The thing about walker bites that most people didn't understand was how the infection worked.
A walker's mouth was essentially a rotting petri dish filled with aggressive pathogens and deadly bacteria. When it bit you, it wasn't just transmitting the virus, you already had that. It was injecting you with a concentrated dose of sepsis-inducing nastiness that your immune system couldn't fight off.
The wound quickly became uncontrollable.
Fever came first. Then organ failure. Finally, death.
Only after that did the dormant virus inside the body activate and bring the corpse back.
In rare cases, someone might survive the initial infection. But by then the virus had already shifted from dormant to active. They would turn eventually. It might take hours or days.
But they would turn.
That was why some people died within hours of being bitten while others lasted days. It wasn't the virus itself. It was how fast the septic shock killed them.
Merle's situation was different.
According to what Lucien had overheard from the panicked cultists, Merle had been cut by glass contaminated with walker blood during his trial. That was dangerous. But it wasn't a bite.
The CDC data was clear on this. Walker blood and tissue, while disgusting and filthy, didn't carry the same concentrated killing agent that existed in their saliva. A contaminated wound could kill you through infection if left untreated, but it wasn't the guaranteed death sentence that a bite was.
It was still dangerous.
He'd confirmed the last critical piece of intelligence from the cultists' panicked radio chatter. To keep Merle in line, the Shepherd had locked Daryl in the Confession Chamber.
And to make sure Merle understood the stakes, they'd broken one of Daryl's legs.
Lucien's jaw tightened. The cold part of his mind noted that this simplified certain considerations. Daryl couldn't run. That made extraction more complicated but also meant he wouldn't do anything stupid like try to fight his way out on his own.
The rest of him just felt sick.
"The Shepherd... Let's see how devoted you are when it's your turn to suffer."
---
On the other side of the factory, in the employee dormitory section where new arrivals were housed, Maggie was having what could be called a crisis of faith.
Not in God. Her faith in the Almighty was doing just fine, all things considered.
Her faith in her own judgment, on the other hand, was taking a beating.
"What is happening out there?" Shawn pressed his face against the crack in the door.
Through the gap, they could see guards sprinting down the corridor, shouting orders that made no sense.
"Maggie?" He turned to look at Maggie. "Weren't we supposed to go to prayer service today? What's—"
"Shut up and let me think," Maggie snapped, though her attention wasn't on her brother.
She was staring at Miranda.
The other woman stood near the far wall. Her face was pale, and her hands were clasped tightly. She looked frightened, but there was something else in her expression.
"This is you, isn't it? You did this."
They'd made contact during the chaos of the previous day. Both had indicated a willingness to cooperate. But neither had fully shown their hand.
This, though. This went way beyond what Maggie had been expecting.
Miranda's throat worked as she swallowed. "I told you I added a hallucinogen to the canned goods I brought in. If the dose was high enough, it could even trigger hallucinations. But what's happening out there is not just the drugs. Our people got inside. They are using the chaos as cover."
Maggie felt her pulse kick up. "Your people got inside? How many? How well armed?"
"I don't know." Miranda shook her head.
It seemed she had underestimated this group's strength.
As she looked at the guards standing before her, a chill ran down her spine. The feeling quickly gave way to an uncontrollable surge of excitement. Maggie had assumed Rick's group was just another band of survivors. Perhaps lucky enough to have lasted this long, and unfortunate enough to attract the Shepherd's attention.
She had never imagined they possessed someone who could infiltrate a secure facility and create chaos.
A smile spread across her face.
"Well done," she said, and the last traces of hesitation vanished from her expression. "Now it's our turn to pull our weight."
"What?!" Shawn stared at her like she'd grown a second head. "Are you insane? Where are we even—"
"Forget the prayer service," Maggie cut him off. She moved to the storage locker in the corner and yanked it open.
Inside were three handguns and a hunting rifle. She'd sweet-talked one of the guards into storing them here "for safekeeping" a few days ago, playing the helpless farm girl who didn't know how to properly maintain firearms. The idiot had believed her.
She grabbed two of the pistols and the rifle. Then she turned and shoved one of the pistols into Shawn's hands.
"We're getting the keys to the holding cells. We're freeing them. And then we're getting out of here before this whole place comes down around our ears."
Shawn's mouth opened and closed a few times. He looked down at the gun in his hands. "I don't think I can..."
"You can and you will. This is our chance, Shawn. Maybe our only chance. You understand me?"
Shawn swallowed, then nodded.
"Okay," he said quietly. "Okay. What do you need me to do?"
"Miranda." Maggie turned to the other woman. "You know where they're keeping the rest of your people?"
Miranda nodded. "The men are in cold storage, sublevel two. Women and children are in the east wing dormitory. Separate from ours."
