her head at his expression.

"They're arguing over whether to join us. The sister thinks I'm a little crazy, but the brother wants to give traveling together a try."

"Huh? You can hear what they're saying?"

"...No. I can tell by looking at them."

"Oh." Beth looked through the windshield at Tyreese and Sasha. They did seem to be arguing.

But how did Wade know it was the sister who wanted to refuse, rather than the brother?

Hmm. That's a tough one...

Fortunately, the argument didn't last much longer. The two eventually reached an agreement.

Tyreese led Sasha out of the brush and onto the road. Looking up at Wade, who stood noticeably taller than he did, Tyreese said, "We'll travel with you. I hope we can get along."

He held out his hand first.

Wade shook it with a smile. "I'm sure we will. I'm not hard to get along with. Hope you aren't, either."

"We've still got a lot of ground to cover, though, so how about you get in? It'll take us another few days to return to camp."

"Camp? Are we going there now?"

"Not yet. We're heading for a highway rest area about a hundred and ten miles from here. I want to see if there's enough fuel there."

Hearing that, Sasha couldn't help asking, "Is your camp really that big?"

"Eight thousand square meters, with more than seventy people living there. What do you think?"

The brother and sister fell silent. It seemed they might have just climbed aboard a much bigger ship than they'd imagined.

(Author's note: In this story, Tyreese is Sasha's older brother. They're written as brother and sister, not as an older sister and younger brother.)