Out of nowhere, a sound outside cuts off his words and gets everybody’s attention.
Faint at first, carrying on the wind, the unmistakable crackle of .50 caliber gunfire comes from the east. The duration and fury of it—more than one gun placement barks for several moments—speaks to a serious firefight.
“Hold on!” The Governor raises his hand and cocks his head toward the window. It sounds as though it’s coming from the northeast corner of the barricade, but at this distance, it’s hard to tell for sure. “Something major’s going down,” the Governor says to Gabe.
Both Gabe and Bruce swing their Bushmaster machine guns around in front of them, safeties going off.
“C’mon!” The Governor charges out of the room, Gabe and Bruce on his heels.
*
They burst out of Stevens’s building with machine guns at the ready, the Governor in the lead, his 9 mm in hand, locked and cocked.
The wind skitters trash around their feet as they head east. The echoes of automatic gunfire have already faded on the breeze, but they can see a pair of tungsten searchlights—about three hundred yards away—the twin beams bouncing up across the silhouettes of rooftops.
“BOB!” The Governor sees the old medic huddled against a storefront half a block away. Shrouded in a ratty blanket, the drunkard crouches, shivering, his eyes popping wide toward the commotion. He looks as though the gunfire awakened him only moments ago, his expression bloodless and agitated, a man awakened from one nightmare by another. The Governor hurries up to him. “You see anything, buddy? We under attack? What’s going on?”
The medic sputters for a moment, hacking and wheezing. “Don’t know for sure … heard a guy … he was coming from the wall just a second ago…” He doubles over then with a coughing attack.
“What did he say, Bob?” The Governor touches the old man’s shoulder, gives him a little shake.
“He said … it’s a new arrival … something like that … new people.”
The Governor lets out a breath of relief. “You’re sure now, Bob?”
The old man nods. “Said something about new folks coming in with a pack of walkers right on their tail. They got ’em all, though—the walkers, that is.”
The Governor pats the old man. “That’s a relief, Bob. You stay put while we check it out.”
“Yes, sir, I’ll do that.”
The Governor turns to his men, speaking under his breath now. “Until we get a handle on this situation, you boys keep them guns handy.”
“Will do, boss,” Gabe says, lowering the Bushmaster’s muzzle, but keeping the weapon cradled in his beefy arms. With his gloved hand, he releases the trigger pad, but keeps his index finger against the stock. Bruce does the same, sniffing nervously.
The Governor glances at his reflection in the hardware store window. He smooths his mustache, brushes a lock of raven-black hair from his eyes, and mutters, “C’mon, boys, let’s go roll out the welcome wagon.”
*
At first, standing in a halo of magnesium light and cloud of cordite, Martinez doesn’t hear the heavy footsteps coming toward him from a dark stretch of adjacent street. He’s too distracted by the mess that has tumbled into town in the newcomers’ wake.
“I’m taking them to the big man,” Martinez says to Gus, who stands near a gap in the wall, holding an armful of confiscated weapons—a couple of riot batons, an ax, a pair of .45 caliber pistols, and some kind of fancy Japanese sword still in its ornate scabbard. The air smells of flesh-rot and hot steel, and the night sky has clouded over.
Behind Gus, in a haze of gun smoke, ragged bodies are visible on the ground outside the barricade, and scattered across the pavement inside the gap. The freshly vanquished corpses steam in the night chill, their glistening black spoor spattered across the pavers.
“If I hear about a biter getting so much as twenty feet close to the wall,” Martinez barks, making eye contact with every one of the twelve men who stand sheepishly around Gus, “you’re going to hear about it! Clean house!”
Then Martinez turns to the newcomers. “You guys can follow me.”
The three strangers pause for a moment, leery and hesitant against the wall—two men and a woman—squinting in the tungsten radiance, their backs against the barricade like prisoners caught in mid-escape. Disarmed and disoriented, filthy from their hard travels, the men wear riot gear, the woman clad in a hooded garment that at first glance appears almost displaced in time, like a cloak from a monastery or some secret order.
Martinez takes a step closer to the trio and starts to say something else, when the sound of a familiar voice rings out from behind him.
“I can take it from here, Martinez!”
Martinez whirls to see the Governor walking up, with Gabe and Bruce on his heels.
As he approaches, the Governor plays the role of town host to the hilt, looking all hail-fellow-well-met, except for the clenching and unclenching of his fists. “I’d like to escort our guests myself.”
Martinez gives a nod, steps back, and says nothing. The Governor pauses, gazing out at the gap left by the missing semitrailer.
“I need you at the wall,” the Governor explains under his breath to Martinez, motioning at all the carnage on the ground, “cleaning off all the biters they no doubt drug with them.”
Martinez keeps nodding. “Yes, sir, Governor. I didn’t know you’d be coming out to get them when we gave word of their arrival. They’re all yours.”
The Governor turns to the strangers—a big smile here. “Follow me, folks. I’ll give you the nickel tour.”
EIGHT