"Alright. We split up. You head for the women and kids. I will go to cold storage." She looked at Shawn. "You are with me. Once we get Rick and the others out, they can help free the rest."
"What about the guards?" Miranda asked.
Maggie's smile wasn't particularly nice. "From the sound of things, the guards have their own problems to worry about. We'll deal with whoever gets in our way."
She chambered a round in the rifle.
---
Chaos in the factory had reached a breaking point.
What had begun as a series of isolated "accidents" quickly spiraled out of control. Chandeliers crashed from the ceiling. Shelves collapsed without warning. Electrical fires erupted across the building. Panic spread among the cultists, and soon they were firing at anything that moved, unable to tell the difference between real threats and the shadows created by their own fear.
And then the bodies had started getting up again.
For the cultists, who believed that only the bitten turned, this was proof positive that they'd been cursed. God, Death, or whatever power they had angered was punishing them by turning them into monsters.
The reality was simpler and far more mundane. Death activated the virus. It didn't matter how you died.
But the cultists didn't know that.
"He's getting up! Thomas is getting up!"
"He wasn't bitten! How is he..."
"It's the curse! We're all cursed!"
"Shoot it! Shoot it before it..."
Gunfire erupted. The newly turned walker that had been Thomas jerked and spasmed as bullets tore through its chest. It kept coming until someone managed a headshot that dropped it for good.
But the damage was done. The psychological impact of watching their own people rise from the dead without being bitten first had shattered whatever fragile composure the cultists had maintained.
Some turned their guns on each other, convinced that anyone who'd been "judged" was already infected. Others barricaded themselves in rooms and prayed desperately for salvation. A few tried to run, only to find exits blocked by the very walkers they'd kept as "holy guardians."
High above in the ventilation system, Lucien had stopped causing "accidents" about ten minutes ago. At this point, the cultists were doing his job for him. The newly turned walkers were now roaming the factory and attacking anyone they encountered.
He pulled the Invisibility Cloak tighter around himself and started moving through the ductwork again. He had one more stop to make.
---
The room that had once been the Shepherd's sanctuary had become his prison.
When the chaos began, he had barricaded himself inside. He believed the room would protect him. Once the attack or uprising burned itself out, he thought he would step back out and restore order.
That had been forty minutes ago.
Since then, he had survived several close calls.
A chandelier had crashed from the ceiling and would have crushed him if he hadn't moved at the last second.
An electrical short had set his desk on fire.
A bookshelf had toppled over and nearly pinned him against the wall.
Finally, his own gun had exploded in his hands when he tried to shoot a walker that somehow forced its way into the room.
The barrel had split open like a peeled banana. Metal fragments had torn through his left hand, shredding the flesh and likely breaking several bones. He could no longer grip anything with it.
But that wasn't his biggest problem.
His biggest problem lay on the floor.
The walker twitched weakly, its skull split open from the gunshot he had managed to fire before the weapon completely failed.
Before dying, it had sunk its teeth into his left calf.
He stared down at the wounds oozing blood through his torn pants leg. The flesh around the bites was already starting to discolor.
He knew what this meant. Everyone knew what it meant.
A walker bite was a death sentence.
He scanned the room, searching for anything that might help. The medical kit on the wall contained bandages, antiseptic, and painkillers. None of it could stop what was already spreading through his bloodstream.
His gaze shifted to the fire axe mounted beside the door.
An idea began to take shape.
The bite was on his lower leg, just below the knee. If he moved quickly, before the infection spread any farther, there was a chance.
People had survived an amputation before. In the old world, with hospitals, antibiotics, and trained surgeons, losing a limb was survivable.
In this new world, without proper medical care, his chances were far worse. Blood loss could kill him. Infection could kill him. Shock alone could kill him.
But the bite would kill him without question.
That made the choice simple.
He grabbed the medical kit and pulled out the tourniquet. It was standard equipment in a place that regularly dealt with walker attacks. He sat on the floor with his back against the desk and wrapped the tourniquet around his thigh, just above the knee. Then he pulled it tight. Tighter still, until the pressure cut off the blood flow below and his leg began to go numb.
The numbness would help.
He twisted the windlass and tightened the tourniquet further. The skin below his knee was already turning pale, taking on a waxy look.
He reached into the medical kit again and took out the bottle of whiskey that was kept for medicinal use. He drank deeply, then took another long swallow. The alcohol burned down his throat but did nothing to steady the trembling in his hands.
Next, he picked up the fire axe.
It would do the job.
He positioned his leg. The bite was visible just below the tourniquet. He would have to cut above it. Well above it, just to be safe. That meant cutting through bone.
This was going to hurt. But if he did nothing, he would die. And then he would return as a monster.
He took another drink of whiskey, raised the axe, and drew in a deep breath. Then he brought the blade down.
"AHHHHH!"